Raiva woke up after only a few hours of sleep, given that she forgot to close her curtains and Shelly could be heard tidying the sitting room. She was clearly not trying to be quiet, putting glassware and bottles on the table harder than necessary. Repeatedly.

In Shelly-speak, this was just short of barging into Raiva’s room to interrogate her on why there were so many glasses and bottles.

She must have seen the gin.

Raiva groaned and buried her face in the pillow. Shelly knew that she would never drink one of the “special ones” alone. This left her with exactly two choices: pretend, ignore, divert, or telling her the bare minimum.

With her head all fuzzy and a dull pain slowly on the way, she decided to get it over with.

I don’t have the energy for this.

Scratching her eyebrow, she got out of bed, washed her face with cold water for a wake-up-shock, and got dressed.

Remembering the recommendations of Octavia from the previous day, she put on the marigold skirt and vest set. Looking in the mirror she nodded in agreement with the statements from the previous day.

She was right, of course. It does look good with my eyes and hair.

Raiva halted a moment, trying to remember something.

What was it she said, exactly? ‘Beautiful with your eyes and hair’, or ‘with your beautiful eyes and hair’?

Her memory was hazy from the stress of the situation, but she decided it had been the latter, blushing at the thought.

Why does the thought of Octavia make me blush? Has it been that long since I had a friend of the same sex?

She decided that was indeed the reason and shook her head to rid it of silly thoughts.

On her way out, she noticed the discarded ribbon by the mirror. After thinking on it for a good minute or so, she rolled it up neatly and stuffed it in her pocket, to return it to Victor later.

Out in the sitting room, Shelly was still conspicuously shuffling items around, having somehow made very little progress in the time it took Raiva to get ready. She acted surprised when she exited, and greeted her with an overly startled “My lady!”

“Good morning, Shelly,” Raiva mumbled and held her head a little at the high note coming from her overly excited employee.

“My lady, all these bottles..! And glasses! Did you have company last night? I thought you said you would stop drinking so much!” Shelly had begun winding herself up, though she had the composure and discreetness of not raising her voice more than absolutely necessary, something Raiva’s head appreciated.

“Please,” she pleaded, also lifting her other hand to hold her head, though she was now being a bit theatrical. She continued in a whisper, “Yes, the captain, and yes, I only drank half of his after all.”

She wasn’t actually certain of the last part, given that the situation had begun blurring from bottle of port and however many glasses of gin she had.

In my defense, the wine bottle was about half the size of the gin, so I can’t be too far off.

Shelly squinted her eyes at her, making mental notes of all the hangover symptoms. After scanning her intently, she decided that it was only a mild one, so her statement could be trusted. Instead she focused on her real curiosity.

“The captain? Oh my, yes. Well, he is a very handsome young man,” her thoughts seemed to wander off for a moment before snapping back. She smiled, softly. “Well then, I shall make sure the cabinets are stocked, in case you-“

She stopped when she heard a door upstairs, and gathered everything up in mere seconds, before the person had even begun descending the stairs.

“I’ll bring you some remedies, madam.”

Gathering what was happening, but not having heard the door due to not having Shelly’s supernatural sense of hearing, Raiva took that as a self-dismissal and decided to wait for the remedies in her office. Before entering the door, she caught the glimpse of Octavia, who by the looks of it was late for something, by the way she strode out the door in hurried steps.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Late, this early?

Despite being curious, she put it out of her mind and turned away. She had paperwork and budgets to sort through, if they were to accommodate the tenants’ voracious appetites after all. And she, for one, had no intention of starving them, or worry Frederick with the financial aspects.

By the time Shelly arrived with the remedies, consisting of water, a whole pot of herbal tea mixed with honey, and a plate of fruit, Raiva had pulled out all the relevant paperwork and was about to start adding up the numbers and double-checking the budget estimations.

“Thank you. Do we have any-“ before she could finish, Shelly had set her tray down on the desk and pulled out a little white packet.

“Of course, madam,” she handed it to her. “Though you should really stop drinking so much.”

“Yes,” she replied, trying to remember how often they had had this exact conversation already.

She poured the satchel into her water and drank it unladylike in a few big gulps, scrunching up her face afterwards.

“Steeplebushes are becoming rare, or so the doctor says,” Shelly muttered as she unloaded the contents of the tray. “How hard can it be to grow a few flowers? My cousin says they spring up in her neighborhood’s gardens all year long! Trying to drive the prices up like that, the fibber.”

“Let’s hope the doctor is a fibber then. Or we ask your cousin for their spares?” she replied, lightly, though a little worried for her future fevers and pains. Hangovers included, of course.

Shelly laughed heartily in return.

“She does make a boiled concentrate version of it, my cousin. Vile flavor compared to the powder of course, but as effective, they say.”

She excused herself to go set up breakfast.

Shuddering at an even more distasteful version of her painkillers than the powder, she silently thanked the city’s pharmacists, vowing never to complain about the bitterness again.

The paperwork, as predicted, showed that she remembered correctly. There was an buffer in the budget, leaving an expected deficit of 600, based on Frederick’s estimations. They were usually correct.

Looks like I’ll have to up the monthly portion from my accounts.

What Raiva hadn’t told Frederick, or Shelly for that matter, was that the boarding house was, in the technical sense of the word, running at a deficit already. The expenses were quite high, with the area being priced for very wealthy residents. Had they not lived in inner Prievo, the neighbors would all likely own mansions rather than houses. This meant that the property taxes were high, and since Raiva wasn’t a noble, she was also taxed for having domestic employees.

The already quite high rent that the tenants paid, only covered those two things, their food expenditures and a set buffer of around 1,000, meant as savings for repairs and maintenance. Frederick and Shelly’s salaries were entirely out of her own accounts. For one, the rent would be equivalent to purchasing a horse every month, and two, Raiva was determined to pay them the absolute most they would accept from her. She also secretly paid into an account meant for their retirement through their daughter, Vera.

It’s not exactly charity, but I think Giovanni would approve of this regardless. Which reminds me, I should write Jürgen.

Making a mental note to write him later, she took out her letter stationary and composed a quick letter to her lawyer to arrange for the additional amount to be taken out of her spending account transfers.

I never use it anyway, and this will essentially be me chipping in for the taxes. Though I’m sure he’ll respond to me scolding anyhow.

She chuckled at the thought. Although she sometimes took it for granted, she was surrounded and supported by good, caring people. Not everyone was so lucky, especially when an ignorant widow suddenly inherited so much wealth.

Before long, she had finished her tea and was finishing up the corrections to the numbers when a knock sounded at the door.

“Yes?”

The door opened and she was both surprised and not that the visitor to her office turned out to be Victor, even more dashing today in a simple white linen shirt and informal pants, his hair loosely flowing down over his shoulder.

“Good morning, madam,” he beamed at her as he bowed lightly in her direction. “I was wondering if you could spare me some time again today?”

Ughhhhhhhhh.

“Of course,” she replied, gesturing to the chair on the other side of her desk. “I am just finishing up some letters, if you would wait a moment?”

She took her time rewriting the letter for her lawyer, and then wrote a long, three page letter for Jürgen, purposefully unrushed by her visitor.

Please get bored and leave.

He didn’t, of course.

Instead, he decided to feel at home during his wait, and caught Shelly’s attention to ask for refreshments, resulting in coffee and and snacks piling up on the coffee table by the arm chairs. He sat and waited patiently, eventually requesting for a new pot of coffee, since the first had gotten cold and bitter.

Eventually, after just under two hours later, she buckled.

She sighed inwardly and relocated to the free chair, looking at him inquisitively.

He was still unbothered, smiling widely at her approach, and gestured to the refreshments in front of them.

“Coffee?” he poured her a cup when she nodded. “I’m happy to see I was right, madam.”

She looked up from her coffee in surprise.

“Right? What about?”

“Marigold. It compliments you well,” he cocked his head to the side and looked at her with his mesmerizingly deep blue eyes. “You wore this back then, though it somehow suits you even better now. You’re mesmerizing.”

Shit.

She could feel her entire face flushing before she even had time to process the compliment.

Why is he so needlessly beautiful? Stop staring at him.

She averted her eyes indiscreetly, suddenly feeling the urge to stare at the cup still in her hands. He chuckled at her conflicted expression.

“Would you permit me to close the door?”

Her shyness quickly dissipated as she narrowed her eyes at him.

“Nothing untoward, of course, I just feel it might be prudent for others not to overhear our conversation, for both our sakes.”

As he shut the door gently, she became keenly aware of Victor’s ribbon in her skirt pocket.