18 Not ladylike

The room sank into heavy silence right after the message rang in the already tense atmosphere-filled room. 

Both father and daughter had their attention on the butler, facing the butler who had his eyes cast downward, as if they were stupefied by the message that was heard.

The Duke was first to collect his mind, back to reality, as he knew that the butler wouldn't tell them jokes.

He averted his gaze from the butler, who stood across from him, to Joanna, whose facial expression was mixed with bewilderment, panic and surprise, with her lips slightly parted and her posture stiffened, still looking at the butler.

"It seems that you will be able to solve the matter we just talked about earlier than predicted, Ann," commented the Duke, which made Joanna awake from her stupor.

And the next action from his daughter was enough to make the Duke stunned.

Joanna hurriedly pushed herself up from the couch. "Father, I don't know the exact purpose he came here. But if he is here to see me, please try to refrain him from meeting me at least for two hours. Just let him know that I am sick and taking a rest," demanded Joanna. And she fled from the drawing room afterward without waiting for the response of her father, as if she did not want to waste any second, leaving him in the room with his mouth agape.

The clicking sound of Joanna's shoes echoed in the quiet mansion as she made her way to her bedroom on the second floor at lightning speed. She did not even bother to see all the servants in the hall of the de Lara mansion taking a pause from doing their chores.

The servants directed their attention on the young lady as they were surprised to see her behaving as if she was being chased by ghosts. It had never happened before, as their young lady had never done something not ladylike.

Lifting the front of her dress, Joanna climbed up the stairs, taking two treads at a time. Passing the corridor toward her room, Joanna did not reduce her pace. She added fuel to her speed instead.

She closed and locked the door once she entered her room. 

Panting heavily, she took off her shoes and slipped on her slippers before rushing toward the bed. Reaching the side of the bed, she kneeled on the carpeted floor and reached out her hands inside the gap under the bed to draw a small wooden box out of there.

Placing the box on the bed, she unlocked it using a key that she kept in the drawer that was positioned next to the bed. When the box was opened as the lid was lifted, there were several small bottles, which the diameter was about a half inch and the height was about three inches, lied in there neatly, as if the care had been given considerably.

Various colors of liquid, predominated from dark to light green, could be seen from the outside of the bottles.

Thoroughly reading the labels that she had written on a small piece of paper that was stuck on the body of the bottles in order to avoid any mistake, Joanna then carefully took four bottles and an empty small glass out of the box, placing them on the top of the drawer near the bed.

Still kneeling down, Joanna tried to regain her composure as her hands were trembling from nervousness. After taking a few deep breaths and feeling calm enough, she began to open the lid of the first bottle and gently poured about a quarter of the content of the bottle into the small glass. 

A dark green liquid filled the glass now.

Joanna continued the same conduct with the second bottle, which was filled with yellow liquid, the third bottle with light green liquid, and the last one was a dark green-bluish liquid.

Feeling contented with the formulation of the potion she just mixed, she took a deep breath before gulping down the potion in one breath. She grimaced as the mixed liquid flowed down her throat.

Ignoring the peculiar taste lingering in her mouth, Joanna took the used glass to the bathroom to wash it with a powder soap before rinsing it clean with flowing water and wiping it dry with a piece of clean cloth. 

She then placed the clean and dry glass back into the wooden box, together with the four bottles of liquid that she had just taken out.

After placing the locked box in its original position which was under the bed, Joanna took another deep breath and made her way across to the wardrobe to take a white nightgown, into which she would change her dress as if to show that she was really taking a rest due to sickness.

She did not want to waste any more time by asking Bianca or the other maids to help her take off the dress as she usually did. The dress that she wore, fortunately, had buttons in the front part which made it possible for her to take the dress off herself.

Even if the buttons happened to be positioned behind her back, she would try to unbutton them herself, even though she had to force them by tearing them apart with all her strength.

After unbuttoning her dress at an urgent speed with her trembling hands, she also managed to remove the corset by herself after untying the bow at the back of her corset and loosening the tension from the laces.

Standing in the sleeveless and knee-length white shift, Joanna then slipped into the nightgown which reached her ankles while the sleeves reached her elbows. She threw the dress and all the parts of her clothing she wore before behind the wooden divider that was situated next to the wardrobe.

Before getting into bed, she unlocked the door of her room as she did not want to bother to open the door when someone insisted on seeing her later. Aside from that, in the next hour, she would be too weak to even raise her fingers as the potion would react and give side effects on her body.

Undoing her braided hair, Joanna then made herself lie on the bed after lowering the drapes that surrounded her bed and covering her body with a blanket. 

Closing her eyes while calming her nerves, she waited for the potion to react.