Bambi and the Duke

Vivian suddenly woke up due to the sudden thunderous sound that came down on the land. She sat up on the bed as sweat covered her forehead, strands of hair stuck to the sides of her temple and the back of her neck.

Was it a dream? Unsure if it was, she moved the covers and got out of bed, quickly unlocking the door she walked hurriedly towards the window from where she had witnessed Leonard and his uncle kill Paul and his family. She wiped the foggy screen of the window, stepping as close as she could to see the rain continue to gush down from heavens.

There was no one in sight. Vivian felt a wave of relief wash over herself to see no one standing out there or parts of the bodies scattered on the ground outside. Closing her eyes, she felt her breathing gradually go back to normal. And though it was nothing but a bad dream her mind had conjured after the day’s events, she couldn’t shake the feeling off her chest that something like what she had dreamt could be a possible outcome.

Paul had been accused of killing the pureblooded family by the council in the presence of the Lord of Bonelake as well as Leonard who was the Duke. Death was the penalty and the housekeeper wasn’t the only one who would be paying the price for his crime. According to Lord Nicholas, Paul’s entire family would be executed in front of the town to make sure no one would dare to commit a crime like this again.

She knew well that Paul would never do something like that. He was innocent in her eyes. A man who had given most of his life to a family, why would he bite the hand of his feeder? It didn’t feel right to her. As the window began to fog up again, Vivian decided to talk to Leonard about it. Or perhaps talk to Paul as there was a week before the execution would take place. If she could find out before that on what the truth was, many innocent lives would either be saved or put into punishment.

Thunder and lightning struck down again, light reflecting on her face, she turned ready to go back to her room when she felt her heart leap up to her throat.

Leonard stood in the corridor, quiet and still looking at her without a word. His face held no emotion and even the darkness, Vivian could tell his eyes were empty due to the loss of his parents. It was as if he had lost his way back to home and his appearance broke her heart. She wanted to be there for him, to support him with what he was going through.

As he started to walk towards her, Vivian gulped softly and started to walk in his direction.

”My room needs to be stocked with logs,” Leonard spoke in a monotone when they came to stand face to face.

Vivian bowed her head, ”Is there anything else you would like me to help you with?”

Raising her head, she noticed him looking at her with unwavering eyes. Seconds passed by with unspoken words until he responded with a no and passed by her to go to his room. Vivian bit her lip, turning around to see his silhouette disappear into the darkness.

After she fetched enough amount of the wooden logs from the kitchen, she carried them in both her hands, walking up the stairs to his room.

Knocking on the door, which was already open, she stepped inside to see him sitting next to his bed with a book in his hand. Going straight to the fireplace, Vivian bent down and began cleaning up the grey ashes from there so that she could replace it with fresh logs. As she was transferring the ashes to the bucket bin, some part of the dust reached her eyes and nose, itching it.

Not able to hold in, she sneezed right on the ashes which fell on the clean floor from the bucket and some on her face.

Her eyes were quick to widen at the sight of the mess she had created. Taking the side cloth she often carried with herself, she began cleaning it up not before taking a quick peek at Leonard who hadn’t bothered to look at her.

Leonard who had occupied himself, reading an old book which he had fetched from the study room felt Vivian’s eyes on him but he didn’t turn to look at her.

The young Duke was tempted to look at the girl, knowing well what she might have done. With the girl back to work, he raised his head to look at her with an unnoticeable frown. Just as he thought, she had been clumsy enough not to keep the ashes far from her face and now she was cleaning the floor.

Without a word, he continued to look at her. Diligently, she cleaned the floor before having a closer look to make sure there were no spots or residues on the ground. Once she was done placing the logs in the fireplace, Leonard turned his gaze back to his book.

When his housekeeper turned out to be the murderer of his parents and relatives, Leonard hadn’t known what to make of it. In a span of a few hours, he had lost things that he held dear to him. Someone whom his parents and he had entrusted with the family and mansion had turned vengeful for no reason. It was then he realized how right his uncle Sullivan had been all this time about the status between humans and vampires, the lower class people and the high social standing pureblooded vampires. Humans, especially the lower class ones were never to be trusted. The feud between the humans and vampires would never end.

The lord of Bonelake at first had advised changing the working staff but seeing Leonard’s unwillingness to do so for a certain obvious reason, he finally suggested him to create the master-slave bond which would be easier to manage the servants. The master-slave bond was something which most of the pureblooded family used to keep track of their servants.

Now that the bond was placed, it was easier to know the whereabouts of the servants. He had only finished reading his book when he had tried to find all the servants in their quarters except for one.

It was past midnight for Vivian to be roaming the halls of the mansion. And though he had decided not to associate himself with any servants, old habits were hard to let go.

He had gone to find her.