But Robert had seen someone else’s sturdy son at the imperial palace, and the old regret had come flooding back.

It was a strange story. There was hardly a grown man who was stronger and more dependable than Rose. Even granting that there were plenty of men more dependable than Rose in ways that had nothing to do with physical strength, Robert was not a man who fixated on outward appearances.

And when asked which family’s son had impressed him so greatly, Robert only clamped his mouth shut and groaned.

He took great pride in his own family, so perhaps he simply couldn’t bring himself to say out loud which family’s son he had envied.

With the household in this state, Prince Cassius, who had been waiting to meet Rose’s father, had to leave after exchanging only a few words with Robert.

“……His Majesty must have praised Sir Benyamin in front of him.”

Anne came out after tucking the blanket around Robert, who had cried himself to sleep, and clicked her tongue.

Steam curled up from the teacup, carrying a faint scent of lemon and rose.

“With his personality, he would have said nothing and simply agreed that His Majesty was right about everything. How that must have stung. Honestly, if that position was going to Sir Benyamin, why couldn’t it go to you, Rose? What does Sir Benyamin have that you don’t.”

“And that’s why you’re suddenly going on about wanting a son, Father?”

Rose smiled bitterly.

“If His Majesty mentioned Sir Benyamin over me simply because he’s a man, I could see why. I know the elders in the Senate still argue that men should be placed in higher positions than women, even in this day and age. But His Majesty isn’t like that.”

She could say it without a shadow of doubt.

“Escalus VII loves all his people perfectly and fairly. You know that too, I think.”

And so do you, Mother, she added with an affectionate look, and Anne shrugged as though conceding the point.

“Oh, who doesn’t know that! I’m only saying that when a person is hurting, even a straight nose starts to look crooked. Getting fixated on something and obsessing over it is the same thing. You start feeling sorry for yourself for having only one child, and you start wondering if you’re being looked down on for not having a son.”

Anne fretted over Robert being childish even at his age, yet kept slipping in and out of his bedroom out of helpless concern.

Rose understood her father’s feelings well enough. There was an old saying, after all, that mothers lean on their daughters and fathers on their sons.

Nephews who had come into the household fully grown could play the role of sons, but they could never be quite the same as a real one. And when those nephews were the kind who stirred up trouble without any particular talent to show for it, the weight of reality would press all the harder.

“Get some rest, then. I’ll check if there’s anything urgent that needs signing before I turn in, Mother.”

“Please do, dear.”

Rose signed documents in her father’s place and sank into thought.

A son……

There must be something more behind this sudden change in him.

❀❀❀

“Aunt. Is Grandpa still hurting today?”

Shurelli poked her sad little face around the office door.

“Come here, Shu.”

Rose settled Shurelli on the sofa and sat down beside her.

“Where did these lovely flowers come from?”

Shurelli went pink with embarrassment, pursed her lips, and giggled.

“Shu made a flower basket from the silk Vivi gave me. Let’s go give it to Grandpa so he gets better.”

“My goodness. How does our Shu make such a beautiful flower basket with these tiny, soft little hands?”

“Because Shy takes after Aunt Rose. Hehe.”

“Did Mama teach you to say such sweet things?”

“Hehehehe.”

The way Eva and Anton had once praised Rose’s handiwork to no end must have taken root somewhere along the way.

Rose stroked Shurelli’s small, soft hand and thought.

She used to make silk flowers herself when she was little, the kind that were fashionable at the time, and give them to her parents as gifts. On those occasions, Robert had looked at her the way Rose now looked at little Shurelli with such fond pride……

“Shall we go see Grandpa?”

Rose knocked on the bedroom door and stepped inside first. Robert, lying there without much strength, looked up at his daughter with warmth.

He still looked at his grown daughter with the same eyes he had always used. At Rose, twenty-two years old. At Rose, taller and stronger than her cousin Anton. At Rose, who always came out on top when she sparred with male knights larger than herself.

A father would always look at his daughter as though she were still the small, beloved baby she had once been.

“Father, how are you feeling? Shu says she’ll pray for you to get well soon.”

“Oh, thank you. My little princesses.”

Robert Ordo was fifty-two years old.

His youthful looks and health for his age, combined with his family’s history of longevity, meant there was every reason to expect him to serve as head of the family for many years yet.

But his peers among the other lords were at an age when they were cradling grandchildren and preparing for retirement. Even if his health declined and he needed to rest, he ought to have been able to hand things off to a son and daughter-in-law and take his ease, but Robert had no such luxury.

“Get well soon, Grandpa. Can Shu give you a big hug?”

“Oh, what joy. Grandpa is sorry for worrying his little princesses. Tomorrow I’ll go for a walk with you both and get back to work.”

There was no other family in the world where the entire household fell to pieces simply because the lord had been bedridden for a week.

“Rest another day or two, Father. The domain is in my hands, so don’t worry.”

“Yes, my proud heir.”

Rose looked at her father, who seemed somehow smaller after just a few days of illness.

And she admitted to herself that she alone could not put his mind at ease.

Robert was a conservative knight born in the age of Escalus VI. Even if his daughter proved herself the strongest person in the world, he was the kind of man who would still wish for a son to stand beside her.

Sadly, there was no way to dig up a grown younger brother from the ground like a stone from a field.

But there was one thing she could do.

“Give me a son-in-law, Rose!”

Rose could give Robert the son-in-law he had wanted so desperately.

❀❀❀

All the time she had spent carefully poring over a thick list of candidates amounted to nothing in the end. Rose’s final choice came down to one name without any deliberation at all.

“Are you sure you won’t regret this, Miss?”

Terra looked a little worried.

“I’m sure. Meeting them one by one would take far too long. And honestly, I’m not confident I can judge men well.”

Rose put her head together with Terra, reached a conclusion, and made up her mind to report it to Anne and move forward.

“I wonder whether he’ll survive being hounded by our young masters……”

“I’ll protect him. If my family gives him trouble, of course it’s my job to protect him.”

Benyamin Basil.

Not long after Escalus VII’s words of confidence in him appeared in the newspaper, House Basil had moved with touching promptness to formally send a marriage proposal to Rose.

The wish to be connected to Rose was not an impulse belonging to Eva and Benyamin alone.

“Raising a man is no small undertaking, Miss. You have no idea what a blessing it is to live with a man who grew up on his own just fine.”

Terra remained deeply skeptical.

“Wouldn’t it be better to choose from among knights who are at least twenty? At that age, even a year’s difference in experience counts for a great deal.”

“However great that difference is, it can’t be greater than the position of deputy director of Grafa Bank.”

Rose stated her top priority with cool clarity, and Terra quietly conceded the point.

“The whole reason Father fell into despair was that wretched deputy directorship, so bringing home a son-in-law who holds it ought to lift his spirits.”

A son-in-law like a son. A daughter-in-law like a daughter.

Depending on the family, those phrases could earn you a mouthful of curses from the people involved.

But the spouse of an only daughter who was also the heiress to the lordship would genuinely take on the duties and rights of a son in the family, so son-in-law like a son was not far off the mark.

The son that Robert had wept and cried out for in his haze of wine and cold medicine was, in essence, what a son-in-law could be.

And so, when Rose announced that she intended to meet Benyamin seriously and discuss a possible marriage, Anne and Robert were overjoyed, just as she had expected.

The remaining problem was:

“What will you do, Miss?”

Terra brought up what she had witnessed that day.

“Jade Camelot.”

Rose had been thinking of it too, and she spoke his name with weight.

“One year from now.”

She had gone and made a promise with him, of all people.

“Marriage is forbidden, Rosemaria Ordo.”

He had even invoked something like a sworn oath.

“……I’ll have to tell him.”

If she began seeing Benyamin with marriage in mind, an engagement could follow quickly.