“Ilse, what was that call from your brother?”
“Oh, the Count family’s… well, property matters?”
“Ah… I see. You’re the daughter of the previous Count Kallenberg, Ilse. I guess there are complicated things to deal with.”
“Exactly. Complicated things, indeed…”
Ilse sighed and lowered her gaze, and her colleague kindly took that as a sign that the complexities of a noble main family were too difficult to discuss.
She certainly couldn’t tell them that she had been ordered to set a honey trap for the cold-hearted Prime Minister upon answering her brother’s summons.
It was evening at the residence.
The north side of the palace housed dormitories for high-ranking staff, and Ilse, as a maid to the Princess, shared living quarters with her colleagues.
The living room and bathroom facilities were shared by six women, while the bedrooms, though small but individual.
Since all six were of the same generation and got along well, the residence was naturally more comfortable than her family home. Getting together after work with drinks and snacks to indulge in a ladies-only secrets and girl talk was a pleasure.
“That was quite a sudden call, wasn’t it? Princess Heidmarie was worried about you”
Beate, who was sitting next to her on the sofa, whispered.
She was also a maid to Princess Heidmarie. Not everyone who shared the living room worked in the same place. And some served other princesses or the Queen.
“I’ll follow up things over with Her Highness tomorrow.”
Ilse whispered back.
“You probably should. She was getting anxious, wondering if Count Kallenberg was arranging a marriage proposal for you…”
“Stop it. I’d absolutely refuse.”
Ilse replied with a frown, as that was almost exactly what had happened.
“What, what? Talk of romance?” another girl, Catalina, jumped into the private conversation.
“No, it’s not. Catalina, you always try to steer the conversation toward romance!”
The owner of bright blonde hair served as a maid to the youngest princess. Since the youngest princess was not yet ten years and didn’t attend social events, Catalina was starved for glamorous topics.
“Oh, come on, isn’t the best part of this job the chance to meet people? Even Beate dreams of a free-choice marriage, don’t you?”
“Well… I do hope to meet someone nice, though.”
Beate replied hesitantly. She was likely being considerate of Ilse. All the girls present knew about Ilse’s delicate situation.
Beate’s father was a high-ranking official at the palace, and she took the maid position both for the prestige and because she dreamed of choosing her own partner.
In a world where arranged marriages were still the norm for direct lines of nobility, those in the upper-middle class had a relatively greater say in their marriage choices.
Beate’s father reportedly allowed her the freedom to choose any man of the same social standing working at the palace.
“Well, Ilse, you just need to catch someone that Count Kallenberg can’t complain about!”
“Sometimes my brother can’t complain about, huh…”
She put the thought—that such an option was probably as narrow as the eye of a needle, into a sigh for her.
Her greedy brother would surely be stingy about giving even a single copper coin as a dowry to his half-sister.
He might arrange a marriage trousseau if he saw a future profit, but Ilse felt she would be indebted to him for the rest of her life.
She imagined him sending her off as a second wife to some wealthy nobleman, and the moment the husband died, he’d jump into the inheritance discussion, claim Ilse’s share, and pocket all of it himself.
Since a glimpse of that future had been dangled in front of her today, she wanted to escape as quickly as possible.
To do that, she had to seduce Prime Minister Diethardt Schwarzen and make him utterly fall for her… Remembering the daytime conversation, Ilse felt another sigh coming on.
“Speaking of which, did you hear? Someone in the next room, ehm… I forget who—the new girl, apparently recklessly tried to flirt with Prime Minister Schwarzen!”
The conversation among ladies constantly shifts from one topic to the next. One of the women present raised her voice as if she were revealing the most exclusive scoop of the day, causing a stir among the others. Ilse swallowed hard, surprised the topic had unexpectedly turned to Diethardt.
“No way! She’s so brave!”
“And? What happened?”
Everyone was curious. Ilse, for one, was also interested. If the new girl succeeded, Ilse would be out of a job and immediately sent off to be a second wife.
“She was brilliantly crushed. She said he looked at her like she was a piece of trash.”
“Oh, wow…”
“She was apparently quite confident in herself, too.”
“Ah, the girl who was being talked about because her black curls and tear mole were ‘seductive’? Her chest was quite large too, even I as a woman was envious. That didn’t work either? Maybe he really isn’t interested in women.”
Beate said with tilting her head.
“Even a casual relationship with the Prime Minister would give you prestige for reputation” Catalina laughed dryly.
“Exactly! He’s the heir to a wealthy Marquis family. He’d probably treat you to good food and send you pretty dresses.” Beate clapped her hands together, and sighing dreamily.
Although maid who served the Royal Family were people of solid background, it was nowadays unusual for them to be from the direct line of a noble family. While the position of a Court Lady still required a woman to be a noble wife, a maid, though a high-ranking position, was inferior to a Court Lady and involved performing various errands. Therefore, in recent years, the position had been filled by daughters of noble collateral lines, military officers, bureaucrats, or merchants.
Wealthy noble daughters considered it an honor to be summoned to the palace as a Princess’s companion but would not actually live and work there.
The five others who shared the living room with Ilse were all daughters of families with fathers who were military officers or bureaucrats, though they all possessed some degree of noble blood.
There was a clear difference in standing between the direct and collateral lines of nobility.
As the heir to a prestigious Marquis family, the Prime Minister’s marriage partner would likely be a woman of similar standing. However, while he was too ambitious a target for marriage, perhaps he was within reach for a relationship?
The motivations of the women who approached Diethardt were diverse to weigh their marriage options after dating various men, or to gain the prestige of being the Prime Minister’s former lover.
“A woman full of such calculations is exactly the type Prime Minister Schwarzen dislikes the most.”
“I know, I know! I’ve decided to be more sensible and connect with a man who seriously considers me as a marriage partner.”
“It’s smarter not to go near him, but there’s a constant stream of girls who charge in, convinced they’re ‘different from the rest,’ and end up getting severely burned,” Catalina said, following up on Beate’s comment.
They would advise newcomers not to show any frivolous intent toward Prime Minister Schwarzen, but most of the time, the advice was dismissed with a remark full of misplaced confidence, such as, Is that just a warning because I’m so charming?
And then they would be spectacularly rejected. She’d heard there were occasionally brave souls who would attack a second and even a third time without giving up.
“Well, it’s like a rite of passage, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, yeah. And the part where it makes your work harder afterward is all part of the package.”
Listening to her friend’s voice, Ilse thought.
(After all, a honey trap for the Prime Minister… I can only see a bad burn coming.)