Chapter 772: Aligned Interests

“You are taking this surprisingly well.”

Jay looked up from the half-eaten meat pie that she had been blankly staring at for the past several minutes. Sighing heavily, she quickly scooped up a large forkful of the meal so as not to let one of Hans’ culinary creations go to waste and devoured it. Taking a sip of cool water to wash the mouthful down, she turned to address Aila’s comment.

“I mean, I’m still thinking about flying back over there and punching that old geezer in the nose. It’s just that I’m pretty sure that would kill him and I don’t want to go on trial for murder.”

“Please don’t murder a duke,” Aila said as she finished the last of her own meat pie. “Even a retired one. That wouldn’t go over very well with the emperor, even if you are on his good side.”

“What’s a geezer?” Sabina asked from Jay’s other side. “Is that a Nephilim insult?”

“A very mild one,” Jay answered. “It just means an old and cranky person.”

“Oh, so like Bridget’s grandfather, Morley?”

“Hey!”

“Yes, that’s a good example.”

“Hey!”

Jay shrugged apologetically towards Bridget but didn’t take her statement back. Morley was absolutely a geezer, and what was more, Bridget knew it. There wasn’t much point pretending otherwise. At least Morley was a decent man and had some likeable qualities, unlike the former Duke Colgrave.

“He got me,” Jay admitted, turning her attention back to Aila. “I hate to say it, but he did. And there isn’t really anything I can do to sabotage his success that wouldn’t set my own goals back. I really, really hate to let someone as underhanded as Colgrave get what he wants, but…”

“But you got what you wanted, and he’ll be dead soon anyway, so why bother complaining?”

Jay smiled at Kerr’s succinct summary of the situation. That really was the ultimate conclusion. Duke Colgrave was effectively out of the picture and would be completely out of the world soon enough by his own estimations. Yes, he had managed to create a strong connection between his family and her, but with a sympathetic and even positively dispositioned Elodie taking the ducal crown, Jadis didn’t mind forming that connection. For all of her anger towards General Egilhard, Jadis never had any particularly negative feelings towards the Colgrave family as a whole until the duke started trying to manipulate her life. If he had just come to her with an open and honest willingness to communicate and work with her, then Duke Colgrave might have had her as an ally months ago.

Something told Jadis that that sort of directness probably wasn’t anything a man like grouchy old Colgrave was used to, so it probably wasn’t ever a possibility to begin with. Further, when she thought about his daughter, Vanessa, and his son-in-law, Egilhard, and the way Elodie had acted to her from their first meeting… there probably never was much chance of a smooth partnership between her and those three. Did that mean what Colgrave had done was right? Absolutely not, in Jadis’ strong opinion. However, she at least understood his reasoning, even if she couldn’t agree with it.

“I still think maybe you should punch him,” Sorcha stated sourly from her seat on the far end of the table. “Spying on us, trying to force you to marry Mouse, framing us for crimes…”

“Don’t call her Mouse,” Dys rolled her eyes as she reached across the table to poke the goblin in the forehead. “She has a name. Estelle.”

“She’s also a mouse,” Kerr pointed a fork at Dys. “One that you’ve set up to be eaten by a hungry kitty. Really, I didn’t think you were so cruel.”

“What?” Dys frowned at the archer’s comment. “I’m pretty sure I’ve been nothing but kind to Estelle, all things considered. Is someone bullying her? If that kind of shit is happening—”

“Bullying,” Bridget let out a snort of laughter. “Yeah, that’s what’s happening.”

Blinking, Dys turned to look at Maeve. The Fetch was sitting to her left, a far-off expression on her translucent face.

“What did I miss?”

When Maeve didn’t respond, she waved her hand in front of the shapeshifter’s face. Still getting no reaction, Dys redirected her focus onto Thea, who sat on her right.

“What did I miss?” she repeated her question.

“D—didn’t you notice?” Thea smothered a shy smile. “Cora has been spending her nights here, in the compound, rather than retiring to Lyssandria’s High T—temple.”

“Why? She’s sharing a room now, that just makes things more—”

Dys shut her mouth, eyebrows rocketing to her hairline as the sudden and obvious realization struck her. Biting her lip to stifle her amusement, she ducked her head and ate another bite of her remaining meal.

“Okay, I hate that you all managed to notice before me,” Syd said as she shook her head while grinning widely. “Please tell me you have details.”

“Noct does,” Thea indicated the quiet Valravn who was sitting next to Alex and letting the baby in the Demon Lord’s arms play with her feathers.

“Spill.”

“Kissing,” Noct explained with a small shrug. “Passionately.”

“No way,” Syd laughed. “Damn Cora moves fast. Where?”

“Greenhouse.”

All three of Jadis turned in her seats to look at Meli expectantly.

“I did not see anything,” the Dryad shook her head.

“But you knew,” Syd accused with an eager grin.

“I could hear them, yes,” Meli agreed. “That is why I did not enter and gave them their privacy yesterday.”

“Was it just kissing, or…?”

“They occupied the greenhouse for approximately two hours,” Meli answered. “I informed Tegwyn when he tried to enter half an hour after my arrival. Together, we kept everyone who might have entered away until they both departed. They were flushed in a way that those with flesh and blood often are after engaging in strenuous activity.”

Turning back to look at Noct, the Valravn shrugged at her.

“Obscured viewpoint.”

“Okay, someone’s going to have to give them some pointers on where to have their little trysts without getting caught,” Jay laughed. “Pretty sure Estelle would implode if someone found her in the act.”

“Unless that’s the whole point,” Kerr stated her third sound point of the evening. “I mean, Cora’s a Lyssandrian freak. No way her choice of public fucking location wasn’t with specific intent.”

“They may not have been having sex,” Eir countered with a sweet smile. “They may have simply been enjoying each other’s company.”

“Kissing in the greenhouse for two hours?”

“Passionately kissing,” Noct corrected.

“I would not mind spending an hour or two doing the same,” the saint said as she eyed Jay. “Given the opportunity.”

All three of Jadis laughed delightedly as her lovers traded friendly banter and juicy gossip back and forth. The easy air of care and community greatly comforted her after the frustrating encounter with the former Duke Colgrave. While she freely admitted that he had managed to outmaneuver her, and she even agreed with the outcome, that didn’t mean that she was happy about it. Jadis had been tricked by a man who had never seen her as anything more than a steppingstone to greater power, a fact that pissed her off immensely. Her irritation was only increased by how she had thought that she had been the one to get the better of him, right up until he had pulled the rug out from under her expectations.

Jadis supposed that was the reason how he had managed to trick her, when she thought about the situation and how she had acted. She had assumed that everything Colgrave was doing had been to further his own interests, which was essentially the case. Except, those interests weren’t to increase his own power, as she had thought was Colgrave’s motivation, but to advance the position of his noble house, regardless of how he as an individual came out in the deal. In a way, it was a rather self-sacrificing action, though whether the former duke would have taken them if he had been twenty years younger, Jadis wasn’t so sure.

Regardless of how they had come to the position they were in, Jadis could only hope that since she and Elodie were finally on good terms, and that Elodie was set to be the Duchess Colgrave, that they could work together towards a future where their families were allies, or at the very least, not rivals who were constantly at odds with each other.

“Alright, since the grouchy old geezer is effectively neutralized, what do you think about promoting Estelle to a new position?” Jay asked the table at large. “I think we can pretty reasonably assume that she isn’t part of any nefarious plots now. Or if she was, they have to be defunct plots now that Colgrave has stepped down and Elodie is taking charge.”

“I would not assume so,” Severina sighed, her expression still a bit cross from earlier in the day. “Colgrave has proven that he is far more forward thinking than he had appeared to be, and far more ruthless as well. He could still have plans in play that we are not aware of.”

“If he does, I do not believe Estelle is an active participant in them,” Eir countered Severina’s warning. “She has shown herself to be nothing but kind and helpful.”

“Many infiltrators do,” Sev muttered.

“She has also been watched thoroughly and has shown no signs of any nefarious actions or intentions. Surely, if she had done anything to warrant further suspicion, Maeve would have noted and informed us by now.”

Multiple sets of eyes turned towards the shapeshifter for confirmation. However, as Maeve continued to stare blankly at a wall, Dys looked around at the others.

“Okay, what’s up with her? Did something happen today while Sev and I were gone?”

“Not that I am aware of,” Aila answered as the others murmured their agreement. “Maeve has been reading and replying to correspondence all day.”

Frowning at the unresponsive Fetch, Dys decided on a direct course of action to get her lover’s attention.

“Ah! What!? What happened?” Maeve cried out in surprise as she jumped in her seat.

“Nothing,” Dys said as she kept her hand firmly attached to the orange woman’s shapely butt. “What happened to you? You’ve been absent for almost the whole dinner.”

“Oh, uh, right,” Maeve settled down, not voicing any complaints about her new seat cushion. “It’s just, I didn’t see it coming.”

“See what coming?”

“Colgrave,” the Fetch waved her hands in front of herself in irritation. “His whole gambit. I fell for it. I didn’t even suspect that he was using Elodie against himself like that. I mean, it was so obvious, and I didn’t see it!”

“I don’t think it was that obvious…” Severina frowned at the spy.

“Oh, yes it was,” Maeve continued her frustrated rant. “Why tell Elodie about the letter? The hidden message was in the envelope, not the letter itself. He could have used Elodie without her even knowing about the plot. In fact, it would have been better for her to have no connection to the plan at all! He told her not because she needed to know what was going on to make the frame job work, but because he needed her to know so that it would fail! Having framed more than a couple of people myself, I promise you, the less people who are in on the plot, the better. I should have seen it coming, I should have known what he was doing! Or at least suspected some kind of a trick. Instead, I just assumed that he was a fucking idiot, because why wouldn’t he be? His children are, and his granddaughter isn’t exactly the sharpest dagger on the belt, either.”

“Don’t blame yourself,” Dys said as her hand moved higher and began to massage the shapeshifter’s back. “Really, it isn’t your fault. Besides, the outcome really isn’t bad. Just some stinging pride as the worst of it.”

“No, it isn’t that bad,” Maeve huffed as she purposefully took hold of Dys’ hand and moved it back down to her ass. “But it could have been a lot worse. It really could have. How can I call myself your spymaster if I can’t protect you from such an obvious feint?”

“You can because I want you to be,” Dys said as she leaned down and gave Maeve a firm kiss on her lips. “And because you’re an amazing spy. You’ve protected me and everyone here from way worse things than Duke Colgrave. Don’t doubt yourself.”

“Thank you,” Maeve smiled warmly up at Dys. “I needed to hear that.”

Pulling her closer for another kiss, Maeve let her lips linger against Dys for a long few moments before she broke away.

“Anyways, I’ve decided I’m taking Bonded Master of Metamorphosis as my tertiary class. We’ll see if any bastards like Duke Colgrave can slip shit past me once I have access to more powerful shapeshifting abilities. Anyone else hungry for dessert?”