The Flower Shop (The Seed Traders' Saga Book 2) Read online

  Thankfully, she had not let anyone talk her into buying the house up on the mountain. In her present state, it would have been just another thing to worry about.

  Konstantin had liked the house, and she found it moving that he really wanted to have a “nest” for the two of them.

  She looked over toward the bedroom, and for the first time that morning, her expression softened.

  Dear, sweet Konstantin . . .

  She would never have thought that life might still have a great love in store.

  He slept so soundly! Like an infant that has drunk its fill at its mother’s breast. He had no sense of fear at all. Dear, dear Konstantin—only youth could be so guileless and carefree.

  “You’re right, dear Irina,” he had said, when she turned down the house. “So high up on the hill, we would be quite far away from everything. From the Hotel Stéphanie, everything is close and easy to reach, even at your age . . .”

  For a moment, Irina had been uncertain whether she should find his remark insulting. Did Kostia really think she was no longer strong enough to walk up a hill? But then she had seen the look in his eyes, full of love and concern.

  Irina had not told Konstantin the true reason for saying no to buying the house. Nor had she informed him that, if the situation did not deteriorate, she was planning to buy a house the following season, but a far larger one. If she was going to keep a home in Baden-Baden, then it would have to be large and appropriately stylish. Konstantin would then have not only a room of his own, but the entire bel étage for his art. He gave most generously of his feelings, and she did not want to be petty in return.

  But it was an undeniable fact that her young lover was already an expensive luxury. He loved roulette almost as much as he loved cards. But could she deny him those small pleasures, especially as he neglected his painting for her sake? Everything in life had its price.

  “Around four weeks from now—on September thirtieth, to be exact—Kaiserin Augusta will be celebrating her birthday, and I have been invited again as I am every year,” said Irina when she and Konstantin were sitting at breakfast two hours later. While Konstantin wolfed down a plate of eggs, Irina’s gaze kept wandering out through the window into the late-summer garden. “Have I ever mentioned that the kaiserin and I are related? Far, far removed, of course, but I still like to be a little more extravagant with a gift.” Irina pushed the cup of now-cold coffee away in disgust and reached for her champagne glass. “But I would also be only too happy not to go to the party, because it signals the end of the season, which means ‘adieu, Baden-Baden.’”

  “Why are you so gloomy today?” Konstantin asked. “There will be a new season next year! It’s up to us to make the most we can of the winter, too! Irina, mon amour, what do you feel like doing? Would you like to go to the sea? What about London? You know I will go anywhere with you. Or what about Monte Carlo? Piotr says that the casino there has been open again for a long time now that the war is over. Irina, when I picture you strolling along the promenade at Monte Carlo in a frilly snow-white dress, a parasol in your hand, the silver handle shining in the glow of the setting sun, the sea, so blue . . . turquoise and azure, and almost green in places—what a sight for a painter!”

  Irina laughed, interrupting his raptures. “Now stop it. You’re making my mouth water! Monte Carlo . . . not this year. I fear you won’t much like my next destination.” Irina let out a deep sigh. Now don’t make yourself sound like an old mourner, she reproved herself silently, and she straightened her back. It was better for Kostia to know. “Konstantin, my dear, I want to pay my estates a visit this winter, and make sure that everything is in order.”

  “You want to go to . . . Russia?” His eyes were as round as marbles; he looked as bewildered as a child who has just been told that a long-promised outing won’t be taking place.

  Irina shrugged apologetically. “Crimea in winter has little to recommend it. So I will be much happier knowing you are there with me. With a man at my side, the unpleasant inspections I have to make will, I hope, be a little faster and a little easier. And there will be a few bright spots, too. Visits to relatives and—”

  “Visits to relatives,” said Konstantin in a tone of voice he might have used for “criminals” or “lepers.” He frowned. “Irina darling, when are you planning to pull up stakes?”

  “I haven’t set an actual date yet,” she said, taking out a diary bound in white leather. “What about October second? The Saturday before that is Kaiserin Augusta’s birthday celebration. We could have everything packed on Sunday and leave on Monday.”

  Konstantin chewed on his lip for a moment, then took a deep breath and nodded slowly. “So about four weeks until we leave. Well, we’d better make good use of the time,” he murmured.

  Irina laughed. “Oh, we will, my darling!”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  At the end of August, on one of her walks through the meadows alongside Lichtenthaler Allee, Flora noticed a bright splash of violet for the first time—the first autumn crocuses. She quickly turned her back on them.

  They were the only flowers that Flora had never liked. Ever since she was a little girl, her mother had drummed into her never to pick the harmless-looking but highly toxic flowers.

  That was not the only reason Flora did not find the flowers very lovely. The sight of them was enough to awaken a wistfulness in her, because they were a sign that summer would soon fade. Then the wind would blow across the stubble in the fields, and the land would look barren and dull where cornflowers had stood just a few weeks before.

  Flora put the final weeks—before nature gave itself over to hibernation—to good use. Like a squirrel stocking up its supply of nuts, she went out every day and gathered supplies for winter: nicely formed branches, rose hips, thistles, and all sorts of berries and aromatic herbs. She even collected empty snail shells and took them home with her. Soon, from hooks in the shed that was built on to the summerhouse and from the ceiling in the shop itself hung not only many, many bundles of herbs to dry, but hundreds of different flowers and grasses.

  “Child, what am I supposed to do with these?” Kuno asked, picking up one of the striped snail shells. But all in all, he was overjoyed at the booty Flora brought back with her from her expeditions, because he had decided to try again with dried flowers that winter. Of course, he also planned to order fresh flowers from more southern regions, but those were sinfully expensive, making a good supply of dried plants and flowers very helpful indeed.

  Flora thought it a wonderful idea, and as much as she’d enjoyed gathering all the raw materials, she would also have loved to be there when Kuno’s skilled hands created art from a few thistles and leafy vines. By then, though, she would be long gone, and once again standing in her parents’ packing room, filling seed orders.

  “Just look what she’s humping around today—more thistles!”

  Flora pressed her teeth together. She did not want to spoil her last Saturday in Baden-Baden by getting into a fight with the brainless little witches at Maison Kuttner. “Thistles! Oh my god! As if she wasn’t prickly enough already.”

  “And look—she’s been snipping bits off fir trees, too. Is it Christmas already?” asked one.

  “I can’t wait to see what she drags home in winter—ice flowers, most likely,” their ringleader sneered, sending her colleagues into fits of giggles.

  Enough! Flora was already several steps past the pretentious shop when their needling finally became too much. She wheeled around.

  “You want to know what we’re planning for winter?” She glared angrily at the young women from behind her armful of fir sprigs. “I can tell you this: Great things! Things the likes of which Baden-Baden has never seen before! Our customers’ eyes will be as big as dinner plates. They’ll be breaking down our door, and you and your forced roses will be roundly snubbed in favor of our marvels!”

  Flora enjoyed the look of confusion on their faces; then she turned on her heel and stalked off trium
phantly, smiling broadly to herself.

  She’d shown them! They’d spend ages wondering what might be behind her claims of “great things” and “things the likes of which Baden-Baden has never seen before.” But Flora’s high spirits evaporated as quickly as they had appeared, and left no more than a bitter aftertaste. The only “novelty” would be that, beginning Monday, she would no longer be there.

  Because the first of October fell on a Sunday, Flora’s departure was planned for the following day, the second.

  On Saturday evening, Sabine accompanied her on her final stroll through their quarter of the city, a neighborhood she had grown very fond of. They visited Semmel, the butcher, who gave her a few sausages as a going-away present, and said farewell to the proprietress of The Gilded Rose and many others she had come to know. Even Sabine, usually so brisk and self-assured, was dejected, and Flora was relieved when they got back to the house.

  She spent Sunday packing and digging over the flower bed, now empty, in the backyard. Although she kept looking for Friedrich, he did not show his face at all in the afternoon. He was probably on duty at the Trinkhalle, thought Flora, and she could not protect herself from the feelings of disappointment that weighed on her like a heavy, wet coat.

  That evening, a bottle of wine was opened in her honor, and the entire family drank to her health. Ernestine shed a few tears at her impending departure, and even Kuno seemed deeply moved, swallowing hard to contain his emotions. Only Friedrich sat there stonily. Flora had expected more from him, frankly: Could he not have conjured an invitation to the theater or some other memorable moment? They had become good friends in the past few months. At least, Flora assumed that they had.

  But with the general mood so gloomy, she was almost happy when Monday finally came.

  The light, drizzling rain that had been falling all weekend had evolved into a steady downpour by Monday morning.

  “Look, even the sky is crying to see you go. Maybe we should have taken a carriage after all,” said Sabine, stomping along beside Flora.

  “I still prefer to walk. I get to see the town one more time. You can go back if you want,” said Flora, switching her traveling bag from her left hand to her right.

  “Nonsense!” the maid replied. “If none of the others can bring themselves to accompany you, then I’m not going to leave you in the lurch, too. I’m going to miss you, Flora, even if I find all your energy exhausting.”

  “I’ll miss you, too,” Flora murmured. “Nearly half a year! It’s gone by so fast. It was wonderful here, with you.” A lump was forming in her throat again.

  Sabine ducked beneath some low-hanging branches. “I was actually expecting the young master, you know . . .”

  “Well, that’s what you get for all your wild speculations. So much for Friedrich being madly in love with me.” Flora could not keep the bitterness out of her voice. She could understand Kuno not wanting to close the shop to go with her to the station, and also that a farewell on the platform would have been far too upsetting for Ernestine. But that Friedrich would not see it as appropriate to accompany her to her train and say a proper goodbye, well . . . she would not have thought that of him at all.

  The two women walked on in silence.

  Around them, the streets were empty. None of the businesses along the Promenade had opened, no tables stood in front of cafés, and everything gave an impression of desolation.

  Flora shivered. The mood reminded her of Gönningen. In September, or October at the latest, when the work in the fields was done, most of the seed traders went off for months at a time to visit their customers all over the world. Days before their departure, the whole village was frantically busy with preparations. Children cried more often and clutched at their mothers’ skirts, knowing well that they would soon be sent off to Grandmother or a distant aunt. But no bawling or tears made any difference. The day of departure came as it did every year, and afterward, for many weeks, Gönningen was like a ghost village.

  When Flora arrived home, she knew, her father and Uncle Valentin would already have left. She hoped that her father had received the letter she had sent, in which she wished him a safe and successful trip.

  The station was a confusion of spa guests, their servants, and mountains of luggage, all of it blocking the platform, stairs, and passages. Sabine and Flora were constantly being bumped in the side or pushed out of the way, and Sabine cursed loudly at their treatment.

  They managed to find a spot a little away from the chaos, where they could wait for Flora’s train. From the corner of her eye, Flora noticed the tall figure of Lady Lucretia, surrounded by a profusion of luggage. The Englishwoman, too, cut a melancholy figure.

  “Half the town seems to be leaving. Baden-Baden will feel quite deserted by tomorrow.” Flora pointed with her chin toward the departing visitors. “I hate goodbyes!” she suddenly said, from deep in her soul. “I always have, even when I was a child, even—” And before she could stop herself, she threw both hands over her face and began to sob.

  Flora still had her face buried in her hands when she suddenly felt consoling arms embrace her. The warmth felt good, and her sobs subsided. At least Sabine had some sympathy.

  “Flora . . . you can’t say goodbye. You . . . you can’t go at all!” she heard a male voice say beside her.

  Only then did Flora realize that the consoling arms did not belong to Sabine.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Well? What’s going on?” Ernestine whispered in Sabine’s ear.

  The maid shrugged. “They’re sitting facing each other. I think the young master, I mean, your son, he’s . . . holding Flora’s hand.” She squinted through the keyhole into the front room, a task not made any easier with Ernestine leaning on her back.

  Flora, of course, had pestered Friedrich all the way home in the carriage. What was the matter? Why did she have to return to the house? Was something wrong with Kuno? Had there been an accident?

  And she had become furious when Friedrich would not tell her anything. She had even shouted at him because, for his sake, she had now missed her train.

  Friedrich took no apparent notice of any of it. “Soon,” he had said all the way home. “We’ll talk soon.” And he had laughed as he said it.

  “He’s holding her hand? But . . . that can only mean that he’s summoned up the courage after all. And at the last moment, literally—my heavens! Better late than not at all, though, right? My one-and-only . . .”

  “Now he’s kneeling in front of her. How romantic!” Sabine could already picture herself telling Minka all about it. She’d been right all along thinking that Friedrich had fallen for Flora.

  “He’s kneeling? Mon Dieu!” Ernestine was so animated that she broke into French, which was really not like her at all. “I can’t believe my boy had to make this all so exciting—he certainly doesn’t have that from me.”

  Sabine gave her mistress a sideways look. She would never have believed that Ernestine Sonnenschein would be so thrilled about a daughter-in-law.

  Sabine turned her attention back to the keyhole, and her train of thought was rudely interrupted. “Oh! Flora is shaking her head. It looks like he’s said something that she doesn’t agree with.”

  “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 d
ay, 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!