The King did not wait for rumors to circulate. At a formal court reception two days after Christian's meeting with the Duke, he made the official announcement. Standing before the assembled aristocracy of the kingdom, the King raised a glass.
"It is with great pride for the future of our kingdom," he declared, his voice booming with royal pleasure, "that I announce the betrothal of our most loyal and capable servant, the Count of Eskildsen, to the Duchess Ingrid of Skarsten. A union to bind our nation together and secure its future!"
A wave of enthusiastic applause swept the room. It was a masterstroke of politics, and everyone knew it. The union of the powerful new industrial faction with the old landed aristocracy of Jutland created an unassailable power bloc. Count Ahlefeldt and his few remaining allies were forced to offer their public congratulations, their smiles as thin as glass, their political defeat now total and undeniable.
Christian and Ingrid stood together, receiving the well-wishes. They were the perfect image of power and grace, playing their roles flawlessly. He was the brilliant, serious architect of the new Denmark; she was his beautiful, serene, and socially perfect counterpart.
The news was the sole topic of conversation in Copenhagen for a week. It was seen as the final stone being laid in the foundation of the new, stable Denmark.
A few days later, using a discussion about the ironclad designs as a pretext, Christian visited the Admiral's residence. It was Amalie who greeted him at the door. The easy intellectual spark that had existed between them was gone, replaced by a cool, impeccable politeness.
"Count," she said with a small, formal curtsy. "My family was so pleased to read the royal announcement. The Duchess is a fine match. All of Denmark is celebrating."
Her words were perfectly correct, but her eyes held a new, knowing sadness. She was not angry; she was disappointed.
"It was a matter of state, Miss Løvenskiold," he found himself saying, the words feeling like a hollow excuse. "A necessary step to ensure the kingdom's stability."
Amalie looked at him, her gaze sharp and piercing. "Of course, my lord. The state must always be served. It is a hungry creature, is it not? First it demanded your time, then your sleep. It demanded new laws and new rifles. And now, it seems, it demands a marriage."
Her words were not an accusation, but an observation of profound sympathy for the man being consumed by the very system he was creating. She was mourning the person she saw him sacrificing to become the ruler he needed to be. The conversation ended, the unspoken things between them creating a new, painful distance.
Christian left the Admiral's home feeling a familiar chill of isolation. He threw himself back into his work, the only place where the variables were logical and the outcomes could be controlled.
He met with Baron Fievé, who came to him with a new, even more ambitious proposal.
"The National Bank is a success, Count," Fievé said, his eyes alight with opportunity. "The capital is stable. We now have the power not just to fund state projects, but to direct the entire private economy. The time is right to begin the next phase. We need to expand the port of Copenhagen. Dredge deeper channels, build new piers, new warehouses. And we need a fleet of modern merchant steamships to carry our goods. I propose we use the bank's capital to launch a new national shipping line."
It was another massive leap. A state-directed expansion of the nation's commercial infrastructure, the lifeblood of any potential empire. It was the necessary next step to prepare for the resources that would one day flow back from the colonies he planned to claim.
"Do it," Christian said without hesitation. "Draft the charters. Secure the engineers. Begin at once."
The celebrations and congratulations eventually faded, leaving Christian alone in the quiet of his study late that night. He stood over his large work table, where a detailed map of Copenhagen's harbor was spread out under a gas lamp. With a charcoal pencil, he had just sketched the sweeping, audacious lines for the new deep-water port and the national shipping yards Fievé had proposed.
He looked at the marks he had made—lines that represented thousands of tons of stone and steel, the displacement of entire neighborhoods, the redirection of a nation's commerce for the next hundred years. His power felt tangible, etched in the charcoal on the map. He had secured his betrothal to the Duchess, a move that anchored his political power as surely as these new piers would anchor his future fleet.
But as he stared at the cold, strategic lines, it was not a sense of triumph that filled the silence. It was the memory of Amalie's quiet, perceptive eyes. Her words came back to him, unbidden: The state... is a hungry creature.
He looked at his grand designs, at the empire he was meticulously building on paper and in the halls of power, and felt the truth of her words like a sliver of ice in his heart. He was feeding the creature. And tonight, it had feasted on his future, on his personal hopes, leaving him with only the cold satisfaction of command.