Chapter 90: Do I look as insane as I feel?
Cass was drained.
The next set of meetings had been...eventful. They had been full of the big boys. The ones who had weight to their names, the ones who had ties to the area, but took their money and invested it somewhere else. Cass had hoped that at least one of them would have been decent but every last one of them had been an entitled piece of trash.
Shit would have been too nice to call them.
Cass was exhausted having to try to keep the peace for a moment as he tried to sus out which of them were the pieces of shit stealing from him and Lord Blackburn. He had a feeling the sweeter and nicer they were towards him, the more disgusting their intentions were. Half of them didn’t even introduce themselves to him. Lord Blackburn.
It was dizzying, dealing with that level of entitlement and braggarts. He’d never had to deal with this kind of shit in his old life because he would have already thrown hands at this point, but he wasn’t Caspian anymore, he was Lord Blackburn. Lord Blackburn did not know how to throw hands like a commoner. He probably ordered someone like Sir Forsythe to throw hands for him.
Maybe...that was an option for the future if Cass wasn’t able to gain any muscle mass. He’d consider it, but for now, he had to hold his tongue, and smile sweetly even if he wanted to throw up. How anyone could be that full of themselves, after he’d just had to deal with Lady Ava, was insane.
Not all of them had been men. Most of them, of course, since Cass got the feeling that marriage may be free and you can marry many people, but this was still a society built on a patriarchy of sorts. Men were still dominant in all fields, and women had a harder time breaking in.
Which meant, either the women who broke in were completely different from the men around them, or just a carbon copy with tits. Cass found that to be the case with most of the women he interacted with today. He was disgusted, but what could he say? They all looked pretty on the outside, it was the inside that was rotten to the core.
Cass could imagine any one of them could have made deals with demons to get what they wanted, but he wasn’t going to make any rash accusations. After all, look at Lord Blackburn’s history? He still wasn’t sure if Lady Blackburn had been a demon worshipping woman yet or not, just that she had been on trial for it. It could have been a long smear campaign of the Blackburn family because they were getting too powerful.
It was a tale as old as time. One family gets too strong, a few others get together to bring them down a peg, and either the family made it through it, or sunk into oblivion. Cass was supposed to make sure that oblivion didn’t happen for the Blackburn family.
He had also nearly choked on all of the cologne and perfume that surrounded them as well. He had to have Sam air out the room by opening the windows which he normally left closed for sound reasons. If he’d had control over his magic, he would have cleared out the study quickly of the sickly sweet and overpowering scents. But, he wasn’t able to do that, so they did it the old fashioned way.
Thankfully, if Lady Ava was going to get into fights with the two people who clearly cared about her but she was being a damn brat, she wasn’t doing it outside his office and rooms anymore. There was silence outside of his windows besides the sounds of birds and the occasional animal call.
No screaming, yelling, adult women on the verge of a break up.
Cass wondered what his sister would think of this whole situation? If her beloved Lady Ava and Lady Fiona got into such a serious fight, would she have reacted the way that Cass had? Or would she have jumped in right away, taken the blame, and done whatever Lady Ava had asked of her?
He’d bet that she would have done the latter. Unlike Cass, his sister was a good soul. She liked to be helpful, and liked being kind. She was the kind of person who’d help an old lady cross the street. Not that Cass would let the lady suffer, he’d help, but he’d have to be asked first. She’d do it without prompting.
Fuck. Who was going to teach her kids to be menaces? To not trust everyone? Certainly not the two goody two shoes that were his sister and her husband. Especially with her husband working for the damn military. The kids were going to grow up too damn straight, too damn normal. He bet that they might not even rebel, especially with his sister as a Mom. She’d be too loving and kind. And fucking one of them was going to be named after him, he could feel it!
Damn it. He had been looking forward to teaching them the real ways of the world, and here he was, trapped in someone else’s body in a different fucking world.
And he had to deal with the damn politics of this world too. Fuck. At least he had money in this world, otherwise, this would have been too damn cruel.
Cass sighed, dropping his head onto his desk in between meetings and Sam halted. He’d been about to leave the room to go grab the next asshole that he had to smile pleasantly at and listen to them complain with a fucking smirk on their face.
"My Lord? Is everything alright?" Sam asked carefully and Cass sighed.
"Do you think anyone would care if I went out into the wild and just...left everything behind?" Cass asked. Sam paused, swallowing thickly as he took in the piles of papers around him, the meetings he had to sit through, and the drama he had witnessed today alone.
"Are you...feeling stressed, my Lord? Is that why you are asking me this?" Sam seemed hesitant. "If you are feeling stressed you just...need to let me or Byron know and we will do whatever we can to help." Cass wasn’t sure what kind of response he was expecting, but he had a feeling that no matter what he said, he wasn’t going to be satisfied with it.
He sat up, rubbing his face with the palms of his hands. Shaking himself, he sighed.
"It’s alright Sam. You already do enough for me as it stands. Speaking of, would you be able to look into hiring Byron a teacher for reading and writing? I forgot I had promised that while he was away. I should have had that lined up before, and while I am dealing with my...week off, that would be the perfect time for him to start." Sam gave him a suspicious look, but nodded.
"Of course my Lord. Do you need another moment before I call in the person for your last meeting of the day?" He asked. Cass shook his head, pushing his hair away from his face, revealing his healing scar.
"No. I feel if I delay it any longer they will probably explode, and once this is over, I can take another break." Cass told him and Sam nodded, a slight smile on his face.
"I shall make sure you have a little snack ready for when you are done. I will also make sure your favourite tea is ready as well." Cass nodded, appreciative of Sam’s care.
The man left, and Cass stared down at the papers below him. It had been quite a shock to find out that his writing was, if not the same, nearly identical to Lord Blackburn’s. It had been a rather strange find, and one he hadn’t considered much until this moment.
If that hadn’t been the case, he probably would have been found out on that alone.
Glancing around nervously, he exhaled slowly before he touched his lower stomach.
"How...are you doing in there, Lord Blackburn?" He whispered, not really expecting an answer, but asking anyways. "Is it...comfy? Is it like in those stories, where you can imagine where you are and get lost in happy memories while I’m up top here, doing the walking and talking business? Or...Or is it the other side, where it’s dark and cramped and awful?" Cass glanced towards the door, unable to hear Sam coming back yet. "I really hope it isn’t the second one. I’d feel even more guilty than I already do." Cass whispered quietly, patting his stomach. "I’m sorry. Really. I had no idea they would do something like this. I’m going to do my best to make sure you have a clear name, and everyone respects you so that when I finish my task, you can hop back in, business as usual. And I’ll..." Cass trailed off, turning his gaze towards the window.
The birdsong filtering in, the sun beaming down on the couch his sister would love, the outside world beyond this damn office and mansion.
"I’ll leave." Cass whispered. "I’ll be able to leave."