[Jaeyi] The conspiracy of a pregnant wife and a mistress in her panties.
RL Date: 4/16/10
IC Date: 7/3/22
A day or two after midsummer, assuming Esraval's having dinner with his wife (as usual), Jaeyi is yet again in that big-plush-office. It's escalated, of course, with her having acquired a key to said office, with her now knowing where the key to the desk is kept, with her being stupid enough to put both of them to use. But not so stupid that she hasn't got a cover story, so-- lucky Isobel-- she'll get to barge in on her husband's mistress, sitting in his big desk chair, wearing one of his more favorite get-ups for the Baker. It'd be super-hot if Isobel wasn't seven (eight?) months pregnant. And was a guy.
Spousely dinner was cancelled tonight, unfortunately for Jaeyi - some kind of emergency at one of the outlying farmholds that Esraval was called off to deal with Right That Second - and here comes Isobel with a sheaf of papers in her hand, which dangle there forgotten while she stares at Jaeyi openmouthed. Dumbfounded shock, after a lengthy and painful silence, turns to anger, and with flushed face and narrowed eyes, Isobel demands, "Exactly what do you think you are doing here, /Baker/?"
The conundrum with which Jaeyi is presented is intense: she could snatch the robe off the back of the chair, or-- seeing as Isobel's footfall is considerably lighter than her husband's and the /Baker/ had no idea she was coming-- she could hastily shove the journal she's just got open on her lap back into the false bottom of the drawer from whence it came. In the end, she elects to drop the book on her lap, grab the robe off the chair, drag it around her shoulders in some semblance of decency, and say hastily, "Catching a draft?" And look beyond Isobel to the open door, close please?
Isobel shuts the door firmly, and crosses the room with as dignified a stride as she can manage in her stage of pregnancy. "My husband is not in the hold," she informs Jaeyi coolly. "But I was with him when he left, and he certainly didn't mention, when he asked me to return these papers to his office, that he had planned to entertain here this evening." She sets the sheaf of papers down on the desk and moves a paperweight atop it. Then she turns to face Jaeyi, and lifts her eyebrows expectantly: well?
"Oh." Jaeyi puts the robe on properly with a minimum of skin-on-display in the process, squirming in the chair until everything's as neatly covered up as it can be under the circumstances and she can smile afterward, like now it's suddenly all better. It's not until Isobel comes over that she decides to hastily shove the open drawer shut again, the inkwell, false bottom, and pen set still on the desk in front of her, glaringly not the way the husband-in-question leaves his office. "So, uhmn, I've kind of been having sex with your husband for quite some time now. Like, longer than you have, I think." Because getting caught for that? Way better than getting caught rifling through his drawers.
Isobel's eyebrows arch just a bit further up. "Yes," she says, and the temperature drops a few degrees. "I am aware of that. I wasn't aware that this involved rifling through his desk, though." She looks pointedly at the drawer that was open until just a moment ago. "Silly me, perhaps that's part of some new sexual act that I haven't yet had the pleasure of experiencing."
Jaeyi's, "Sometimes?" probably isn't the best answer, but it's better than the alternative. "I mean, once you're all better--" She looks pointedly at Isobel's stomach, trying so so so hard to pretend there's not a desk there at all, certainly not one with drawers, certainly not one with drawers with secret compartments. "--I'm sure you'll, uhmn. That. Have the pleasure of experiencing." She manages not to blush or even really look ashamed of herself, just kind of holding a smile that knows she's caught, just isn't sure which 'caught' she is yet.
Isobel gives Jaeyi a long, penetrating look. She is Not Amused. Finally, she shrugs her shoulders. "Alright," she says dismissively. "If you're not going to explain to me what you're doing here, you can explain it to Esraval when he gets back. I'm sure the hold guards will be more than pleased to keep you company in the meantime." She waits a beat, though, before starting back toward the door, to give Jaeyi a chance to change her mind.
Fold or go all-in... Jaeyi bites her lower lip for the space of that beat, even lets Isobel turn around, during which her expression is so utterly torn that it would be comical if there were anyone around to see it. Finally, before she can waddle all the way to the door-- "Do you trust your husband, Isobel? Really?"
Isobel stops, and turns, and her eyes are narrowed even more than they were before. That struck a nerve. "Is that meant to be funny?" she asks stiffly, but the indignation is all wrong, not even half as believable as just a moment ago. Answer: No.
"I don't mean," Jaeyi begins, unable to conclude with anything beyond a wave of her hand to indicate the whole scantily-clad-mistress issue. "Do you-- he's-- I think he and Rivellan are up to no-good together. He's already taken the Hold away from his brother, now his brother's son, and I think that's just the tip of the iceberg." There. She says it, puts the journal off her lap and onto the desk in front of her.
Isobel frowns. "Astivan is very young," she says, but she sounds uncertain. "What do you mean, the tip of the iceberg? What could he possibly - /Rivellan/?" There's distaste in her voice, when she speaks the other holder's name. But she's not convinced. She crosses her arms atop her belly, and eyes Jaeyi with a steely gaze.
Making a face, Jaeyi points out, "Yes, he's very young, and he just got voted out of his inheritance. Doesn't that /strike/ you at all?" Sighing, meeting Isobel's hard gaze with one that, under the circumstances, is calm if a little pleading, she explains, "I-- mmn, I overheard him and Rivellan talking in a side corridor, about getting rid of Astivan and about taking over the Hold."
Isobel opens her mouth, and then closes it again. She looks profoundly uncomfortable. "I see," she says, still frowning, and there's a very long pause. Finally she asks, "And have you... reported this to anyone?"
"Thaaaaat depends on whether or not you plan on turning me in." Jaeyi clasps her hands tightly, knuckles white, on her knees, the chair swiveling so she can face Isobel completely. "I'm so sorry, Isobel, I really am. I so wanted to think the best of him, but... he must talk to you. You must know what a-- how he's so--" She shakes her head, looking up at the blond with open pleading now instead of just a little pleading.
Isobel's forehead creases, and she looks - well, she looks as if she ate something that had gone over. "Just tell me one thing," she says to Jaeyi, her face pinched and her voice tight. "Why did you - come here to begin with? I thought, at first, it must be that you couldn't have gotten a journeyman's knot any other way, but that can't be true. You're a good baker."
Jaeyi's not dressed to go retrieve soda crackers for Isobel, but she does reach for Esraval's wastebasket to hold on her knees, in case there's some retching in the immediate future. Pregnant and all. "So many reasons," she answers, eyes on the rim of the trash bin for now. "I wanted to... get out from under some things at the Weyr, and the only way I was ever going to get posted at Fort Hold--" She says it illustriously, /the/ Fort Hold. "--was if someone who could make it happen asked for me specifically. And, well, I thought Esraval was sexy and knew he wanted me, so it all seemed to make sense." If they're being candid, "Why did you marry him?"
"Ah." Isobel's expression softens just a touch. And she answers Jaeyi's question honestly, before it occurs to her to do otherwise. "It was expected of me. It is what I was born and raised to do. And by the time it occurred to me that I might want anything else..." she shrugs, and doesn't finish that sentence. "You lived at the weyr for a long time, I think, didn't you? And the people there have certain beliefs about the realities of life that are... odd, to say the least." She's being polite: she means 'delusional.' "The men in our world sometimes let us believe we have choices about things such as this. But they control far more than they will admit aloud. And all the noise that the weyrfolk make about 'choices' for women - it's only so much wind, in reality. I'm sorry. It must be difficult for you."
Jaeyi half-nods, half-shrugs for the length of her stay at the Weyr, listening to all the rest of it with a great deal of sympathy in her expression, eyes dropping now and then from Isobel's face to the tummy in between them. "I don't think it's any more difficult for me than it is for you. Just that, well, I don't want to do this forever, I don't want to be Esraval's wh-- mistress until I'm old and miserable and he's had all the best years of my life. And I don't want Esraval to get away with whatever it is he's doing." Dark eyes turn upward, questioningly; does Isobel want those things?
"I can't believe he would harm Astivan," Isobel says, still troubled by all this. "I - I know you mean well, and you wouldn't say a thing like that to be malicious, or - anything like that." Such touching faith in humanity she has. "But isn't it possible you... misheard?"
"You can't?" Jaeyi asks doubtfully, reaching out with one hand toward that belly Isobel's sporting. "Sweetie, your husband is a spoiled, selfish, conniving man who spent all his years being jealous of his brother. Do you think he's willing to go through that all again with his nephew when he could just be rid of the boy? Or let his own son go through all that?" She shakes her head at that last question, firm, convinced. "You don't have to believe me if you don't want to. I know it's gotta be a hard pill to swallow, /especially/ when you're about ready to pop, but-- look, if I'm wrong, then whatever I'm doing in this office never amounts to anything, right? So no one ever has to know I was here, hmn?"
Isobel looks down at her belly, then back at Jaeyi. "You - could be planting false evidence," she suggests, but her expression and her hesitant tone betray that she doesn't really believe that. She's not so stupid as all that, nor such a bad judge of character. But denial isn't just a river on some planet they've never heard of. "What were you looking at when I came in?" She gestures at the desk drawer, now closed.
Forehead creasing, it's pretty obvious that Jaeyi would never have thought of this 'planting false evidence' idea on her own in a million years, though, now that it's come up, she very briefly entertains the notion. "No. No, that's not what I'm doing. I'm--" She runs a hand over the journal then dives it into the pocket of her robe, drawing out a couple of carefully folded pages. "I'm putting these back. I took them a few days ago. I gave them to someone to copy, to try to figure out, and now I'm putting them back before Esraval finds out. And I'm looking for more things to take."
Isobel reaches out her hand wordlessly for the pages. The look on her face is almost one of relief. After all, if there's /evidence/ -- evidence that's more than someone's claim they heard voices in a corridor -- well, that would make things so much clearer, wouldn't it? But she wants to see for herself.
Jaeyi unfolds the pages on the table next to the journal, smoothing them out. Unfortunately, the evidence isn't exactly as concrete as 'Rivellan and I are totally bad guys together!' "I-- I gave it to T'rev. He showed it to Cirse and Hattie. They had that one kid make copies of it, I think, so they can figure out what it is. But, Isobel, he keeps it in a drawer with a hidden compartment, so obviously he doesn't want anyone to know about it. And there're more of those compartments, so there must be more stuff."
Isobel lowers the papers half-scanned over, and looks at the baker in shock. "You did what? Jaeyi, he could have you hanged as a traitor. And me, for not reporting this."
"He could. If he finds out, he probably will. But... well, I have to do /something/. And this seems like a pretty good start. Especially if there's more, right?" Jaeyi puts the basket back down on the floor, now that the immediate threat of vomiting seems to have passed. "If he finds out, I promise I won't tell him that you're in-the-know. He never ever has to know we had this conversation, even. But I could-- please don't tell him? Please?"
Isobel looks at Jaeyi for a long moment. Then, she pages through the papers in her hand, shaking her head as she briefly scans the text. "I don't see what is important about these, or what they prove." But she hands them back. "I won't tell Esraval. I need to speak with my brother, though," she says. "This is - not safe. For either of us."
Jaeyi puts the pages back in the journal, exactly the same way they were, lowering her eyes from Isobel's to put the drawer back together, exactly the same way that it was. "By themselves? They probably don't prove anything. But if there are these... there are more, hmn?" Closing the drawer, leaning back in the big chair with her attention returning to the other woman, she agrees, "No, probably not. But there're worse things than 'not safe,' sweetie." She takes a big breath, adding, "Thank you. For not just, like, screaming for the guards or whatever."
Isobel gives Jaeyi a dirty look. "Worse things than being dead? Yes, I suppose there are," she says acidly. Then, in a calmer tone, "Do you know the other hiding places? He told me not to expect him back for at least three hours."
Answering that dirty look, Jaeyi points out, "I've been fucking your husband almost nightly for-- what, five or six months now? And maybe it's not really worse than being dead, but putting out because you're /expected/ to when all you want is to be with someone you actually love? Is pretty much lousy." And she gets up at that point, nodding about knowing where the other hiding places are, at least a couple-- a second false bottom, a fake book. It's weird to be wandering around the man's office in her lingerie with his very pregnant wife, but.
"You have someone who loves you?" Isobel asks, pointedly. It's not really a question. "Don't talk to me about lousy." There's so much bitterness in her voice it's a wonder she can swallow without choking. But rather than elaborate any further on /that/, she follows Jaeyi around the office, ignoring the lingerie completely, and making brisk plans with her about what to copy first, and where else to look next time one of them has leisure to explore the office. With Isobel's knowledge of Esraval's comings and goings, and with two of them to trade off being lookout, it ought to be much easier to explore further without getting caught.
She doesn't answer that time, except to trade a long-suffering look. Jaeyi chimes in helpfully about things like... oh, Isobel can make sure to keep him occupied longer at dinner, Jaeyi can detain him longer afterward, they can lead conversations along to see if Esraval will give up anything verbally, say things to his wife he won't to his mistress and vice versa. By the end, even if they haven't necessarily found anything else they can use right away, they've got the beginnings of a conspiracy, and that's a lot better than just turning up in her panties in Esraval's office once a week, pawing through his desk!
IC Date: 7/3/22
A day or two after midsummer, assuming Esraval's having dinner with his wife (as usual), Jaeyi is yet again in that big-plush-office. It's escalated, of course, with her having acquired a key to said office, with her now knowing where the key to the desk is kept, with her being stupid enough to put both of them to use. But not so stupid that she hasn't got a cover story, so-- lucky Isobel-- she'll get to barge in on her husband's mistress, sitting in his big desk chair, wearing one of his more favorite get-ups for the Baker. It'd be super-hot if Isobel wasn't seven (eight?) months pregnant. And was a guy.
Spousely dinner was cancelled tonight, unfortunately for Jaeyi - some kind of emergency at one of the outlying farmholds that Esraval was called off to deal with Right That Second - and here comes Isobel with a sheaf of papers in her hand, which dangle there forgotten while she stares at Jaeyi openmouthed. Dumbfounded shock, after a lengthy and painful silence, turns to anger, and with flushed face and narrowed eyes, Isobel demands, "Exactly what do you think you are doing here, /Baker/?"
The conundrum with which Jaeyi is presented is intense: she could snatch the robe off the back of the chair, or-- seeing as Isobel's footfall is considerably lighter than her husband's and the /Baker/ had no idea she was coming-- she could hastily shove the journal she's just got open on her lap back into the false bottom of the drawer from whence it came. In the end, she elects to drop the book on her lap, grab the robe off the chair, drag it around her shoulders in some semblance of decency, and say hastily, "Catching a draft?" And look beyond Isobel to the open door, close please?
Isobel shuts the door firmly, and crosses the room with as dignified a stride as she can manage in her stage of pregnancy. "My husband is not in the hold," she informs Jaeyi coolly. "But I was with him when he left, and he certainly didn't mention, when he asked me to return these papers to his office, that he had planned to entertain here this evening." She sets the sheaf of papers down on the desk and moves a paperweight atop it. Then she turns to face Jaeyi, and lifts her eyebrows expectantly: well?
"Oh." Jaeyi puts the robe on properly with a minimum of skin-on-display in the process, squirming in the chair until everything's as neatly covered up as it can be under the circumstances and she can smile afterward, like now it's suddenly all better. It's not until Isobel comes over that she decides to hastily shove the open drawer shut again, the inkwell, false bottom, and pen set still on the desk in front of her, glaringly not the way the husband-in-question leaves his office. "So, uhmn, I've kind of been having sex with your husband for quite some time now. Like, longer than you have, I think." Because getting caught for that? Way better than getting caught rifling through his drawers.
Isobel's eyebrows arch just a bit further up. "Yes," she says, and the temperature drops a few degrees. "I am aware of that. I wasn't aware that this involved rifling through his desk, though." She looks pointedly at the drawer that was open until just a moment ago. "Silly me, perhaps that's part of some new sexual act that I haven't yet had the pleasure of experiencing."
Jaeyi's, "Sometimes?" probably isn't the best answer, but it's better than the alternative. "I mean, once you're all better--" She looks pointedly at Isobel's stomach, trying so so so hard to pretend there's not a desk there at all, certainly not one with drawers, certainly not one with drawers with secret compartments. "--I'm sure you'll, uhmn. That. Have the pleasure of experiencing." She manages not to blush or even really look ashamed of herself, just kind of holding a smile that knows she's caught, just isn't sure which 'caught' she is yet.
Isobel gives Jaeyi a long, penetrating look. She is Not Amused. Finally, she shrugs her shoulders. "Alright," she says dismissively. "If you're not going to explain to me what you're doing here, you can explain it to Esraval when he gets back. I'm sure the hold guards will be more than pleased to keep you company in the meantime." She waits a beat, though, before starting back toward the door, to give Jaeyi a chance to change her mind.
Fold or go all-in... Jaeyi bites her lower lip for the space of that beat, even lets Isobel turn around, during which her expression is so utterly torn that it would be comical if there were anyone around to see it. Finally, before she can waddle all the way to the door-- "Do you trust your husband, Isobel? Really?"
Isobel stops, and turns, and her eyes are narrowed even more than they were before. That struck a nerve. "Is that meant to be funny?" she asks stiffly, but the indignation is all wrong, not even half as believable as just a moment ago. Answer: No.
"I don't mean," Jaeyi begins, unable to conclude with anything beyond a wave of her hand to indicate the whole scantily-clad-mistress issue. "Do you-- he's-- I think he and Rivellan are up to no-good together. He's already taken the Hold away from his brother, now his brother's son, and I think that's just the tip of the iceberg." There. She says it, puts the journal off her lap and onto the desk in front of her.
Isobel frowns. "Astivan is very young," she says, but she sounds uncertain. "What do you mean, the tip of the iceberg? What could he possibly - /Rivellan/?" There's distaste in her voice, when she speaks the other holder's name. But she's not convinced. She crosses her arms atop her belly, and eyes Jaeyi with a steely gaze.
Making a face, Jaeyi points out, "Yes, he's very young, and he just got voted out of his inheritance. Doesn't that /strike/ you at all?" Sighing, meeting Isobel's hard gaze with one that, under the circumstances, is calm if a little pleading, she explains, "I-- mmn, I overheard him and Rivellan talking in a side corridor, about getting rid of Astivan and about taking over the Hold."
Isobel opens her mouth, and then closes it again. She looks profoundly uncomfortable. "I see," she says, still frowning, and there's a very long pause. Finally she asks, "And have you... reported this to anyone?"
"Thaaaaat depends on whether or not you plan on turning me in." Jaeyi clasps her hands tightly, knuckles white, on her knees, the chair swiveling so she can face Isobel completely. "I'm so sorry, Isobel, I really am. I so wanted to think the best of him, but... he must talk to you. You must know what a-- how he's so--" She shakes her head, looking up at the blond with open pleading now instead of just a little pleading.
Isobel's forehead creases, and she looks - well, she looks as if she ate something that had gone over. "Just tell me one thing," she says to Jaeyi, her face pinched and her voice tight. "Why did you - come here to begin with? I thought, at first, it must be that you couldn't have gotten a journeyman's knot any other way, but that can't be true. You're a good baker."
Jaeyi's not dressed to go retrieve soda crackers for Isobel, but she does reach for Esraval's wastebasket to hold on her knees, in case there's some retching in the immediate future. Pregnant and all. "So many reasons," she answers, eyes on the rim of the trash bin for now. "I wanted to... get out from under some things at the Weyr, and the only way I was ever going to get posted at Fort Hold--" She says it illustriously, /the/ Fort Hold. "--was if someone who could make it happen asked for me specifically. And, well, I thought Esraval was sexy and knew he wanted me, so it all seemed to make sense." If they're being candid, "Why did you marry him?"
"Ah." Isobel's expression softens just a touch. And she answers Jaeyi's question honestly, before it occurs to her to do otherwise. "It was expected of me. It is what I was born and raised to do. And by the time it occurred to me that I might want anything else..." she shrugs, and doesn't finish that sentence. "You lived at the weyr for a long time, I think, didn't you? And the people there have certain beliefs about the realities of life that are... odd, to say the least." She's being polite: she means 'delusional.' "The men in our world sometimes let us believe we have choices about things such as this. But they control far more than they will admit aloud. And all the noise that the weyrfolk make about 'choices' for women - it's only so much wind, in reality. I'm sorry. It must be difficult for you."
Jaeyi half-nods, half-shrugs for the length of her stay at the Weyr, listening to all the rest of it with a great deal of sympathy in her expression, eyes dropping now and then from Isobel's face to the tummy in between them. "I don't think it's any more difficult for me than it is for you. Just that, well, I don't want to do this forever, I don't want to be Esraval's wh-- mistress until I'm old and miserable and he's had all the best years of my life. And I don't want Esraval to get away with whatever it is he's doing." Dark eyes turn upward, questioningly; does Isobel want those things?
"I can't believe he would harm Astivan," Isobel says, still troubled by all this. "I - I know you mean well, and you wouldn't say a thing like that to be malicious, or - anything like that." Such touching faith in humanity she has. "But isn't it possible you... misheard?"
"You can't?" Jaeyi asks doubtfully, reaching out with one hand toward that belly Isobel's sporting. "Sweetie, your husband is a spoiled, selfish, conniving man who spent all his years being jealous of his brother. Do you think he's willing to go through that all again with his nephew when he could just be rid of the boy? Or let his own son go through all that?" She shakes her head at that last question, firm, convinced. "You don't have to believe me if you don't want to. I know it's gotta be a hard pill to swallow, /especially/ when you're about ready to pop, but-- look, if I'm wrong, then whatever I'm doing in this office never amounts to anything, right? So no one ever has to know I was here, hmn?"
Isobel looks down at her belly, then back at Jaeyi. "You - could be planting false evidence," she suggests, but her expression and her hesitant tone betray that she doesn't really believe that. She's not so stupid as all that, nor such a bad judge of character. But denial isn't just a river on some planet they've never heard of. "What were you looking at when I came in?" She gestures at the desk drawer, now closed.
Forehead creasing, it's pretty obvious that Jaeyi would never have thought of this 'planting false evidence' idea on her own in a million years, though, now that it's come up, she very briefly entertains the notion. "No. No, that's not what I'm doing. I'm--" She runs a hand over the journal then dives it into the pocket of her robe, drawing out a couple of carefully folded pages. "I'm putting these back. I took them a few days ago. I gave them to someone to copy, to try to figure out, and now I'm putting them back before Esraval finds out. And I'm looking for more things to take."
Isobel reaches out her hand wordlessly for the pages. The look on her face is almost one of relief. After all, if there's /evidence/ -- evidence that's more than someone's claim they heard voices in a corridor -- well, that would make things so much clearer, wouldn't it? But she wants to see for herself.
Jaeyi unfolds the pages on the table next to the journal, smoothing them out. Unfortunately, the evidence isn't exactly as concrete as 'Rivellan and I are totally bad guys together!' "I-- I gave it to T'rev. He showed it to Cirse and Hattie. They had that one kid make copies of it, I think, so they can figure out what it is. But, Isobel, he keeps it in a drawer with a hidden compartment, so obviously he doesn't want anyone to know about it. And there're more of those compartments, so there must be more stuff."
Isobel lowers the papers half-scanned over, and looks at the baker in shock. "You did what? Jaeyi, he could have you hanged as a traitor. And me, for not reporting this."
"He could. If he finds out, he probably will. But... well, I have to do /something/. And this seems like a pretty good start. Especially if there's more, right?" Jaeyi puts the basket back down on the floor, now that the immediate threat of vomiting seems to have passed. "If he finds out, I promise I won't tell him that you're in-the-know. He never ever has to know we had this conversation, even. But I could-- please don't tell him? Please?"
Isobel looks at Jaeyi for a long moment. Then, she pages through the papers in her hand, shaking her head as she briefly scans the text. "I don't see what is important about these, or what they prove." But she hands them back. "I won't tell Esraval. I need to speak with my brother, though," she says. "This is - not safe. For either of us."
Jaeyi puts the pages back in the journal, exactly the same way they were, lowering her eyes from Isobel's to put the drawer back together, exactly the same way that it was. "By themselves? They probably don't prove anything. But if there are these... there are more, hmn?" Closing the drawer, leaning back in the big chair with her attention returning to the other woman, she agrees, "No, probably not. But there're worse things than 'not safe,' sweetie." She takes a big breath, adding, "Thank you. For not just, like, screaming for the guards or whatever."
Isobel gives Jaeyi a dirty look. "Worse things than being dead? Yes, I suppose there are," she says acidly. Then, in a calmer tone, "Do you know the other hiding places? He told me not to expect him back for at least three hours."
Answering that dirty look, Jaeyi points out, "I've been fucking your husband almost nightly for-- what, five or six months now? And maybe it's not really worse than being dead, but putting out because you're /expected/ to when all you want is to be with someone you actually love? Is pretty much lousy." And she gets up at that point, nodding about knowing where the other hiding places are, at least a couple-- a second false bottom, a fake book. It's weird to be wandering around the man's office in her lingerie with his very pregnant wife, but.
"You have someone who loves you?" Isobel asks, pointedly. It's not really a question. "Don't talk to me about lousy." There's so much bitterness in her voice it's a wonder she can swallow without choking. But rather than elaborate any further on /that/, she follows Jaeyi around the office, ignoring the lingerie completely, and making brisk plans with her about what to copy first, and where else to look next time one of them has leisure to explore the office. With Isobel's knowledge of Esraval's comings and goings, and with two of them to trade off being lookout, it ought to be much easier to explore further without getting caught.
She doesn't answer that time, except to trade a long-suffering look. Jaeyi chimes in helpfully about things like... oh, Isobel can make sure to keep him occupied longer at dinner, Jaeyi can detain him longer afterward, they can lead conversations along to see if Esraval will give up anything verbally, say things to his wife he won't to his mistress and vice versa. By the end, even if they haven't necessarily found anything else they can use right away, they've got the beginnings of a conspiracy, and that's a lot better than just turning up in her panties in Esraval's office once a week, pawing through his desk!