“I’ll look out for Vi, so Corydalis, just focus on carrying out the operation as planned.”
Seeing as it wasn’t supposed to be a super difficult mission anyway, Mr. Fisalis had ended up folding pretty easily. He’d given me full permission to join them in shadowing the earl.
“Thanks for having us.”
“It was our pleasure! Please come again.”
“This was fun! Thanks for everything.”
“Of course. I only hope we can make the trip by boat next time.”
We thanked the duke, duchess, and the Argenteia siblings, then hit the road home...as far as they knew, that is!
According to the proper order of these things, no one would be able to go home until we did (since our family was the highest-ranked there), so we stepped up to be the first to leave. Mother and Father Fisalis left at the same time we did, but they were headed back to their territory of Le Pied rather than Rohze.
Regrettably, we hadn’t had much time to sit down and chat with them; they’d been just as busy with all the socializing as we had, and then we’d had all the rest of our time sucked up by the necklace caper. I promised Mother Fisalis that we’d spend some time with them in Le Pied soon—and with that, we went our separate ways.
Their carriage pulled ahead first, and ours followed behind...for part of the trip, that is. Not long after we’d passed through the gates of the Argenteia villa—when we were far enough away that we couldn’t see those gates anymore—we came to a brief stop, and Mr. Fisalis and I alighted from our carriage.
“I’ll leave the rest to you.”
“You can count on me, sir.”
The maids who would be playing the role of our stunt doubles boarded the car in our place. The carriage would be heading straight home to the Rohze mansion from here. Drosera was the one subbing in for me...and though her face and build were completely different from mine, that didn’t really matter! Nobody could see inside the carriage anyway.
We switched into a disguise of our own...well, in a manner of speaking. All we actually did was put on black cloaks to help keep a low profile, pulling the hoods all the way down over our eyes. That way, nobody would be able to recognize us at a glance.
This was one heck of a quick change we were talking about, since we had to get it over with before the next family rolled into view. As heart-pounding an undertaking as it was, we managed to get it done in the short window of time we had.
Once we’d watched the carriage with our dummy riders disappear into the distance, Mr. Fisalis and I switched our ride to the horse Corydalis’s team had prepared for us. They’d picked out a black steed to draw as little attention our way as possible. All the same, it had a silky, beautiful coat.
Mr. Fisalis helped me up onto the horse, and I rode sidesaddle.
“Since we’re going to be tailing his carriage, we won’t have to go all that fast today.”
“I’ll still refrain from sitting up front, thank you!”
So went our charming little exchange on the matter. It seemed that he wanted me to sit in front of him, but I firmly refused and opted to ride in the back instead.
“Hang on tight.”
“Roger that!”
I slid my arms around Mr. Fisalis’s waist and grabbed on as hard as I could...and that’s when it finally caught up to me that this was hardly any different from hugging him. I couldn’t help feeling a little embarrassed—even if it was more than a little late to be worried about that.
While we hid in the bushes and staked out the villa, carriages pulled away from the mansion one after the other. The guests’ departures were spaced out so that there would be minimal overlap; as a result, it wasn’t like there was a flood of everyone vacating the premises at once. Everyone left one-by-one, in the order determined by their family’s rank.
After we’d waited for a while, Earl Lizardtail’s carriage finally rolled onto the road.
For all intents and purposes, Corydalis’s squad would be the ones doing the actual job of tailing him, while Mr. Fisalis—with me along as an extra passenger—would be bringing up the rear at a leisurely pace, doing his best not to get spotted.
Our target made it to his home in Lizardtail territory without bothering to make so much as a pit stop along the way. Once we’d passed through the forest on the Argenteia border, we came upon his manor in all its glory. I probably should have seen it coming, what with him being a neighbor and all, but it turned out he lived super close to the villa.
We hid ourselves in the outskirts of the forest—where we had a clear view of the entrance to his manor—and watched to see what he did next.
Boy, was I surprised to hear the conversation Earl Lizardtail and his fiancée had just outside the gate.
“Well, I’ll see you around.”
“Thanks—you were a big help. I’ll be sure to compensate you later.”
“Don’t you dare forget!”
That mega-blasé exchange was all they even said to each other before going their separate ways! I mean, I knew from the preliminary report that they weren’t actually engaged, but still.
“Jeez, what a businesslike relationship!”
“They probably were nothing more than business partners. He even said he was going to pay her.”
“Couldn’t he just have skipped out on bringing a plus one in the first place?”
“That’s a good question. Maybe it was an attempt to throw us off our guard.”
“Hmm...”