𝕾𝖔𝖒𝖊𝖙𝖍𝖎𝖓𝖌 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖊//𝖂𝖊𝖓 𝕵𝖚𝖓𝖍𝖚𝖎

Chap. 3

The following day, you're out in town in a woody brown cloak around your shoulders and its hood drawn over your head, casting a shadow over your face as you wander the busy streets. Your mother would have a fit if word got out that the honorable Lady ___ was out on the streets without a company and a handful of witnesses to help spread the word faster than forest fire.

Your aunt will be the first to telephone and croon over how you couldn't possibly be in your right mind to have done so and that she felt awfully sorry for your mother, of what, she will not say and leave that for your mother to count your shortcomings.

That is only, however, if you were found out. What with years, since you turned sixteen, of walking these streets and making friends with peddlers through your persuasive bargaining, you've become an expert in disguise as that very expertise has acquainted you with the scent of freshly baked goods wafting around just a couple hours before noon, the loud offers of the lowest prices sold and most prominently the incognizance of your identity as you slip through the crowd with a kind of solace no silk nor flattery can ever bestow.

There is not a sole purpose to your venture here, today is the day the merchants from all around the kingdom and beyond gathers once a week to offer their goods for trading. Noblemen and businessmen alike have brushed your shoulder one too many times without even giving you a second glance; an irony since these men are also the ones who would shower you with vacant flattery on many social occasions such as last night.

As soon as Junhui disappeared into the shadows, a maid came for you; your father had been looking to introduce you to the new blood of the noble world; a man of trading in his 30′s and quite honestly too old for you but makes up for it with a fortune that could rival the royals, earning him a noble title even though there is no evident blue in his blood.

You wonder how close Junhui is to the royal family or if he was just a thief dressed in the finest tailor made coat stolen from the tailor itself so he could come to your house, sneak in unsuspected and steal the emerald stone that would usually sit in your mother's chest on her vanity but found that she's passed it down to your sister to wear at her wedding banquet. Which explains why he left so urgently when you'd suggested joining the party; he was not on the guest list.

Though he had been complacent when you met him─

A sudden tug on your hand breaks you from your reverie, eyes widening at a little boy around ten braving against the flow of the crowd which was from where you'd came from, the dusty grey pouch of your shillings in his hand echoing in your ears.

"Wait!" Your call is swallowed whole by the grouse of the merchants, not a single soul hearing your plea of thief! as you propel yourself against the throng people, apologizing at the ones who fell victim to your haste.

The boy turns around the corner into a narrow alleyway, a hand on his faded black hat to keep it from flying away as a gust of wind blows through the street when you've come to the end of the alley. The biting cold flushes your ears and neck as you grip your gown tightly as if your life depends on it. In a sense, it does for if you were to trip on the hem of your gown, the little thief is lost for good and the chase would be worth nothing in the end.

Just as you are a few feet close to grasping the back of his collar, another hand wraps itself around your forearm, the impact almost pulling your limb right out of its socket as it drives you to a halt. You watch in vain as the thief disappears into another alleyway and out of sight before directing all your frustrations in the yank on your arm.

"Who do you think─" words die in your throat, cut by the softened edges of dark eyes that once emulates a sense of deviousness as it trapped the silver ray just last night, "my lord."