The Amorous Mate

Chapter 20: The Window

Chelsea hesitatingly knocked on a door. She bit her lip while she waited for someone from inside to open it, or perhaps maybe tell that she was welcome to come in. Her uneasiness was cramping her chest as she waited, making her tap the floor with her stiletto heel Venida has forced her to wear.

Seconds after her wait, the door calmly opened. When it revealed Lord Matthew all curious and questioning, Chelsea smiled, dithery.

“Hi,” she greeted with a wave of her hand.

“I am quite aware that I well said you and Beatrix should be together by now,” Lord Matthew stoically pronounced.

Yet, Chelsea noticed that the Lord opened the door of his room even wider. Because of that, Chelsea thought that it was a non-verbal gesture to tell her she was, at least, welcome to his room.

Her smile grew wider, and without any second thought, she entered the room. It was then when she realized that it was not a room intended for him to rest or sleep, but an office room.

Stocks of paper files, and a bottle of ink and feathered pen was laying on a huge office table, as if they were singing hallelujah, praising Matthew for tending the problems written on them.

“I . . . I think this is a wrong timing for me to visit,” Chelsea said.

She looked at Lord Matthew with an awkward stare. She was about to go back outside—along with a quick muttering of sorry for her unwanted interruption—but she stopped when she saw the lord already closing the door. Shocked, her mouth was partially parted.

“No, it is fine,” Lord Matthew said. “After all, I have finished almost half of these paper works.”

“Oh, really.” Chelsea nodded. She bit her lower lip to suppress the victorious smile threatening to appear on her lips. After closing the door, Matthew sat back on his chair, and started arranging the papers in chaos with the table.

“What is it that you came here for, Chelsea? I have to ask you again since you have not answered my earlier query,” Lord Matthew asked while he continued arranging the piles of papers.

From that, Chelsea only pursed her lips then freely shrugged her idling shoulders. “Nothing . . .” she answered.

She went towards the huge window adjacent to the table setup of the lord. The window was huge that Chelsea seemed small and irrelevant.

“Wow. Matthew, the view from here is awesome,” she said.

Indeed, the scene from the window was breathtaking. Because Lord Matthew’s office was at the top-most part of the mansion, it has the privilege to flaunt the beauty of everything from below. What Chelsea only did not expect, was that the view from the window can expose a wide vast cover of green land protected by a long snake-like water body—a river—that makes the whole land green and fertile.

The Silver Feather Mansion was standing just near the cliff of an altitudinous falls that connects the river they were sailing at, and the big river dancing from below. Because of that, it gave the lord’s office a rare access for the breathtaking view Chelsea was currently enjoying.

“You are not answering my question, Chelsea,” the lord warned, but he stood up from his seat and joined the Princess in standing beside the window’s breathtaking view. “You are supposed to train with Beatrix by now,” he added.

“She’s a w***e, Matthew. I don’t like her,” Chelsea replied.

“Watch your words, Chelsea. You are in our territory.”

Hearing the grave warning of Matthew, Chelsea warily pursed her lips. She kept a mental reminder to herself not to be garrulous with her thoughts and emotions because it would lead her to her danger, she was certain. The lord was right: she realized she was on a place she is not familiar with, and she has no idea what this place could lead her—whether she would be safe or in danger, the future will tell.

“Sorry,” she sighed, “Well, she left me in the room where you left us earlier. At first, she was only looking at me with that disgusted stares she shown us earlier. Of course, naturally, I wouldn’t want to be glanced by that insulting manner, so I mirrored how she looked at me. Then her face weirdly paled until out from no witty reason, she ran out from the room as if she was panicking. I’d like to think she became scared of how I stared at me, that’s why she ran.”

“She will come back sooner,” Lord Matthew said.

“Hope not,” Chelsea whispered so that Lord Matthew would not hear her qualm. Unluckily, the lord’s sharp auditory senses managed to pick it up.

“Beatrix always want her first impression of her by other people strong and firm—sometimes stubborn. But in reality, she is soft and can be easily attached.”

“Is she? That seemed so hard for me to believe,” Chelsea replied, rolling her eyes.

Lord Matthew sighed. “Arguing with you is hard to deal with, Chelsea.”

“Of course, I am!” she chuckled. She looked at Lord Matthew with her signature mocking smirk. “I have been born this way. Why, in what way did you meet the real Princess Demeter? What was she like?”

Lord Matthew’s left brow raised. He arranged the collar of his suit and asked; “why are you asking?”

Again, Chelsea shrugged along with her pouting lips.

“Just so. Maybe because I was hoping I could get some glints of ideas on how I shall act and move on her behalf?” she hesitatingly answered.

Another long, deep sigh escaped from Lord Matthew’s breath. He looked above, at the sky, with a noticeable upward curl of his lips as he thought of words to vividly describe how the real Princess Demeter acts.

“Hmm . . . you may have her beauty and physique, but what made her exceptionally immaculate was by how she move. Traces of grace was always a harmony every time she moves. The way how she walk, she moves her arms and fingers, how she turns her head—everything in her was divine. A real princess.”

“Wow, it is so not me,” Chelsea commented. She was looking at the curves of the long river below, shaking her head because of the disappointment she had heard from Lord Matthew.

She heard a light chuckle from the lord. “Indeed, she was entirely far from your personality. Her smile was always an epitome of bliss and happiness. While your smile is . . . well . . . a secret message of an evil monster about to m******e her prey.”

“Hey, that’s too much!” she complained. “I can also pull a smile without creeping anyone, you know?” To show him that her claim were true, she pulled a full, teeth-exposed smile on her mouth. Yet, what resulted was not a beautiful nor attractive smile, but an awkward curve.

Chelsea was well aware that she looked hilarious. That was why, she could not help herself but to burst out laughing. Her laugh was contaminating. Soon, after few seconds, Lord Matthew also failed to control himself. He burst out laughing as well.

“That’s hilarious, isn’t it?!” Chelsea asked as she faced the trouble on how to stop her uncontrolled laughs. Lord Matthew could not answer her query, for he too failed to control his laughing. He shook his head left and right as he looked at the still giggling princess, unable to believe that she has made him laughed the way how he did earlier.

When Chelsea noticed that the lord was looking at her, as if a magnet, her eyes met his gazes as well. She did not expect that that those eyes of him will be the sole reason for her to cease her hard to stop laughing.

Instead, her laughter quickly changed to a serious staring with the lord. She swallowed a lump formed on her throat, when she felt she was being hypnotized by the shadow-black color of his eyes.

Until, those black stares landed on her gaping lips. Her lungs started to feel small, as if she was being restricted to breath. Her heart raced unexplainably, and her feet started to feel cold. Yet, inside her chest, something warm; something raging was spreading. A kind of warmth that made her long for his touch. For his lips. His kisses. Him.

It was a sudden knocking of the door that made the two hypnotized people come back to their usual senses. Their lips were about to meet each other at that time, had the knock did not arrive.

Panicking, the two tried to bring back their composures. Chelsea’s cheeks were red, but it was less of her matter, long as she has went back to the guest’s couch where she was sitting earlier, and pretend that nothing was happening.

Lord Matthew, on the other hand, cleared the coarseness of her throat. He sat back on his office chair and then calmly acknowledged the caller outside.

“Perhaps you may come in,” he said.

The door opened. Chelsea was the first one who had the opportunity to see who the caller was. It was a handsome man with black, shining hair that is fit to his features. Their eyes locked with each other, and, as a sign of recognition, the man bowed at her.

“Al—I mean, Lord Matthew, I did not expect you having a visitor. Much to my surprise, the princess,” said the new man that had entered the room.

“You know me?” Chelsea asked.

“Indeed, your Highness. If you could recall, I am one of Lord Matthew’s acquaintance when you were attacked by the bandits,” the man answered.

“Oh,” quickly, Chelsea stood and made a bow to the man. Because of that, the man panicked.

It is a tradition in the Nightingale Kingdom that if a high, noble person would bow as if he was bowing to the God, it is a sign of him or her giving a special gift—a title, a property, or a treasure.

“Thank you so much for helping me, uhm, may I know your name?” Chelsea asked, not knowing of the malicious act she had done.

“G-Gionnardo Langston it is, y-your Highness,” he said both stammering and nervous.

“It is okay, Gio. The Princess does not know the tradition yet, that’s why you can consider it has no true effect,” Lord Matthew, from his chair, has explained.

Because of that, Gio breathed in relief. He never wanted to receive any gifts from other people. For him, it was a charity. Being a man of pride, it is indeed one of the things he would not want to happen. Yet, because it was the Princess, he was finding it hard not to disobey her—luckily, everything was not true.

“Thank the goddess,” he relieved.

“Am I missing something?” Chelsea innocently asked.

For the sake of the office’s peace, Lord Matthew shook her head. “Nothing, Princess. You can take your seat back again.” He looked back at Gio. “What maybe the reason why you have visited my den, Gio?”

“Ah, it is because I am here to tell that the month’s supply has arrived,” Gio answered.

“Indeed? Then we should go and check.”

Lord Matthew along with Gionnardo presumed going outside to meet the men who have delivered their supplies.

Chelsea was left no choice but to come with them, or else she would be left alone and bored inside the lord’s office. As they walked down the stairs, Chelsea asked what kind of supplies has been delivered to the mansion. Lord Matthew answered it being the necessary things that livings needed to have: food and clothes.

Because of her curiosity, she then asked if the food and the clothes were all intended to every people living in the mansion. He had just answered nothing but a grim nod.

She wondered why does he have to do these things for those huge pack of people in the mansion. If those people were not actually his family; does not belong to his bloodline, then what must be the reason for his help? Is this a secret charity house?

Her thoughts and wonderings stopped when they reached the outside of the mansion. Children and women were busily attending the newly-arrived packages. The children were playing, excited as they took rounding trips to the new, huge boxes that was being unloaded by men from the newly-arrived canoe. On the other hand, the women were the one who were lifting and arranging the boxes according to its classifications.

“Hey, Matthew,” Chelsea called. “Why are you letting those women lift the boxes? Those should be work for men, isn’t it?” She looked at the women who were lifting the boxes with concern and worry.

“It is, indeed. But I am afraid I have to say that most men are not around at this very time. They are . . . being trained, indeed. Besides, the maidens and ladies of the Silver Feather Mansion prefers to have rigorous works—something that would perhaps boost their stimulis. You may have not asked, your highness, but those women never bothers the weight the boxes bears.”

“But—”

Chelsea was about to open rebuttal words for the lord’s argument when out of nowhere, she unexpectedly stopped. Her eyes looked at the back part of the mansion with her diverging eyebrows. She intently watched the tall bushes near the grasses and trees. It was not moving—if the bushes may have moved, then perhaps one could consider it was just the blowing of the wind.

“Whatever is your problem, your Highness?” Gio asked when she noticed that the princess acted differently.

“Shhh . . .” Suddenly, Chelsea asked for everyone to stop causing any loud, disturbing sounds or noises.

“Can you hear it?” she asked. “Someone was asking for help. I could hear her. I could hear the woman gravely shouting, asking for help. She was . . . she was near the falls.”

The two gentleman, Matthew and Gio started growling. Chelsea does not know what the growl was intended to, but she have just considered it as the male’s angry response when they realize someone was in danger—especially if the one needing help was under the protection of the mansion’s roof.

Quickly, they ran fast into the woods. They have an utterly unbelievable speed that Chelsea could not catch up with her delicate, meager princess-feet. In just a blink of an eye, the two men were out of her sight already. Yet then, she continued running. She followed the voice of the woman she’s been hearing crying for help. She wanted to be there to know what was happening.

When she reached the location she has been navigating, she saw a crying Beatrix, an unconscious man, and a frantic Lord Matthew who was busy tending to the unconscious man, pumping his chest, hoping that he would wake his consciousness.

“Jullian! Oh grace of the goddess, please save my husband,” Beatrix pleaded in the middle of her sobs.