Page 40 of Heart of Snow
“It’s just, this new understanding of your schemes has me wondering. What exactly is it you’ve been doing these last few months to bait me?”
With a flush on her face, she studied the flowers of the rug.
“Do you refuse to tell me?”
Her eyes darted to mine before returning to the floor. “You would make me relive the discomfort over again? And to the very person who would find it most ridiculous?”
“You don’t have to answer if it causes you grief.” She most certainly needed to answer, considering the pain she’d caused me. “No doubt it was intentional having the two of us share a horse on our way to the mines.”
“We couldn’t very well take three horses without arousing suspicion.”
“What about helping Ernst? Or befriending the miners? And what of the tangle in the holly? Did you intend for that?”
Answering from behind the shield of a raised book, her voice was muffled. “You can rest assured that anything I did with intention, I didn’t do well.”
My eyes dropped back to my reading, and I muttered a quiet, “Well enough.”
Chapter 17
Friedrich
The excited chatter in thecabin made me regret not bringing fresh game sooner. While the miners sat around the table stripping the meat off the bones of the hare, I went to Ernst’s bed and sank down beside his feet. I’d been sitting in exactly that spot not one month ago, watching an entirely different scene play out at the table. The memory was colored in orange firelight and warmth as I pictured Margaretha’s soft smile and her frequent glances at me. And to think they’d all been lies.
I whisked off my cap and ran my fingers through my hair.
“What troubles ya, Friedrich?” Ernst’s eyes sparkled.
“Your grin tells me you already know.”
He nodded. “Womenfolk can be downright maddenin’.”
“Especially this one. Would that I had never set eyes on her,” I grumbled.
“Ya don’t mean that. Not with the way you two were smilin’ after each other.”
I took a deep breath, pushing down the rising anger. “Don’t rely on that nonsense. She meant nothing by it.”
“Tush, don’t go doubtin’—”
“There are things here you don’t understand, Ernst,” I barked. “Things I can’t explain.”
Ernst went quiet before he softly asked, “Because she’s a countess?”
My eyes met his, and I considered protesting. But I sensed he’d known the truth before Margaretha and I even left the cottage on our last visit. “So you found us out.”
“Her beauty. Yer name slip. It weren’t hard to figure.” Ernst creaked his legs over his bed and scooted himself beside me. “Yer spot might be tougher’n most, but it’s not hopeless.”
I let out a humorless laugh. “That’s exactly the word to describe it, Ernst. Hopeless. If you only knew the things she’s done and the lies she’s told. And all in the name of aiding Count Samuel, as if that could justify anything.”
Ernst tapped a finger against his lips, pondering a moment. “Did I ever tell ya ’bout the accident by Reddighausen? Noblewoman and her children on their way home when the coach broke a wheel?”
I shook my head. This was a large shift in topic.
“I’m not sure if the coach tipped the young boy into the river or he fell in while wandering, but he was drownin’. Course the mother jumped in after him. She got him up on her back, though she could barely keep her own head above water. It weren’t a swift river, but it were deep, and the strong current was washin’ ’em both downstream. The servants ran along the banks, cryin’ out to let the boy go and save herself, but the mother wouldn’t give up on her child. Even when the water covered her head, she still clung to him. They both drowned.”
I closed my eyes. “Why do you tell me this, Ernst?”
“If that woman didn’t fight fer her child, the regret would gnaw ’n wear at her ’til all she’s eatin’ and breathin’ and carryin’ ’round with her is guilt. People do foolish things, maybe even mad things, to save the ones they love.”
