"Seventeen more addressed to you today, Lady Rosalind."
Morning in the office. A young clerk set the bundle of letters he'd been carrying in both arms on the corner of the desk. The sealing wax came in red, blue, deep green, silver. Each bore a noble crest, a different one for every sender.
Rosalind looked up from her projections and glanced at the pile.
"...Seventeen."
"That makes sixty-two in total since last week."
"Shall we assign more staff to sorting?"
She was perfectly serious.
The clerk started to say something, then stopped. His eyes wandered, and he looked to Oswald outside the door for help.
"...Lady Rosalind, um, as for your replies to the marriage proposals—"
"Marriage proposals?"
Rosalind knit her brows in puzzlement and pointed at the pile.
"Aren't these diplomatic correspondence?"
Oswald silently lifted his eyes to the ceiling.
A week had passed since the soirée.
A clerk had returned the jet-black cloak from that night to the Grand Duke's private chambers the next morning. On Rosalind's desk there was only the teapot, kept at the same temperature as always.
—Managing the cold is part of labor management. His Grace is quite the rational superior.
Rosalind truly filed it that way and got on with the day's work.
Within three days, however, high society had begun filing it quite differently.
"Did you hear? That night, His Grace—"
"His own cloak, of all things..."
"He did that, for a woman...?"
The whispers spread like waves, from behind fans, from corridor corners, from tea tables. Each time they spread they changed shape, and in the end they landed here:
"The woman who melted the Ice Grand Duke."
After that, high society did its arithmetic quickly.
The young ladies at home realized any further shots would be wasted, and they withdrew all at once. If one of them hadn't been the one to melt the Ice Grand Duke, then standing in line would never bring her turn.
The movement came from abroad instead.
—If they could snatch her before the Grand Duke secured her, it would be a diplomatic triumph. Even if they were too late, it would open a thread of connection to the Grand Duchy. Above all, poaching the very "Economic Advisor" who had rebuilt the Grand Duchy of Vernant's finances in a single year would be worth a national project in itself.
Three separate calculations, and every one of them landed on the desk of a single woman: Rosalind.
"Count Heinrich's daughter, Lady Clarissa, and Lady Ophelia have each, as of today, sent word withdrawing their marriage proposals."
In the afternoon office, Lucas's aide, Sir Dieter, stood before his desk and delivered the report flatly.
At the small desk beside them, Rosalind had the second sheet of her tariff projections spread out. She straightened the angle of the papers and looked up casually.
"Marriage proposals, you say?"
Sir Dieter's mouth snapped shut.
Lucas kept his eyes on his documents. His shoulders moved, very slightly.
"...Domestic matters being put in order. Don't concern yourself."
"Is that so."
Rosalind nodded readily and returned her gaze to her projections.
Sir Dieter bowed to Lucas, and before leaving the room he added one more thing.
"Your Grace. Shall we go on holding the inquiries from other nations on our end?"
"As they are."
It was the usual short reply.
Squaring the corners of her papers, Rosalind thought vaguely:
(Other nations... Has some diplomatic matter come up? I must check the agenda later.)
—She had filed it away as an entirely separate matter.
She was shown the bundle of inquiries properly the next morning.
"What are these...?"
Rosalind lined up the senders' seals one by one with her fingertips.
The Third Prince of the Kingdom of Clarc. The County of Norden. The Southern Lords' Alliance. House Rheinbach, across the strait. She recognized every crest. And yet every letter was addressed to:
"Economic Advisor Rosalind Abel"
(...Oh my.)
Rosalind stared at the seals for a while without expression. Then she drew her labor compensation chart toward her and began converting the figures in her head.
(The Third Prince of Clarc... No real power, given his place in the succession. The estate's books are healthy. Recast as an employment contract: decent base salary, but the termination clause is one-sided. The wording of the penalty clause is loose. Declined.)
(The County of Norden is in the middle of financial restructuring. Doubts about compensation stability. Declined.)
(The Southern Lords' Alliance... multiple employers, decisions by committee. In my past life, that would be multi-tier temp dispatch with no union. Out of the question.)
Rosalind stuck a small slip of paper onto each seal.
"Declined."
"Declined."
"Declined."
In front of the desk, the secretary Oswald pressed a bundle of papers to his mouth.
—Never in his life had he seen an advisor assess marriage proposals by the termination clauses of an employment contract.
"Focus on your work."
Lucas's voice fell right beside her.
When Rosalind looked up, he was gathering the bundle of inquiries from the corner of the desk in one hand.
"I'll have them taken away. Not the sort of thing that belongs on your desk."
"Indeed. Work comes first, and that suits me perfectly."
Rosalind nodded at once.
(Just as His Grace says. My core duty is that of Economic Advisor. Marriage matters are mail outside my scope of work. The sorting ought to be left entirely to the secretariat.)
—And she truly filed it that way.
Lucas sent the clerk out with the inquiries and returned to his seat. The moment he sat down, he let out a slight breath.
Rosalind did not notice.
All she noticed was a single letter left behind at the edge of the desk. A silver seal, apparently missed. The sender was the young head of a house across the strait.
Rosalind picked it up and casually started to hold it out toward Lucas's desk.
Lucas's hand reached out.
It pressed lightly down on the seal, and on her fingers along with it.
"I'll take that."
A low, short voice.
"...Pardon?"
"I'll handle it."
For half a second, Rosalind considered the warmth of the hand resting on her fingers.
(...A rational division of duties. Sorting the inquiries falls within His Grace's remit. Correct per the org chart.)
(Correct, and yet—)
(Why on top of my fingers?)
The question flickered at the edge of her mind for an instant and was gone.
By the time Lucas drew his hand back, Rosalind had already returned her eyes to her projections.
Evening.
Rosalind walked down the long corridor of the Grand Ducal palace with documents in her arms. Two young maids she passed straightened at once and bowed deeply.
"Lady Rosalind."
"Thank you for all your hard work."
Rosalind returned a light nod and walked on.
Behind her back, the maids whispered to each other.
"Did you see?"
"I did."
"That lady... that's really Lady Rosalind..."
"The woman who melted the Ice Grand Duke."
"Hush, you're too loud."
"Well, it's true, isn't it?"
Rosalind's footsteps faded down the corridor. A single line of sunset from the window traced the length of her straight back.
There was no envy or spite in the maids' eyes.
There was only a quiet admiration, the kind that looks up at someone.
Back in the office, Rosalind noticed that the pile of inquiries had somehow shrunk by half.
(Oh, they've been dealt with.)
At the corner of her desk sat a cup of warm tea, as always. Beside it was a single slice of baked sweets.
Rosalind sat down and took a sip of tea.
(...I should give that attentive clerk a token of thanks someday.)
She thought so, and she meant it.
Outside the window, the evening bell rang.
On Lucas's desk, a single silver seal still lay unopened. Rosalind did not yet know that it would be gone by tomorrow morning.
From down the corridor, faintly, came the whispers of other maids.
"Did you hear? The woman who melted the Ice Grand Duke—"
The whispers spread slowly through the sunset light.
Next week, new inquiries would arrive again.
Rosalind still hadn't noticed a thing.