CHAPTER 473: SUSPICIONS AND GOSSIP

The map room was quiet until Ada joined her with two cups of hot, steaming tea on a tray.

"Well, you look radiant this morning!" those were her first words upon stepping through the door.

"I do, don’t I?" Arabella stood off her chair with a smile, "How are you feeling? Did you get some good rest after yesterday?"

Ada placed the tray down on the small table that lay right next to the desk considering the latter was swamped with maps and all relevant navigation tools.

After a sigh, came her response, "I slept like a baby for the remaining hours before sunrise, but it turns out the daytime staff breakfast this morning contained vampire blood which helped whipping us back into shape after so little sleep,"

"That is good to know. You’ve earned it. I hear you did great yesterday," Arabella slowly sat back down.

"Oh, I hope I did!" Ada too found herself a seat, "I think I’ve mostly gotten the attention of a certain Lord Foy. He kept coming back asking to hear more about medicinal plants and all,"

"Yes... Lord Foy has always been nice to me as well," her eyes drifted back to the open map in front of her.

The distant look in her eyes appeared when memory served Arabella the first gathering she had ever attended.

Back then she was part of the entertainers’ team. Many things stood out to her that night. Namely her heated encounters with Edna who no longer was of their world... Her conversation with Foy and then her face to face with Dragomir out on that balcony...

It bred an odd feeling at her core, a weird after taste to look back and note just how much had changed in the span of such a short time.

"Will you have some tea with me?" Ada snapped her back to reality, "This one is my own recipe. It works very well against stress and anxiety,"

"Oh yes! The perfect soothing balm for sore nerves! I’ll take one with pleasure, please," she extended both hands to take the cup and its saucer from Ada.

"Just be careful. It’s still hot," Ada advised.

Arabella picked it up, stared at the opaque liquid for a few seconds, beholding her small and distorted reflection among the thin, rising steam.

When her eyes finally went back to her friend, something stood out on that pretty face of Ada.

It wasn’t crumpled per se. There was no devastating frown to be alarmed about, but her smile appeared a lot dimmer than the one she had upon coming in.

"What’s the matter?" her full attention was on Ada, "Is something bothering you?"

"No," Ada smiled and shook her head at first, "It’s not so much a bother. It is something I’ve noticed, but perhaps I am wrong since I haven’t seen much of him,"

"Who?" Arabella’s brows furrowed.

"Lord Dragomir," she glared at her own teacup, switching between left hand and right one to avoid burning her palms, "I served in many gatherings as a maid before your arrival and... I always did my job and kept my head down, but sometimes we would be required to stay longer in the gathering room just in order to see if the guests needed anything else,"

With a pensive outlook, Arabella chimed in with her own theory, "They could have had vampire maids do that, but the Lady opted for humans, fully knowing about the fascination that vampires have with our kind. I suppose the maids serve as secondary entertainers in a way,"

"You could say that but, in any case, sticking around allowed me to... Observe a little more than I normally would have. Things such as the guests’ natural behaviors,"

"Go on," Arabella had already settled her cup down to grasp at the edge of her chair.

"Well, there are some recurring faces," Ada too put her tea aside and straightened her posture as though emboldened to speak her mind further, "I can cite Lady Athanasia, sometimes Lord Caden who is part of the syndicate, Lord Foy and his wife and of course, Lord Dragomir as well as his wife Lady Anastasia, up until her pregnancy,"

After a very short pause, Ada continued, "Most of them haven’t changed much or if they do, the change happens gradually or explicably, due to something that occurred in their lives which becomes a great topic of discussion among them but... Yesterday... I noticed that Lord Dragomir was behaving really suspiciously," she muttered the last part in a quieter tone than the rest.

At those words, Arabella’s eyes lit up, widening as though told the most interesting news of her life.

She wasn’t crazy! The Lord was acting suspiciously all night long!

"Arabella?" once again, Ada’s voice stopped her train of thought.

"Yes!" she chirped, "I was merely thinking that I had noticed the same thing at the ball,"

"I had the time to watch him some more from the balcony where he stood," Ada nodded, "Do you think it has to do with Allegra’s disappearance? I mean, you did suspect there to be a deeper relation between them,"

"I did. I did," seeing that the steam escaping the tea had simmered, Arabella picked the cup to take a sip, "Speaking of the balcony, I saw the way Sebastian approached you yesterday. Did he say or make you uncomfortable in any way?"

Arabella had no desire to discuss such theories for that time being. At best, it would serve as gossip, which was not needed and so, swerving the conversation onto different tracks it was!

"No, not at all," Ada’s brows knitted as her head tilted to the side, "He’s actually been acting quite differently since your last dance with him. I don’t know what you told him but it sure made a difference,"

"Different how?" Arabella kept sipping at the tea, barely taking the time to breathe in between takes.

Ada’s eyes followed as her friend’s cup went up and down more frequently the longer they spoke, "Less abrasive and in a way less... confident, but that attitude only applied whenever he interacted with me or Abigail, not vampires,"

"I see," she whispered.

"You seem to like my tea," the grin on Ada was radiant.

"Oh, yes! I do! I wanted to comment on it, but then we got swept away by everything else," Arabella let out a soft chuckle.