"If its money you want, I can assure you this is the wrong place. I do not have a brother. Could have done a bit of research first." Ella announced the moment the boy was ushered in. The boy looked younger than her by a few years, wearing a worn-out sweater on himself, who turned angry listening her comments.
"I don't want your money! I came here for my sister." "Lying to the patrol outside in order to meet me is a grave offence. Aren't you aware?"
He calmed his breathing and started, "But I have achieved to meet you Miss. My name is Ty. I wanted to speak to you to help me rescue my sister. She is in trouble." "What has happened to her?" Ella scrutinized the boy who answered, "We are three, Cora, Mama and me. One night I heard something in the dark while sleeping, I checked for any thieves but the door was locked. The next morning Cora was not in her bed. We spoke to the cops but they don't take us seriously."
She sighed after a while making the boy understand, "I am sure they would be doing their work to find her, Ty." "I know they are not doing anything! They think we are poor and stupid, but I know my sister was taken."
"Fine. I'll arrange a contact with the Department to search for your sister in the whole country. Do you have a photo of her?" "Yes!" The boy finally relaxed and dug his hands in his pockets hurriedly leading to some pennies clinking in the process. While he retrieved the photo to her, something fell on the floor, which sounded unlike a coin. Probing down to what it was, there was an oyster shell carved open.
"You seem to have strange tastes on the move. Where do you live Ty?" "Suffolk sea. Near the beach." He retrieved the shell saying, "This is not from what I ate, it belongs to my sister." Ella looked at the boy not dwelling anymore in his personal matters. Tearing off the paper, she handed it out to him. "Go to this address. Ask for the Deputy, he will help you out."
The boy creeped on the note and was looking at it strangely, she asked, "Do you know how to read, Ty?" "A little," muttering a few letters but unable to complete a word. She read out the address which he nodded to and bowed to her taking his leave.
"Ty," she called at him halting his steps, "The next time you want to meet me, tell the guards you are a 'friend' of mine. I will not accept any more tricks." She chided to which he smiled sheepishly, turning away from there. Ella smiled at the boy and his little mischief, knowing she would have a laugh in the future when someone said about her having a brother.
Returning back to her room, she wasn't surprised to find him sprawled on her bed. "I do not like to come back to a messy bed after work." She hanged the coat on the coat hanger behind the door. "Then you should turn to your own room." He was talking about her old room in the place. True she had been staying in the palace for a while but it wasn't the same like living previously.
"Why the change in your mood Mr. Knight?" She resumed her hands in freeing her hair from the bun, feeling his eyes on her. Since the day her marriage was cancelled the city was in chaos. Her name was sprawled famously that she was waging a war against the Prince, while some said that she was being patriotic to her belonging in the country. All that was in process making her popular the moment she came back in the corporation, but the relation between her and Roy took a drastic step forward. There wasn't anything serious going on between them but there had been a change of attitude where he was jollier and more straightforward towards her.
"Don't you want it?" She massaged her scalp after a long day. "Its not what I want. It is why you are doing this now?" "I realised it was better accessible from my room," he shrugged as if it was no big deal. Maybe it wasn't a big deal for him but just a play thing for their entire lives where he would keep teasing, pretending, playing with her until... she didn't know the destination where it would reach later. She met his eyes staring at them as if relaying her thoughts through until she spoke, "I am tired. You go back to your room now." He showed his denial by shifting himself in the middle of the bed, stretching deeper and cackling his toe knuckles soundly.
"I will take you with me upstairs where your wardrobe is already shifted." She walked over to her closet, opening it to find no belongings of hers present anymore. Turning to face him she asked the obvious, "Why ask me when you have already done it?" "I did it because I know you would want to live like you did before. Like home." His words touched her heart, pouring out her words before she could stop them, "Will you also impose yourself on me when I don't want you to? This... thing between us, whatever it is, will there ever be any meaning to that? Because I know we are not friends anymore."
His voice turned deep, "Yes. We aren't friends. We are something else." "Something that is difficult to define upon," her voice cracked in the end which she tried hiding. She walked over to the window looking ahead to the falling dark of the night on the lilies, which were wilting slowly as the season was coming to an end.
Roy heard the most unexpected question from her that made his brows turn up. "What do you think about marriage?" Was she suggesting it? "I think we both are aware what a marriage means. Tying bonds to only tear them." "You talk about divorce, even before being married?" She chuckled in her words looking up to the starless sky. "It's true. I don't believe in them in our age unlike how it used to be a form of alliance of peace in the ancient times." Thinking about alliances he thought about the recent one that he managed to cancel, even if he didn't believe in them.
Ella whirled around to argue at him, "Still you were adamant on breaking off the marriage with the Prince! Why?" "Because you were trapping yourself into something that you didn't want. I knew it, even when you took it as your utmost responsibility. It isn't like the previous times Elle. The marriages are now like a trap made to deceive you in a way that breaking out of it would require a great deal as well." "What if the couple is in love and deserving to stay together for their lives?" He got up in the sitting position answering her, "I am not against it. I just don't believe it to be the bond as proclaimed to join a man and woman," he mocked while saying that. She could have argued but she understood why he thought like this being the background he came from. There were no confirmations of marriages being an unbreakable bond when one of the partners cheats on the other. Or leaves them to fend for themselves.
"Will you ever marry Mr. Knight?" She kept on addressing him formally, the sound suiting her tongue beautifully. "No. I won't." He gazed her expression, knowing she was hurt and composed her feelings before listening to his answer. He didn't even need to look at her to sense that. "Will you?" "If the situation asks for then yes." His eyes turned confused, "What does that mean?" Ella shrugged like she was used to this, "If there is a necessity to marry, I will. In my books the marriages are necessary, even if the bond is breakable."
Loud pounding on the door broke the staring contest of both of them, where Ella looked away to the window than going for the door, silently telling him to open it. He did and she heard the maid Valerie, "There is a woman demanding to meet, Master." "Have you ever seen her here?" The maid possibly shook her head as Ella imagined while having her back to the door. "Then send her away! No one shoul- Wait. How did she come past the guarded parlor till here?" His question wasn't supposed to be answered as he hurried past the maid to head down for meeting the incident which also confused Ella. She followed him to the entrance with Valerie tagging behind, she didn't have to reach any further to know who it was as the woman's voice was booming till the drawing room.
"Where is she? I have come to see my daughter. Let me in at once before I shoot you from my way!" Emma Kingsly was steady with her pistol in hand in her long coat looking as daunting as she last remembered her scolding.