Jerome stared at the stubborn and prideful looking woman who didn’t meet his eyes, “Are you always like this?” he asked her, still sitting inside the carriage and talking to her whilst she stood outside on the side of the road.
Maggie turned to look at Jerome, her eyebrows slightly raised in question, “Like what?”
“I offer you help and you refused. Perhaps did we get on the wrong foot?” the man continued to smile that only made Maggie look at him with her narrowed eyes.
“I am sure you have elsewhere to go and are a busy man.”
“Are you telling me you wouldn’t mind standing here by yourself until the next carriage appears?” Jerome questioned her, his eyes sparkling with amus.e.m.e.nt as he continued to stare at Maggie Quinn.
The woman had a mix of soft and sharp features compared to other pureblooded vampires. Her eyes were bigger than most which right now had turned small as they looked at him cautiously.
“Let me drop you to your destination. It would worry me to think and question if you are still here or you received the help you have been waiting for,” Jerome didn’t stop there though, he instead continued to say, “Help doesn’t come often, Lady Maggie. During broken times, you need to get on with the help that comes to you.”
His words appeared to have another meaning as if meaning to tell her that he knew something that she wasn’t fully aware of when it came to him. Jerome didn’t speak another word but pushed the door of the carriage wide open, waiting for her to step in. Maggie sighed and made her way into the carriage. Sitting on the other side of the same seat they shared together.
“That wasn’t that hard, was it?” he asked her.
“Are you always like this, Mr. Wells?” Maggie was the one to fire the question this time.
“Hmm?”
“So kind to people,” Maggie smiled, changing her quickly as she realized it would be rude to speak something sarcastic to the person who had offered her a ride right now.
“Not all the time. I am very picky to choose who I help. People aren’t grateful for it,” answered Jerome before asking her, “Do you often visit the lady of the house? Mrs. Jillian I mean,” overhearing the father and daughter’s conversation he asked Maggie.
“Few days in the week. Do you know Mrs. Jillian?” Maggie asked the man, wondering if he knew about the old lady.
“I have met her at a tea party. She is a beautiful woman,” Jerome complimented the woman and Maggie agreed, a small smile barely touching her lips that Jerome caught. He noticed how the lady who was sitting next to him didn’t smile enough. She was too collected and closed that a person could misunderstand her to be cold and aloof.
A minute of silence passed between them, awkward silence that Maggie felt and she decided to look outside the window.
Maggie still wondered about how Mr. Wells had come to stay behind in the carriage, making her wonder if he had taken a pit stop at one of the villages or towns. Jerome didn’t speak to her and she wasn’t sure to be thankful or not over the quiet silence that fell in the carriage until they reached the mansion.
Though Jerome’s coachman opened the door, the man himself stepped down, giving his hand to the vampiress who stared at his hand before she reluctantly placed it in his hand to step out of the carriage.
“Thank you for the ride,” Maggie murmured the thanks to Jerome, bowing her head to him and ready to sprint inside the mansion.
“It was my pleasure, Lady Maggie. We could do this often,” he suggested and she turned her head slightly on what he was implying.
“Breaking my carriage wheel?” she asked him.
Jerome shook his head, “Yeah, that too. It was wonderful to ride the carriage with you. I look forward to our next time,” his voice was evenly toned, his red kind eyes staring at her with a harmless smile which would have been warm if one opened their heart but Maggie had closed the doors to her heart tightly.
She bowed at him, a sign that she was about to leave when she heard Jerome say,
“By the way…” he trailed making her stop and listen to what he wanted to say, “Take good care of yourself, children can be hard to handle at times.”
“Children?” Maggie asked him, playing oblivious to what he just said.
“You tutor children in there, don’t you?” Jerome gave her another smile, bowing his head and leaving in his carriage from the mansion she was left standing in.
When Maggie released the air she had been holding back all this time, her lips pursed again with her hands clutching by the side of her dress. How did he find out what she was doing? Except for Mrs. Jillian, no knew about it and Maggie hadn’t spoken about it because her father and her family like her step-mother found the work of a governess to be disagreeable. For a high vampiress coming from a pureblooded family, they believed it wasn’t something that fit her or any woman like her. She had known before her mother had even passed away which had etched into her mind.
Seeing the carriage disappear from sight, Maggie made her way inside the mansion of the double doors. Her feet clicking the quiet marbled floor before she met Mrs. Jillian who stood near the study room, talking to her butler. Mrs. Jillian was an old woman. With wrinkled skin and short grey hair on her head. Noticing Maggie’s presence, the woman smiled.
“Good morning, dear,” the woman wished Maggie. Maggie moved forward, leaning over to exchange the kisses in the air by each side of the cheek.
“How are you doing, Mrs. Jillian?” Maggie asked the woman with a genuine smile on her face to the old woman.
“Just as good as last week. I was asking Aaron to dismantle the dining room as the renovation to it would start by tomorrow. The place has turned so old and dark that my eyes have turned weaker with the lack of light,” the woman wound her hand around Maggie’s arm, “I had to speak and get an appointment with the architect, Wells something.”
“Jerome Wells?” Maggie as the woman.
“Yes, I think that is his name. Curly black hair, a vampire,” Mrs. Jillian said that had Maggie thinking what a small world it was, “Anyways, Mr. and Mrs. Kratin had arrived earlier, hoping to have their daughter enrolled here for the week. Will you be able to manage the time?”
Maggie was glad to hear it, “Yes, I will be fine.”
