Aristocrat | ✓

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

     The time for Count Alan and Lady Agnes to leave came. The Lord did not come down to bid them farewell. They left, giving Marie and me their good wishes to pass on to him, and I stood in the courtyard, watching as their lavish carriage was drawn past the castle gates. My eyes focused on it until it was but a tiny dot in the distance.

     "And things were going so well," Marie muttered under her breath. Her voice was small—sad. I looked at her from the corner of my eyes. Her graying hair was cupped around her face, and her hands rippled with protruding veins clenched to the coat she has draped around her. The day was cold. Spring had that unpredictability to it.

     We both went back into the castle and went about our duties like we were supposed to.

     The Lord didn't come down for lunch and dinner, and Marie had to deliver his food to him upstairs. Night came, and when it reached the hour that I would go to check up on him, I did. I knocked on his door. Once, twice, three times before letting myself in. He wasn't there. I stepped into his chamber, standing in the middle of the bedroom as I turned around, looking from end to end. The chandelier was off, so the lamp I was holding up was the only thing keeping the room from dissolving into darkness.

     My mind tried to make sense of his absence. As I tried to shuffle through my confusion, I heard a loud sob from the west side of the building. There was heaving, and something fell. I flinched, realizing he was still in the drawing-room in the west wing.

     Should I? I asked myself, wondering if I should head to the west wing to check on him. I looked back at the door that I hadn't closed behind me, staring out into the hallway drowned in the yellow light of the hanging oil lamps. No, I shouldn't. I scolded myself, clenching my fist as I nibbled on my lower lip. The Lord had told me not to go there. Not even Marie could go beyond the main doors. She had to drop his tray of food at the feet of the large wooden doors that led to that section of the castle. I knew that. I had watched her do it.

     With a sigh, I went to close the door, but I remained in the Lord's room, telling myself that he would come to his room sooner or later. As always, I dropped my lamp on the top of his drawer. Without him here to tell me where to sit it took a while for me to choose his armchair. I snuggled up in it, closing my eyes for a bit and taking in the Lord's scent. It soothed me.

     As I clenched the armrests of the chair, feeling my knuckles pop as I looked out into the room. The books he had stacked up by his desk was in disarray, and the pile of papers that normally sat on one of his bedside tables wasn't there. He might have taken them with him.

     I assured myself that he would be back as I listened to the sound of owls hooting fill in the void. Minutes passed. Then hours. And before I knew it, I was asleep in the Lord's armchair.

     My eyelids didn't flutter open until I heard birds singing outside. I was greeted with the sight of the sun rays coming from the window dancing on the carpet. A frown formed on my face, and my eyes went wide when I noticed that I had slept on the armchair all night. My gaze moved down, and I noticed that I had been draped with a blanket.

     "He was here," I said under my breath, pulling the blanket away before getting up. I made his bed and folded the blankets. Looking around the room I noticed that he had pulled the curtains apart and had taken some books from the pile by his desk. I left his bedchamber and went about my duties hoping to see him in the common room later in the day, but he never appeared.

     Sometimes as Marie and I were working we would hear a piano wailing, and other times the sound of something being moved or falling would reverberate through the castle. Marie would take drinks up with her, and I would just watch, asking for an update whenever she got back.