A Peculiar Taste

Had it been up to me, I’d have half a mind to drag the coachman down from his box and take the horse myself.

Our bodies keep touching.

The road must have been poorly kept, for the carriage jolted at every turn.

If the carriage were at least a large one, it wouldn’t be so bad.

House Ernst had mortgaged off everything it owned against its enormous debts, down to the last carriage grand enough to carry us up to the capital. So they had gone to the trouble of hiring one from the merchants’ guild instead, and for all the trouble, it proved none too roomy.

“Ah…”

Without thinking, I rubbed at my knee where it kept brushing against his.

It was awkward enough when the toes of our shoes knocked together; our knees were another matter entirely. I schooled my flustered face and turned my gaze to the window.

Ever since the day we started sharing a bed, there’s no denying I’ve been on edge over Herman’s every move.

The scent of him on the draft, the faint sound of his breathing that I could only just catch, every bit of it set my nerves on edge. Herman himself, bent over his documents, seemed entirely unaffected, unlike me.

“Why does this keep…”

I smoothed my outing dress once more and pressed myself as far back into the seat as it would allow. How many times had I shifted and settled myself so? Then, in an instant, the carriage gave a violent lurch, and all my efforts came to nothing.

“!”

The stone the wheel had struck must have been a large one, for a shudder unlike any before rolled through the carriage in a single wave. I had just been thinking I’d never once ridden in so ill-kept a carriage when I found my leg had somehow wedged itself between Herman’s. Nor was that all. Pitched forward at the waist, I discovered I’d flung a hand down against the seat on his side.

“…”
“…”

How on earth had I come to this? With the distance between us gone in the blink of an eye, I barely kept hold of senses that threatened to swoon clean away.

“I— I’ve come to the wrong place.”

What did I just say?

It was not as though I’d rung the bell at the wrong manor door. I hurried to right myself.

“I hadn’t realized you were so forward.”

Herman gave a light laugh and offered a hand to help me back to my seat.

“Still, you ought to restrain yourself inside a carriage.”
“What?”
“Should any strange sounds happen to slip out, what would the coachman make of us — a married couple?”

For a man voicing something that bordered on the outrageous, his expression was remarkably soft, as though he’d done no more than toss off a light little joke.

What on earth makes this man so utterly at his ease?

Ever since the night we had spent together, his manner toward me had shifted in some strange way. And of late he scarcely bristled at me at all.

I can’t get used to it.

The carriage rattled on. Making a small effort to overlook his outstretched hand, I drew myself upright and answered.

“I don’t think you need worry about that. There’ll be no strange sounds slipping out.”

Of course, that his manner had gentled did not mean I found him any easier to bear. If anything, it was harder going than the days when he used to reproach and sneer at me.

The reason he had turned tender toward me was plain enough.

He’s begun to accept me as his wife. No — Gloria, to be precise.

The thought threw me into a maddening confusion. I trod carefully, wary that a moment’s coldness might wound him in a way I never meant, and I feared, too, that when the truth came out he would hold it against me and demand whether I’d meant to deceive him from the start. And yet neither could I take the closeness he kept pressing on me at face value.

“If my knee troubles you so, it mightn’t be a bad idea to come sit beside me.”

He said it while clearing away the documents he’d stacked on one side of the seat, a courtesy as natural as water finding its level. All this while I’d assumed the touch of our knees hadn’t troubled him in the least, but it seemed he had been minding it too, in his way.

Yes — rather than go on with our knees touching like this, moving to the seat beside Herman would be the better choice, I suppose.

Better to press myself flat against the window than let some mortifying scene play out at every jolt.

“Then — if you’ll excuse me.”

Herman held out his hand once more, every inch the gentleman, the smile slanting across his lips seeming to promise that this time I’d have no choice but to take it. I hesitated, but the carriage was climbing a slope, and with my body tipping forward there was nothing else for it.

In the end I took hold of his large hand and rose lightly from the seat. That was the moment it happened.

“Ah!”

Why is it that an uneasy premonition never proves wrong? The very instant the carriage gave a great heave, I lost my balance and pitched forward. I threw out both arms to catch myself against the wall, but by then one of my knees had already come up onto his thigh.

My arms had landed on either side of him, pinning him in place, and Herman raised his eyes slowly to mine.

“I— it’s just—”
“…”
“…The weather really is quite lovely today.”

I put on a composed front and blurted out something wholly beside the point, knowing full well it was nonsense with neither rhyme nor reason.

What are you even doing, Marienne?

Perhaps, when Gloria stole my name, I had lost my very self along with it. How else to account for blundering, one after another, in ways I’d never once blundered in all my life?

“Gloria.”

The voice calling the name pulled me abruptly back to myself. ‘Gloria’ was not my name, of course, yet it proved remarkably good at bringing me to attention.

“Your taste runs to carriages, it seems. And here in bed you couldn’t so much as bear the brush of a hem against you.”

In the same breath, his fingers moved toward my waist, left defenseless and exposed by the fall.

“First you go trapping me in your arms like this. Then you go tempting me, all subtly disheveled.”

And then, of all things, he neatly retied a ribbon that had come loose in the commotion.

It was hardly a conversation a proper married couple would have. But Herman Ernst and I were no proper married couple.

I longed to drop into the seat beside him that very instant, but the carriage was still laboring up the mountain slope. Let go of the wall now, and I would plainly tumble straight into his arms.

“You take the joke too far, Herman. You must know perfectly well I had no such intention.”

With a jolt, the carriage pitched once more.

“Then let us say that I had such an intention.”

Only when he tightened his hold and pulled me abruptly toward him did I realize his hand had been at my waist all along.

“I— I told you, I’ve no mind to do any such thing with you!”

In the end a shrill cry burst out of me. For an instant his expression seemed to harden, but then he let go of my waist without protest.

By then the carriage had found level ground and was rattling along once more, and I hurried to settle myself beside him. Only after heaping the mountain of documents up between us could I let out a breath of relief.

After a short silence, Herman spoke, slow and unhurried.

“I’ve thought so for a while now — you’ve a rare talent for leaving a person feeling slighted.”

He had already fixed his eyes back on his documents.

There I go again — rude without meaning to be.

He had every right to be put out. What wife shrieks because her husband takes hold of her waist? And in a swaying carriage, no less, when he had surely only meant to steady her. I was not his true wife, of course, but from where he stood it was conduct more than enough to give offense.

“If my behavior made you uncomfortable…”
“No — don’t apologize. That only makes it the more miserable.”

After that, a heavy silence filled the carriage to the brim. Try as I might to fix my eyes on the book in my lap, the letters only broke apart and drifted across the page. Herman did not utter a single word the rest of the way to the inn, as though he’d hung a placard on his brow that read, ‘I am currently sulking.’

“Um — Herman.”
“…”
“The chicken seems to be to your liking. Shall I have them bring out more?”
“Hardly.”

I asked over our supper at the inn. His sulking gnawed at me, and I kept trying to draw him into talk, but every answer that came back was cold as could be.

“Even so. You’ve eaten so little, it seems.”
“That’s enough.”
“…Herman.”
“I think I’ll get up first.”

Herman rose from his seat, dry and expressionless, and left word that he would go with the mercenaries hired to guard us and buy the supplies we’d need for the road.

“If I’m late, sleep first. No need to wait up.”
“All right.”
“I’ll post a guard outside the room, so don’t you worry.”
“I understand. Do take care.”

With that chill fairly gusting off his retreating back, there was no way I could bring myself to ask for a room of my own. Until he had gone, I only picked quietly at the edges of my nails.

This isn’t how I meant it to go…

The rift between Herman and me had grown so wide that I could not so much as raise the wish for a separate bed.

No. Thinking it over coolly, this might even be for the best.

After all, he was the one to open the distance first. For someone in my position, plagued by nothing so much as a Herman who kept pressing close without the least reserve, it was cause for relief.

And yet, even so, I kept feeling as though another face were being laid over Herman’s wounded one. My own face, the very one I had worn while pretending all was well, even after I learned of my husband’s affair.

“Pretending to be all right doesn’t make you all right.”

I knew all too well that simply enduring, pretending nothing was wrong, was no answer at all, and so, in truth, I was worried for Herman. In the end my appetite deserted me, and I set down my spoon.

If the truth came out one day, Herman was certain to be hurt. And so my playing the tender wife now was surely nothing more than a deception. And knowing it, still, whenever Herman Ernst turned those wounded eyes on me, a heavy guilt clenched tight around my heart.

However am I supposed to treat Herman?

Every last thing that had befallen me was simply more than I could bear. Before I knew it, my vision blurred and swam. Ever since my name was taken from me, this was how it always went whenever I let my mind drift blank.

As though some corner of me had broken down.