"Before the proposal, there is something I want to show you."
Lucas said it partway down the corridor to the council chamber, and Rosalind stopped.
She raised an eyebrow, the agenda still held against her chest.
"I had intended to present Item 13 in the chamber."
"There is one matter I want settled before the chamber. It concerns my side."
—His side.
Rosalind knew how wary he was of the word "personal." This was the first time he had ever, of his own accord, brought up "my side."
"...Understood."
The two of them turned back down the corridor and entered the Grand Duke's private study.
Lucas fitted a key into the bottom drawer of his desk and slowly drew it open.
From the very bottom of the drawer he brought out two bundles.
The first was an official document bearing the crest of the Grand Duchy of Vernant. Its title: Bilateral Memorandum (Draft).
The second was an untitled ledger. The moment it fell open, Rosalind's breath caught for an instant.
The Kingdom of Albert's revenues, expenditures, reserves, outstanding national debt, customs income, tithes to the Church, even an itemized breakdown of the royal household budget. Beginning from a date six years past, the entries continued without a single gap up to the most recent month.
There was more than one hand at work. Several people had updated it at regular intervals.
"...This is..."
Rosalind said nothing more.
On the ledger's final page was a single line circled in red.
Projected penalty = Treasury balance − minimum operating funds − one step
Rosalind read the figure silently.
The penalty set out in the calculation annex to the memorandum in Chapter Three. The sum that had turned Chancellor Erwin Garrett pale across the table that night. Not a fraction off.
—...Six years ago, he says.
She checked the date on the ledger's cover once more.
I was fifteen, not yet out in society. That was the year I first pointed out an error in the customs tables in my father's study.
"—Since when have you had this?"
"Since the week after you first appeared in public."
Lucas's voice was the same temperature as ever.
"I spoke for twenty seconds to a young lady reading an economics book by the wall. After the one sentence she gave me back, I couldn't go back to my work."
"...Twenty seconds, and all this?"
"Twenty seconds was enough."
Lucas quietly set the draft memorandum in front of Rosalind.
"I gave the Foreign Office its instructions that same day. That the Grand Duchy of Vernant would someday be taking in a certain duke's daughter from the Kingdom of Albert. And that in preparation for that day, they were to learn everything about her homeland's finances, and lay the mechanisms in advance so the other side could never interfere."
Rosalind turned to the first page of the draft.
Article Three: Should any interference cause damage to the employment contract, all compensation shall be borne by the Kingdom of Albert.
Article Four: In return, the royal court of your nation shall be granted a right of official inquiry. However, whether to respond shall be left entirely to the individual concerned.
She had read this before. The day after her broken engagement, in her room at the Abel residence, she had received a copy from Duke Abel and read it.
At the time she had assumed it was a settlement the Chancellor had won through negotiation.
—I was wrong.
This had been waiting on a desk for six years. Waiting for the day my engagement was broken off.
—...He laid the mechanisms to never let go before he had even obtained what he wanted, he says.
The line the Chancellor had muttered without voicing in the interlude of Chapter Three, Rosalind now reconstructed on her own, independently, inside her head.
"Your Grace."
"Mm."
"At the time, what percentage chance did you estimate that my engagement would not be broken off?"
Lucas paused for just a moment before answering.
"Forty percent."
"...And in that forty percent?"
"I intended to approach the Crown Prince directly and request a transfer in exchange for compensation. I have a separate transfer agreement prepared for that purpose."
Rosalind laid the ledger and the draft memorandum side by side on the desk.
Six years of personnel. Six years of research costs. Six years of the Foreign Office's man-hours. Calculated as working hours, that came to—
—...Your Grace, judged by investment recovery—you are running quite the deficit.
"...Rather a substantial investment just to secure one person, I must say."
She said it aloud. Deliberately, in her business voice.
Lucas let out a low breath.
"It isn't enough."
"Pardon?"
"Even after pouring in all this, it still doesn't match you. I'll keep pouring in, as many times as it takes, until it does."
With the pad of her finger, Rosalind gently brushed away the six years of dust lying thin on the ledger's cover.
Something in her chest was beginning to take on warmth. It wasn't anger. It wasn't fear.
It was a kind of warmth that Ritsuko Tanaka, in her previous life, never once got to feel in twenty-eight years of no one ever finding her.
—The three years before my broken engagement.
For three years, there had been someone at a desk, calculating my life.
All for the day I would greet my broken engagement with a fist pump.
Rosalind carefully squared the ledger and the draft memorandum and returned them to the drawer. The bottom one, the locked one, all the way at the back.
"Your Grace."
"Mm."
"Let us go back to the corridor. We'll be late for the council."
"Yes."
Rosalind started toward the door, and three steps in, she turned back just once.
"About Item 13."
"Mm."
"I cannot say whether it will match six years of working hours. But I do intend to present terms from my side as well. So do prepare yourself."
In the dim light from the corridor, the corners of Lucas's mouth eased, just slightly.
"I'm looking forward to it."
When the two of them pushed open the doors of the council chamber, the secretary was still doing a double take at the final line of the agenda.
Item 13: Review of Employment Contract
The secretary did not know.
That there was someone who had been quietly waiting for that Item 13 for six years.