Chapter 12 - Let Your Indulgence Set Me Free

Time passed, and it became 1816. And as she entered into the year, she could not help but think of the up-and-coming assassination of the King. It was the reason why the first prince was able to ascend to the throne quicker than expected. It would have happened eventually, Lilith was not too worried and even if she knew what was going to happen, she had no desire to try and change the future. How would she even go about doing that?

Maybe she could send a letter to the King, telling him that the Queen was cheating, or maybe she should tell Raymond. Either option would not have gotten very far. And Lilith was not going to tamper with the timeline. She knew better than that.

She thought about it a lot because it was an important part of history that she was going to be a part of. She was also curious to know how Raymond would react to the news of his father's passing. The more time she spent with him, the more she learned about him.

He was not very interested in humanity and only did the duties he had as Duke because it was his responsibility. He would not interact with the servants in the house much and Lilith seemed to be the one he talked to the most since she was responsible for bringing his food to and from him. He would also talk to her when he was trying to catch her off guard. He would randomly ask her a question about her past or about the dress or why she came to Creona. But the story was solid and he kept getting the same answers every time.

The months passed allowed for there to change in the way she functioned around the manor. Although it was not the ideal job she would have wanted when trapped in the past, it was something that kept her clothed and fed, so she could not complain. He had also begun to treat her like a human and lessen the work she would have to do.

She also somehow became his unofficial personal servant. He would make her run errands for him and more often than not, she would be having to serve him breakfast in his room because he was too busy with work to leave it. She would also be the sole servant to accompany him when he had to go places on business. She guessed that the more time she spent in the manor, the more he learned to trust her. Even if it was a little bit. He had even decided to pay her as well, so Lilith guessed that she was no longer held hostage in his house.

Lilith had no complaints about her job and was glad that she got it. Even if it did not start out on the best terms. Lilith worried about what she would do when his brother would kill him, but Lilith was saving her money so that she would be able to have a new life once Raymond was gone. Lilith had fifteen years to burn, and she was going to try to enjoy life at that time. She could try to prevent the murder of Raymond since she did know the date that he was killed, and where it happened. But she was not sure about how badly that would affect the timeline.

Raymond looked at Lilith as she swept the floor of his office. She was definitely deep in thought. She would mumble things about the timeline and money. She was not being loud, but it distracted him somewhat. With the beginning of a headache, pounding his head with dull aches, he sighed and stopped writing.

"Victoria," he called her.

Lilith paused and looked up at Raymond. She knew that look, he was hungry and had a headache. She had not interacted with many people for the past three months, so of course, she knew what some of Raymond's expressions meant.

"I will check and see how far along lunch is, I'll also bring you some water and medicine for your headache." she gave him a gentle smile and leaned the broom against the wall, dusting her hands in her dress.

Raymond raised his eyebrow as she walked away. Was his expression that obvious? All the time she was in his manor she seemed to get more familiar with it. He had thought about letting her go after some time because she seemed to be telling him the truth, but he remembered that she did not have any identification and the library she worked at probably was not going to take her back after seeing her get arrested. And he realized that she was decent at what she was doing and was not expressing terrible hate for the job anymore. So he just left her, and even started paying her just to let her know that he considered her a worker in the manor.

Raymond pushed his headache-inducing work to the side and picked up a book he had at the end of his desk. It was various Shakespear stories in one. He had lost count of the number of times he had read the book but it was simple and familiar, which is why he read it so often.

The door to his office opened and Lilith entered, she had a tray and on it was a small bowl of medicine and a cup of water. Lilith cleared away some of his papers before resting the tray down, she bent down a bit to get a look at the book he was reading.

"If you read that book one more time I'm sure it's going to take up all the space in your brain and then you won't remember anything else," she said.

Raymond looked up from the book. "That's impossible."

Lilith rolled her eyes. "I was joking obviously. But what's so interesting about that book anyway?"

Raymond looked at her as if he could not understand what she had just said. "This is Shakespeare. Great classics."

"I know I know, I have a special love for The Tempest, but won't reading them over and over again not have it lose its effect. I think it's better to wait for your brain to forget some things and then go back and reread it so that you have the experience all over again."

Raymond was silent for a bit. He knew that Raymond had a love for books. She did work in a library before she came here. He realized that making her clean his office probably was not the smartest idea as he knew that she got distracted by the books he had in there.

"I guess you do have a point, but this book is familiar to me. So I read it." He closed the book and took a sip of the water.

Lilith took the broom from the wall and went back to swapping the floor. "Do you have a favorite work of his? Or are they all too magnificent to pick from?"

"I do not favor any over the other. But you said you like The Tempest. Why is that?"

Lilith smiled, glad that he was making conversation with her. "I had to learn it in school. They made us study the entire thing. We even had to memorize Prospero's final speech in the play.

"Now my charms are all o'erthrown,
And what strength I have's mine own,
Which is most faint. Now, 'tis true,
I must be here confined by you,
Or sent to Naples. Let me not,
Since I have my dukedom got... and something that comes after."

She had to memorize all of that when she was in school and yet she could not remember it now. But she was surprised she remembered the opening lines.

"And pardoned the deceiver, dwell
In this bare island by your spell,
But release me from my bands
With the help of your good hands."

Raymond continued for her and Lilith's smile widened. "Oh yeah, that's how it goes. I guess reading the book a million times will do that to you."

Raymond did not respond to that and took his medicine in silence going back to reading. That was the most they had engaged in conversation outside of him questioning her when they first met. He expected that all conversations he would have had with her would not have been good, but this one was... decent.