Roy skipped the work in the parlor as he had gone through the important ones yesterday, he made his way to the boy with whom he had a lot of questions to ask. The boy was perched on the chair in his room, playing with a ball, throwing upwards to catch it later at different angles. Hearing the footsteps sounding on the floor distracted the boy to miss the catch, leading the ball to fall down bouncing to the corner. The presence of Roy had always been intimidating for the boy ever since he came here. Which decreased for the past few days until now. What Ty also noticed was the mistress was also gone, then the rumors passed the newspapers turning them as a couple.
"Enjoying much?" Roy started the conversation, taking the place on the side of the bed facing the boy in the chair. Ty visibly shivered once then answered, "I am fine. Thank you."
"I have heard you had been helping the gardener with the plants. Ella would be happy. Did your sister like gardening too?"
He couldn't scrunch his eyebrows with the interrogation as it would come out as rude. But he was aware that he wasn't here to ask him about the daily life, likes and dislikes. The mistress of the palace had helped him and his family a lot, he wouldn't mind if they were incapable of retrieving back Cora. But he would be heartbroken while he reached back to his mother. Thus, the boy decided to answer honestly to everything asked.
"There wasn't much time for her to do gardening. She would get to work in planting the pearls from day to night, then she would get tired and-"
"Have you heard about Zayn Khan?"
Roy interrupted the boy's chit chatter; he didn't have much time to spare on this boy when he had to eradicate all possible ways of Ella tricking him in the name of marriage. She wouldn't say but he knew her well to expect her to revolt back on him. What he would want to know was, will she do it? There were varied ways of fighting with each other and Roy hoped Ella didn't chose the one to be separated from him.
"Yes, his team won the world cup last year," Ty replied excitedly, showing he watched the game wholeheartedly.
"Not the cricketer. The Prince of the nations." Roy corrected his preference; it was getting strange with the boy to question him thoroughly.
"There is a Prince too? Was there where Ella was? That's why she must be missing this long." The answer deprived the mood of the man patiently breathing with his elbows resting on his knees and eyes glaring at the boy.
Mercilessly Roy came to his deduction, "Did you have any sister apart from Cora?" The jolly look on Ty vanished with the question. If only that would have been good news for Roy but his theory went deeper in connecting the links.
"I... had a sister. She is dead." Ty answered quietly, his previous mood gone. The boy felt like crying out which annoyed the man observing everything. It was a simple question, yet the boy wept his emotions more than any girl he had come across. Roy wanted to jump in the air in victory, victory for being wrong. He had been making silly notions with the case, he blamed it upon Mark to give him restless nights. If he hadn't been involved with the Faceless, then Roy would have told Ella everything about his side business. Then, maybe then she would not resent him as much as she does now.
"Good! That's all I wanted to know." Roy blurted his heart out which didn't match well with the boy, who was reminded of his dead sister and the sister who was taken. All in all, Ty was blaming himself to be an irresponsible brother. Hurriedly Roy changed his stance, "That was not for you. I was thinking something else."
He was sitting in the chair quiet still. Now that Roy had made the boy upset, he didn't know how to relay the news of his sister not wanting to be back. Darn it, he should have sent Ella to do these things. She would have managed it better than him.
"Ella wasn't with the Prince. She was gone in search of your sister." That news was enough to bring the boy's attention on the man intensely.
Ty's eyes turned hopeful giving the puppy look to Roy to which Roy wished to have been anywhere but there. "You won't like the news." Comically the face of the boy fell hearing that, his sister was nowhere to be found.
"We found her..."
"Where is she? I didn't see her. Is she in another one of your guest rooms? Why didn't you tell me earlier?" Ty was yelling at the man who usually glared at him, now uncaring of how fearful he was of him, Ty got ready to search for his sister, he believed to be there in the palace.
"The rooms are so many but I will find her," he muttered while walking away from the room as if he was not injured a week ago.
"She is not here, Ty!" Roy raised his voice for the boy to listen to him.
"Why? Did you keep her somewhere else? She did nothing wrong. I want to see her!"
"She did not want to come back!"
"Lies!" Ty spat at Roy, fury in his eyes to blame it on his sister. "If you can't search her, I will. But I won't listen to your lies as an excuse."
"Enough! You are under my roof. You will not disrespect me like that. Ella willingly went in the danger to search your sister and this is how you repay her hospitality. If your sister didn't like the benefits of being his-"
"Roy!" Ella stopped him to say anything else, the boy and the man turned their eyes on the door of the room, she noticed the boy's cheeks lined with wet tears. She should have talked with Ty herself, Ella thought.
Ty wiped his eyes stepping forward he asked for confirmation from the mistress, she was the only one he trusted in the household. "Did you see her? I want to see her." His voice was pleading and not asking Ella. She felt so selfish to have left the boy's worries and plan her own life, and now that the impending question reached her, she was feeling suffocated to answer him the truth.
"I didn't see her. But I know she is alright. She told us," her eyes met Roy's then returned to Ty, "that she would come back soon from where she is staying temporarily."
"Are you saying the truth?" Ty hesitated. Sometimes a hopeful answer was better than the truth.
"I am saying what I know. If you have faith in your sister, she will come back."
"I do believe her. I know she wants to be back home with me and Mama. She needs our help." A scoff was heard from the middle of the room, to which Ella warned with a look to not say a word. He clenched his jaw and remained there, looking away from her and the boy she was consoling with false hopes. It was the next statement of Ella that stopped Roy's heart.
"I have sent a party to search for her. She would be here soon."
Ella handled the boy pretty well, looking after all his wishes and distracting his mind to comfortable topics like the fruits he was planting along with Mr. Walker. She left the boy alone to leave the room by evening, the whole time meeting the boy's expectations that she was saying the truth about finding Cora.
Relieving a breath Ella settled on her bed, lying on her back tired with the day's events. "Tell me you didn't do that."
"I didn't do whatever it is you want me not to do," she answered him. Being accustomed to his constant snooping around she would not be surprised if he emerged in between her bath.
"Stop playing with me Elle. We are about to get married and you are planning another trip abroad. No way. The Prince would arrest you the moment you land anywhere in the perimeters of his control. The business is not very upright, did you know that?" He reminded her about the problems piling on her shoulders. "The alliance was broken and the Khan would break off the deals with their country anytime soon!"
"They won't," Ella stretched herself in a sitting position continuing, "They know they want money from the throne, the cancelled relations would prove to fatal to their position. If they wanted to break off the contract, they would have done that two years ago, but they didn't." Roy gulped listening her theory. "Because they want the throne with them."
"They were using your innocence and lack of experience to bring you in the game." He followed her line of thoughts.
"And once I am in, there won't be going back." She concluded.
"Don't do this Elle." He again said the same thing to her, Ella knew what he was meaning about. She was tempted to test his limits of saving his secrets from her.
"You found her and you let her go. I can't make the same mistake again. The business will be influenced in other areas if not in the oil. I will commence a meeting on that regard soon."
"Ella," Roy called her, "You are not going back to that place."
"I am not. But my men will."
"They will not find her there!"
"Why? How can you say that they won't find her there?"
"Because-" he paused midway, shut his mouth close, followed by his eyes, gritted his teeth, "I just know it. Your search for her would be futile. The rest is your wish." He gave a cold shoulder to her and left her alone.