Chapter 231: Trying to Entertain
Ernest Teucher knew the ultimate tensile strength of every structural plate rolled at the basin works. He knew the weekly coal extraction rate from the northern pits down to the ton. He knew the precise tonnage that crossed the points at Helmarte Central between sunrise and dusk.
He had also known, with identical mathematical certainty, that he was utterly in love with Eleanor Valemont.
That realization, however, had proven far simpler to accept in private than it was to articulate aloud. Standing outside the stone entrance of St. Margaret’s Children’s Hospital on Thursday afternoon, Ernest discovered that confessing his feelings was considerably more terrifying than securing a national railway charter from the Crown.
He pulled his gold pocket watch from his waistcoat.
Two fifty-seven.
Three minutes early. Acceptable.
He snapped the case shut and slipped it away. A second later, his hand reached back into his pocket, drew the watch out, and checked the enamel dial once more.
Two fifty-eight.
Ernest stared at the ticking second hand. "That was biologically impossible for a single minute."
The watch ticked on with indifferent precision.
He let out a sharp breath, trying to steady his pulse. "You have faced parliamentary subcommittees."
An elderly nurse carrying a wicker laundry hamper paused on the gravel path, eyeing him with mild concern. Ernest cleared his throat, tucked the watch away, and pushed through the heavy oak doors.
"The Dragon Man!"
His remaining dignity evaporated on the spot.
Three children swarmed him before he could hang his overcoat. One seized his sleeve, another demanded to know if his dragon voice had improved since last Thursday, and a third held up a crude wooden locomotive that was conspicuously missing an entire side rod and its rear driver.
Ernest crouched down, eyeing the broken toy. "Your running gear has suffered catastrophic mechanical failure."
"The dragon bit it," the boy announced matter-of-factly.
Ernest looked up. Eleanor stood by the arched windows of the solarium, biting her lower lip to keep from laughing aloud.
"Do not look at me for support, Baron," she said. "The dragon’s incursions on regional rolling stock are entirely beyond my jurisdiction."
"A severe threat to national transit logistics," Ernest replied, straightening his cuffs.
Then she caught his eye and offered a warm, private smile.
The entire planned opening speech Ernest had spent two days rehearsing vanished from his mind like steam through a relief valve.
Eleanor tilted her head, noticing his sudden stillness. "What is it?"
"Nothing," Ernest said quickly.
"You were staring."
"I was merely observing."
"Me?"
"Yes."
She waited, her gray eyes softening with quiet curiosity.
The three words hovered on the tip of his tongue. Because I love you. He parted his lips to speak.
A small tug rattled his trouser leg. "Mr. Dragon Man, the book is on the rug."
The moment dissolved. Ernest looked down at the boy, then sighed. "Duty calls."
Eleanor pressed her fingers to her lips. "Saved by a mythological reptile."
"I have no idea what you are implying," Ernest muttered.
An hour later, Ernest was seated cross-legged upon the woven rug, holding a battered picture book with both hands. His knees protested the angle, but his vocal modulation had undergone rigorous refinement.
"—and thereupon," Ernest growled in a low, resonant rumble, "the great dragon descended upon the outer battlement—"
"RAWR!" a small girl with ribboned pigtails shouted, supplying the sound effect from the front row.
Ernest paused, giving her a solemn nod. "A very proper acoustic addition. Whereupon Sir Edmund drew his ancestral broadsword—"
"Why doesn’t he simply shoot it with a rifle?" a freckled boy interrupted from the corner.
Ernest halted. Eleanor, sitting on a low bench nearby, covered her mouth with both hands.
"Because," Ernest explained patiently, "this narrative is set in an epoch preceding the invention of rifled barrels and modern percussion caps."
The boy scowled. "He should find one anyway."
"I cannot artificially accelerate the metallurgical and chemical progression of the fictional setting," Ernest reasoned.
The children stared in blank incomprehension.
Eleanor stepped in, her shoulders trembling with suppressed laughter. "Sir Edmund doesn’t require a rifle, Tommy. He is brave enough to face the dragon with cold steel."
The boy considered this, then looked back at Ernest. "A gun would still be more efficient."
Ernest nodded instinctively. "From a tactical perspective, that is undeniably—"
"Ernest," Eleanor warned, pointing a finger at the page. "Read the story."
"Right," he sighed.
When the tale finally concluded, the children scattered toward the tea tables. Only one little girl lingered behind—the same sharp-eyed child who had previously interrogated them regarding their marital timeline.
She looked between Ernest and Eleanor, her brow furrowed with uncompromising scrutiny. "Are you two married yet?"
Ernest nearly dropped the volume onto his boots.
Eleanor laughed softly. "No, sweetheart. Not yet."
"Why not?"
Eleanor glanced at Ernest, a wicked, amused glimmer in her eyes. "You should ask the Baron. He manages the construction schedules."
"Do not redirect tactical cross-examinations toward me," Ernest murmured.
The little girl took a step closer, resting her chin on the edge of the reading table. "Do you love each other?"
The solarium went completely still.
Ernest froze. Eleanor’s amused expression melted into sudden, breathless quiet.
Children possessed an alarming disregard for gradual courtship protocols.
Ernest cleared his throat, searching for a measured, diplomatic escape. "That is... an exceptionally complex personal matter."
Eleanor’s eyebrows arched.
Ernest caught the look and stopped himself. No. He refused to hide behind evasive corporate vocabulary any longer.
He looked down at the little girl with quiet sincerity. "That is a very private question, my dear."
The child considered the answer, then nodded sagely. "My mother says that when adults love each other and don’t say it, they are just being stubborn."
Eleanor burst into helpless laughter, while a passing ward nurse covered a wide smile and gently led the young philosopher away to her ward.
Ernest closed his eyes as the girl called back from the doorway: "You still didn’t say no!"
"This facility," Ernest muttered, rising from the floor and brushing off his trousers, "is a hazardous operational environment."
"I told you," Eleanor beamed, taking her coat from the rack. "Factories are vastly safer."