“Doesn’t agree with? Any woman would count herself lucky to call my one-and-only her own.”
I don’t know what’s going on any more than you! Sabine felt like saying. “Oh! Now—” she began, but quickly fell silent again. Let madam squirm a little longer. It was not necessary for her to know how passionately her son was kissing Flora just then.
Sabine turned away from the keyhole with a smile on her face. “I think their conversation might still take a little while. Maybe it’s better if we leave them to it. Besides,” she said, doing her best to look decorous, “listening at keyholes is really not what a well-bred woman does, is it?”
“I’ve been losing sleep for weeks, lying awake agonizing over how I can say to you what I want to say to you. With every passing day, my insecurity only grew. And when your departure was truly imminent, I thought all was lost . . . I could have kicked myself for my inability to speak my mind.”
Flora let out a confused laugh. “But we’ve been talking our heads off to each other every day.” What is this all about?
“But I don’t want just to talk. I’d much rather . . .” Friedrich did not finish his sentence, but lifted his hands in the air, as if in exasperation. The self-assertiveness he had shown at the train station had vanished, and he abruptly dropped to one knee in front of Flora. “My God, I really wanted everything to be more romantic. I wanted to come out with a thousand pretty words and . . .” He took a deep breath. “Flora, dear Flora, will you be my wife?”
“Your . . .”
“You see? You find the very idea bewildering! That’s what comes of all the camaraderie we’ve shared. But . . . we do like each other. At least, I like you, from my heart. I could say nice things about you day and night, because I find you so enchanting, so fascinating, so pretty. I admire your courage, your energy, your . . . everything! Of course we’re friends, but there’s nothing wrong with being friends in a marriage, is there?”
Flora nodded silently. She felt as dazed as if someone had hit her on the head with a hammer.
“I’ve never actually thought about marriage,” she said. Which was an understatement, she realized. She had never really paid any serious attention to her feelings for Friedrich at all. Oh, she had certainly been aware that their relationship had changed over the months, and that she perhaps found him more than just “good company.” But Flora had not found a name to use for those changes.
Friedrich let out a deep sigh. “Dear Flora, say something, please!”
“I’m speechless,” she said plainly.
“Don’t you think you might come to view my proposal . . . favorably? The two of us—would that be so unthinkable?”
She shook her head. “I like you, I do, very, very much! You know that.” Her lips trembled and her voice sounded somehow metallic. Good heavens, Friedrich was actually proposing to her!
“The two of us, together forever. That would also mean that you could bring all your ideas to life. Father already gives you a free hand. And one day, the shop will belong to us anyway. With Flora Sonnenschein in charge.”
“Oh,” Flora breathed. Her shop? Friedrich, her husband? What would Kuno and Ernestine have to say about that? And what about her parents? Her mother was counting on her being home that same day.
Flora’s head was spinning as wildly as leaves in an autumn wind.
Her silence prompted Friedrich to speak again. “Even though you might only harbor friendly feelings for me right now, love can still grow. I will do everything in my power to be a good husband. Love can grow. Don’t you think so, too?”
Flora nodded. That love could come from friendship, well, wasn’t that how it had been between her own mother and father?
“Love is like a seed,” she murmured, more to herself than to Friedrich. “Only when you tend it and nurture it can it thrive.”
Friedrich’s brow furrowed. “You can think about it, of course. Take all the time you need. I mean, if you want to return to G?nningen first, the next train leaves at twelve. It doesn’t mean that . . . I mean, we both know that—”
“Friedrich, hush. If you aren’t quiet for a moment, I won’t be able to think at all.”
“Hmph.” Friedrich looked at Flora for a long moment, then stood up and went to the window.
The only sound in the room was the ticking of the clock on the wall, but from the door to the hallway came the usual soft Monday-morning noises: Ernestine’s raised voice somewhere in the house, the occasional tinkling of the bell over the front door of the shop, a wagon rolling to a stop in the street outside.
Flora smiled. The voices of the family members, the daily routine, the house, the garden, and the shop—she had become so intimately familiar with all of it. And she had felt at home there since she had first arrived, had been able to accept the small quirks of Kuno and Ernestine without a problem. She had enjoyed her life in the Sonnenschein household. And as far as Friedrich was concerned . . .
Now she knew what difficult questions had been weighing so heavily on his mind in recent days and weeks.
She smiled. He was a good man, and she would probably never find a better one.
Friedrich had actually proposed to her, and had essentially kidnapped her from the train station to do so. She would never have expected him to do that!
Flora’s smile turned into a small laugh, and Friedrich turned around immediately and came to her.
“If I . . . if I really were to . . . say yes,” she began, and her heart was pounding. Should she really?
“Yes?”
“Then there is something that you would have to do urgently.” She smiled mischievously at Friedrich.
“What? Tell me!” Friedrich’s face was so full of concern, as if he were expecting the worst.
“You’ll finally have to kiss me!”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The whole house was in a state of excitement.
Sabine was the first to congratulate Flora. “I’d given up hope, I have to say,” she whispered to Flora while Friedrich went to fetch his parents. “Oh, I’m so happy for you! But don’t think you can start ordering me around now like the mistress does,” she added with a wink.
Kuno’s cheeks were flushed red as the four of them sat around the table. He clapped Friedrich jovially on the shoulder. “Congratulations, my son! It took you long enough. There were a few times I wanted to give you a good kick in the rear!”
“Kuno!” Ernestine hissed. “Watch your language. What’s our future daughter-in-law going to think?”
Flora and Friedrich held hands and laughed.
Ernestine plucked nervously at her hair, which was tied into a bun, and it soon looked like a battered bird’s nest. “Good heavens, well, this changes everything. Where is Flora supposed to spend the night now? As the future Mrs. Sonnenschein, she can hardly keep sharing a room with Sabine, can she? Should we set up Sybille’s room for her? Oh, someone has to tell her, too.”
“Mother, settle down,” said Friedrich, and he laughed again. “Flora has only just accepted my proposal. Now that you and Father know, the most important thing is that we make the midday train to G?nningen so that Flora’s mother does not worry unnecessarily. I will go along, of course, because I would also like to ask her father for her hand.”
“Do you really want to come along to G?nningen?” Flora asked in some disbelief. “What about your work?” She had never known Friedrich to be so spontaneous.
“My work isn’t going anywhere. What’s more important is that I don’t let my bride-to-be out of sight, or she might decide to change her mind!”
Flora gave Sabine, who was standing in the doorway, a furtive wink.
“You won’t meet my father, I’m afraid. He and Uncle Valentin have already left for Bohemia, on their usual sales trip. They won’t be back until Christmas.”
Friedrich kissed first Flora’s hand, then his mother’s, making them both giggle bashfully.