Part 2
Rebecca was in the middle of dinner when Sergei entered the dining hall. This alone was unexpected, as she thought he had already left for the night. Even more unexpected was when he came over.
"Please come to the dungeon when you are finished your meal, Duchess." Sergei whispered, before bowing and leaving immediately.
Outwardly, Rebecca made no reply, but inwardly she was intensely curious. What was going on? She adjusted her corset and grabbed another plate of food, deciding to prepare. Hopefully nobody would notice the cup size increase.
"Everything okay, Rebecca?" Heather asked. Seeing a nod from Rebecca, he decided to stay out of it. He'd just ask Victoria later.
Rebecca caught Hamlin's eye and gave the hand signal for him to distract everyone after dinner with a story. He nodded, and cleared his throat in acknowledgement.
Jacob watched this all occur and chuckled. They were so obvious, like children playing pretend.
After dinner, and once Hamlin had engaged those that needed distracting, Rebecca slipped away to her bedroom to change. Throwing off her dress immediately, her corset was squeezing her badly.
"Maybe I ate too much." She said, wheezing. cLooking down only confirmed it, and she replaced it with one several sizes larger, before throwing a simple shirt over top, to go with some travelling pants.
Downstairs, she found Sergei waiting outside for her, who simply nodded, then gestured at the door.
"I see you've been preparing. Our latest spy told me something curious." Sergei said, drinking what was very clearly blood from a wine glass.
"That better not be one of my good wine glasses."
"It's not. She said the King himself had her two brothers captive, in order to force her to spy on people for him." He continued, swirling it and taking another sip. "Hmmm, fruity taste."
"The King?" Rebecca asked, surprised.
"Got my attention, too. I was getting ready to drain her dry when that tidbit slipped out."
"What do we know about our latest little spy inside this room?"
"She's naive, and I think there's more going on than she realizes. Cares about her family though, which is more than can be said for most of us."
"I had your last wife burned to a crisp, you want another one so soon? You have an eternity."
"Not for me, Rebecca. For Anton and Marie." Sergei said, referencing the two 14 year old teenage siblings who were once under Victoria's care. "They give me the creeps, and I'm a vampire."
Rebecca nodded. "I don't know if we can blame Vicky for that one, it was less than a year. How old does this brat inside look?"
"Maybe 20. Big sister material for sure. She was one of the recently hired maids, completely useless at the job, we'll find her something else to do. Didn't learn much about her brothers, she was terrified of me for obvious reasons. Needs a more delicate feminine touch."
Victoria silently observed the conversation, intrigued by the idea of Diana being a big sister for Anton and Marie.
"Maybe she'll do better than I did." Victoria said hopefully, before sighing and floating through into the dungeon, where she was shocked by what she saw. Diana was trying to hang herself.
"Oh no you don't! Why was there even rope in here?" Victoria yelled, flying away to find Heather. She knew Rebecca and Sergei would be talking for several more minutes at least.