"—You are with child."
The physician's words stopped the air in the office, just for a moment.
Rosalind, still half sitting up on the chaise, blinked.
"...With child."
"Yes. There is no doubt of it. The dizziness earlier was most likely an early sign of morning sickness, as well."
Only then did it occur to Rosalind. Come to think of it, this morning, at the smell of the fresh-baked bread the head maid had brought, she had turned her face away for just an instant. She'd thought it was nothing, and had sent half her breakfast back.
The words reached her ears sounding far more businesslike than she would have expected.
With child. Pregnant. Bearing a child.
Rosalind's brain, obeying years of habit, sprang into motion at once.
"Then, the handover of my duties, immediately. This week's final approval on the tariff revision must be issued under my name, so tell the finance officers to move it up to within three days, and as for the translation of the diplomatic documents—"
"Rosie."
A low voice fell from beside her.
"For now, stay seated."
It was Lucas. The man who had come running down the corridor earlier. The very man the maids had gaped at, round-eyed: the Ice Grand Duke, running.
That same man was now kneeling beside the chaise.
Rosalind realized she was still murmuring "handover," "approval," "rescheduling" under her breath, and closed her mouth, just once.
—Ah.
Corporate Slave 1.0 hadn't been fully uninstalled.
Ritsuko Tanaka, who had worked herself to death in her past life, had been thinking even on the morning she collapsed, Who should I hand today's progress off to? And here she was, doing exactly the same thing.
"...My apologies," she said quietly. "I suppose I ought to have let someone say 'congratulations' first."
The corners of Lucas's mouth eased, ever so slightly.
"No. That's just like you."
Then he turned, briefly, to the physician.
"—The child?"
"In good health, Your Grace."
"And Rosalind?"
"She is worn out, but the pregnancy itself is progressing well. There may be waves of dizziness for a while, however."
Lucas nodded. Then he looked Rosalind straight in the eye and said, low:
"It's my child. Naturally."
At that, Rosalind blinked once more.
"I never knew how much lighter it could feel, being told 'naturally.'"
The words slipped out on their own. Half of them, she didn't quite understand herself.
Lucas said nothing. He only laid his fingers over the back of her hand, just once.
Meanwhile, his gaze had already caught the schedule on the desk.
"—Secretary."
"Sir."
"Move all my outside engagements this week into the office. Next month's southern inspection goes to my deputy.
Rework my schedule for the next three months to keep the place beside Rosalind free. Top priority."
"Understood."
"Also, a team of physicians in permanent residence. As for candidates for a wet nurse..."
There Lucas broke off and looked at Rosalind.
"Do as you wish. I'll put the arrangements in place first. Whether you use them or not—you decide."
Before she could even nod, Rosalind let out a breath.
—"You decide."
A line she had heard countless times. When they signed her employment contract, over the reform proposals, when he had been quietly crushing her suitors behind the scenes—this man had always said it.
And yet today, it went deep into her, all the way to the bone.
"Your Grace."
"Mm."
"'You'll keep working, won't you?'—Aren't you going to ask me that, just now?"
For an instant, Lucas looked caught off guard. Then, very slightly, his shoulders shook.
"...I didn't think I needed to ask."
"Please do ask. I do so enjoy answering."
"You'll keep working, won't you?"
"I shall. Naturally."
With that, the two of them each let out a small breath, and laughed.
The head maid slipped in without a sound, whispered something to the physician, and slipped out again just as silently. Through the door, they could hear her instructing an attendant outside: "Lady Rosalind's tea—from today, weaker, prepared for her pregnancy."
—Lady Rosalind's tea.
Not "the tea of the heir's honored mother."
Without even realizing it, Rosalind set that phrasing gently in place, deep in her chest.
When night fell, Lucas left the office for a while to put away some documents.
For a few minutes, Rosalind was alone.
She walked to the window. Moonlight fell on her pale palm.
She laid that hand softly against her stomach.
Nothing showed yet. She felt nothing at all. But someone was there. Truly.
—I'm going to be a mother.
She drew in a deep breath.
She thought back to the days when she was Ritsuko Tanaka.
The walk home after the last train. A convenience store bag in hand, heading toward a room where no one was waiting—that night. In front of a vending machine in a residential street where all the lights were out, gnawing on a half-crushed rice ball, she had idly wondered:
"Will someone, someday, find me?"
She hadn't said it aloud. Even if she had, no one would have been listening.
Then she thought of that last morning. The cold office floor. The aisle where no one had turned around.
Ritsuko Tanaka had died as no one's wife, and no one's mother.
And now, under another name, in another life, she was taking up where that had left off.
Rosalind pressed the hand on her stomach just a little more firmly.
—Ritsuko.
If she could meet the woman she had been as Ritsuko Tanaka, and tell her directly:
"It's all right. This time, someone really will find you."
And one more thing.
"Ritsuko—at last, I'm going to be a mother."
No tears came.
She only smiled, quietly, in the moonlight.
That was enough.
Footsteps returned.
Lucas closed the door with his usual motion. Seeing Rosalind's back as she stood at the window, he paused, just for a moment.
He asked nothing.
He simply crossed the room and stood beside her. Close enough to look at the same moon, he drew his shoulder against hers.
For a while, neither of them said a word.
At last, Lucas spoke, low.
"Let's choose the name together."
Without taking her eyes from the moon, Rosalind gave a small nod.
"Yes. Let's take our time choosing."
Outside the window, the night wind sounded once.
On the desk lay a single sheet of white paper that no one had yet written on.