"I'm curious how you thought of this solution."

"He'd hit on me before, a few weeks ago."

"I think most people would not have correctly inferred from that how notable you were to him."

"I didn't actually suggest it myself, largely for that reason, Khalil said it."

"Good of him!"

"I wouldn't have thought of it. And would have - worried you didn't want to be wanted as a woman, after all the time otherwise."

"Once my cover was blown? When you were expressly not interested in running Trilliant and didn't want it to disintegrate? Why not?"

"That's a fair question. I was imagining how I'd feel about it if I were suddenly a woman and someone said they'd marry me - but I'm not a woman and that's probably an important difference."

"I may've got used to independence but that I can't keep without moving, can I, and you seem well on board with the thing I mainly like to do with it."

"I think you ought to get very very rich with it," he says earnestly. "- sorry, your grace, was there anything else -"

"No, go on. You have my blessing." 

And he leaves.

Ismat smiles at Merenre. "You're right, he doesn't bite."

He squeezes her arm. "If I thought Abadar had poor judgment I'd be doing something different with my life. - I hope. It'd be a very inconvenient situation to find myself in. Luckily -" he gestures vaguely at the pharaoh. "Well, that's all that's obligatory. We can meet more people if you'd like."

"I think I can do more meet and greet."

"All right!" 

Then he can take her to meet four of the other five brothers (one is out of town) and his parents. His father is tall, excitable, talks too quickly, has some of the same body language when discussing magic than Merenre has when discussing economics. His mother (who looks far too young to be the mother of any of the adult young men milling around, presumably by magic) apparently studies architecture, and sculpture, and designed the strikingly realistic artwork in the sculpture garden where they're eating dinner. 

Merenre is the fourth of seven; there is one older brother present and three younger brothers. All of them seem entertained by asking her in front of Merenre about how she met him and what she first thought of him and whether she had looked him up afterwards and what her friends thought and so on.

Ismat loves the artwork, especially when it's in materials she knows about. Prospective father-in-law is welcome to watch her finish something sometime.

"He thought my pricing was notable, came around and spooked people writing it all down, and when I'd explained he wanted to invest. He asked good questions. I did read up what there is to be found, of course. Haven't talked to my friends yet, my brother thinks it's adorable though."

       "What's even public about you?" a brother asks Merenre.

"Oh, I don't actually know. It's probably mostly boring. The bank reforms and trade treaties and so on. I think there was some effort to establish that if I succeeded the pharaoh then this would result in absolutely no policy changes of any kind, which I was wholeheartedly on board with. - that I'm not already married, presumably -"

       "The thing where you suggested that you could auction off the right to be your wife?"

"I don't know, did you run into that?" Merenre asks her.

"Yes, but it didn't say if you wanted to sell it as a rivalrous good or not."

He beams at her. "I was thinking I could auction four but if someone wanted to buy them all that'd be permitted. - sadly this approach doesn't really work because women don't have much money in their own right, right, so I wouldn't get the people who were some combination of best-at-making-money and wanted-to-marry-me-most, I'd just get people whose parents did."

"Depends, can you marry a widow or would that not be proper?"

"That's permitted, there's precedent from ancient Osirion for new pharaohs taking their dead brothers' wives. - this was before it was typical to have access to True Resurrection, all the customs were accordingly quite different, but I think it'd stick if I decided to insist."

"But there's probably not enough of them to crowd out the fellows with teenagers they want to see living in the Black Dome."

"That's what I concluded when I did a little bit of market research," he says gloomily. Then perks up. "- but then I found you!"

"I'd offer to pay you but that's not in the terms of what I said I'd do with my loan at all. I suppose I can give you a discount on my wedding jewelry set."

Snort. "I'm very pleased with what I'm getting."