Danrique dashed forward a moment too late, only managing to grasp at the thin air her arm used to be moments before. By the time he realized what had happened, Francesca was already soaring out of the window with her arms outstretched.
Danrique was about to follow suit when he found to her relief that she had landed safely and was busy rummaging for missing jewelry in the snow.
Although her bedroom was only situated on the second floor, it was still forty feet above the ground. Inexplicably, it did not even seem like a superhuman feat to her.
Under the increasingly heavy snowfall, Francesca brushed the snowflakes off of her shoulders impatiently. Despite being clad in only a thin gauze skirt, the cold did not seem important enough to pause her search.
Even more suspiciously, the sprightly movements with which she plodded atop the snow barefooted were most unlike that of a frail woman in convalescence.
Danrique squinted his eyes and looked at her, his eyes flickering with a spark of recognition. What a familiar looking back.
“Oh, Ms. Cece!” Norah appeared anxiously with a coat at the ready. “Aren't you a little underdressed? What are you looking for out here by yourself? Come in, you're going to catch a cold.”
“I'm looking for the jewels your idiotic master has thrown out of the window,” Francesca blurted aloud in her anxiety. “I couldn't find them anywhere.”
Her voice rang clearly up the castle walls and reached Danrique's ears who frowned at the unflattering title.
“Come in quickly, please. I'll have someone look for it for you. We will find every single gemstone there is.”
Norah draped the coat over Francesca's shoulders. “It's freezing today. We must warm you up and ensure that you'll be fit enough to attend the banquet with Mr. Lindberg tonight.”
“What banquet? I'm not going anywhere!” Francesca retorted, her mind occupied with nothing else but the lost jewelry.
The glint of a topaz caught
Francesca’s eye. She pounced and extracted a beautiful topaz necklace from a mound of snow. Slipping it carefully into her pocket, she resumed her search.
Norah had no choice but to summon several bodyguards to join in the treasure hunt.
With the additional pairs of hands, most of the lost gems were recovered swiftly.
After the men swore that there was none left to be found, Francesca counted her loot and found seven pieces. However, the total number of items that had been flung out of the
window by Danrique remained unknown to her as they had been contained in two large boxes.
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