Konstantin sat down beside her in the grass. “I’ve been sitting with her since early this morning, keeping vigil. I came out briefly because I needed some fresh air.”
“When . . . when did it happen? Oh, not—” Flora, who knew about Püppi’s fear of dying at night, broke off at the look in Konstantin’s eyes. “Oh no.”
“Püppi feared nothing more than the reaper coming for her at night. If only I’d been there with her! But I was away, at a card game. When I returned, she was in the armchair. Dead.” Konstantin’s eyes were wet with tears. “I was taken completely unawares. I never would have thought that she could just . . . die, just like that. She was weak, but we all thought that after her bath treatment she would start to improve. She wanted to go to Elena’s party.”
Elena’s party . . . Flora bit down on her lip. Set beside Konstantin’s grief, her own disaster counted for little.
“I’m so sorry . . .” She stroked his cheek, but he took hold of her hand, kissed it. His eyes peered into hers, hungry, avid, yearning.
“Flora, don’t send me away now. You and I . . .” He drew her to him, and his words caught in her hair. “I have never needed anyone as much as I need you now.”
And then she was lying in his arms. His full lips found hers and he kissed her deeply, nibbling, tasting. She responded with small, frantic kisses as she pressed against his chest. She felt his tongue in her mouth, started, then opened her lips wider, wanting more from him, everything from him, wanted to feel him deep inside her.
A loud clinking beside Konstantin’s leg startled them both.
Konstantin lifted the linen sack that had fallen out of his pocket. It was clearly heavy. “Püppi’s jewelry,” he said. “And some of her money. I had to secure both before I left the room. The staff steal like ravens, you know,” he said. He dropped the sack on the grass beside him.
Flora nodded, and lifted her skirts.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Looking back, Flora could not have said how she made it home that evening. Or how she managed to lie down next to Friedrich in bed as if nothing had happened.
Konstantin . . .
Early the next morning, she woke to Alexander’s happy babbling. She wandered into the kitchen like a sleepwalker, made some milky porridge, and fed her son. Friedrich had already left, and had left a note for her saying that he had been invited to a sitting of the spa committee that evening. Thank God.
As on every Monday morning, the street was filled with wagons, all of them in a hurry. Pedestrians had their work cut out trying to navigate among the horses and drays. In front of the printer’s shop stood one particularly large wagon stacked high with boxes. Flora wound her way past it and along the crowded footpath, careful not to bump anything or anyone with the bouquet of sunflowers she was carrying. As she walked past the Promenade boutiques, she glanced covertly across to Maison Kuttner, as she normally would. Today the flower shop did not interest her, and the other pretty shops just as little. She wanted nothing more than to deliver her bouquet as quickly as possible and then to be alone. So far, she had managed to suppress every thought that had entered her head. She did not know how long that would continue to be possible, or what would happen when it was not.
Don’t think. Don’t feel. Don’t think. Don’t feel.
Normally, Flora would have looked forward to a visit to the Mallebrein family. She would be met by Marie Mallebrein and invited in for a cup of coffee. After a little gossip, Flora’s bouquets would be praised. Sometimes, Flora would even talk with the senior judge himself. Franz Mallebrein was an amiable man who spoke wisely and also radiated a human warmth that Flora would not have expected in someone of his profession. He respected the fine arts at least as much as he did the law, he once confided to Flora. He used the little free time that his profession and his ever-growing family allowed him to delve into the mythology surrounding Baden-Baden. He wrote poetry and short stories, and had once recited a few of his own verses for Flora.
On that Monday morning, Flora was relieved to find that no one besides the maid who answered the door seemed to be at home. Marie would be at the market, most likely, and the children probably off playing. Flora sighed with relief. Gossip was the last thing she felt like sharing just then.
“The sunflowers for the lady of the house,” she said, handing the large bouquet to the maid. “And here is the bill. Mrs. Mallebrein can—” Flora broke off abruptly when a door on her right opened.
“The flower girl! My ears do not deceive me.” With ruddy cheeks and a piece of paper in his hand, the judge stood in front of her. “What a beautiful bouquet! You are a true artist.”
Flora gave him a small curtsy. “Judge Mallebrein, you are too kind.”
The judge took a step toward her and pointed to the paper in his hand. “It occurs to me that just recently you were happy to listen to some of my verses. This is my latest attempt. Would you like to hear it?”
Flora had no choice but to nod.
“Do you know the legend of Merline, the nymph of the pond? I’ve been trying to put the story into verse. Listen:
By the lake in the woods so high,
the nymph ’mongst the mosses abides
her golden lyre by her side,
her deer a-frolic nearby.
Oh Mother, let me go to her.
Trust her I never will do,
I will watch from afar and be true
but can no longer bear to stay here . . .”
Flora staggered back a step as if she’d been slapped in the face. Merline, the nymph! The personification of temptation, today of all days. She pressed herself against the wood-paneled wall of the stairwell and sighed deeply.
The judge lowered the page. “What do you think?”
Flora felt the man’s expectant gaze on her. Say something! Something friendly and harmless, you can do that. Just don’t start bawling! she told herself.
She felt tears rising and fluttered her hands in front of her face as if she had to sneeze at any moment. But the judge was not to be deceived.
“Young lady, why are you crying?”
Flora turned and ran out the door.
“Why are you running away?” he called after her. “Stay, please. I still have to pay for the flowers and . . .” Perplexed, the judge looked at the paper in his hand. “The poem wasn’t that bad, I’m sure.”
Out! Out of town! Away from the staring people. Flora took the first bridge she came to that crossed the Oos. But she had not considered that her route would take her past the Trinkhalle.
At the sight of its columns, she burst out sobbing again.
Merline, the embodiment of temptation.
What had she done?
When she had first come to Baden-Baden, Friedrich had been quick to take her to visit his sacred place. Flora remembered it as if it were yesterday—the sun on her back, his laughter in her ear. He had enjoyed playing the city guide for her. And what had she said to him, when he told her the legend of the nymph in the pond?
“Merline wouldn’t get anywhere with us.”
What a joke! What had she done?
She had given in to temptation more easily than any goatherd, had given herself over to desires that she had not even known existed.
She blushed with shame when she thought about how she had pressed herself to Konstantin. She had practically thrown herself at him! She was no better than the cocottes for whom Friedrich had nothing but contempt.
And there had been no need for it to happen. For weeks, she had sensed the threat that Konstantin Sokerov represented for her. Every accidental touch, every feather-light kiss of her hand by Konstantin had burned on her skin. Even Sabine had suspected something, and had tried to warn her. But Flora had preferred to close her eyes and ears and give in to the pleasant tingling in her belly.
Flora came to a standstill and gazed at the elongated building, toward which—now, late in the morning—more and more people were making their way on foot. Should she go to Friedrich and confess everything to him, now, on the spot?