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Next morning, after the strom, the sky became bright and clear blue.
Isabelle is in the garden, standing admiring the flowers grown inside the flower bed, she is holding a dark red coloured frilly umbrella over her head to keep shelter from the sun.
With a pair of scissors, she is cutting the flower buds.
Isabelle heard a pair of shoes heading her way.
Without giving it a look that had came to pay her a visit, she spoke
"Duke Vladimir, welcome"
Isabelle who was looking at the flowers, shifted her eyes from the flowers to look at Duke Vladimir, who had a wide smile on his face.
"Please, take your sit"
She said pointing her hand to the chairs present in the garden under a well decorated roof.
Duke Vladimir, who worked alongside with lady Isabelle and as their time
working together progressed, he apparently became obsessed with her.
He would hung around her
desk at work and engaged her in conversation whenever he could.
"You recognised me just by my way of walking, you will never fail to impress me"
Duke Vladimir said stopping in his tracks, patting his one shoe on the ground.
He went to sit on the comfy chair, crossing his one leg on top of another leg.
His face holding a amused reaction on her welcome towards him, his lips pulled up in a smirk and his blue eyes sparkling with a mirth at the sight of her cutting the newly buds of the flowers.
"How is that kid?"
Came his quick question to Isabelle.
He brought his hand to the plate present on the table, and he picked up one sweet pink cookie from it.
He said while eating one, crashing it between his teeth, tasting the sweet taste which came onto his tongue.
"You shouldn't be asking that when you are the one who kidnapped him, my lord"
She said in serious tone.
While holding the bloomed flower in her hand.
"The kidnapper need to know how is he, anyway?"
He said looking up to her room from the garden where Andrew was, sleeping.
"You don't need to know, my lord"
She said in a mocking tone.
"As you please, my Queen, I won't"
He gave up quickly.
They both went silenced, and while she cut the buds of the flowers and he stared at her.
But, suddenly they both started laughing a loud.
"Does that kid trust you now?"
Duke Vladimir asked her the curious, important question.
"No, I guess just a tiny bit of trust in me"
She said sighing.
"Woah, means you got his trust, but just a tiny bit"
"Shall I kidnap him again?"
He asked her, keeping his hands inside his pockets of his pants.
"No, don't kidnap him, I will win his trust slowly, but in plays this is so easy, the boy gets sick or he is injured or he is in a big big trouble and the girl comes to save him and Dan da, now the girl has his full trust, this is so difficult. Plays are fake and that is for sure"
"What are you going to do then?"
"I will keep things slow"
"Will that work?"
Duke Vladimir asked her.
"Even If that won't work, he can't run away, he is mine to begin with, A person if loses something close to him, it worries them so much that they search for something else and he is a just a kid, a kid, pure as the white flower, and you know white things catch stains fast so I just need to ruin him a little"
She spoke while putting the newly white flower bud between the mouth of the scissors and slowly cutting it as if she was giving the flower bud a taste of slow torture.
The white flower bud divided from its stem, fell on the ground.
"If, my lady, obsess over him this much, I won't be able to help myself, but suggest that kid not to trust you, in any case"
He said bringing the sweet cookie to his lips and then biting it half.
"Why you had to choose Neverwas for our mission, I don't understand that, you had a motive for that right? Vladimir"
Her words sounded less sweet and more like a warning.
"oh please don't call my name like that, my heart hurts if you say my name like that"
"Duke!!"
"Fine, fine i shouldn't have choosen that location, I just wanted to recall our memories when we used to visit that castle together. I thought it will be interesting and nostalgic"
She looked up the blue sky, clouds moving away due to fast moving wind up there.
"Ah, yes, what a place Neverwas was, but I don't miss it" she recalled.
Her voice became serious, she was reminding herself of her past.
"But, my grace, why you had to erase his nighttime memory, I wanna kill you for that with my own two hands"
Placing her steps one by one on the ground, she threw her umbrella aside, holding the scissors by its one handle, keeping the scissor hung in her hands with only a handle. She slowly walked to him.
The smile that had fallen down came up again making Vladimir worry a little.
"You do know that I hate, hate those kid of things"
Isabelle held the scissor close to his neck, pressing it in, cutting the skin apart, warm blood escaped from the side of his neck.
Duke Vladimir moved his hand to one side of her face and tucked her black hair behind her ear, not bothered by the flow of blood, trickling down his neck. Once they both were close enough, he smiled, staring into her black eyes.
"I just didn't wanted him to remember our little secret" He whispered into her ears.
"Our little secret you say?"
She held the scissor even closer to his neck, pressing the edge into his soft skin.
"Okay, I understand, the plan messed up a little"
He smiled after saying it.
"My lady, Andrew is wake"
Joseph spoke breaking the intense moment.
"He is?"
She moved away from her current position.
"That kid got low immunity, always falling sick, gosh" Isabelle shook her head in disappointed.
"That kid looks healthy enough, bad immunity sounds fake and for becoming your he need to have a good immunity, cause you are wild my lady"
"So, are you doubting me?"
Isabelle said putting pressure on 'me' word.
"No, why I will, I have nothing to doubt on my lady
if that kid truly have a bad immunity then, that's really bad, make him eat more" Duke Vladimir showed his sympathy towards Andrew.
"By the way, my lady, when I was coming to your castle to pay a visit to the lady, I saw some suspicious people hanging around your castle"
"You have seen the king's men around my castle?"
Isabelle questioned him.
"King's men?"
Not known to the fact, he showed the signs of interest in the topic.
"Yes, the king had send some people after me"
"How unskilled they are, anyone can see them"
She clapped her hand but that clap did not sounded geniune, it was way more in a mocking tone.
"You are wrong there, my Queen, they are skilled, but not as clever as you are"
He said holding her hand and kissed her knuckles, while his lips was still on her skin like a touch of feather, he lifted up his eyes to meet her eyes.
"You are like a fox and they are still underrated when compare to us, my lady"
Looking down on him,
"Calm seas never made a skilled sailor, And they didn't went through a Strom yet in their life, so they are still learning. By your words that made you a clever person too, how cheap your flirting lines were"
She said pulling her hand away from his grips.
"How many people there might be?"
"6 or 7, and if my senses are not wrong, maximum 5" Isabelle claimed while looking at the birds which came in the garden after flying in the sky.
The birds were the group of 7 or 8 birds, they were busy eating earthworm, which was inside the soil, few seconds ago and now was inside their hard mouth their alive bodies being chewed down.
"What are you going to do, my lady about those men?" Came Vladimir's quick question.
"Well, I don't want to give them a reason to learn, so we should lower our meetings and when the times are right, we shall meet again, openly"
"Yes, we should lower our meetings, or the king will get suspicious"
He comfortably sat back again in the chair.
Holding a smile, but that smile disappeared when he saw her leaving him alone.
"Where are you going? What about my wound on my neck?" He said jerking up from the chair.
"You can handle that yourself"
Without giving him a look, she said.
"So, you are going to leave me like this?"
He raised his voice as their distance grew.
But, he did not got any replies from her.
She went inside the castle, leaving Duke Vladimir alone in the garden.