Conquering His Cold Heart

324 Unintentional Revelation – I

When Ruby returned to the guest quarter, she saw that the door to Lorenzo’s room was already closed.

‘The others must have left already. But should I be disturbing him right now?’ she wondered.

Before she could hesitate and go back to her room though, Lorenzo opened the door to his room as if he was expecting Ruby to come back.

Now that he was alone, he didn’t deny recognizing her. He gave a gentle nod to Ruby and then welcomed her inside the room. “Miss Ruby, please come in.”

Ruby also returned his warm gesture by smiling at him and then entered the room.

Since they were still in the territory of the manor, they both were a bit cautious. They didn’t want people to see them together and assume that they were up to something.

Thus, to avoid any kind of suspicion, Lorenzo closed the door and began to speak in the softest voice possible.

“How have you been, Miss Ruby?” he began the conversation with a generic question even though he had hundreds of questions in his mind.

Ruby was awkwardly standing near the door while facing Lorenzo. She nodded her head and replied after some reservation, “I’ve been good. And what about you, Mr. Lorenzo?” She looked at the bruises on his face and added, “Did that boy from earlier do this to you?”

.....

Lorenzo subconsciously touched the bruise on his face and answered while smiling, “Oh, no, no. This was not done by him. I already had them before he tried to hurt me.”

“Ah!” Ruby pursed her lips and nodded again.

The two of them stood in awkward silence for a while. Both of them wanted to know how the other ended up there in the manor. However, both of them couldn’t immediately bring that sensitive conversation up.

In order to break the silence, Lorenzo pointed at the chair behind Ruby and asked her to sit. “Why don’t you take a seat and make yourself comfortable?”

Ruby looked behind her and noticed that there was only one chair. She looked back at Lorenzo again and asked, “And what about you?”

“Oh, don’t worry about me.” Lorenzo looked down at his condition and chuckled in embarrassment. Then he pointed down at the floor and added, “I will sit down right here.”

“Umm… at least sit down on the bed.” Ruby gestured at the bed since she didn’t want Lorenzo to treat himself as if he was beneath Ruby and sit on the floor.

Lorenzo gestured at himself to show the pitiable condition of his clothes and tried to make light of the situation, “I haven’t even had a chance to take a bath and change into nicer clothes since I was busy being interrogated and attacked for no reason at all. The floor is good for now.”

Ruby didn’t have any words to console him. Thus, she quietly took a seat on the only chair available in the room.

And when both of them settled down, Ruby took the chance to speak first and asked what she really wanted to know, “Why did they want to interrogate you? Did they think that you were also linked to the killer somehow?”

Ruby didn’t realize that she had unintentionally given her situation away.

And before she could correct herself, Lorenzo quickly picked up on that. “What do you mean by ‘you were also’? Were you also dragged here because they thought you had a hand in that unfortunate event?”

Ruby heaved a deep sigh. Since Lorenzo had already picked up what she didn’t really want to reveal, at least not right now, she had no choice but to explain herself.

“Unlike you, I was apparently present there in the dungeon at the time of that cold-blooded massacre.” Ruby pressed her lips into a thin line and pretended to smile in order to hide the sourness that she felt after speaking the truth.

Lorenzo was looking at Ruby with eyes full of shock. “W-What do you mean by that?” he questioned, unable to comprehend the sentence that Ruby just said.

Ruby sighed again and rubbed her nape in frustration before clarifying what she just said. “Somehow, I was unconscious and then ended up in the dungeon.”

Although she now had a guess as to what might have happened that night, she decided not to reveal anything regarding that matter and continued, “I don’t know who took me there or why they took me there. But when I regained consciousness, I found out that there had been several murders right around me. Everyone was bawling their eyes out and they were already looking for the murderer by then.”

“Holy goddess!” Lorenzo clasped his mouth with his palm in shock. He had no idea that Ruby was even deeper in the mess than him.

However, he was sure about one thing… that Ruby had nothing to do with the murders. Ruby was still a na?ve woman in his eyes, and he didn’t see why she would be involved in the murder.

“I’m really sorry to hear that,” he softly mumbled after making eye contact with Ruby.

And before Ruby could divert the conversation and start questioning him, Lorenzo further asked, “But I bet they have already cleared your name from the incident, haven’t they?”

Ruby held her palms together and answered with some hesitation, “I’ve been questioned a few times. Although I have been able to convince Lord Regulus of my innocence, I believe that he isn’t a hundred percent convinced yet.”

She looked around at the room she was in right now, which greatly resembled her own room here. And she added, “That’s the reason why I am still a ‘guest’ here.”

“I’m really sorry.” Lorenzo pitied Ruby for what she was going through.

And although he more or less understood most of the things that Ruby just explained, he still didn’t understand one thing.

Thus, he bombarded her with the questions, “How come you ended up being unconscious and then waking up in the dungeon? Who brought you here to the manor in the first place? Was someone trying to frame you for the crime they were about to commit?”