The Gossip Trio
The Emperor was stunned.
Four men, all fighting over one woman?
*Is she some kind of goddess?* he wondered.
He sincerely doubted it. If a woman that beautiful truly existed, his ministers would have bent over backward to get her into his Consorts' Wing.
Prince Ashworth scratched his head. "Brother, I... forgot to get a good look at her." From start to finish, he'd been too busy watching that old scoundrel, the Duke of Crestfall.
The Emperor was speechless. What an idiot.
"Who cares what she looks like?" Ashworth said, his voice rising. "The point is, the Duke actually stooped so low as to poison her lover just to have her. It's insane!"
"So what about the other two men?" the Emperor asked, leaning forward.
"That old scoundrel tricked me," Ashworth said indignantly.
"He claimed he had a lead on something, but he just dragged me and my daughter to the outskirts of Argent to help him catch his runaway mistress. Then, on the way back to the city, we ran into two other guys trying to grab her. I drew my sword and took care of them pretty quickly."
"And the pregnancy? Didn't you say her lover was that servant, Leo?"
Ashworth shook his head. "The woman said it herself, she's pregnant with the Duke's child. The depraved old villain must have forced himself on her."
The Emperor fell silent again, processing. Were the private lives of his ministers really this much of a mess?
"You really didn't get a good look at her face?" he pressed. If she wasn't a total knockout, how could a rake like the Duke of Crestfall, a man who usually only cared for his silly games, do something as insane as poisoning a servant and stealing his lover?
Seeing his brother's fixation, Ashworth scoffed. "If you want to see her that badly, why don't you go to Crestfall House yourself? She's in the main hall right now."
The Emperor went quiet. Him, the Emperor, showing up at a subject's house in the middle of the night just to check out his mistress? It was completely inappropriate.
Suddenly, Cassidy gasped. "Father, we just left her there! What if the Duke kills her to shut her up?"
Prince Ashworth's eyes went wide. "He might! We can't let that old scoundrel get away with it!"
The father and daughter jumped to their feet, ready to bolt.
"Stop!" the Emperor called out, annoyed.
He couldn't believe these two. They spin him a story this juicy late at night and then just try to leave him alone in his bedroom to stew over it, not caring one bit that he was completely hooked.
When they both turned to stare at him expectantly, the Emperor's irritation grew. Didn't they have the sense to invite him? He wanted to go to Crestfall House, too, to see for himself just how unbelievably beautiful this woman had to be.
Ashworth caught the look on his brother's face and narrowed his eyes. "You're not thinking of stealing his mistress too, are you? You've got a whole wing full of women. Why are you eyeing someone else's?"
Hearing this, Cassidy whipped her head around to stare at her uncle. "You wouldn't do that, would you, Uncle?"
The Emperor was speechless. These two little brats.
"The Duke of Crestfall's grandfather was a founding hero who bled alongside our own," the Emperor declared, puffing out his chest.
"And now his descendant is riding on his family's coattails while committing these insane acts. It chills me to the bone! I have decided to go to Crestfall House myself and teach this arrogant punk a lesson for his grandfather's sake!"
*Just as I thought,* Ashworth mused. *He wants to steal the mistress.*
Cassidy, however, took him at his word. The moment she heard the Emperor was coming, she grabbed his sleeve and started pulling him toward the door.
The Emperor, still in his nightclothes with his hair a mess, was horrified. "Wait, I'm a mess! I can't be seen like this!"
He immediately called for his servants to get him properly dressed.
*Yep, he definitely wants to steal the mistress,* Ashworth thought, watching his brother. *He's even getting all dressed up for it.*
Cassidy watched the servants slowly dressing the Emperor, practically bouncing with anxiety. "Uncle, if we don't go now, he's going to kill her! That's two lives we're talking about!"
Her frantic energy made the servants' hands tremble, but they managed to get the Emperor dressed and ready in record time.
Before they left, the Emperor made sure to summon Steward Payne.
The old steward, woken from a dead sleep, could only wonder if the ancestral kings were sleeping on the job.
The Sterling family was getting completely out of line.
Couldn't one of the ancestors step in and do something?
A short while later, led by Cassidy, the two royal brothers snuck out of the palace and reappeared at Crestfall House.
The Duke of Crestfall, who was in the middle of questioning the woman, saw the Emperor appear in his hall and his brain simply shut down. He could almost understand Prince Ashworth and his daughter running around Argent at this hour, but why was the Emperor here, too?
Though terrified and confused, everyone in Crestfall House scrambled to their knees.
The Emperor had no time for them. He waved a hand for them to stand, his eyes already locked on the woman at the center of the room.
"Lift your head," he said coolly.
The woman was trembling, her body shaking uncontrollably as she shakily raised her head, her eyes wide with terror.
The Emperor looked down at her, a flicker of confusion in his eyes. She was pretty, with a certain charm, but she was hardly a goddess. In fact, she couldn't hold a candle to the women in his Consorts' Wing.
With looks this ordinary, how did she drive the Duke of Crestfall so mad that he'd thrown all morals, laws, and basic decency out the window?
Noticing his brother hadn't taken his eyes off the woman, Ashworth leaned in close. "If you dare do something to shame our ancestors, like stealing another man's mistress," he threatened in a low voice, "I'm telling the Empress Dowager."
The Emperor shot him a disgusted look before turning his scornful gaze on the Duke. An old man like him, still pulling this kind of scandalous nonsense.
Meeting the Emperor's stare, the Duke of Crestfall dropped to his knees again with a thud. "Your Majesty, I... I am so ashamed!"
The Emperor snorted, looking down at him.
"You have every reason to be," he scolded without mercy.
"Think of your grandfather. He was a man of integrity his whole life, honest, open, a truly righteous man who worked himself to the bone for this country. He was admirable. But look at you. You haven't inherited a single shred of his character. Instead,
you've brought nothing but shame to your family name!"
He took a breath, his voice ringing through the hall. "At your age, you poisoned a servant, stole his mistress, and even forced yourself on the woman until she became pregnant! These are disgusting, filthy acts!"
"How can you possibly face your ancestors? How can you face the incredible reputation your grandfather built?"
The Duke of Crestfall knelt there, baffled.
Wait a minute.
Poisoning a servant?
Stealing a servant's mistress?
Forcing a woman?
A pregnancy?
He understood all the words separately, but strung together like that, he couldn't make sense of a single thing.