After what Belle heard her mother and her aunt Irene speak about the society gossip that was making rounds along with nitpicking Belle’s habit with the subtle hint of keeping the butler at a distance, she wanted to ask him something.

Lucas paused his steps and then turned to look at Belle, “Is there something you want to ask?” Belle wondered how he knew that she wanted to ask him right now. She wondered if it was because he had seen her grown up where he got to read her like the back of his hand.

She had paused her own steps and she looked at her butler who held a blank expression waiting for her to speak. Belle pursed her lips before blurting out, “You are not my father. There can be the only one which is papa,” she cleared, not wanting him to be her father figure or to misunderstand that she thought of him in such a way.

“Okay.”

His response to it was short and she then said, “We are friends. You are important like a family,” she said, and then she wondered what if he would consider himself as her brother and she corrected herself, “Like Mr. Fluffs.”

“Alright.”

“Okay…” Belle replied back.

It wasn’t that she was in love with him or anything, thought Belle to herself. She just wanted to make sure that she didn’t look at him like that. Her butler was a handsome man but that was that she told herself internally in her mind.

Turning sharp on her heel, she left the hallways to go back to her room. That night Belle didn’t go to sit on the rooftop. Instead, she chose to sit on the ends of her railings in the patio with her legs hanging in the air. She placed both her arms on either side of her body for support while slightly leaning forward to look at the view in front of the mansion.

Belle enjoyed the night of Bonelake the most. It was quiet and serene in her eyes, away from the crowd and chatter where she could spend her time alone. The weather of the Bonelake continued with the clouds that were dark, surrounding every inch of the sky from where she sat and she caught sight of the lightning clashing from the clouds on the lands. It was breathtakingly beautiful.

Remembering the man who had died right in front of her, outside the mansion, she couldn’t get the black smoke out of her head. She was sure she had seen it appear and disappear. What is it some kind of demon that latched on to the man’s body? Vampires didn’t believe in the concept of Demon’s but the humans did. Some even claimed that they existed and had come across it which many had laughed it off.

Her eyes were roaming around the mansion when she finally saw someone in sight. It was a person in a hood who was walking down the road. Some of the town folks often walked past the mansion and she wouldn’t have paid much attention if the hooded person paused his footsteps to look in her direction.

Whoever it was stood there for close than a minute and somewhere it felt that the man would enter through the gates but the person started to walk, heading towards the town making it look like he had come from the forest, the place where she and her butler had left the man.

During the time of the morning, Belle sat in the drawing-room so that she could take a good look at the people who walked back and forth. So that she could take a look at her butler who was ordering and scolding the servants in the mansion.

When the time of noon arrived, Belle was still seated in the drawing-room. Her eyes barely on the book she held but the people who were walking back and forth. Hearing the carriage arrived and Lucas walking in the direction of the door with another servant man, she quickly jumped on her feet and followed her butler.

“Are you going to the market?” she asked him eagerly.

“Yes,” answered the man stepping on the carriage after the other servant and when he was closing the door, Belle said,

“I would like to accompany too.”

The servant, who was a male and a young boy, he quickly brightened hearing that Miss Belle would be riding in the carriage as it would be less gloomy going to the market with just the butler. And Miss Belle was a kind woman who liked to speak and interact, unlike this cold man who he had gotten into the carriage.

“No.”

Both the servant as well as Belle looked at the butler, “Why not?” Belle questioned him, “I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do,” hearing this the butler’s eyes narrowed considerably at her.

The butler smiled at her, “I don’t think you are good at keeping your words, Miss Belle. You are worse than a child when it comes to going to the market and getting lost in the midst of the crowd.”

“I will make sure not to wander around. Not too far,” Belle gave her word to only have the man look at her with his narrowed eyes.

If it was in the past, Belle would have laughed and made a joke with some words which would make no sense but right now the way he was looking at her, she felt something stir again. Not waiting for him, she quickly pushed the door open and sat in the carriage to put the butler in the middle as it was only a one-sided cushion for barely three people to ride inside it.

As glad as the servant boy was that the young Miss would be riding with them to the carriage, he hadn’t considered the seating position as it felt packed right now, “This feels a little congested,” the boy muttered while trying to not stick to the butler. The boy felt that if he continued to sit this close to the butler, the butler would sure suck his blood out.

“Take the seat next to the coachman,” commented the butler and when the boy blinked to look at the butler, he asked,

“Me?”

“Do you think I am talking to myself?” Asked Lucas to receive a shake of the head from the boy without a word who opened the other door and slipped out of his seat before closing the carriage door.

When the carriage finally started, Belle said, “You are a cold person.”

“I don’t think I need to be warm to heat someone up. My words are enough to get their feet dancing,” she noticed how the butler leaned his straight back against the carriage’s seat, “If I don’t roughen them up they will take things for granted and they will have to face my wrath. It is better to fix and tidy their attitude in the beginning.”

“Which market are we going today?” she asked Lucas excited.

After Belle had realized that her butler and the house servant was going out, she had slipped out of the drawing-room happily to accompany them to the village they would be getting groceries from for the mansion.

Belle heard Lucas reply, “Bakel’s street. The one that comes behind the village of Grintch.” It was the first time she heard the street name but she was excited.