♚♚♚
NIGHT wore on after they had all those separate conversations, and Rock and Phoebe decided to stay over at Mateus Manor. Everyone was exhausted from the long, chaotic day, and after what happened the last time they left, neither of them wanted to ride a carriage back to the slums in the middle of the night. Besides, Ebel had invited them to join him for dinner, so they happily took him up on his offer.
Rock also had some things she really wanted to ask about while she had the opportunity. Specifically, she wanted to know how things went between Ebel and her father while she wasn’t around.
“Did my father behave while he was with you, Your Excellency?” Rock asked as soon as the three of them sat around the dinner table.
Ebel chuckled and Phoebe snorted.
“Hey, I behave wherever I go,” he retorted.
“I didn’t mean it like you have no manners. I’m pretty sure you were worried sick the whole time I was missing.” Rock shrugged. “I’m just curious if you were being antsy wanting to rescue me before it was time.”
“Well, I definitely wasn’t calm,” Phoebe said vaguely, glancing in Ebel’s direction.
Meanwhile, Ebel was slowly savoring his bite of food, pretending like this topic didn’t also include him. It was easy to guess something had happened, given the way they were both acting.
“Don’t tell me you fought?”
Both men froze at her question before Phoebe answered.
“Us fight? Never! His Excellency and I are full-grown adults. We were perfectly calm throughout it all.”
“Is that true, Your Excellency?” Rock asked Ebel to confirm what sounded awfully like a lie to her.
“Of course. Your father speaks the truth,” Ebel responded with a genuine smile, further adding to Rock’s suspicions that something had happened.
But they said nothing more after that, as if they were colluding to hide the truth from her. Meanwhile, Johanna looked like she was itching to talk the whole time she served them dinner. Clearly, she was dying to tell Rock all about it.
After dinner, Rock offered to help Johanna clean up.
“Oh no, you needn’t trouble yourself, Master Rock…”
Johanna only refused Rock’s assistance once, however. She was quick to pull Rock into the kitchen and gave her dishes to wash.
Only the coachman Iniel was in the kitchen with the girls. He was still recovering from the injuries he’d sustained during Placido’s attack and had started to take on light jobs around the house that wouldn’t negatively affect his recovery.
“I’m so glad to see you are safe and well, Master Rock,” he said, looking truly relieved. “I’d never be able to face His Excellency again if anything happened to you.”
“Nothing would ever happen to her!” Johanna objected at once. “Master Rock has two heroes on her side, after all!”
“Heroes?” Rock asked with a smile, even though she’d guessed who Johanna was talking about.
“Yes, heroes! No enemy will be left standing if His Excellency and Master Phoebe join hands to take them down!” she proudly declared as if she were talking about herself.
Rock actually thought so too.
The heroes in question had already returned to their rooms for the night. They’d both told Rock they wanted to talk after dinner, but Rock turned them down and headed to the kitchen to hear Johanna’s account first.
After all, there were things only the maid would tell her.
Water was pumped from the well and placed in a washbasin where Johanna washed the dishes. Iniel was responsible for rinsing the dishes, and Rock was responsible for drying them with a towel.
“Johanna, how was my father while I wasn’t here?” Rock asked while they worked.
“He was, well…in a frenzied, irritated panic,” Johanna replied over the sound of bubbles popping in the washbasin as she scrubbed the dishes with a sponge.
“That he was,” Iniel nodded in affirmation. “That night, I was injured, and Master Phoebe carried me all the way back here. After he spurred one of the horses back to the manor with me, he explained the situation to His Excellency in a tizzy. His Excellency jumped into action and raced to the scene of the attack…”
Iniel sadly cast down his gaze.
“…But there, he only found the wrecked carriage and the other horse that was obediently waiting to be brought home. He couldn’t track you by smell because the other werewolf had escaped by jumping from point to point.”
Placido did an excellent job of hiding his trail. Thanks to that, Rock’s whereabouts were a mystery, leaving her truly helpless and alone until the Linus siblings visited Alexis Manor.
“His Excellency and Master Phoebe knew that the kidnapping was the Alexis family’s doing, but—”
“They couldn’t recklessly charge in!” Johanna enthusiastically finished Iniel’s sentence. “And that’s when they violently went at it!”
“V-Violently?!”
Rock was horrified by what that word implied.
Were Ebel and Phoebe really at such odds with each other? What kind of bloody confrontation did they have?
Rock’s horror was minimized by Johanna’s big, excited nod.
“Quite! His Excellency insisted they prepare and wait for the opportune moment, since it was hard to get a feel for the other side. Meanwhile, Phoebe exhorted that they should rush in and save you, since your safety mattered above all else. They were in direct conflict, leading to many fierce quarrels. His Excellency used his very own body to obstruct Phoebe from storming out of the house more than once!”
Rock felt the blood drain from her face—quite the opposite of Johanna, whose cheeks were flushed over the excitement of it all.