I nod. “But, at least, I will read bedtime stories to our children.”
I watch to see his reaction to the words. I hoped he would be excited, but he does not react at all, as if it had nothing to do with them.
“Of course, mouse. Whatever you want.” He kisses me.
I kiss him back, but when his hands roam, I twist away.
“Someone will see us.”
“So what if they do? They are only servants.”
His hand is hot upon me, and suddenly I know I do not want him to touch me. He did not give me the book. I am certain of it. It was a lie, all a lie I had perhaps told myself because I wanted it to be true. His love is a lie. I want to ask him if he ever intended to marry me, but I do not. I do not wish to know the answer. I want to hold just a bit longer to the possibility that everything is as I dreamed.
But is it what I want?
I remember what the man had told me about the foundling home and the baby wheel. I can find that home—he can tell me where it is when I visit him at the market. I can take my baby there. I can open the door and turn the wheel. Things can go back to the way they were.
But I do not want that either.
Before, I had dreams, hopes, expectations, the possibility of love. Now I know they aren’t real, for no man will want me if he knows I had another man’s baby. Yet if I hide it, would my life not be a lie?
All I want is a man who will stay up with me throughout the night, talking of books we have read. That is what I want. Someone who understands the loneliness I have felt, someone who, like me, has thought of books as his only friends.
I don’t want Karl. I know who I want, but he will not want me.
I jerk away from Karl. “I feel ill. The baby. And I should sleep if I am to be awake all night, spinning.” The word, spinning, is a hiss, and in that moment, I make a decision. I do not want to be with Karl, not if I must do everything he asks and hope that he will love me.
He nods. “You are not well. I will take you back.”
“Back to the barn?”
“It is only one more night, my lambkin.”
I do not answer but follow him back to the barn, which is now filled with so much straw that it is nearly impossible to walk.
As soon as Karl leaves, I search for the mirror, finally finding it under a bale of straw. “I need him to come back,” I tell Kendra.
“Again? You are using him sorely.”
“Just once more.”
She shrugs. “Very well.” She squints, as if trying to see something at great distance. “I wonder what your Karl is doing now.”
And then she is gone, leaving me with her question. I do not take the bait. I try to sleep, but that question and so many others make my head burst like an egg left on the stove after the water has boiled out. Several times, I am tempted to check the mirror, to ask to see Karl, to know if I will see what I dread—him and Agathe, or maybe Karl making love to a servant girl, or another girl he met at the market. Yet I do not. It should not matter what Karl is doing. My decision should not be based upon him but upon me.
Finally, I give up on sleep and pace the floors as best I can, waiting for him. The one I truly want to see.
Just at nightfall, he appears. “Kendra said you needed me. Just once more.” He surveys the roomful of straw.
“Yes.” I sigh. I realize I have no means to pay him. The ring and the necklace were all I had except for the book, and why would someone who works at a bookseller’s stall want that?
He is walking through the bales of straw, but he turns to look at me.
“About my payment for my labors tonight.” He meets my eyes, and his own seem so falsely stern that he resembles a child trying to imitate a parent. I hope to reach through to the kindness I know is behind, to the little boy who cried over the chickens.
“I have nothing left to give you, nothing you would want.”
He steps closer. “I think you do. You wish me to spin the straw so that you may marry your Karl.” He says your Karl not with a sneer this time, but with an air of disappointment. “If he marries you, you could promise to intercede, to have me appointed as a sort of palace librarian.”
I smile at this. “So you can read all the books?”
He looks down, his bravado gone, and his voice is barely a whisper. “So I can still see you every day.”
I catch my breath, then exhale just as quickly, feeling a bit light-headed. He does not know about the baby, I remind myself. If he did, he would not say such things.
He sees my silence and walks away through the maze of straw, looking for the spinning wheel. He slaps his hands together as he walks. “So we have a deal, then? A barnful of gold to impress your Karl in exchange for a royal appointment?”
I know I have to ask him the question that has been on my mind. I follow behind him, and I place my hand upon his shoulder. He starts when I do.
I say, “I believe you know something about the book I have.”
“The history book?” He does not look at me.
“Yes.”
“I might know something about it.”