Saving The Villainous Monster From The Male Lead-Chapter 19 - 18: Gather Clues

"Is that so? Then you can have them. Consider them my gift." Eleanore opened the cap and inhaled the medicine. After three shots of it, she continued, "also remove every other gem on them and hand the inhaler over to me from now on. I’ll keep it with myself. You never know when the need might arise, right?" She threw it back in Marina’s direction, who caught it effortlessly, as if she were experienced.

Eleanore entered the beautiful flowery entrance and wondered about the severity of her illness. "Marina, tell me did I ever get an asthma attack?" She asked.

"Yes, the day you got the rejection letter from Grand Duke Lancaster was the last time you got a minor attack." Marina replied.

"How is it that I do not remember any of them?" Eleanore asked a question, rather difficult for Marina to answer, so she remained silent.

By then they were standing in front of the door to the secret tulip garden. Eleanore chuckled and while opening the door to the paradise, said, "it feels weird when you go silent, Marina." She shot a smile in her maid’s direction, from over her shoulders.

Soon golden rays ran out of the opening, along with an extremely cold breeze. No matter What the season, the temperature of this garden always remained chilly. As if it possessed some magic to have this chilly weather.

An image of colorful tulips filled Eleanore’s iris and mind with warmth. She walked down the golden brick path to the beautiful white metal swing. She sat on it comfortably. The soft bed beneath her made her feel like she was sitting on a soft cloud.

"Come Marina, sit next to me." She called her maid.

Marina hestantly sat next to her and then started fidgeting with her fingers. "My lady, the young lord has restricted us from giving you that information." She said, feeling somewhat guilty about hiding the patient’s illness, from the patient itself.

"Do you fear him?" Eleanore started pushing her toes on the ground to give a bit of motion to the swing.

"Certainly, my lady." To this Eleanore laughed out hard.

"You didn’t fear him while giving me information about that maid." She said, turning to look at her. By then Marina had fallen into a deep thought.

"I was never asked to hide that." She replied, after that she got up and started to give a gentle push to the swing.

"So you won’t tell me. Does that mean, I’ll have to ask my brother, himself?"

"Indeed, my lady."

Eleanore and Marina remained silent for the next hour. Perhaps because it wasn’t very difficult to not have thoughts or a conversation, for the breeze and the beauty in front of their eyes had mesmerized both of them. Making them both rest for some time, emptying their brain.

A while later, Marina found a place where there were no tulips, not too far away from the swing. She spreaded a mat under the cool shed of the only tree in that area. Swiftly, she started to empty the picnic basket.

Eleanore sat opposite Marina and grabbed a bread and cheese sandwich, which she devoured in seconds.

"Looks like I find it difficult to adjust with new places." Eleanore said, moving on to the orange juice poured by Marina. "I could hardly get any sleep yesterday."

"Yes, indeed, my lady. You might have forgotten, how about I accompany you tonight." She offered, not at all feeling surprised from this comment.

"I doubt that could solve my problem. You were there in the room last night."

"I was still far away from you."

"I couldn’t help but get flashes of the night a year ago." Eleanore threw herself on the ground, indicating that she was full now. Her eyes caught by the sharp sun rays fighting their way through the spaces in between the leaves. "Should I try sleeping with Caelestis, instead?"

"What?" Marina was shocked on hearing that. Sleeping with a man who hates her to the core?

Eleanore giggled at her completely surprised face. "I meant, just sleeping somewhere close to him. I have heard he hardly goes to his room and spends his nights in the study. Maybe, I should sleep there, probably my body will stop feeling fear."

"It isn’t a bad idea." Marina said after letting out a loud sigh. "However, would the Grand Duke let you sleep there? He hates you."

"I know." Eleanore pouted in despair.

If only they were not enemies!

When it was already half past twelve and Eleanore had been trying hard to catch at least a little sleep beside Marina, yet she couldn’t sleep for more than five minutes. Everytime a nightmare would wake her up.

She got out of her bed and walked to the small balcony that the room had. The breeze kissing her face gave her chills. She looked around and was mesmerized by the beauty of the wide courtyard.

"If I don’t get sleep today as well, how will I move ahead with my new quest?" Eleanore said to herself, looking at the window that was open again today to remind her of her next quest.

|| Chapter 2: The Shatter of Stella’s Pride

Caelestis felt like the only way left to have Stella by his side, went ahead and confined her in a secret room of the Lancaster Mansion. His intention is to shatter Stella’s Pride and hope, so that she has no one else to rely on. Once achieved, he would go ahead to marry her, leading to the downfall of Stella.

Quest 1: Find Baroness Stella

Task 2: Gather clues

Do you accept the task?

Yes/No ||

She quickly grabbed a pillow and a blanket before leaving the room, with a little torch in her hand, shooting out dim yellow light in front of her.

Caelestis had given her room as far away from his study as possible. While she was on the third floor, his study was on the very first floor, very close to the entrance. He probably even hated the idea of crossing paths with her.

Using the little dim light coming from the torch Eleanore had held, she found her way to Caelestis’ study. The shadows of the curtain danced and almost gave her a jump scare every time they fluttered due to wind. They appeared as a disfigured person on the walls when she flashed light on them. So instead she started flashing light on the ground.

’They should have at least lit those wall torches. What’s with turning this place into a haunted house?!’ Eleanore scolded the servants in her mind.

She carefully climbed down the two staircases to the first floor. Fortunately there was some light in the wide hall. The rustling sound of her dress and tapping sound of her slippers, echoed in the large mansion that looked empty.

When she crossed the hall to the side-corridor the tapping sound of her slippers followed another tapping sound of another pair of shoes, not slippers. Someone was there, right behind her. She stopped her forwarding feet, but heard nothing.

’This is an illusion. A lie.’ She knew it but her heart still raced in a ferocious speed, her back started to sweat under her thin fabric. She was scared, when her brain started to play with her, sending down the fearsome memories of the night she was attacked.

Without wasting any more time, she sprinted ahead. ’Just two more rooms and the next is the study room.’ She tried to calm her racing heart by saying that, but it didn’t work.

A minute later, she was finally in front of the study room door. She reached out for the huge handles to open it, but her hands didn’t apply enough pressure required to push it open.

"What if I am wrong? What if staying close to him is not the solution? Or worse, what if he kicks me out of the mansion for this alone?" Eleanore muttered to herself blankly staring at the grand doors of the study.

Then came a loud noise of a glass or maybe a vase crashing down to the floor. She flinched in fear and quickly pushed the door open.

"Eleanore?" Caelestis’ eyes widened when he saw her. She looked scared but he ignored it and returned to his half-read document.

When Eleanore opened the door and entered the dimly lit room, that had a warm atmosphere surrounding it. The unsettling feeling in her had vanished and calmed her heart down in seconds. Her scared expression quickly vanished, as if a magic spell was casted on her, to calm her down.

"Turns out you still haven’t forgotten the route to my study." Caelestis said, acting like he was expecting her.

"Yes." Eleanore remained standing at the foot of the door instead of entering in. "I couldn’t sleep—"

"You may sleep here, I have prepared a soft couch for you." Caelestis cut her off and shocked her with his polite speech at the same time.