BXBX NOVEL Chapter 173 173. Kidnapping, Part IX
Editor: Aelryinth
Recognizing that something serious had happened, the servant hurried to speak at Oswald’s order. "While serving drinks in the card room, I saw Mrs. Raban rush out. The remaining ladies expressed their concerns, wondering if Princess Kiellini was still not fully recovered. After a while, I took a shift with another servant and came out into the hallway, and then I met Princess Kiellini. The princess told me to deliver that she was going back to the mansion because Mrs. Raban was not feeling well, and she couldn’t say goodbye and was sorry."
"To whom?"
"She’d like to deliver the words to Marquis Oswald or Count Adam. So, as soon as I saw Marquis Oswald, I told him."
"When was it?"
"I’m afraid it’s been about an hour that I’ve been looking for the Marquis or the Count."
At the words of the servant, Killian went back into the family lounge of Kiellini. "What happened? I heard that Marquise Raban went back to the mansion of the Duke."
After agonizing over whether she would have to find Julietta, Vera shook her head at the question of the prince. "She never said that at all. Even if something urgent happened and she had to return, she would have left a message." Vera turned pale and replied, feeling something was strange.
"Oswald, send a man to the Kiellini mansion right now. Ian, let the knights and the attendants search as quietly as they can. Don’t ask directly where Princess Kiellini is, but find out who’s been away from the party hall from an hour ago until now and who’s gone back home."
Killian’s face had sunk horribly. Oswald and Ian rushed out of the lounge at his command.
"Forget what you saw today. You should never speak of what you saw and heard just now. Do you understand?"
Killian shook his head as if he could not, as he looked the servant who quickly nodded. "I don’t think I can send you back like this. Go to my palace right now. You will work at the Asta Palace starting today. Go and deliver my words to Sir Albert, and ask him to fill your vacancy."
At Killian’s order, the servant nodded repeatedly. He was taught that he had to be blind, deaf, and mute to work at the Imperial Castle, but he was afraid he had made a mistake today. He thought he was lucky if he would survive this.
When the servant left the lounge, Killian looked back at Vera. "If anything happens to Julietta, the first place to visit is the dressing shop?"
At Killian’s question, Vera answered anxiously, "Yes, that’s right. She feels much more comfortable there than at the mansion of the Duke. What do you think will happen?"
Killian stopped at the maid’s question when he started to leave. "A person who cares for others like your lady will not go away without a goodbye."
"That’s right. She knows that I’m going to worry about her, so she won’t just leave." Vera recalled Julietta caring about her and Gibson’s inconvenience at all the trifles.
"Nothing’s going to happen. I am sure that nothing will happen to such a nice lady. I don’t think so. She might have gone out to get some fresh air in the garden," Vera murmured, praying to the back of the Prince leaving the lounge.
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Phoebe looked up, thinking she heard something on the first floor. Since everyone left work, she was organizing the finished decorations in the bedroom on the second floor of the quiet dressing shop, and she left the bedroom carefully when she heard something again on the first floor.
Bang, bang, bang, bang... As she listened closely, it was the sound of knocking at the door of the first floor.
Phoebe opened the curtains of the hallway window carefully, hoping for someone, and looked down the street. But the street was dark, so she couldn’t see who was knocking at the door of the dressing shop at this hour. She went down to the ground floor with a small magic lantern that she used to move, quivering with anxiety.
"Who is it?" When she opened the glass door and looked out through the gap of the closed shutters carefully, she heard Julietta’s voice, which she had not expected.
"Oh, thank God. I hoped you weren’t asleep. Phoebe, please open the door."
Phoebe hurriedly opened the shutters at the sound of the lady’s voice which should not be here at this time.
"Miss? Huck!"
Dusty curtains were hiding her bruised face, and she wore a ragged party dress. Phoebe hurried to take Julietta inside the dressing shop and locked the door, knowing she was in trouble at a glance.
"Oh, my God! What the hell is this..." Despite being too miserable to speak, Phoebe hurried to take Julietta to her bedroom on the second floor.
"I’m sorry, Phoebe. Did I disturb you while you were resting?"
After walking for more than an hour from the strange mansion on Harrods Street, Julietta collapsed on a chair. Phoebe hastily took off the curtains she had wrapped around herself.
"Ah..."
Phoebe grabbed her chest as she looked at the disheveled hair, her barely intact dress top, the scratches on her shoulders and arms, her bleeding mouth, and her black and blue bruised face.
Phoebe could not say anything for a moment, but finally looked into Julietta’s eyes and said, "Miss, nothing happened today. This is nothing. Though a dirty thief touches a brilliant diamond, it doesn’t mean it isn’t a diamond. Even if the thief stole it and turned it back in, the diamond won’t be damaged. You’re a diamond, so beautiful and hard that they can’t even look at you."
Phoebe consoled Julietta as best she could. She didn’t even know what she was talking about, but she just wanted to comfort her lady who had been hurt.
Julieta grasped Phoebe’s shoulders to calm her down, as Phoebe seemed more shocked than she was. "Phoebe! Calm down. I’m fine. Nothing happened."
At Julieta’s words, Phoebe stared her in the eye. When the green eyes curled up without a single shadow, the relieved Phoebe sank down to the floor. "Oh, God! Thank you. Thank you..."
Julietta couldn’t control her heart after seeing Phoebe crying out endless appreciation, like she had an hour ago. She sank to the floor and hugged Phoebe. "Thank you very much. I didn’t go to the end, but it was awful. But when Phoebe worries about me like this, all my fears go away."
Julieta sat still for a while, embracing Phoebe as comforting and comforted. It was fortunate that there was a place to come back after the terrible incident. Without this place, she could have gone to the Eileen Theater or Lillian. There were people who she had to protect.
Julietta recalled that it was not time to be so weak. Though she didn’t know who had ordered it, there was someone who tried to kidnap her and ordered the gangster to rape Princess Kiellini, and that woman had planned to hand her over to someone else.
’Who could it be? The person could command a servant in an imperial uniform. Could the person be Prince Francis?’ Julietta thought it was not time for this, released her arms from Phoebe, and rose from her seat.
"Well, I’ll use the bathroom. And I’m sorry, but there’s a new dress for me downstairs in the studio. Can you bring it up? If I go back to the Kiellini mansion like this, all kinds of rumors will spread to the capital in less than an hour."
"Don’t be sorry. I’ll get it right away. Shall I bring in Amelie and Sophie?" Phoebe asked as she got up from the floor, helping Julietta take off her dress.
"No, they will be worried. Anyway, I’m worried about how to get back to the mansion."
Until she arrived at the dressing shop and opened the door, Julietta was constantly worried about who might have followed her, or if someone would attack her again.
Since there was no carriage at the dressing shop, she had to call a public carriage to go back to the mansion. But it was so terrible that she was still in a perfect fear, and she was afraid to go back to the Kiellini mansion in a carriage alone.
"I’ll go and get Gibson. If I give an excuse to him, it will work somehow."
Julieta shook her head after thinking for a moment at Phoebe’s suggestion. "No, actually, I’m not sure if I can go outside now. I’m afraid the person who kidnapped me today might be waiting in ambush near the Kiellini mansion right now."