You've Been Grating On Me This Whole Time

The music ended, and refined applause broke out from every corner of the room. Cedric and I had drawn off to the edge of the hall, and there we fell into a very brief lull; he seemed to be chewing over the things I had said, turning them round and round.

“…Are you quite certain you won’t come to regret refusing me like this?”

After a while Cedric asked, letting a rancid little laugh slip out. He behaved for all the world as though every fault lay with me. And yet if anyone had done wrong enough to warrant regret, it was not I. It was the two of them.

“Don’t tell me it’s on account of Herman Ernst. What, do you imagine that man would still take you in his arms once he knew the whole truth?”

He said it with a sidelong glare at Herman, who was making his way toward us.

“Tsk. Clever people always play the fool over precisely this sort of thing.”

Then he looked me up and down as though I were something pitiable. I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from slapping his face.

“From the looks of it, you’re this way because Herman Ernst carries on as though he’s utterly besotted with you — but don’t put too much faith in a man. Playing at being in love is exactly the sort of thing men are capable of.”
“Don’t sit there dispensing advice as though you were something. It’s revolting. I’ve no reason to hear that sort of talk from you.”

Some portion of his brain had plainly melted clean away. There was no other explanation; otherwise he could never have dared say such a thing.

“What I mean, Mari, is that I say it only for fear you’ll take some vain hope to heart and be hurt by it.”

One corner of Cedric’s mouth hitched up as he said it.

“Because were I Herman Ernst, I should hate the false wife who set out deliberately to deceive me far more than the true wife who abandoned me and left.”

“…”

Cedric Drake had a real gift for driving a person’s mood down into the mire.

I had never once dared imagine that Herman might understand me. If he ever learned the whole of what had happened, I too would be nothing to him but one of the guilty. And so I had judged that vanishing from before his eyes, and quickly, was the only kindness left to do him.

Only.

Still, it did seem a little sorrowful, somehow, to think that the gaze which always poured down on me so warmly was to end forever. I thought it while I watched Herman, who had come to our side before I knew it.

“A splendid dance, Excellency Ernst. Hardly the footwork of a man who spent years at the front.”

Cedric had wiped his expression clean and remade it, and he handed Herman a compliment that meant nothing. Herman, who looked displeased about something, answered back without feeling.

“And you show plainly enough how long you’ve lingered in society. Give it a little longer and your face will start giving off the smell of face powder.”

I saw Cedric’s eyebrow twitch, but before long he offered a soft smile in place of an answer. Gloria, catching her breath in small gasps between them, gave Herman’s forearm an abrupt little tug.

“Two pieces back to back has left me quite parched. What do you say to a cool drink? For the mood of this ball I had rose-oil lemonade prepared specially — the rose is the emblem of House Drake, after all.”

Instinctively, I knew this was my chance. Before Gloria could get the jump on me, I raised a hand toward Hans, who had been keeping his eyes on us for some time.

We agreed on a signal.

The instant our eyes met, I touched my right earlobe, as though it were nothing at all. He, for his part, gently straightened his white bow tie, as if to say all was ready.

“Four glasses of the rose-oil lemonade, if you would.”

At my small, careful order, Gloria let the matter of the drinks drop. Then she twisted back toward Herman and carried on talking as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

“In truth I had wanted the waltz formation to be a round circle, but it seemed the steps would grow difficult, so I gave it up.”

In any normal conversation, what ought to have come back after that was something on the order of “What sort of formation would be so difficult?” or “It is something of a shame not to have seen it.”

“Mm.”

Instead, Herman merely kept his eyes gently shut, letting his weariness show without the slightest softening of it. When the conversation refused to flow as she had planned, Gloria abruptly pushed her lips out in a pout and thrust her face up at him.

“I decided well, didn’t I? And how was it for you, Your Excellency? The formation wasn’t uncomfortable at all?”

Those round, doll-like eyes were brimming with nothing but Herman. He slowly opened the eyes he had kept closed and asked her, low.

“Have I left something out, by any chance.”
“I’m sorry? Whatever do you mean by that, all of a sudden, Your Excellency.”

Gloria, as though worried for him, drew his forearm in against her own chest. In that same instant the space between Herman’s brows creased, faintly.

“Countess Drake. I danced exactly as you wished it, and I believe I was not sparing with my praise for your labors as hostess.”

Herman’s dry eyes went to Gloria’s hand, still clamped about his forearm.

“If, even so, there is something further I am required to do, I would be glad if you explained it to me in considered words.”

Then he fixed her with a wordless look, plain and unmistakable.

“Rather than by laying hands on me like this.”
“Oh — I only wished to grow closer to you, Your Excellency… I hadn’t the faintest notion you would find it uncomfortable.”

Her face flushed with embarrassment, Gloria gave up her brazen insistence and slowly withdrew her hand.

“Mari.”

All at once Cedric, standing at my side, called out to Gloria.

“That spot looks rather cold. There seems to be a draft coming in, as well. Why not come over here.”

Cedric was doing his level best to clear the air naturally, but he could hide neither the anger bleeding through his voice nor the jealousy he could not bear.

A draft, in early summer?

And yet, strangely enough, I did feel a slight chill myself. Herman Ernst was surely the cause; he had been giving off waves of cold air for some while now.

“Are you very thirsty?”

It was Herman who had asked. At the sudden question I had no choice but to lift my head.

“You keep looking off toward where the servant disappeared. If the waiting is hard on you, I’ll fetch it for you myself.”

At Herman’s words I swallowed dryly. He looked as though he might set off for the table where the drinks were laid out that very instant.

“No. It’s quite all right. Th-there, he’s coming now.”

I caught hold of Herman’s arm in haste and pointed to Hans, coming toward us from across the room with the drinks. My heart hammered, hard and quick, but I had to keep my wits about me and concentrate. If the smallest thing went wrong, every part of it would come to nothing.

On the silver tray Hans carried stood four glasses of a pink drink that looked to be the rose-oil lemonade. I watched him come toward us and quietly clenched my fist.

“!”

And then it happened. Someone tried to take a drink off Hans’s tray along the way, and I clenched my small fist tighter still and held my breath.

Thankfully, Hans bowed his head politely and gestured toward us. The noble who had reached for the drink took in Herman and the Count and Countess Drake standing beside him, and let the servant go without a fuss.

Not one single thing comes easy.

If merely fetching one drink drained me this utterly, I worried whether I could see the rest of what lay ahead safely through.

But I have to do it. I must.

Hans reached us at last and held out the drinks politely.

“The four glasses of rose-oil lemonade you asked for.”

On the tray, the glasses turned toward me had mint leaves floating in them, and the ones turned toward Gloria had rose petals.

He said he would mark them out with mint leaves.

In a motion as natural as flowing water, I lifted the two glasses with the mint leaves floating in them.

“Ah, you’ve come at just the right moment. Do look at this. Isn’t the color simply lovely? And the scent is quite wonderful. It was extracted at great pains from roses chosen especially — only the ones half-opened in the morning.”

In that moment Gloria, who had not once stopped her chattering, snatched up a glass with a rose petal floating in it the way one snatches up prey.

“Do try it, Your Excellency.”

And then, out of nowhere, she was holding that very glass out to Herman. I could not let my agitation show, so I kept myself from startling outright; but with eyes gone wide I looked back and forth between the drink and Herman.

“Don’t.”

Only after it was out did I realize the word had leapt from my own mouth. Hans included, every person standing there turned to look at me at once. Herman’s eyebrow lifted, slowly, plainly wondering what the trouble was.

I had to say something. Gloria’s and Cedric’s faces were beginning to take on a more and more suspicious cast.

“…You’ve been grating on me this whole time. Why do you leave your own husband be and carry on like this with mine?”

I said it, pushing aside with my arm the glass Gloria had held out to Herman.

“Give that one to your husband. I’ll see to mine myself.”

And then, without further ado, I thrust one of the glasses I was holding at Herman.

“Drink this one, Herman.”

They were words I had brought out purely as an excuse. And yet the tightness that had been stifling me all this while felt, at last, as though it had loosened clean away.