What Must Be Avoided At All Costs

“…What did you just say?”

For a moment I wondered if my ears had failed me. I steadied my trembling voice and barely managed to get the question out, and Herman, not a crack showing in his composure, repeated what he’d said.

“I said, come to my chamber, starting tonight.”

I hadn’t misheard. What on earth was this, dropped on me out of nowhere without a word of warning? I was so flustered I couldn’t even keep my face in order. Even a nation about to declare war gave its enemy fair warning first, didn’t it? Yet here he was, barreling into me like this without so much as a moment to prepare. Where was the sense in that?

When I shrank back, edging away as if to say I couldn’t possibly, Herman abruptly caught my arm, his brow furrowing.

“What is it? Is something the matter?”

“…I’m afraid so, yes.”

“Oh? And what would that be?”

Short of me dropping dead and never waking again, there’s no way you and I are sharing a bed — that’s what. But the words had surged all the way up to my throat, and still I couldn’t bring myself to spit them out.

As though he still couldn’t fathom why I would refuse his bed, Herman closed the distance between us, step by step, as he spoke.

“I asked what the problem was with a married couple sharing a bedchamber.”

“…”

“Why can’t you answer?”

He was too close. It felt as though I could count every one of his dark lashes. I drew back from him in a hurry and looked away.

“L-later. Some other time.”

“Later? There is no later. We need to be quick about it, the sooner the better.”

At this talk of not a moment to lose, I couldn’t think straight. My head was one dizzy whirl, as though an enraged colt were galloping around inside it. To me, standing there in a daze, Herman spoke in a tone that wondered why I was making such a fuss over something so perfectly natural.

“We’re neither of us so young anymore; it’s time we thought about an heir. As it is, our wedding night’s already been put off a full five years.”

What sort of outrageous nonsense was this man (the most strapping I’d ever laid eyes on in my life) spouting now?

But wait — they never had their wedding night?

The revelation caught me off guard. I’d never once heard that Gloria and Herman hadn’t consummated their marriage.

No — more to the point…

But that wasn’t what mattered.

An heir? Whose heir? Duke Ernst’s heir?

And why, of all people, should that fall to me? The whole idea was absurd.

If, once I’ve gone back to my rightful place, word were ever to get out that I’d shared a bed with Herman…

My vision swam. Such a thing would be worse than any mere crime of passion; it would be an absolute catastrophe, a disgrace beyond reckoning.

“So — starting tonight, come to my chamber.”

Herman, oblivious to anything wrong in it, blithely pressed to have his way.

No. Absolutely not.

Inwardly I shook my head, over and over, but I couldn’t let a flicker of it show. Cutting in on him, I hurried to ask whether he might be generous enough to grant me a little time.

“Herman, even so, tonight is far too sudden. And I’m not ready yet, besides. So this — this conversation, perhaps another time we could…”

“Not ready, you say. Are you feeling unwell somewhere?”

Ah — yes. My health.

His question handed me the one thing I could turn into an excuse.

“As it happens, my monthly courses started only a little while ago.”

Speaking of my monthly courses to a man who was, to me, a stranger was mortifying enough to die of, but there was no help for it.

When I get this embarrassed, my ears always go red…

I didn’t want the shame of even that being found out. Timidly I raised a hand and smoothed at my ear. If my ears were this hot, my neck had surely gone red as well. Just then I felt Herman’s gaze settle, insistent, on the nape of my neck. I fanned at myself quickly, waving off the heat as though it were nothing.

“So for the moment, it’s… that…”

“For the moment, it’s — what.”

“That — that it would be difficult for us to have relations right now!”

My whole body had gone taut, and before I knew it I’d shouted the words. There was no getting the word past my throat any other way.

“…”

Had the sheer bluntness of it startled him? No answer came back from Herman, and I couldn’t for the life of me summon the courage to check his expression.

How in the world had I come to be saying such things — of all things — to Duke Ernst?

A deep wave of self-loathing came rolling over me.

“It seems I’ve led you to misunderstand something.”

A low voice settled over the crown of my head. I lifted my face a fraction to look up at him. In a tone without a trace of displeasure, he answered plainly.

“I wasn’t proposing we do anything this very night.”

“Then…”

“I meant only that we’d sleep in the same bed, like any other married couple, and greet the morning together. And after that—”

Herman faltered, unable to go on for a moment.

“After that, there’s no rush. We can take our time.”

Was it only my imagination that his sun-browned skin looked faintly flushed? Watching this man turn bashful, of all things, at a moment like this, I wanted nothing so much as to find a hole to crawl into and vanish then and there.

I need to come up with some excuse, and quickly.

Casting my eyes about, I scrambled for another pretext.

“Ah, that’s right. Sleeping alone for five whole years, I’ve picked up simply dreadful habits in my sleep. I think I might even sleepwalk a little. And I talk in my sleep — all sorts of strange things.”

“If that’s all, it’s no matter. I’ve slept crammed shoulder to shoulder with six strapping young men in a tent not even a few paces across. Snoring, kicking — and I’ve lived through no end of fouler sights besides.”

Herman let a light laugh slip.

“The likes of you alone? As much of that as you please.”

For a moment I had forgotten. This was Herman Ernst, back alive from a deserted island, a man who’d seen everything there was to see, good and bad and then some. There was no help for it. For Herman’s sake, and for both our sakes, nothing remained but to take the uglier role on myself.

“I…”

“Hm?”

“I’m more at ease sleeping alone. It’s what I’m used to.”

At my blunt refusal, Herman’s expression, easy until now, slowly hardened. It wasn’t that I couldn’t understand. Any husband would feel slighted if his wife kept refusing his bed. Even so, I made my meaning plainer still.

“In that sense, I don’t think we can share a bed for the time being. At the very least, I’d ask that you give me time to prepare my heart for it.”

“A moment ago it was your body that ailed you; now it’s your heart, is it.”

Herman let out a faint snort.

“So sharing a bed with me is a thing that takes steeling your very heart.”

Was I imagining it? Looking at his dumbfounded face, I had the sense that somewhere in there, he’d been wounded. But a wound taken now would heal faster than one taken later.

“Yes. I do need it.”

Cutting off my own pity for him in a single stroke, I answered plainly. At that, Herman folded his arms defensively and arched an eyebrow, as if I truly grated on him.

“Fine. That’s fair enough.”

“How do you—”

“That sleeping with one’s husband, just the once, might be — for some people — a thing that takes steeling the heart.”

“Then… you understand me?”

I clutched at a shred of hope in his words.

“Understand you? That’s only possible once what you’re saying actually makes sense.”

That hope was crushed, and without mercy.

“Every last word out of your mouth sounds to me like an excuse.”

“An excuse…?”

“Regrettable as it is, an excuse is exactly what it is. The selfish excuse of one who shirks all responsibility and duty while grasping only after her rights.”

“…”

“I have a deep contempt for those who won’t fulfill their responsibilities and duties. I, as your husband, have borne and endured everything that is yours; so too, so long as the name ‘Ernst’ follows your own, you cannot shirk your duty.”

Herman bent down and whispered close by my ear, as if to make certain I understood there was nowhere left to retreat.

“I say this because you seem to be taking my words for some kind of joke.”

Those low words circled the shell of my ear for a long while, as though no amount of furious scratching could shake them loose.

“Tonight, we will sleep together. No exceptions.”

I waved off Tess, who’d offered to knead the tension from my body, and climbed into the bath alone, curling up small. The water, quite at odds with my mood, was pleasant and warm.

“Not a single bloom to be found in the garden, and yet where did all these roses come from?”

But the sight of the roses scattered across the water, unlike on other days, sank my heart at once into gloom.

I shouldn’t have gone out. I should have just holed up in my room.

I sank deep into the water, thinking.

If only I hadn’t crossed paths with Herman in the garden. If only, on account of that, we hadn’t gone strolling together through the wood. Then no such wretched trouble as this would ever have arisen.

“Tonight, we will sleep together. No exceptions.”

I hugged my legs to me, rested my forehead against my knees, and let out a sigh I couldn’t help.

What am I supposed to do about this?

So long as I wore Gloria’s identity, I couldn’t put off Herman’s bed forever. He had no intention of divorcing me, and none of leaving me to my own devices either. What he wanted, plainly, was a child.

But it’s not as though I can actually share a bed with Herman.

Just then the sweet scent of the perfumed oil pricked at my nose, and it struck me all at once that I couldn’t sit there in a daze.

That’s right — this is no time to be sitting around like this.

The moment my thoughts reached that point, I rose from the tub with a great splash. Before the perfumed oil could soak into my skin, I hurried to towel myself dry.

For tonight, at least, I’ll simply go to my own chamber and pretend to be asleep. Then even Herman will have no choice.

To quiet the tension welling up in me like the bathwater, I repeated the words to myself, over and over, without end.