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PHOEBE scrunched up her nose when she came to work the next morning. “Blimey! What is with this smell? It reeks in here!” Phoebe’s throaty complaint echoed painfully through Rock’s sleep-deprived brain. She looked up from the newspaper to see Phoebe’s beautiful feminine face glaring at her. “Don’t tell me you picked up a stray dog off the streets?! You can’t do stuff like that when you run a business!”
“I didn’t take in a stray,” Rock demurred.
Suspicion creased Phoebe’s brow. “Then why the smell? I sure hope you didn’t bring home a vagrant.”
“I didn’t do that either. Maybe you smell last night’s customer,” Rock speculated, even though she didn’t remember smelling the werewolf after fear had numbed her senses. She did, however, catch a whiff of an unfamiliar beast when she opened the door in the morning.
Last night hadn’t been just a dream.
“Turn away smelly customers. They’re bad for business, Rock.” Phoebe brushed her bony right hand through her thick chestnut hair.
She—he—was someone living a double life just like Rock.
At first glance, she looked like a tall, big-boned, glamorous beauty, but a gruff male voice came out whenever she opened her rouged lips. She insisted she wanted to live as a woman and had no desire to return to being a man.
Apparently, Phoebe was Rock’s long-lost father’s lover.
Rock’s mother, the woman who raised her single-handedly, revealed the whereabouts of her father on her deathbed. Following her mother’s final request to rely on her father living in the imperial capital, Rock departed the rural village she was raised in to visit him. Three years had already passed since then.
Sadly, Phoebe was the only person present at the address her mother gave her, and she informed Rock that her father had already departed this world too.
“I’m Phoebe. I was very intimate with your father.”
At first, Rock had mixed feelings about Phoebe, who introduced herself that way in a husky voice.
But Phoebe had fastidiously held on to the inheritance left by Rock’s father without taking a single coin. She even encouraged Rock, who had no other relatives, and suggested she live in the imperial capital. Before she knew it, Rock was drawn to Phoebe’s outgoing and affectionate personality.
Phoebe stayed by Rock’s side, supporting her business venture in the slums. It was at Phoebe’s suggestion no less that Rock dressed as a man to protect herself, and that smart plan paid off in Floria Clothes Shop’s success.
But her male disguise did nothing to ward off last night’s customer. Rock’s weak arms wouldn’t stand a chance against the werewolf if he bared his fangs at her. Though she doubted being a strong man would’ve made a difference.
“Phoebe, do you know of Count Mateus?” Rock questioned Phoebe indirectly about her surprise customer.
“Mateus? Members of that family have been counts for ages. Hard not to know of them.” Phoebe shrugged her broad shoulders. “The previous count died several years ago, leaving his young son to inherit the title. His name is… What was it again…”
“Ebel Mateus?” Rock supplied.
“Yes, that’s him. He’s a fine young man, you know?” Phoebe related with delight, then suddenly became suspicious. “Why the sudden interest in Count Mateus?”
“I-I wouldn’t say I’m interested in him. I was just curious because I overheard the customers gossiping.” Rock told no one, not even Phoebe, about last night.
She wanted to talk about the fear she felt with someone else, but speaking of it would drag Phoebe into trouble with her. Phoebe was a sympathetic listener who worried about Rock more than anyone else, but there was no telling what the werewolf would do if he found out.
And above all else, as tailor, she needed to keep her customers confidential.
“I’d say the previous count is more well-known in these parts.” Unaware of Rock’s inner turmoil, Phoebe giddily reminisced about the noble. “The late Count Mateus was known for his incessant passion for all things antique. He was renowned for buying even the most worthless old jars and sculptures for a good chunk of coin if the seller made up a good story about it.” Phoebe chuckled and delightfully added, “But then the conmen were left holding the bag when young master Ebel took over and stopped buying from them.”
From Phoebe’s explanation, it seemed the previous count had a reason to wander around the slums, but Rock heard no rationale for why Ebel Mateus should be doing so. Then it was questionable whether the man last night was really His Excellency the Count. Chances were increasing that neither her clothes nor the payment for them were coming.
“I wonder if I was tricked…”
Enduring a traumatizing experience was one thing, but Rock was more frustrated by the werewolf making off with her wares.