Felicity: The Sixteenth Life

CHAPTER FOUR: Wrong Day to Go Out to Town

Another morning dawned upon the Acker Countdom’s land and its surrounding fiefs – it was the morning that marked the home-coming of Count Herald Aidan Acker and his victorious return from the battlefield. The whole household had risen up earlier than the sun and were brimming with enthusiasm and excitement at the thought of welcoming back their Lord and Master.

The same could be said for the children of the Count albeit for the fact that they did not rise voluntarily but had to be forcibly whisked off their fluffy beds to be washed clean of every nook and cranny of their little bodies and prettied and primmed out as if they would be making an appearance in front of the royal family.

Inside his quarters, the second young master Ryder Maxwell Acker was being attended to by his nanny, personal butler and a couple of maids for the fitting of his formal suit.

One of the maids just finished applying the scar-erasing salve that was prescribed for Ryder three days previously.

“Thank goodness the medicine works so well. The traces of the scars are almost gone…” Ryder’s butler, Joshua Bingen, commented as he stared at the young boy’s left forearm anxiously.

“Doctor Silas did say the scars would be non-existent after a week of applying the salve,” Carla Alfred, Ryder’s nanny since his birth interjected and stared intently at the said marks. “Lala, do place some make up over it so it’ll be more unnoticeable. It still bothers me…” she added before prepping the jacket suit.

Ryder merely let their conversation fly over his head and held his arms sideward so that the maids could dress him easier. He stared at his arm as it was being powdered like a piece of doughnut and looked back to the events of the afternoon three days ago when he and his siblings went home from their exploration of the Opal mansion.

Before heading to the main house, they took the items that they scavenged from their trip and hid them in the greenhouse behind the Sapphire mansion. That place had served as their base for quite sometime. It turned out to be quite a smart move for they were discovered immediately just as they were starting to sneak back inside the house.

The nannies and maids were absolutely horrified at their dusty and unkempt appearances and Carla almost fainted when Ryder’s fresh wounds were revealed. Doctor Douglas Silas, the Acker’s family doctor and his apothecary assistant were summoned immediately to tend to his injuries. They used a minor healing potion on Ryder which closed up the wounds immediately. The aftermath of the scars would then be taken care of with time and sufficient medical care.

After the fuss was over, Ryder was severely interrogated about how he got the wounds on his arm and he had to lie very well to convince everyone that he got it from rolling off a downhill path in the forest at the back of Ruby mansion and scratching the arm on some thorns. His siblings followed up on his alibi, lying about playing in the forest after sneaking out of the main house. As for the first aid on the wounds, Liam said that he was the one who did it by using supplies that they stashed away in their secret base.

The adults were still quite suspicious about their stories but since all five children were safe and the household could not afford having issues with the home-coming of the Count just three days away, they let go of the matter pretty easily.

Unfortunately, since one of them returned injured, Madam Clementine, the head maid, could not treat the situation as one of their harmless little mischiefs. The siblings were punished for their actions and they were confined to their own rooms and not allowed to see each other until the home-coming ceremony ends.

Thus, even though he very much wanted to go back to Opal mansion and find the girl in the cabin, Ryder could not do so. He was very irritated about that much more than being restricted to talk to or play with his siblings for three whole days.