Aflutter

“We’ll take our leave now, Herman.”

I drew Herman along as though it were the most natural thing in the world. He looked down at me a moment, then let a short breath stand in for a laugh.

“Yes. Let’s be off, then.”

Herman had caught my meaning readily enough. He steered me along with one great hand and, without so much as a glance back, made for the door.

“Y-Your Excellency.”

We had scarcely put a few steps between ourselves and the table.

“N-now, wait just a moment, if you please.”

Konrad hurried after us to stop us where we stood, already at the very door.

Yes — you’d better stop us.

Konrad had all but admitted he was the one who stood to lose. The upper hand at the table was ours now. For an instant a joy that welled up from the tips of my toes tugged gently at the corners of my mouth, and in that brief moment Herman and I met eyes, each searching the other’s gaze.

There. He’s bitten.

As though he’d read my very heart, Herman gave a smile so faint that only I could have seen it.

“Ahem, ahem.”

Clearing his throat, his expression tidied back into place, Herman turned round. He jerked his chin toward Konrad with a look that said, out with it, if you’ve something to say.

“Come now, you can’t simply leave like this. If the price I named weighs too heavy on you, surely we ought to adjust it between us and meet in the middle.”

After hesitating a good while, Konrad presently produced a fresh proposal.

“If we were to bring it down a little from the price I first named — say, to something around three times the market rate…”
“No.”

I cut Konrad off flatly.

Three times, my foot.

If only out of spite, I had no intention of buying at anything above the going rate.

“We have no intention of purchasing the land at any price above the market rate.”
“See here, Duchess. Why do you keep inserting yourself into this contract, madam? I am in the middle of speaking with His Excellency.”

Konrad vented his temper at me in a peevish tone. His face creasing sharply, Herman spoke up before I could get out a word.

“Mind your tongue, Count. How dare you — and to her, of all people.”

He drew me a little closer to his side.

“My wife’s will is my own, and House Ernst’s besides. If you’d sell the land at market rate, then I shall reconsider our contract altogether.”
“Y-you cannot do this! Do you know how much I poured out to win the railway concession? If only to make good that loss, selling the land at market rate is the one thing I absolutely will not do.”
“Regrettable as it is, that strikes me as a concern for the party who failed to win the concession.”

Listening in silence to Herman, I swallowed down a small laugh at the sight of Count Meier being handed his own words back, whole and untouched.

Gratifying as it is, we can’t leave things at nothing but bad blood.

Konrad’s face had gone red, his fists clenched tight. I began to worry that, at this rate, the Count, his eyes clouded over with resentment, might call the whole contract off.

“In its stead, we shall reckon by the hectare, at the market rate of the costliest land in all the Meier estate. Just as you say, those lands are House Meier’s chief source of income, so they’ll be worth as much.”

Herman was not ignorant of it either. He conveyed my thinking exactly, not so much as a syllable astray.

“And on that territory we shall raise five stations, and grant you first claim on the commerce that springs up around them. It’ll be no losing venture, I think. You stand to recover more than twice over what you poured into chasing the railway concession.”

These were the terms Herman and I had settled on after several days’ hard deliberation. So if only the Count would set down a little of his greed, we could strike a bargain that profited us all.

“Will you sign, then?”

Herman put it to the Count, and I waited on his answer.

Konrad gnawed and worried at his nails, his brows drawn together. He seemed to waver endlessly between real profit, his greed, and a pride he could not bring himself to bend.

“…Must I give my answer this very instant?”
“Yes. If you’ll not put forward an answer here and now, then the moment I quit this room I mean to go straight to the landowners round about.”

At that, the color drained visibly from Konrad’s face.

“Th-then I shall sign the contract.”

Unable to withstand Herman’s pressure, Konrad forced the answer out as though disgorging it. And so a bargain we had clung to for so long came, at last, to terms.

We’ve done it.

In the same instant something tickled near my shoulder. At some point Herman had begun to stroke it gently. Feeling that warmth, I closed my eyes against the sense of accomplishment blooming up in me. Not wishing to show how giddy I felt, childlike, I quietly pressed the swell of feeling back down.

“A sensible decision.”

Herman led me easily out of the room, leaving behind one last word.

“Then let us have it so: this time you shall call at the Ernst residence yourself, contract in hand, with all that’s been agreed today set down in it.”

Thank goodness. It’s ended well.

On the way back I gazed at the scenery beyond the carriage and let my tensed-up chest ease at last. When, of late, had my heart been so at peace?

Still, there’s a great deal left to do — I mustn’t let myself go slack. Once we’re back at the residence I’ll have to go over the western land-survey report and this month’s accounts as well.

Just then Herman, seated across from me, let out a soft snort of a laugh. I turned my head on reflex and met his eyes, already fixed on me. In their dark depths some delight he couldn’t hide seemed to have pooled.

“What is it?”

I tilted my head to one side, my face asking what had got into him.

“Nothing.”

Far from answering, Herman only smiled wider than before and covered his mouth with one hand. But the gesture came a touch too late. I had already caught the soft curve drawn across his fine, straight mouth.

“What in the world has got into—”

For a while now I’d been wanting to ask why he kept smiling so foolishly. But Herman abruptly leaned toward me to open the little window that connected to the driver, and I lost the words entirely.

“I’d like you to stop a moment.”
“Ah — yes. I’ll pull up directly.”

Herman had the carriage stopped at Berynew Park, near a quarter of fine townhouses. He climbed down first and held out his hand to me, as though it were only natural.

“Why here, all of a sudden—”
“I thought we might take a stroll.”

At the sudden suggestion I glanced about a moment, then took Herman’s hand and stepped down from the carriage. He led me easily toward the park, and for the first time in an age we enjoyed a wholly unhurried walk.

Now and then, catching one’s breath like this isn’t so bad.

There was still a great deal to be done, but for now I resolved to tuck my worries away.

When the wind blew, the leaves stirred coolly, and as that crisp, refreshing sound brushed past my ears I lifted my gaze from the ground and cast it into the distance. Somewhere along the way the sunset had come on, and by its grace even Herman’s white shirt was staining red. And it was then, too, that Herman, who had walked on and on down the path, stopped all at once.

“I never quite knew it of myself, but it seems I’ve a liking for interesting people.”

My eyes went round, silently asking what he meant by that.

“‘Interesting people,’ you say?”
“It’s something I felt at the triumphal banquet, and again when your father came calling — how a woman endlessly composed by nature says every last thing she means to, in just the situations that would cow anyone else.”

As though feigning nonchalance, Herman swept a hand down the back of his head and went on.

“Interesting, is what I mean.”

Then, as if slowly turning over what had happened today, he gazed off into the distance and narrowed his eyes to slits.

“Today was the same. The sight of Count Meier growing more and more flustered as he listened to you — that was quite a thing to see.”
“…I’m glad you found it entertaining.”
“Don’t pretend you don’t take my meaning.”
“I’m sorry?”
“What I’m saying is that I’m glad you’re mine.”

Herman’s face was flushed a becoming shade of red. Whether it was the sunset’s doing or something else, I couldn’t have said. My gaze kept drifting to the warm sunset caught on his cheek.

“That’s praise beyond my deserving. I only did what needed doing.”
“It isn’t praise. I’m confessing.”
“A confession?”
“Mm. You’re my ideal type, is what.”

I couldn’t help fixing on the words ideal type, thrown into a fluster.

“Wh-what a thing to say.”
“Does it sound like a joke to you?”
“I do so hope, for pity’s sake, that it was one.”

Watching me clatter and stammer along as though something in me had broken, Herman laughed, plainly delighted by it. His whole face was steeped in bright, merry feeling, proof enough that he meant every word he’d just spoken.

“So perhaps that’s why I’ve not been sleeping at night, of late.”

I knew well enough that the railway enterprise had lately been robbing him of sleep, and so I looked at him quickly, with a worried face.

“It’s that my heart’s all aflutter.”

Our eyes met, and Herman smiled. When I gaped as though I’d seen a ghost, he laughed aloud, shameless, adding that teasing me had lately become the very thing he lived for.