Author : Genevievebarbie
fonte : fanpop.com
Author's Summary : Prequel to barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses. The story of how Prince Randolph and Lady Isabella faced hardships and difficulties and later on, fell in amor and got married. This is my first fanfiction so please no flames. Lastly, please read and review!
Rating : T
Category : Romance, Drama
Disclaimer : The main characters of the story are owned por Mattel. I own all the supporting characters and the plot.

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Chapter 17 : mais Guilt

As it turned out, even though Isabella knew the castelo inside out, she didn't know the courtyards inside out. Randolph, on the other hand, knew both of them inside out.

When she had met him that night, he took her to a weird corner in the north courtyard which jutted out from the rest of the grounds. The whole place was covered in overgrown ivies, making it difficult to understand what was behind it. Just when she began to think that Randolph was probably trying to kill her, he moved the ivies aside to reveal a funny looking doorknob. He turned the knob and opened the door, to reveal a flight of stairs going underground. por now, Isabella was completely spooked and had even begun refusing to go, but luckily, Randolph managed to convince her otherwise.

"Come on, you'll amor it," he had said.

The stairs led to an underground tunnel, and after walking through it for what seemed like an eternity, but actually five minutes, they found another flight of stairs, going back to ground. The tunnel however, seemed to go on forever, even after the stairs were found. She slowly climbed them up, holding Randolph for support – and perhaps even breaking a few of his fingers in the process, considering his "Ouch" s and "Oof" s. Well, that was his fault, for bringing her to a spooky place – the door to ground was finally found.

Problem was: there was a aranha on it. On the doorknob, to be precise. Isabella screeched loudly, nearly making Randolph ears bleed, as her voice echoed down in the tunnel. The aranha too, seemed to be getting a coração attack, judging por how still it had gotten. Randolph, meanwhile, somehow recovered from the shock of having his girlfriend screech seguinte to him, and had burst out laughing, to Isabella's dismay. Meanwhile, the aranha seemed to be permanently stuck to the doorknob, as it recovered from it's coração attack. So when the aranha lifted its head, Isabella screeched yet again, and this time, the poor-yet-pesky aranha lost its grip on the knob due to the sheer intensity of her scream and fell down. Alas, it fell down, near the hem of her dress. por then, Isabella's throat couldn't handle mais screams, so she simply hurried down a few steps, ignoring Randolph laughter as he rubbed his ears, trying to soothe them.

"As long you don't do something about that spider, I'm not coming with you!" she said, maintaining a seguro distance from the aranha while squinting at it.

So Randolph, being the absolute gentleman he was, did do something about the spider. He crushed it under his boot.

"I didn't know your screams could give spiders coração attacks. Twice, that too."

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por then, all the girls were laughing like crazy, as Isabella finished telling them the beginning of her encontro, data with Randolph. The moment she was back, Ilana and the girls started bugging her, asking her to tell the details, as they had somehow found out that her encontro, data was Randolph.

So here she was, having just told the beginning of her crazy-yet-beautiful first date.

"So what happened next?" asked Lalaina, catching her breath from all the laughing.

"Don't leave us in all this suspense!" said Ilana, eager to know more.

"Yeah," cheered Natalie.

So she told them. She told them how beautiful it was after the door opened, and they walked into a luscious garden. flores and borboletas and soft grama and a river with a small waterfall. How they had had a picnic there, just the two of them. How Randolph told her there was an even bigger waterfall upstream. They asked for the details, she gave them the details.

Of course, she did deliberately leave out a few things like their first kiss. How he slid his hands into her hair, sending a spark of electricity down her spine. How their lips met, and how she sank into the warmth of the kiss with a sigh. No, these were much, much mais personal, she wouldn't tell them these. Sure, her friends figured out at some point that she was probably thinking of her first kiss, thanks to her blushing as she remembered the perfect, earth-shattering kiss. But luckily, they didn't bug her about that.

All was well, until she got to the point where she didn't want to continue. The point where she and Randolph had something close to an argument. She didn't even know it was possible for a couple to fight on their first date. When she had first come back, all she wanted to do was just sleep, but when she noticed that her friends were awake, she quickly wiped away the tears and pretended everything was fine. Now though, she couldn't take it anymore, and simply let the tears fall. It was all her fault, for bringing up the topic that they – she and Randolph – simply weren't good together. He thought of her as a simple maid, and he himself was a prince.

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"Randolph, do you think we should continue this?" she had asked him, as they stepped back into the north courtyard.

"Continue what?" he asked.
"This whole dating thing," she replied.

"Why shouldn't we?"

"Well, it's just that...you're a prince and I'm, well.."

".. A maid? I don't see any problem with that."

"I'm not a maid. There's something I need to tell you, actually."

So they sat on the grass, and she explained to him everything, from the fact the that she was the missing Duchess, to how she was kicked out of her home.

"So we had the missing Duchess all along right in front of our noses?" he asked slowly, processing everything in his mind.

"Mmm hmm."
"Why didn't you tell anything?"

"I just thought this was something us girls should handle alone. Besides, it's not like no one knows, your mother knows. She knows for a long time now."

"My mother!" he suddenly burst out, "How could you tell my mother about this before me?"

"Well," she hesitated.
"Be honest," he told her, firmly.

"I just thought that I couldn't trust you with something like this, and..."

"Couldn't trust me? Just why could you not trust me?"

"Well, since you're friends with Dylan, who I know is an irresponsible idiot, I just thought –"

"–you just thought that I'll be as irresponsible as him," Randolph finished for her, then continued, "Really, Isabella, first you choose to completely hide your identity from me for two years, two years Isabella!

"Calm down, Randolph," she said, gently touching his arm.

This only made him lower voice a bit, but he continued. "Then you choose to tell me your identity after our date, and expect me to take it all calmly?! How could I trust you? "

"I.." she hesitated, not knowing what to say. She had never thought of it that way. She had never thought about what he felt about something as big as this. Tears had slowly begun spilling out of her eyes, and she hadn't even realized she was crying, until Randolph pulled her for hug, trying to calm her down.

"Bella, I'm sorry," he said, and she easily figured out that he was being truthful, which hurt her more. Why was he apologizing for something he didn't do? Randolph continued on, "Please, please, don't cry."

Wanting to be alone, she simply pulled out of his arms, assured him that she was fine, and went back to her room, only to come across the girls.

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She finished telling the girls everything, hugging her travesseiro por the end of it.

"I knew something was wrong. Your eyes were all puffy, but I thought it was just you being sleepy," said Ilana, "Oh, poor Isabella."

The other two told her everything would be fine, and she hugged them and Ilana. After a while, the lights were out, everyone was asleep, and all that was left was Isabella and her thoughts.

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A/N : oi all! How's the chapter? As always, read, review and favorite. Laterz!