Woes Of A Villainess

10. Passing Ships in the Night (3)

"Huh, so that's how things ended up for you...." Alistair rolled a pebble he had picked up from the ground between his fingers with a thoughtful look in his eye. He hummed in thought, eyes staring straight forward into the sea. "And you've only been here a week?"

"A little bit over that," Arabella corrected, with her hands folded neatly in her lap. "Most of it was spent searching for you. No one here so much as mentioned you, aside from a foreign dressmaker who just happened to spot you in Nyotari."

The two of them had made themselves comfortable on a bench overlooking the port, the same bench Arabella had sat on with Aubrey a mere day ago. She had not anticipated she would be back so soon, let alone with such company. Sitting side by side with Alistair felt almost surreal and it took an active effort from Arabella not to pinch herself. She cautiously glanced at him from the corner of her eye. Alistair didn't seem much too fazed by any of this at all, rather, he seemed resigned.

She watched as the boy grasped the pebble in his hands and tossed it into the air, catching it and repeating the motion. A slight smile appeared on Alistair's lips, "I guess when it comes down to it, they really stuck to their words."

Arabella raised a brow, "What do you mean?"

"My mother and I settled here when I was a kid. Since then, we were pretty reclusive, but the few people who did get to know us promised her that if anyone ever came searching, they wouldn't say a thing."

"Do they... know about your identity?"

Alistair shook his head softly, his head of white hair flowing with the movement, "I doubt it. They know me as 'Al'. Hardly any nobles knew what we looked like, I doubt that anyone outside of high society would." He muttered under his breath, with a bitter sigh. "If there was anything that old goat was good at, it was hiding his shame."

Suddenly, the discomfort of the people Arabella talked to over the week started to make a little more sense. Perhaps it had less to do with her reputation, and more to do with this vow of secrecy they had held in honour of Alistair and his mother. Either way, she was glad to know that her assessment of him being within the Lockhart Earldom was correct in the end.

Though, Arabella did not fail to notice that she had gone through much effort to explain her experience, from his death up until now, and yet she had failed to hear the same from Alistair himself, "... I'm still missing some details about what happened after you went back..."

Alistair huffed quietly, crossing his arms and leaning back into the bench, leg crossed over the other in a relaxed motion. Arabella watched with piqued interest before he bluntly stated, "What's there to say? I died and then I woke up."

Arabella felt her brow twitch. With a sharp glare she snapped back, "That's all?"

Unfazed by her glare, Alistair sighed, "I just had business to attend to in Nyotari. It has nothing at all to do with this. Most of my week was spent travelling to and fro."

Despite her frustration with Alistair's secretiveness, Arabella instead chose to show some restraint and huffed in response. She got the sense that he wouldn't elaborate further, no matter what she said. But in a moment, a connection seemed to click in her head and she spun in her seat to face Alistair with wide blue eyes and her voice raised, "Wait... Are you the stowaway!?"

Alistair's violet-coloured eyes blinked owlishly for a moment at her outburst, but rather than refute the claim he laughed guiltily, "Ah, so you knew about that?"

Disbelief clouded Arabella's features as she gawked at him, "But... How did you? My brother would never have just let you walk free! How are you here?"