Lingerie Even Tyrants Wear - 4
Several days had passed since all the young ladies left the palace and returned to their own estates.
A well-dressed man and woman came seeking Albert and Beatrix.
They were the tailors who had made the undergarments at Albert's request.
"Welcome. What brings you here today…?"
Albert, seated at the desk in the office, spoke first.
Naturally, Beatrix sat right beside him, shoulder to shoulder.
"Yes. We've requested an audience because there's something we need to confirm."
"What is it?"
When Albert asked, the woman tailor opened her mouth in a calm, measured tone.
The preamble was long, but boiled down to a single point.
Young ladies had come asking them to make the exact same undergarments Beatrix had worn.
"Oh… they did?"
Albert tilted his head as he asked, and the woman tailor nodded.
"Yes. We heard that Your Highness had given permission, but we came just in case that wasn't true."
"That's right. I did tell them they could wear it if they wanted." Beatrix readily admitted it.
The shape might be the same, but the care and meaning poured into hers were different.
That was why she had granted permission so easily, without a flicker of jealousy.
Had Albert intended to gift them himself, it might have been another story.
"Ah… I see."
Just as Beatrix had, Albert answered in a tone that suggested he was simply going along with it.
There were cases where people bought undergarments after seeing them on a model.
Otherwise there would be no reason at all to hire models for advertisements.
He already knew Beatrix had received the young ladies wearing nothing but lingerie.
So this is how it turns out?
Albert let out a short laugh as he looked at his wife, who had become an advertising tower against her will.
"I think it's fine as well."
"We are most grateful."
The two tailors spoke as one, offering their thanks.
"How do you plan to split the profits?"
Beatrix, who had been listening in silence until then, spoke up.
As if they had already expected this, the tailors answered with easy expressions.
"Naturally, we must pay royalties to His Grace the Consort, who first conceived the design. We simply hesitated to be the ones to bring up money first."
"Is that so? Then I suppose we should ask Albert what he thinks."
Beatrix quietly took a step back.
Albert closed his lips and sank into deep thought.
If I'm taking a tip for the design, how much would be appropriate?
In truth, the tailors would be handling all the production themselves, so he didn't want to name too high a figure.
That would have been shameless.
"I was thinking something like one-tenth of the net profits. Would that be acceptable?"
"We are most grateful."
The moment he delivered his answer after long deliberation, the tailors bowed their heads in delight, as if they had been waiting for exactly that.
With the royal household's hand involved, they had braced themselves to lose more than half.
They had never imagined he would claim so small a share.
And this from people who had worked under the sort who were most sensitive about profit — they must have seen and heard plenty.
Tap, tap. Beatrix drummed her fingers on the desk, then immediately picked up a pen.
In elegant script she filled a sheet of pure white paper.
It was a formal contract dividing the profit shares.
"Sign."
Thok. Beatrix tapped the end of the contract with the tip of her pen.
It was only a single contract.
Yet the pressure radiating from the queen was enough to choke the breath in their throats.
"Y-yes, Your Majesty."
The tailors carefully took up the pen and signed.
They were so tense that the fingers holding the pen trembled violently.
Beatrix scanned the signed contract from top to bottom, then slipped it into a drawer.
"That'll do. You may go."
"Yes, Your Majesty. We take our leave."
Albert's eyes followed the tailors' hunched backs as they left.
He found it rather novel that he had suddenly ended up signing a royalty contract.
At most, it would only be a few pieces.
Whatever money came in, the sum wouldn't be that large.
In the old days it might have been a real help with the household, but now it barely meant anything.
He was living in a lavish royal palace that made his days at the trading company look like nothing by comparison.
Albert dismissed it as no great matter — yet the ripples grew larger than he had expected.
It began in the Miller Duchy.
"Alice! Why are you wearing something so vulgar…!"
Conrad shouted at the sight of her daughter in that shameless lingerie.
She was thoroughly flustered as well.
She had been delighted that Alice had passed Beatrix's inspection without trouble — only for this strange headache to appear.
However.
"Mother. This is the undergarment Her Majesty herself enjoys wearing."
"What…?"
At the single phrase that even Beatrix favored it, Conrad's mouth snapped shut.
She asked with a face that refused to believe it.
"Her Majesty… truly wears something like that underneath?"
"Yes, Mother. It may look vulgar at a glance, but it's clothing most people wouldn't even dare attempt."
Well, that much was fair.
Who would wear something so indecent?
Conrad was still unsettled, but decided to watch what excuse her daughter would offer.
Cutting someone off one-sidedly only wounded their pride and piled up resentment.
"Go on, then."
"Yes, Mother."
When told to continue, she could hardly shrink back in fear.
Alice took the chance to pour out everything she had been holding inside — everything she herself had felt.
"First of all, the visual stimulation is so strong that it should be a great help with married life."
Men's libido was generally said to be weak, but give them a powerful enough stimulus and they had no choice but to respond.
Even if it was weak, it was only weak compared to women — it wasn't as if they had none at all.
And every so often, one did encounter men with rather strong appetites.
"Married life…?"
They shared a bed, but when was the last time they had actually joined their bodies?
While Conrad cast her mind back across the long, hazy years —
Alice's confidence only swelled further.
"Yes. And the fabric is high-grade as well, so it's expensive, and a great deal of care goes into it."
"And?"
"Hmm, and also……"
Alice answered every question tossed her way without the slightest hitch.
Her voice was firm as she spoke.
It meant she had a clear mind of her own.
Even if the answer wasn't perfect, one could sense the attitude that she had no doubt in her own conclusions.
Conrad was completely won over by that quality, and in the end she found herself yielding to her daughter's argument.
She also had the thought that Alice wasn't wrong.
Above all, the claim that it stimulated possessiveness sounded rather plausible.
Yes. Jewels that circulate among the nobility are like that, for instance.
At a gathering of nobles, someone shows off a certain item.
Naturally, the desire to own it blossoms among those around them.
That only worked when the object itself held real value — and that lingerie lacked nothing on that score.
Vulgar though it was, it also had the practical benefit of adorning the body more beautifully.
It even stirred a competitive spirit, with the implication that only those who possessed both wealth and looks could wear it.
On top of that, the vanity of wearing the same clothes as a tyrant.
Even Duchess Conrad found it hard to resist.
No — precisely because she was a duchess, she found it even harder to resist.
"Alice. Where did you order that garment?"
Asking for the source meant she was hooked.
Reading the greed in Conrad's eyes, Alice's expression brightened.
"Pardon? Hmm… I believe it was the Kali and Andy Tailor Shop. You know, the ones who worked on Her Majesty and His Grace's wedding clothes……"
"I see. Understood. Go rest now."
The moment she heard the name, Conrad left Alice's room and immediately summoned a servant with orders.
"Summon the tailors said to be in the capital at once. The ones from the Kali and Andy Tailor Shop, I hear."
"Yes, Your Grace."
She would have liked to go herself, but that would have looked far too undignified.
Conrad suppressed the urge to take the lead and waited for the tailors to arrive.
The duchy was not so far from the capital, yet not so near either — the distance was awkwardly in-between.
Because of that, the waiting time was awkwardly indefinite as well.
Perhaps that was why.
When word came that the tailors had arrived, she welcomed them more fervently than anyone.
Kali and Andy.
The two tailors had been flustered the entire carriage ride over, but……
Once they actually stood before the duchess, they showed nothing but composed, natural faces.
Perhaps it was thanks to how often they had faced the pressure Beatrix radiated.
Conrad, who could be called relatively reasonable, simply felt comfortable by comparison.
Thanks to that, they took the lead in the conversation without crossing into rudeness.
"To take measurements, we'll need to put our hands on your body."
Conrad nodded and gave permission for the measurements.
Kali took the measurements while Andy recorded them, and they set to work inside the duchy's inner castle with the fabric they had brought along.
Only with precise measurements could the lingerie bring out every last drop of its allure.
His Grace definitely called it lingerie… shall we give it an official name?
Vulgar, yet it made a woman's charms stand out all the more.
Though only a well-tended body could truly pull it off.
The two tailors presented the finished undergarments to Conrad while turning the matter over in their minds.
When a noble of a certain standing acquired a certain item, word had a way of spreading surprisingly fast.
Tailors who came and went from the royal palace could hardly be ignorant of that fact.
In the carriage heading back after receiving their payment from the duchy, the tailors sat facing each other and exchanged talk of business.
"Should we take on more apprentices and send them out? It's getting far too troublesome for us to keep coming and going just to take measurements."
"It's fine. The apprentices we have are already working hard. Plenty of people will place orders going forward, but that'll only be for a while. Later on the overhead will outweigh the gains."
Clothes were consumables, true enough, but their lifespan was remarkably long.
Andy agreed with that assessment and quietly nodded.
Though they were joint managers, when it came to running the shop they gave Kali's judgment a little more weight.
In return, Andy was a step above when it came to the clothes themselves.
Of course, Kali's skill was more than worthy of being called first-rate as well.
Otherwise they would never have dared dream of making a queen's dress.
A few days after they finished Conrad's lingerie and returned to their shop in the capital, orders began to climb exactly as the two of them had predicted.
And it wasn't only the nobles — their young daughters came along as well, so the shop inevitably grew frantically busy.
Because of that, even the apprentices had to work under a constant stream of scolding.
The result was that their skills improved by leaps and bounds, enough that they could nearly shed the apprentice label altogether.
High-grade fabric had to be used without waste, and even with a small surface area the piece still had to be sturdy.
On top of that, the embroidery worked into the parts that covered the chest was intricate.
Swept up in that entire process, there was no way their skills wouldn't grow.
And beyond the lingerie, they still had to fulfill all their original orders as well.
Even after hiring extra hands, they were filthy busy.
The harder they worked, the more the workload grew, and the more their name became known.
Around the time they found themselves seriously considering expanding the tailor shop against their will —
Albert, hearing the news at the royal palace, laughed as if he couldn't believe it.
"So this is how it turns out?"
"It seems things are going better than expected."
All of this is only possible because the advertising tower is a queen.
Albert finally understood, anew, why people paid such expensive fees for models.
Because there were people who saw an advertisement, wanted to buy, and actually did buy — that was why models were used.
"At this rate, the money coming my way will increase as well."
"Congratulations."
Beatrix answered in a dry, flat voice.
Judging by the voice alone she seemed to feel nothing at all, but she was genuinely pleased.
Albert's purse growing fatter was a good thing, after all.
"Hmm……"
Yet Albert's expression itself was not particularly bright.
Not dark, either — but something seemed to be weighing on his mind.
"What is it? Is something bothering you?"
"Ah. It's nothing else — I was just wondering if there might be a different way to use the money."
"Different?"
When Beatrix tilted her head, Albert nodded.
"Yes. Thanks to you, Beatrix, I'm already living without any want. I don't particularly need more money."
"All right. I'll think about it later."
"Thank you. Still, I truly never expected lingerie to become this popular……"
Lingerie.
That was the name of the undergarments Albert had designed.
Originally it meant underwear that brought out a woman's femininity, but here the meaning had shifted a little.
It had come to mean the undergarments the tyrants had been the first to wear.
"I never thought those girls would step forward on their own."
To think they would promote it all by themselves.
Beatrix shook her head, recalling the monarchs who had boasted one after another about receiving the gift.
Clothes worn by the tyrants who quartered the continent.
Because that rumor had spread, there were even cases of people applying pressure to jump the queue, she had heard……
Unbelievable.
Over nothing but underwear.
Beatrix shook her head back and forth.
The tailors were none of her concern.
Seeing the ulterior motives of those who had spread the rumors to get in Albert's good graces only made her sigh.
Why won't the world just leave Albert alone?
If any of the other monarchs had heard that question, they would have answered like this.
Your own little Albert?
That sort of thing has been dead for a long time already.