♚Chapter 4: Waiting for the Chance to be Reunited
ROCK and Phoebe had dinner with Ebel that night. The meal Johanna had pulled out all the stops to prepare was incredibly delicious, but Rock’s thoughts were too preoccupied with what’d happened with her aunt to truly enjoy it.
“She looked just like Mother…” she muttered, recalling the visage that’d been burned into her eyes. Though it seemed Phoebe disagreed as he shrugged off her comment.
“You really think so? You could easily tell them apart, even when they stood side by side.”
“I think they would’ve looked perfectly alike if Mother had lived another ten years.”
“I doubt it. Vale was always the pretty one.”
Apparently, that was the point Phoebe wanted to emphasize.
“Makes sense to me,” Ebel chuckled before Rock could respond. Phoebe shot him a death glare, to which the count raised his hand in apology. “Pardon me… Did you and your wife elope?”
“I’m not sure if you can call her my wife… We didn’t officially marry,” Phoebe replied, sounding loath to admit it as he glanced at Rock.
“I don’t see a problem with that,” Rock said. It was strange for slum dwellers to adhere to imperial capital law. She continued to tell the tale in her father’s place because he seemed uncomfortable recounting it in front of her. “Mother left home to pursue Father, so I don’t think it counts as ‘eloping,’ in the strictest sense of the word.”
“Ah, is that what happened?”
“She fled home for the sake of love! How lovely!”
After hearing Rock’s explanation, Ebel gave an understanding nod, and Johanna’s eyes sparkled. Phoebe became instantly uncomfortable and tore off a piece of his roll with his teeth instead of using a knife.
Unfortunately for him, this was not a dinner table that would be silenced by such behavior.
“I would just love to hear stories about when you and your wife first began falling in love! Were you dressed as a beautiful woman when you first met her too? Who confessed first? I’d also love to hear about the tales surrounding Master Rock’s birth!!!”
Phoebe clammed up as Johanna hounded him with a million questions.
“It’s rude to ask so many questions at once, Johanna.”
On the surface, Ebel scolded his maid for pestering Phoebe, but he seemed equally interested. He turned toward Phoebe to ask his own question.
“Lady Alexis seemed to have a poor opinion of you. Is that because she believes you responsible for her sister leaving the family?”
“I doubt that’s the…only reason why.” Phoebe blew out a long breath, as if preparing himself to tell the truth. Then he looked directly at Rock before continuing. “Lauretta and Vale were never—and I mean ever—on good terms. If anything, I’d say things were always stormy and strenuous between the sisters.”
“Really? But…”
It didn’t seem that way to me, Rock thought.
Lauretta Alexis seemed to lose her composure when she saw Rock. She probably saw a shadow of her younger sister in Rock from when she was her age. Just like how Rock sensed the biological connection between Lauretta and her mother.
She hadn’t interacted with Lauretta enough to know her innermost heart, but her reaction wasn’t that of someone who hated her sister.
“They were always competing for who’d take over the family while the former lord was still alive,” Phoebe explained, the corners of his mouth turned down. “He believed making them compete like that would raise a better heir. Everything was a competition: their studies, how they carried themselves, even how they interacted with their parents. They were even encouraged to knock each other down a peg. Vale was scolded by her parents whenever she was outdone by Lauretta.”
It was suffocating just thinking about living that way.
“Then your wife was also running away from that competition?” Ebel asked as Rock was rendered speechless by the story.
“That was definitely part of it,” Phoebe responded with a sullen look. “But Vale never hated Lauretta, despite being forced to compete with her. Lauretta probably felt the same. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have paid people for years to find her niece.”
Phoebe’s side profile gave away the pain he felt when speaking about Vale. Maybe he knew something more about why her mother ran away. Some secret he wasn’t willing to divulge here.
“I think that’s why…Lauretta directed all her hatred toward me.” Phoebe heaved another tormented sigh. “By hating me, she can pretend Vale didn’t betray her.”
“…There are as many different sibling relationships as there are people in the world,” Ebel intoned in a low, rumbling voice.
The Linus siblings were the siblings he knew the best, and Rock knew just how close Guido and Michaela were. Compared to them, her aunt and mother had a more complicated, twisted relationship.
Perhaps her desire to take Rock in had to do with more than just wanting an heir. Something deeper and more complicated might’ve been driving her.
“I wonder if that was enough to make Lady Alexis give up,” Rock put out there. Neither Ebel nor Phoebe seemed to think so.
“It’s hard to say she will when she left saying you’ll regret it,” Ebel said, his brow furrowing with concern.
Rock couldn’t fathom what she meant by that.
What was she going to regret? She highly doubted it meant she would regret not becoming a member of the Alexis family, in the most basic sense. It’d sounded more like a threat than anything.
“Either way, you should pay extra attention to your surroundings and safety for now,” Ebel instructed. Then he gave her a reassuring smile. “I am prepared to keep you safe no matter what it takes. Rely on me any time.”
“Thank you, Ebel. I’m currently living with my father, so I doubt there’ll be much trouble,” Rock responded bashfully.
Johanna’s expression lit up as if she’d just discovered something absolutely incredible.
“You have two knights in shining armor to protect you, eh, Master Rock?! How wonderful!”
“This girl is impressed by even the most trivial of things.”
Whether she didn’t hear Phoebe’s grumbled jab or simply ignored it, Johanna stomped her feet on the ground for an altogether different annoyance.
“If only I had the abilities of a werewolf hunter, I could’ve protected you alongside His Excellency and Master Phoebe…!”
“Th-Thanks. The sentiment alone makes me happy, Johanna,” Rock rushed out.
She really was happy—spending time around the dinner table with people she loved helped her finally regain her cool after how shaken she’d been feeling since speaking with her aunt.
She reveled in the joy of not being alone.
Ebel also seemed to be of the same mind.
“This has turned into quite the lively dinner, no?” he said with a bright smile. “I would love to sit down to a meal with you all again soon.”
His words meant even more because he didn’t have a family of his own.
“It would be my pleasure!” Rock accepted the invitation with all her heart.