Everyone in the residence was still awake.
In the dead of night.
When the carriage stopped before the gate of the ducal residence, the lamps in the entrance hall flared on all at once, before its door had even finished opening.
"My lady!"
Sebastian, the aging butler, came hurrying over, his footsteps loud on the floor. Behind him was Emma, Rosalind's own maid. Even the head maid, who by rights should have been asleep at this hour, had appeared with nothing but a shawl thrown over her white nightclothes.
Rosalind set her foot on the carriage step and let out a small breath.
—Ah. So the rumors have already run on ahead.
From the royal palace to the ducal residence was about half an hour by carriage. In that time, the buzz of the evening party had apparently arrived before the carriage did.
"You're back so early... Has something happened?" Sebastian asked, lowering his voice.
He had spent ten years watching Rosalind's habit of shutting herself in the study with an armful of ledgers. One look at her face, and he knew something had happened at the party.
Rosalind undid the clasp of her cloak and slid it onto the head maid's arm. As she did, there was the faint rustle of paper from the pocket at her breast.
—Economic Advisor to the Grand Duchy of Vernant. Annual salary. Independent office. Penalty clause. Signature line: Rosalind Abel.
A bookkeeper's habit: important documents always went close to the center of the body. She had done it ever since, in her past life, someone had nearly lifted a proposal from her bag on the last train home.
Rosalind rested her hand lightly over the pocket, then said, very briefly:
"Sebastian. The engagement has been broken off."
"Pardon?"
"By the other party, I should add."
The head maid's hands stilled on the cloak for an instant. Emma drew a small breath.
Rosalind gave a soft laugh.
"And I've found a new position."
"...P-pardon me?"
"Economic Advisor to the Grand Duchy of Vernant. I'd like you to go over the salary with me later, but the terms are not at all bad."
Sebastian blinked several times.
"Engagement broken," "new job secured," and "request to review annual salary," all flying at him within the same three seconds. Even for a seasoned old butler, this had apparently not been on the list of contingencies.
"M-my lady. Ah, your father—"
"I'll report to him tomorrow morning. Let him sleep tonight. It's far too much to tell a man his age all at once."
"...As you wish."
Sebastian bowed deeply, and then lowered his voice just a little.
"My lady. Please rest well tonight."
An ordinary, everyday thing to say.
And yet Rosalind stopped, for just a moment, on the marble of the entrance hall.
—In this country, the only ones who called me "Rosalind" were probably Father and this old butler.
No one else has any reason left to call me by my name.
"My lady?"
"...No, it's nothing. Thank you, Sebastian."
Rosalind set her foot on the stairs. There was a heaviness in her legs very much like climbing the station stairs after work, as she would have put it in her past life.
Only tonight, there was no work to go to tomorrow.
The resignation letter had come from the other side.
Once she shut the door of her room, she was finally alone.
Rosalind leaned her back against the door and let out a long breath.
Then she reached behind her for the laces of her gown and deftly undid them herself. She had sent the maids away because she wanted to take it off without anyone's help.
The weight of the gown fell to her feet with a thump.
She walked to the window and unfastened the latch. The autumn night breeze brushed over her thin chemise.
—And then.
Beyond the wall of the residence, the sound of horses' hooves striking cobblestones passed by, faintly.
Too quick a pace for a night watch.
Rosalind listened for a single beat, then promptly closed the window.
"Have they added patrols for the ducal house, I wonder?"
The words to herself faded at once.
In the dressing-table mirror was a familiar silver-haired woman.
One by one, she drew out the pins from her piled-up hair.
With each pin, it felt as if the title of the Crown Prince's fiancée was falling away, piece by piece.
Partway through, the head maid's voice came from the corridor.
"My lady, I'll leave some hot water outside the door."
"Thank you. You may go."
The footsteps receded. Rosalind pulled out the last pin and gazed at herself in the mirror.
"...Rosalind."
For the first time in a long while, she tried saying her own name with her own mouth.
It was still there. She had taken it back, properly, before she could become "Her Highness the Crown Princess."
She sat down in a chair and took the copy of the contract from her breast pocket. Once more, just once, she traced the signature line with her finger.
Rosalind Abel.
Not a duke's daughter, not a former fiancée, not a villainess—simply my own name.
"Ritsuko."
She called out so softly that no one could have heard.
"The name you wanted to protect—tonight, I wrote it on a contract, properly."
There was, of course, no answer.
The candle flame wavered, just slightly.
Rosalind gave a small smile and slipped the contract under her pillow. This, too, was a habit from her past life. Important documents went under your body when you slept.
—Around the same time, on the other side of the capital.
A man was smiling, at an angle no one could see.
The other side of the capital. An inn converted from an old monastery, its top floor.
The man, his jet-black formal coat draped over the armrest, settled deeper into his chair and, for the first time, exhaled.
It was a way of breathing that even the aide who had served him for seven years had never known.
"Your Grace. The positions around the Abel residence are all in place."
His taciturn swordsman of an aide reported briefly from beside the door.
"Good work."
Without further reply, Lucas kept looking out the window, toward where the Abel ducal residence stood.
"...And, Your Grace. Forgive me if I overstep."
"Go on."
The aide lowered his voice a notch.
"About her request for 'a space to sign in her own name' on the contract—what do you intend to do? That was—"
"Yes."
Lucas looked away from his own face reflected in the windowpane.
The corner of his mouth, in that averted profile, had lifted just slightly. It was an expression at an angle this man had shown no one tonight.
"So no one was watching her after all."
"Meaning, sir?"
"She lived in a country where she had to say out loud that she wanted to write her own name on a contract. —That's all."
The aide did not reply.
Because his master's voice had been about half a note lower than usual.
Lucas looked out the window once more.
"Three years. That was long."
The murmur melted away into the cold night air.
Lucas leaned back in his chair and at last turned toward his aide.
The corner of his mouth had already returned to its usual temperature.
"Send the carriage for her at first light. —And."
"Sir."
"There is one thing, and only one, that she needs to be told before tomorrow is out."
The aide raised an eyebrow.
Mixed into his master's voice was a kind of heat he had not heard once tonight.
—The next morning.
The far end of the second floor of the Abel ducal residence. Before the door to her father's study, Rosalind took one deep breath.
Before she could reach for the knocker, the door opened from inside.
The duke had already changed into clothes for going out.
"Come in, Rosalind."
Word of the evening party had evidently reached her father's ears as well.
On the desk lay one letter, its seal broken. The wax seal of the sender bore a crest she recognized.
Beside it, another.
A white letter, its seal still unbroken.
The wax seal was—the royal family's.
"Rosalind."
Her father's voice was about half a note lower than usual.
"—Are you truly sure about this?"
Rosalind gave a small nod and stepped inside the door.
Who the resignation letter would be addressed to—that was what lay ahead.