“The girl doesn’t like me.”
“Doesn’t like you or doesn’t like the idea you’re marrying her for her father’s business?”
Roo shrugged. “Luis says I need to win her, but . . .”
“But what?”
“I just don’t find her very interesting,” said Roo.
De Loungville was quiet a moment, then said, “When you’re taking her about and trying to woo her, Avery, what do you talk about?”
Roo shrugged again. “I try to make myself interesting to her, so I talk about what we’re doing, her father and I, or what I did during the war.” As De Loungville’s expression darkened, he added, “Nothing that would displease the Captain, certainly. I’m more discrete than that.”
Dc Loungville said, “Here’s a suggestion. Ask her a question.”
“What question?”
“Any question. Ask her something about herself. Ask her opinion on some subject” De Loungville grinned. “You might discover that you’re not as captivating a topic of conversation as you seem to think you are.”
Roo sighed. “I’ll try anything.” As they walked toward the door to the office, he added, “I’ll have wagons at the docks at first light. You’d better have your five drivers here an hour before dawn.”
“They’ll be here,” said de Loungville without looking back as he passed through the door into the front office. The door closed. Roo glanced at the bill of lading and began to calculate.
An hour later, Helmut Grindle entered the workshop area and signaled to Avery, who was overseeing the installation of iron gates on the front of stalls where valuables would be warehoused before shipping.
Roo crossed to stand before his partner and, he hoped, soon-to-be father-in-law, and said, “Yes?”
Helmut Grindle said, “I’m taking the shipment of valuables to Ravensburg myself. Some of the more expensive items are to be shown to the Baron’s mother, and given your past relationship, I thought it best if you didn’t make this journey.”
Roo nodded. “A good idea.” Glancing around, he said, “And there’s still too much work to oversee here for me to leave.”
“Are you stopping by for dinner?” asked Grindle.
Roo considered. “I think I’ll stay here and make sure we’re well along on the work. Would you be so kind as to tell Karli I’ll call on her tomorrow?”
Grindle’s eyes narrowed and his expression became unreadable. After a moment he said, “Very well.”
Without further remark he departed and Roo turned his attention back to the matters at hand. He had come to know his older partner well over the months they had been working together, but when it came to matters concerning Karli, Roo wasn’t entirely sure what the old man thought Several times in the course of the evening he wondered what had been passing through his wily partner’s mind at that minute.
Roo sat quietly in the parlor. With her father taking a wagon of luxury goods to Darkmoor, Karli and Roo were alone in the house for the first time. Previously either they had dined with her father or Roo had escorted her out, to one of the fairs in the city or to the market.
Roo spent much of the early part of the evening alone, since Karli insisted on taking charge of the kitchen herself. As Roo had discovered, there was a cook as well as a maid living in the outwardly modest Grindle home, but Karli had never allowed anyone to care for her father but herself.
Now that supper was over, they sat quietly in a room Helmut used to entertain business guests, one he called the “sitting room.” Still, Roo now admitted that the comfort and privacy of the room made it easy to relax. He sat on a small divan and Karli sat on a chair next to it.
Karli spoke softly, as she always did. “Is there something wrong?”
Roo came out of his reverie. “No, nothing, really. I was just thinking about how odd it seems, having an entire room of a house devoted to doing nothing but sitting and talking. Back in Ravensburg the only time we got to talk was over meals at the inn where Erik’ s mother worked, or when we were out doing something.”
The girl nodded, and kept her eyes down. Silence fell.
After a moment Roo said, “When is your father expected back?”