Page 22 of Heart of Snow
Just outside the library doors, Belinda put a hand on my arm and wished me luck.
“Are you not coming with me?” I asked.
“I must remain here to serve as guard. We can’t have anyone happening upon you tutoring the huntsman’s page.”
The idea of being alone with Friedrich made me instantly anxious, but I thought of Samuel, put my hand on the knob, and pushed into the shadowy room.
Friedrich stood at the desk thumbing through the first tract of Luther’sTo the Christian Nobility of the German Nation, but heflopped it closed when I entered. Tossing the pamphlet onto the desk beside the fruit bowl, he faced me.
“I wasn’t sure you’d actually come.” He frowned, but his tone was teasing.
I rolled my eyes and walked past him to the fireplace. “Well, at least you wouldn’t be waiting in the rain this time.”
“Where is your companion?” The question was casual, curious. Not accusatory, as it might have been in the past. It seemed Friedrich was putting on his best behavior since our reconciliation Midsummer’s morn.
“She is keeping watch at the door,” I answered. “Come. Sit down.”
Belinda had managed to order a small fire burning, but the room was otherwise already perfectly arranged with Father’s two substantial oak chairs angled toward the hearth. I took my seat, leafing through my papers for the alphabet I’d penned, as Friedrich haltingly lowered himself into the other chair. He leaned his elbows on his thighs, clasped his hands together, and bounced his leg furiously. I’d never seen Friedrich nervous before, and I found I rather liked it. His nervousness buoyed my own confidence. Pressing my lips together to accentuate their color, I held out the page to him.
“Here you are.” I tugged my lip between my teeth, hoping it wasn’t too overt a display.
His leg stopped mid-bounce as his gaze fell to my mouth, and a soft scarlet bloomed over his cheeks. He pulled the paper from my hand to study, rubbing the back of his neck and concealing his blush behind his raised elbow.
But his blush had betrayed the truth; Friedrich found me attractive.
I tucked back my smile. Though exciting a man’s admiration was not a novelty, I felt a thrill in my gut to see it fromhim. It was addictive, and I wanted more.
Moving closer, I caught his subtle scent of cloves and straw as I leaned over the arm of my chair and pointed to the first letter on the page. “This isA—pronounced ‘ah.’”
Friedrich repeated my pronunciation.
“B is ‘beh.’”
He echoed me again. We worked our way through the alphabet, and I took special care to pout my lips when pronouncing “o” and “ku,” but Friedrich kept his eyes down throughout the exercise, never once risking another glance at me. My former excitement sagged as I riffled through my papers for the next piece to study.
He waved the paper in his hand. “I’ll just go over these again.”
Friedrich quietly mouthed each letter of the alphabet to himself, leaving me to glance around the room, unsure of how to occupy my time. Remembering the bowl of fruit on Father’s desk, I picked out two red-cheeked apples and brought them back to the fire, holding one out to Friedrich as I sank into my chair. “Apple?”
He glanced up from his studies to the offering balanced on my palm, its shiny surface reflecting the flares of the fire. When his eyes met mine, they were narrow and intense with a weight I couldn’t comprehend, as though my deed had some deeper significance. Taking the apple, he muttered a quiet, “Thank you.”
I hoped I’d answered politely but was too distracted puzzling out the significance of his look to know what I said.
A long silence followed, interrupted only by the occasional pops and hisses of the fire logs. When Friedrich finally spoke, he was still staring down at the uneaten apple in his hand. “You don’t recall, do you? When we met as children?”
“We’ve met before?” From the beginning he’d seemed familiar, but why could I not remember him?
“I’m not surprised. It likely wasn’t significant to you. It’s just... you gave me an apple then too, and this sparked the memory, is all.”
“Tell me of it.”
He turned in his seat, facing me. “Your father came to visit the mines. You and your sister were there too.”
“Elizabeth?” I’d only ever accompanied Father to the mines once, just after I’d recovered from my illness. Just after they’d burned the healer. The hint of a memory stirred in my mind, of air heavy with heat and smoke, of dwarfs and men scurrying from the shafts like ants from their mound.
“I’d tried to talk with your father, but the overseer stopped me,” Friedrich said.
Now I recalled kneeling on the coach’s seat, knocking over the food basket as I watched the commotion from my window. A beefy man had held a dirt-covered boy by the shirt front, cursing loudly, then cuffing the boy’s ear. The boy crushed his eyes closed, hiding his face against his shoulder as he awaited the next blow. The blow never came.
