Don't Keep Making Me Sulk

The next day, a single invitation arrived at the Ernst ducal manor.

To our dear Duke Ernst,

In honor of this bountiful social season, we have arranged a most special ball. We hereby formally invite your esteemed house, and humbly beg that you grace the occasion with the honor of your presence.

And so, in sincere hope that we may share with you the singular delights of this summer’s night, we shall await your reply.

Respectfully submitted, all of House Drake.

The social season had been under way for a while, and I’d thought it strange to hear no word of a ball from House Drake, since every year, around this time, they held one without fail.

Still — to think they would invite House Ernst to a social ball held at the Drake manor.

I gazed down at Gloria’s invitation, the handwriting for all the world a perfect copy of my own, and let myself sink into thought. A few notices were set down beneath it: the ball was to be attended by married couples together, and several points about the dress code followed.

One moment she’s straining every nerve to drive me off somewhere far away, and now — what has gotten into her, that she’d have me into the manor?

I couldn’t fathom what had turned Gloria’s attitude a full hundred and eighty degrees so suddenly. Less still had I ever imagined receiving a ball invitation from that girl.

No. If anything, this is for the best. As things stand now, I no longer need to rack my brains over how to get inside the Drake manor.

Whatever Gloria was scheming, I would never dance to her tune, so I had nothing to fear.

I ran my finger slowly over the date of the ball printed on the invitation. Exactly one week from now.

One week from now, and I can return to the place that was always mine.

The unforeseen snag in my plan came that very night, at dinner with Herman.

The meal was proceeding as quietly and peaceably as ever. Beneath the soft glow of the chandelier, Herman handled his cutlery with impeccable poise. The one thing out of the ordinary was how markedly my own knife had slowed; ever since Gloria’s invitation had arrived, I hadn’t been able to fix my attention on anything.

It took real effort to master my anxiety over whether the plan would work, and to keep Herman from catching any hint of it. From no more than a glance or the sound of my breathing, he could tell at once that my mind was elsewhere. Why, I couldn’t say; I could only put it down to his being a man acutely alert to the smallest change.

To cut as naturally as I could, I steadied my breath for a moment, then set my hand moving again. And just then, Herman said something I hadn’t expected.

“I hear a new opera is being staged this season.”

He’d opened with a subject so out of the blue it was almost bewildering. Until now, Herman and I had chiefly traded talk of business and politics, and mealtimes had been little different.

Now and then we’d share an anecdote about his parents, or the Central Continent War, or a bit of light book-talk, but…

“Opera,” of all things, and out of nowhere. Something about it felt off.

“Opera?”

Even with the puzzlement plain in my voice, Herman went on cutting his steak, unruffled. I tilted my head at the slight pause, and only then did he clear his throat and speak, evenly.

“I was thinking we might go and see it.”

He said it as though proposing nothing grander than an easy turn about the garden. I couldn’t reconcile the question he’d just put to me with so breezy a manner.

So this, right now.

Was he asking me on a date?

“Ah — the opera.”

I gave a short, evasive sort of answer. When it had started I couldn’t say, but more and more, without meaning to, I’d taken to reading Herman’s moods. Was it because I could feel in my very body how little time was left to us?

The end of our relationship was already all too clear. Any more time spent together would only weigh on me the more heavily when the day came to leave this place. And what was more…

The time already seared into my memory is more than enough to overwhelm me as it is.

The moments I’d shared with him drifted through my mind. Whether either of us had wished for it or not, the time had not been so bad after all. While I sank into my brooding, Herman, still waiting on my answer, added something that sounded almost like an excuse.

“I gather Viscount Ashburn’s wife is a great opera-goer. And I’ve had word the Viscount and his lady mean to visit the opera house this weekend. So I thought we might do well to meet them there beforehand and pay our respects.”

Only then did I realize his suggestion had been a simple matter of business.

“Ah, Viscount Ashburn…”

Viscount Ashburn was a major landholder we needed under contract for the railway enterprise, and Herman was always meticulous in tending such connections. If business was the aim, there was no cause to feel any pressure over the invitation. It was only mortifying that I’d taken it for him asking me on a date.

“All right. I’ll get myself ready.”

I wanted to give my all to supporting his business, right to the end. Even if our private bond was, little by little, drawing to a close, in the work at least I felt we ought to see things through together as far as we could.

“Ashburn — they say he’s quite the devoted husband himself.”

Instead of answering, Herman came out with something odd. Not knowing what lay behind so abrupt a remark, I could only stare at him for a while.

“Just like me.”

As though that had been his real point all along, Herman said it with a bright little smile. In the same instant, I very nearly dropped the cutlery in my hand.

“…”

Whether Herman’s words were a simple joke or carried something more, I couldn’t tell. A few of the recently published tabloids came suddenly to mind; their articles alone showed just how thoroughly he was reputed a devoted husband.

Does he mean to lay claim to being a devoted husband, or does he truly believe he is one?

Otherwise it would be no easy thing to keep it up so brazenly. Schooling my expression with an effort, I took a sip of water.

Or, if it isn’t even that, then perhaps, in truth, he really…

Perhaps Herman was a hopeless, incurable sort of devoted husband. Though there was something contradictory in calling a man devoted when he couldn’t even tell that his own wife had been swapped out.

“I wonder if anyone realizes it. That merely to ask my wife to go and see a single opera, I have to invent a pretext for every last thing.”

At that, my face grew hot for no good reason.

So it hadn’t been about business after all.

I hadn’t expected him to spell out the reason so plainly.

“And sometimes I do wish you—”

Herman said, slowly.

“—would just pretend not to notice, and let it pass.”

Before his half-joking lament was even out, I bent my flushed face over my plate, and somehow tried to let the moment pass with an unaffected air.

Say something, anything, Marienne.

Just then Herman’s low, resonant laugh brushed past my ear. What could he possibly see, looking down at the top of my head, that made him laugh so teasingly? I tried to calm my relentlessly pounding heart, but I could bear it no longer. I made to get down another bite or two, but in the end I quietly set my spoon on the table.

The Baltaheim Imperial Theater.

The first theater in all Balter built solely for opera, raised at the command of the previous Emperor, it was regarded to this day, for its grandeur and its artistic worth, as a symbol of imperial culture. Modeled on the architecture of antiquity, it had been designed after an ancient temple, distinguished by the delicate acanthus-leaf carvings incised down the sides of its columns.

That weekend afternoon, the space before the opera house was alive with a great throng. Nobles of every stripe, the gentry, and the men of money besides were all abuzz over this year’s most anticipated work.

“Careful.”

Herman held out his hand to help me down from the carriage. His hair was swept handsomely back, his tuxedo crisply worn; perhaps because he’d taken such deliberate pains to dress up today of all days, he looked more splendid to me than ever. When my eyes met his all at once, I looked away on instinct. Somehow, these past few days, I’d found it hard to look straight at him.

“How odd.”

Herman murmured, low, over the top of my head as I stepped down.

“What is?”
“You, I mean.”
“Me?”
“Why do you keep seeming to avoid me?”

He wrapped a touch of displeasure in a soft, sulky complaint.

Why must he be so infernally quick on the uptake?

Just as he said, I had been avoiding him these past few days. And yet I hadn’t thought I’d made it so plain.

“A— avoiding you? When would I ever.”
“The color of your eyes, I mean. At this rate I’ll forget it, you let me see them so little.”
“…You’ve got it wrong.”

The moment I answered, a little stiffly, and set my foot on the ground, he gave a sudden tug on the hand he’d taken to escort me. Caught off guard, I grabbed hold of his forearm and looked up at him. Arching one eyebrow blithely, he spoke in a shameless voice.

“Don’t keep making me sulk.”