newsprint rather than white paper?'
'I hope so. Do you want to see my plans for my mill?'
'Yes, please'
****
'That went rather well,' Gottfried said as the young women disappeared down the path.
'She still got you interested?' Friedrich asked.
'Yes, and she seems to be very interested in papermaking.'
'Of course she's interested in what you do. How else will she know if it's worth dragging a proposal of marriage out of you or not?'
'Veronika's not like that,' Gottfried protested.
'She's a woman. All women are like that.''
'Well, she's gone a bit further than just being interested in what I do. Veronika seems to have a firm grasp of the concepts. She even had some good ideas on the possible layout of the mill.'
'What would a woman know about the layout of a mill?' Friedrich asked.
'She's working towards her GED, and has done some business papers at the Vo Tech in Grantville.'
'Book learning,' Friedrich muttered.
'Yes, book learning. But her book learning with my practical knowledge . . .'
'So it's got that far?'
Gottfried shook his head. 'No, but I'm definitely thinking about it.'
When the bells in Saalfeld tolled the quarter hour, Gottfried stopped work to search the road. There, as regular as clockwork, was Veronika, walking up the path with her basket slung over her shoulder. He wasn't the only man on the construction crew watching her approach, although he hoped the main interest of the rest of them was for the contents of her basket rather than the person carrying it.
He grabbed the boiled-leather hard hat that had been painted pink especially for Veronika after it became obvious she would be a regular visitor and traded it for the basket she was carrying. While she put on her hat he removed the cloth wrapped bundle with his name on it and left the basket for the men to empty in their own time. 'It's a pity you only have ten minutes to look around.'
'Why? What is it you want to show me?'
He reached out a hand and tugged her along. 'We're ready to do our first full test.'
Veronika let herself be dragged along. 'You're ready to start making paper?'
'It's just a test run to sort out any problems. We won't be starting production until next week.'
'Have you got many orders yet?'
Gottfried froze, causing Veronika to bump into him. 'Orders?'
'Yes, orders. You know, contracts from people wanting to buy your paper.'
Gottfried knew very well what orders were, but he'd been so involved with building his mill he hadn't had time to think of anything so mundane as building up an order book. 'That shouldn't be a problem,' he said airily. 'Everybody knows I'm going to make newsprint. The printers will be clamoring for it as soon as I start production.' He added a smile to suggest he was sure that such would be the case.
'Aren't you being just a shade overly hopeful?' Veronika asked.
So she wasn't buying it. Well, when a man had his back to the wall, he had to come out fighting. 'How would you go about getting orders?' Gottfried was happy to see that silenced her. 'It's different when you have to come up with a plan, isn't it?' He got a glare for that sally, and he could almost see the wheels turning as she thought about the problem he'd set.
'An open day! That's what we need. We invite the potential customers to the mill to inspect everything. You can show them some paper being made and answer all their questions, and when they leave, we give them a free sample that they can take home and test.'
'Free sample?' Gottfried had been in full agreement with her idea right up to the point where she used that foul four-letter word. 'Do you have any idea how much paper costs to make?'
'Stop thinking about how much it'll cost, and start thinking about how much business it'll create. If you tried to sell them samples, maybe a few would buy them, but if you give everyone a quire of paper, not only will they all have a sample, but they'll probably all try it out. And they'll talk about it amongst themselves . . .'
Gottfried reached out and silenced her in the age-old method. He firmly expected to be met by outrage, or at least have his shins kicked, but Veronika surprised him.
It was the bells of Saalfeld tolling the quarter hour that broke up the kiss. Gottfried's delightful armful was suddenly pushing him away.
'I have to go,' Veronika called as she ran off.
Gottfried was a bit peeved that she could so easily break off such a mind-blowing kiss, but not so peeved as to miss that she remembered to recover her basket and the money for tomorrow's lunch orders. At the very least, that meant she expected to be back tomorrow.
****
Veronika was breathing heavily as she entered the town square leading to the office. A quick glance up at the clock tower showed she was going to cut it very fine, and in fact, she only just made it to the door as the clock chimed the half-hour. She scampered through the door into the office, to find Nikolaus Rorer standing at the counter, just as the last chime sounded.
'I really must talk to your supervisor about your time keeping, Fraulein Vorkeuffer. You've been getting later and later returning from your lunch break every day for the last month.'
'But Veronika has never been late,' Catrin protested.
Nikolaus gestured towards Veronika. 'She hardly looks ready to start work on time. And for what? A few minutes with a man who isn't going to marry her.'
'Gottfried is too going to marry Veronika,' Catrin said.
'Why would a mill owner marry a girl like her, when he can have his pick of the daughters and granddaughters of the members of the Chamber of Commerce? You should have seen them at the dinner Tuesday night. They were all over your Gottfried.' Nikolaus stopped as if an idea had suddenly come to him. 'But of course you couldn't have seen that, because you weren't there. Your man didn't invite you, did he?' He threw Veronika a triumphant look.
She knew Nikolaus was trying to hurt her, and he was succeeding, but there was no way she was going to let him see that. Besides, she had the memory of that kiss, and the dazed look in Gottfried's eyes to hang her hopes onto. 'Is there something we can help you with, Herr Rorer, or don't you have anything better to do than prop up the counter?'
'I can see you're putting a brave face on, but he won't marry you. We all know that.' Nikolaus gave Veronika a last sneer before pushing off from the counter and disappearing down the corridor to his office.
'Somebody should do something nasty to that man, like maybe sit a bucket of water over his door, or . . .'
'No, Catrin. He isn't worth it.'
'But imagine what he'd look like,' Catrin said.
The image of a wet and bedraggled Nikolaus brought a smile to Veronika's face. 'He'd raise such a fuss.'
'Sure, but just thinking about it brought back the smile you had before the monster wiped it away. How did your time with Gottfried go today?'
Veronika knew Catrin was just curious about the progress at the mill, but she couldn't help remembering that kiss, and she blushed accordingly.
'Oh! Has something happened I need to hear about?'
'No,' Veronika said, trying to brazen it out.
It didn't work. Catrin was studying her closely. Too closely. 'Gottfried kissed you,' she said. 'What was it like?'
'Gottfried and I kissed each other, and it was . . . nice.'
'Nice? Is that the best you could do?'
'That's all I'm saying,' Veronika insisted. 'And it's about time we got some work done around here.'
