The Nanny

A Winter's Masquerade to Remember

The doorbell echoed around the mansion and Regina frowned as she looked up from where she was folding laundry. She watched as Will left the kitchen, heading to the front door. "Are you expecting anybody?" she asked.

"No," he replied, "but it's the holidays. I'm sure deliveries are going to be constant from now until Christmas."

She nodded, knowing it was true, and returned to trying to pair up everyone's socks. It was quite the challenge with six people in the house and it made her worry about what it was going to be like when they grew to eight—and possibly nine if Killian decided to move in with Emma down the line. Regina was going to have to come up with a solution that wasn't "just order new socks instead."

Will returned a few minutes later. "Tink's here for you."

"What?" Regina asked, setting the laundry aside as Tink entered the room. "Did we have a meeting scheduled for today?"

Tink shook her head, stepping closer as she held the messenger bag slung around her chest. "I had a few things I wanted to discuss with you and Robin suggested I just come here."

"Is it about the Winter Masquerade?" Regina asked, frowning. The event was only a few days away but she had been certain everything was ready to go for it. Had something come up?

"No, we're all good there," Tink assured her. "It's about something else. Your mail, actually."

Regina felt even more confused. "Mail? What are you talking about?"

"We've been getting letters for you since the whole...incident...with Blanchard Financials. It seems people wanted to write to you and since Robin never gives out Nottingham's address, they sent it to Sherwood instead," Tink explained, sitting down.

"Did Robin know about this?" Regina asked, wondering why he hadn't told her about them at all. He was getting better about telling her things and not just doing them for her because he thought it would be easier.

Tink shook her head. "The mailroom staff has been setting it aside and the pile has grown large enough that something needed to be done with it. So they brought it to me, I brought it to Robin and he suggested I come talk to you myself."

"Oh," Regina replied, relieved and pleased that Robin was letting her handle it. "Okay, so how many letters are we talking about? And has anyone opened them?"

Tink nodded. "There are a few hundred. Security opens all the mail that comes into Sherwood, just to be safe."

"And what do the letters to me say?"

"Most of them are really positive. They thank you for speaking up about your experiences at Blanchard Financials and talk about their own stories," Tink said. "They see you as a kindred spirit."

A lump formed in her throat at the thought of so many women writing to her. "That's touching."

Tink nodded. "So what do you want to do with the letters? We can come up with a stock answer we can send out to the recipients..."

"No," Regina replied, a strong feeling filling her. "It's not fair that people are pouring their hearts to me and they just get some cold form letter in response."

"While I get that, you have to consider your safety and the volume. If you answer everyone, which you are not going to have time to do, you run the risk of attracting people with unhealthy fixations on you. They may perceive more of a relationship then there is. You need to set boundaries," Tink said. "We can come up with a system to figure which ones get a standard response and which ones get a personal answer from you. How does that sound?"