Although Rock knew he was acting, she couldn’t help feeling uncomfortable being on the receiving end of Guido’s smile. That being said, one wrong move here could ruin everything. She silently smiled back at him and hoped the others would just assume she didn’t know how to act around a future duke.
“It isn’t much, but we’ve prepared tea and snacks for you,” Lauretta said in tones befitting the lady of the house. “Please enjoy them while I tell you about my daughter.”
“Gladly.” Guido was about to follow them down the hall when Michaela tugged on his sleeve.
“Brother, must I join you for tea too?” she asked in a soft yet deliberately loud enough voice for all to hear.
Guido frowned on cue.
“Of course you do. You were invited as a guest too, weren’t you?”
“But I get ever so bored listening to stuffy adult talk.” Michaela pouted. “Besides, I have a gift for Lady Roxy. It’s not appropriate to bring this little one to tea, is it?”
She held up the bird cage she had been carrying. A white dove quietly sat on its perch inside.
“Oh, might this be a dove?”
Lauretta crouched in front of Michaela and peered at the bird inside the cage.
“Yes, my brother breeds them,” Michaela answered with angelic innocence. “This gift is proof of my newfound friendship with Lady Roxy!”
Her tone sounded much younger than the Michaela Rock knew. Lauretta didn’t seem to notice she was acting.
She looked over at Rock and said, “In that case, please show Lady Michaela to your room, Roxy. The rest of us adults will be conversing in the parlor.”
“…Yes, Auntie.”
Rock gave a quick but polite response to prevent her from catching on to her internal excitement. Then she hurried with Michaela to her bedroom.
The first thing Michaela did when Rock led her into the coral pink room was rest her hand on her chest with relief. As soon as she ascertained no one else was around, her expression shifted from cherubic to serious.
“I am so glad to see you safe, Roxy Floria,” she whispered in Rock’s ear.
She had used Rock’s true name—the one she took from her mother. As soon as she heard those two words, she relaxed, and tears spilled from her eyes.
“Ah…”
She thought she was being brave all this time, but maybe she was just enduring everything to get through the moment. Rock had been granted good food and a certain level of freedom within Alexis Manor, but spending time in her captor’s strange home definitely wore on her nerves. She’d also noticed how haggard her face was starting to look every time she saw herself in the mirror.
Rock was glad from the bottom of her heart to know Michaela had come to help her.
“You mustn’t cry. The others will catch on.”
Tears misted Michaela’s eyes too, even though she was trying to console Rock. She gently wiped away Rock’s tears with her palm. Then she pulled out a slate and pencil from her little bag.
She used the pencil to write on the slate first.
(Let’s write down the things we don’t want heard.)
Rock nodded when she read that.
Michaela smiled and enthusiastically raised her voice, “Oh, I’m ever so happy! I didn’t know what to do if you didn’t like my present!”
This was her way of telling Rock to continue the conversation in case anyone was spying on them. Catching on, Rock responded in kind, her face damp with tears.
“You needn’t worry about that. I am very happy!”
She accepted the slate pencil from Michaela and wrote down her true feelings.
(I’m doing well enough, as you can see. Lord and Lady Alexis are doting on me as if I were their own child. I’m fairly sure they won’t try to physically harm me.)
Michaela’s expression softened as she read that.
“I’m truly relieved to hear that… It’s what worried me the most.”
“Thank you for worrying about me, Lady Michaela,” Rock said aloud, earning a giggle from Michaela, who had loosened up now that she knew Rock wasn’t being physically abused.
“Say, may I call you Roxy?”
“Yes, please do.”
“Then you must call me Michaela as well.”
“What? I couldn’t…”
Rock was flustered by her request.
She was speaking to a powerful duke’s daughter, while she herself was a tailor from the slums who’d been kidnapped by a noble family.
But Michaela plucked the pencil from her hand and mercilessly wrote:
(You can’t when you call Ebel by his first name, without any title?)
The heat rushed to Rock’s cheeks when she saw his name.
Perhaps Michaela was teasing her. This wasn’t the time for joking, but Rock still found herself smiling.
“Please don’t tease me.”
“…You finally smiled, Roxy,” Michaela whispered, the relief apparent in her voice. She squeezed Rock’s hand when she returned the pencil and flashed her an adorable smile. “But I truly do want you to call me that. Aren’t we friends now?”
Her smile felt incredibly reliable and reassuring.
“We are, Michaela.”
That was why Rock spoke her name like she would an old friend’s.
After that, the girls giggled and chatted like friends would, all while passing the slate back and forth, writing and erasing their more serious conversation.
“This dove here is a present for you,” Michaela said in a cheery voice. “Give it a name.”
“It’s so hard to come up with a good name…” Rock groaned.
“You struggle coming up with names too? You sound just like my brother.”
“Lord Linus is the same way?”
“Oh, yes. If something is white, he’ll call it ‘Whitey,’ and if it’s black, he’ll call it ‘Blacky!’”
“Haha! I was just about to call the dove ‘Whitey’ too!”
(Is my father all right?)
Rock wrote on the slate and handed it to Michaela.
(He’s in good health. He didn’t get a single scrape from the accident. Brother and I were astonished to learn your shop assistant was your father, but Ebel seemed quite comfortable with it.)
(Then Father is with Ebel right now?)
(He is. Actually, both he and Ebel are extremely close by.)
Rock instinctively looked out the window. Unfortunately, all she could see from inside the room was the balcony rail and the midday sky.
But Father and Ebel came for me.
Just knowing that warmed her heart, and she had to fight back another round of tears.
(They’ll move into position if we give the signal. They came to save you.)
Michaela handed the slate over as she gave Rock a reassuring smile.
I knew it! They came to rescue me. And not just them. Even Michaela and Guido have come to my aid.
Rock closed her eyes at the overwhelming joy she felt—she knew this wasn’t the time for rejoicing.
(I’m delighted you all came to help, but it’s dangerous. Placido Alexis is a werewolf.)
Michaela’s beautiful brows knitted in a frown when she read Rock’s warning. She might have already guessed that when she met Placido.
(He has the same gold eyes as Ebel and Brother.)
(He also became a werewolf using one of those cursed statues.)
(There are even more of those statues out there?)