THE ENGAGEMENTS.

As soon as Adele's death was officially announced, the Decaux manor was bombarded with letters.

Most of them offering consolations for her death, but some of them also subtly inquiring on the state of Sabine's engagement. Claude, of course, had no idea why people were suddenly inquiring, or why they thought Adele had been handling it, but since they were all expecting answers from him he felt pressured to comply.

Fortunately, a letter from Marquess Tomas arrived just in time. He was requesting Claude's permission to be officially engaged to Sabine, and Claude was so relieved that he said yes. On paper Marquess Tomas was a perfect candidate. He had money, a nice family, and a good reputation amongst the people.

Though Sabine wasn't happy with the engagement, Claude convinced her to give it a try.

With Adele's death, Claude had also realised he might have to start taking his illness more seriously. At first he thought he would just recover if he got enough rest, but since he was now the only parent his daughters had, he thought it was better to be safe than sorry and called for a doctor.

After discovering which doctor Claude called for, Yvette then made a trip to visit said doctor at her home, where she made a couple vague threats with a smile on her face.

When the doctor arrived the next day, she informed Claude that his immune system was simply compromised with old age and there wasn't much he could do to recover other than to rest more and to make sure he ate the medicine she prescribed him. It was nothing more than ground up grass, of course, so it wouldn't actually make a difference, but no one but the doctor and Yvette knew that.

Claude relaxed slightly knowing that Sabine would be alright, with her engagement to Marquess Tomas being confirmed. He was still a little worried about Genevieve, however, even though she was only seventeen and it was still a bit early to be worrying about finding her a husband.

Amongst all the letters to Claude expressing their condolences for Adele, Yvette had received a few that were addressed to her. She got one from Bastien as well as one from Simon. The one from Bastien was long and full of flowery words. He even promised that if she wanted to she could rely on him to help, more or less stating his intentions towards her. Simon's letter on the other hand just contained a simple 'sorry for your loss'.

Yvette put Bastien's letter to the side for the time being, and wrote a letter back to Simon. In the letter she cleanly stated that she was worried about her position in the house, as her family had never cared much for her, and since Claude was thinking of marrying his daughters off soon, she was concerned he would marry her off to someone she wouldn't like.

Two days later another letter arrived stating someone's intention to get engaged to one of the Decaux girls.

To everyone's surprise but Yvette's, Simon, the first prince, had asked for Yvette's hand in marriage.

Even if Claude wanted to refuse there was no good reason to. Despite how much he hated Yvette and hated the thought of her marrying into the royal family, he had no reason to prevent the engagement from happening, so he accepted Simon's offer, and the next of the Decaux daughters was officially engaged.

Now all that was left was for Genevieve to find her match.

Yvette had a plan for that too.

While Genevieve was stressing about her own match up, Yvette sent a response to Bastien. In it, she told him about how she had been engaged to Simon, and how she was a bit worried as she didn't really know him and about how she'd heard the rumours surrounding him. She was sure Bastien would be able to draw his own conclusions from the tone of her letter.

Then, she made sure to drop a mention about how she was glad at the very least that Sabine had found a nice match for a husband to be, as she'd met him a couple times during their engagement negotiations and thought he was a nice fit. Then, she worried about Genevieve, who was the only one who had yet to find a match.

Needless to say, Yvette was not at all surprised when a couple days later Bastien had sent over a letter declaring his intentions to marry Genevieve.

Genevieve herself was overjoyed, and Sabine looked a bit bitter, but Yvette laughed in her heart. She wondered how long she would continue to be happy knowing that Bastien hadn't asked for the engagement because he liked her, and had only done it in order to be closer to Yvette.

Oh well. It was better if Genevieve continued to be unaware. Maybe she wouldn't realise until they were already married and she discovered that Bastien didn't care at all for her and only used her to meet with Yvette.

Yvette would look forward to that day.