CHAPTER 476: ROLL AROUND THE HAY

Seeing his smile, Arabella felt her heart skip a beat. She unconsciously wanted to raise her hand and touch his face, to see him beneath the disguise when suddenly the fragile tension they had together stoped as a sudden knock on the door burst their silence.

Arabella went quiet, her eyes slightly snapping back from her daze but she couldn’t bring her eyes away from his face, watching his features and wondering how he would truly like underneath that mask of a maid.

"Lady Arabella?" The voice of the said servant who had knocked on the door echoed again.

Arabella slightly felt how unfortunate it was that she couldn’t spend more time with him only to feel troubled in her heart as she had never known this sort of emotion, an odd emotion that made her hesitate and torn between two choice.

"Lady Arabella?"

"Come in," she shut her eyes and let out a sigh, before turning behind to saw a not so familiar maid walking inside the room with a tray of food on her hands. But when she caught from the corner of her eyes the bread on the table and a maid already stood straight beside Arabella’s table, the maid rose her eyebrows.

She turned to Cassius almost immediately with a frown, "Who told you to bring the food to the Lady’s room?"

Cassius smirked, "Was it wrong for me to do so? I asked this from the cook. I never knew I had to ask someone else’s permission when the Lady’s stomach is ringing from hunger."

Slightly taken aback by Cassius’s snappy reply, the servant pursed her lips, "Yo- You don’t know the reason for us to double check on whatever food that had been sent to the Lady’s room? There are poison that could be used against her therefore before any food or snack be delivered to the Lady’s room, we are ought to test them first."

"Oh really?" Cassius rolled his eyes that had turned green and picked one piece of the bread before munching them. The maid turned stunned while seeing how brazen he had ate the bread that was meant for the lady, almost as if he was the owner of the bread.

Even Arabella couldn’t help but break into a smile as Cassius had found way to go against the servant’s warning.

"There," Cassius pointed out that he didn’t die after eating the bread, "Next time I will immediately test it in front of the cook and the Lady. That way if I’m suddenly poisoned we know who is trying to hurt the Lady and apprehend them on the spot."

"That’s not how it works!" Cried the servant, then she turned towards Arabella, "Milady, please tell me the name of this maid, I ought to bring her to the head maid to be scolded for brazenly bothering your time!"

"Don’t," Arabella smiled, "But I don’t have no use of the food now. You can return it back."

"But..." the servant hesitated, her eyes almost turning red while she glared at Cassius, as if demanding how his presence had put her into further trouble. "I would be scolded if they noticed you didn’t take a bite..."

Knowing how soft Arabella’s heart was, Cassius could see the result and almost immediately, he could tell how her expression softened into concern.

"Alright, you can leave the food there."

"Should I test them for poison too, milady?" Cassius hovered toward the plate when the servant snapped.

"DON’T! This food has been tested by our most trusted people. It is now only for the Lady to try, not someone like you!" Then the servant marched toward the table where Arabella was, set the tray and quickly left the room in a hurry.

"How odd," Cassius pointed out but Arabella didn’t mind as she picked up the spoon for the cream soup in front of her. "Are you really going to simply eat it? You do notice how that servant was terrible in acting a play, don’t you?"

"I noticed," Arabella shrugged, "But they don’t seem to know that poison has no use to me."

"And do you think that’s possible?" Cassius bent down toward the plate, placing a hand over her hands, "Think about it. They should have known about your magic and how potent it is when it comes to neutralizing any poison located in the food. But why would they still add a little dusty magic inside your food?"

"Hope that little by little it would poison me?" She guessed but he smiled.

"Maybe what’s inside is no longer poison but something else, something more... dangerous?"

Arabella gulped slowly and eyed at the food, "I can’t think of a magic being placed inside a food."

"Can’t is the right world, sweetheart. You think that magic is the only thing more dangerous than a poison? Well I hate to break this to you." Cassius placed the bread inside the soup and gently lift the mixture up... "There is something else that could be added to it which could be more dangerous than simply death."

"Such as?" She raised her eyebrows, wondering why it is that he was always so knowing, as if he could see through the word transparently.

"Well for one what would be worse for a woman other than death? There is only one isn’t it?"

Her eyes narrowed at once, "Impossible. They would add aphrodisiac in the soup? But-" well she wasn’t sure if it would work on her or even take effect but since it isn’t poison, her body might not neutralize it out of instinct. Unless she know what she was eating, neutralizing them with poison is a miracle work. "Morpheus... he would go this low? But he wouldn’t come home until evening."

The aphrodisiac wouldn’t work in time when he was back at home and if that’s the case, wouldn’t this be terrible for his plan?

"Well because someone else had planned this not him," Cassius was beyond delighted to see her disgust. "Say, would you like to play a game with me, Bella?"

That afternoon, the cloaked woman could see the same servant who had argued with Cassius entering her room. She whispered, "Everything has been set, milady."

"Good, you can leave."

But the servant didn’t immediately leave which made her suspicious. She turned back toward her, raising her eyebrows higher than before again, "Why are you still held here?"

"I do not know if I should report this to you, milady. But that servant beside Lady Arabella is odd! She almost ate the food without fear when I demand whether the food she brought could be poisonous."

"You mean Isaac. I have heard how distrustful he is to Lord Morpheus. We should have chosen someone more obedient but the Lord was afraid that if everyone was too loyal to him that woman would notice and all our play pretend would end."

"N- No, it was a maid... I don’t remember seeing her often but when I had asked around, they said that she has always worked away from the castle, one of the children who grew up ill."

At this, the cloaked woman seemed interested but it was just another servant and she had long told the housekeeper not to ever mentioned to her about any of the servants again out of pure annoyance once she heard how daring Arabella had demanded for all the women to be removed from Morpheus’s side and how he had accommodate to her.

After thinking of how no servant in this castle could ever truly go against Morpheus and be much help to Arabella, she shrugged her shoulder, ignoring the servant’s worries.

"Whatever. Have you made sure that the door will be locked once she enters the storage room?"

"Very certain, milady," the servant smiled back deviously.

In that moment, the cloaked woman lifted the curtain, smiling as she saw how Arabella had entered the hallway toward the gallery’s storage. Her smile quirked higher as she thought of how everything had fallen perfectly to her calculated plan.

Meanwhile, Northam the stableboy had just walked into the gallery when he saw the woman who was standing in the dim room. The woman seemed to be holding to her dress, trying to remove it. Being a gentleman, or how he would like to admit it, he stepped forward, reaching out his hand and with a smile he smirked.

"Let me help you milady."

But before his hand could reach far enough, a hand had chopped the back of his neck.

Cassius eyed the stableboy with a disgusted frown. Crossing his arm then he hummed, "Should I hit him a bit more?"

"If you do that, everyone will notice our ruse," Arabella opened the curtain a little and waved her hand over the dusts. She could feel Cassius’s red eyes over the stableboy, annoyed at his lewdness towards her when he was the one who had planned this.

Seeing that petty jealousy made her only to smile wider, thinking that it was rather endearing.

"But now the question is how will we bring that woman to this room? Poison doesn’t work... I don’t think anything would work to bring her here."

"There is a way." Cassius offered. "A devious way of course. But let’s wait, Morpheus should come soon."

"You’re waiting for him?"

"She wanted to ruin your reputation it’s only right for us to return her kindness, no double it, even."