Herald of Steel

Chapter 827 Alexander's Suspicions (Part-3)

After talking and interacting with Lapitus for the last few months, Alexander had come to know the man quite a bit better than from the initial three hour interview back then and felt he was much different than the monster in Lady Felicia's tale.

OF course, there was certainly the possibility that Lapitus was a superb actor who had managed to hoodwink Alexander even during all Athose interactions for all these months.

But that was unlikely.

For Alexander had not come to this conclusion using just one source.

To verify his suspicions, he asked some of Lapitus's officers and subordinates about their boss and they all described him as an upright and frank man.

He then asked some of his family members about him, like his cousins who might hold some jealousy towards the much more established member of their family.

And though some grumbled, calling him petty for not giving them more money, Alexander only snorted at these leeches.

He very well knew the extent Lapitus went for these people, and notwithstanding the legality of the actions, there was no doubt that Lapitus held a deep love for them.

Following this, Alexander also turned to the people, or more accurately the person who would know him the best- his daughter Fabiyana.

He had asked some subtle questions on the sly to her when Lady Felicia was not in earshot during one of her many play times.

These questions were not explicit in nature, so as to not warn the quarry as Alexander feared the child might blurt all their conversation to her parents.

But these implicit, prodding attacks yielded very telltale results.

Regarding Lapitus, the daughter had generally expressed a great love, only finding fault in the smallest of things, such as how Lapitus drank a lot and stank at times, or how her mother would scold the man for dirtying the rooms.

And towards these answers, Alexander of course brought it at face value.

For he did not believe there was any way an honest and expressive kind of child like Fabiyana would see her mother getting so heavily abused as described by Lady Felicia and then still lie about loving her father very much.

So either Lapitus was a supervillain who was able to hide everything from his child even though they all lived in the same house or Lady Felicia had lied to him.

And naturally Alexander tended to lean on the latter.

Further, aside from these, Alexander also received word of some suspicious behaviors from Fabiyana regarding her mother in some of their talks.

Alexander particularly paid attention to Fabiyana claiming that she remembered seeing a strange man regularly coming into their house and 'touching' her mother in various intimate ways when she was very young.

'He was touching her boobs!' The girl clearly recalled.

And when asked if she remembered what that man looked like, although she was unable to give a facial description as she was too young too remember, she did reveal that the man was always very well dressed and regularly brought various expensive gifts for the two.

When she had gotten older, she never again saw that man, but replacing that, Fabiyana recalled how her mother would sometimes go out during odd times of the day, saying she was visiting her friends and leaving Fabiyana with the maids.

With the weird thing being that Fabiyana rarely met those 'friends' of her mother as it was only her mother going to visit them, but they never came to visit their house.

Or, occasionally she would be taken out the house during odd times of the day, with the enticement of visiting the market or going on a boating trip around the River Diannu with a few servants, while her mother stayed behind.

And when she would come back, she would many times find her mother wearing a different set of clothes, with her hair wet like she had just taken a bath and there would almost always be various gifts waiting for her.

Regarding this, Fabiyana did not think anything.

In fact when she was retelling these to Alexander, she was reminiscing them in a joyous voice, saying that whenever her mother would return from 'seeing' her friends, she would always come home with gifts.

Or if Fabiyana was the one to leave the house, she would either be given a new toy during the trip or get back to find shiny presents waiting for her, where her mother would tell her that it was her grandfather who had to visit them but Fabiyana missed him since she was out.

And going by Fabiyana's story, it seemed that was always the case, she somehow always managed to miss meeting the old man.

And if the girl threw a tantrum saying she wanted to stay in the house and meet her grandpa, her grandpa would not appear, suddenly having an 'emergency' situation that would pop out of nowhere that he would have to go deal with.

Fabiyana had a very sad face when telling that particular piece, like she missed her grandfather, rueful that she had never really met him.

And hearing this Alexander initially felt a bit awkward because he was the one who really killed her grandpa.

But such a fleeting thought quickly turned ephemeral as a far more distressing thought filled his mind, one that sent alarm bells ringing inside his head.

'Never met him?' Alexander was stunned at Fabiyana's casual reveal for that claim completely contradicted what Lady Felicia told him about her father's love for her and her daughter.

And combining it with all the previous things Fabiyana had diverged, Alexander had very strong reason to be very suspicious of Lady Felicia.

The stench of foul play was clear to him from miles away but unfortunately, although Alexander was sure Lady Felicia had hidden things from him, he was unable to put all the pieces together and form a clear picture no matter how hard he thought about it.

He felt he was still missing a crucial piece of the puzzle, the centerpiece, the man who was surely at the center of it all, the one, true smoking gun.

And he was right, because although he suspected Lady Felicia of having an affair, he was unable to determine who.

And that was because Alexander did not know Petrino, the man being too insignificant to come under his eyes.

His main focus of learning had been on the main lord of Thesalie, Lord Ponticus, and Alexander only knew that the man had a wastrel of a son as a supplementary scrap of knowledge that he quickly forgot he even had.

And even if Alexander knew about Petrino in great detail, he would still have to be a prophet to immediately and definitely connect him to Lady Felicia just from that vague description.

The man coming to visit Lady Felicia very well could have been any other of the tens of noblemen living in Thesalie at the time, or a playboy, a lover or even a slave.

Furhtemore, who was to say that the man was singular?

Perhaps Lady Felicia had multiple such trysts and all these men came bearing gifts.

There were so many possibilities when Alexander thought about it.

So, upon first hearing this, Alexander had first asked Camius to send a small group of spies to keep an eye on Lady Felicia and try and catch her in the act.

But naturally, they saw nothing.

They could only helplessly report that Lady Felicia was always around other people during the day and rarely left the house at night, preferring to spend time with her daughter and husband.

This meant either Alexander was wrong, which was unlikely given the explicit damning testimony Fabiyana had given.

Or something had happened to her lover/ lovers.

Lady Felicia could have cut ties with them, though that possibility was very implausible as given the power she wielded, surely he/ they would come to her secretly to fish for benefits.

They had spent so much on her over the years, there was no way they were going to just take the rejection and be happy with it.

And if they did, Camius's spies should have detected some clues.

But since they had not, the greater possibility was that they were dead, either killed during the battle and subsequent sacking of the city or the far more fearful possibility by her.

But the latter possibility was once again low given the covert surveillance Alexander had placed on her, so had to be the former, though that did not really help Alexander narrow the list of potential suspects any further, as in addition to Petrino, many, many noblemen, civilians and even slaves and servants had died during those days.

Thus, unable to find any more clues, Alexander had little option other than to prod the cultprit herself.

It was with these thoughts that Alexander returned to the current situation, as he once again asked, "What do you think? Should I?" referring to if he should ask Lapitus about her sexy negligee.

Lady Felicia had yet to given an answer, only presenting her back like a wall of silence.

It was like she was stunned into silence and Alexander had a very smug in his face.

But Lady Felicia was out yet, not by a long shot!

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