Chapter 203: Domestic Ambush

The problem with building an industrial empire was that eventually everyone began assuming you knew what you were doing.

Ernest had discovered this reality several years earlier. If a blast furnace hearth failed to reach the required tapping temperature, a metallurgist came looking for him. If a bridge design exceeded its structural budget, Arthur came looking for him. If an iron mine in the northern hills failed to meet its extraction targets, a superintendent came looking for him.

And if the Belfast National Railway needed another locomotive, another freight terminal, another passing siding, or another hundred covered wagons, someone always came looking for him.

He had grown thoroughly accustomed to the burden. Engineering and industrial problems possessed inputs, constraints, and mathematical solutions.

Tonight, however, Ernest was about to encounter a problem for which no amount of high-tensile steel, differential calculus, corporate capital, or thermodynamic theory could save him.

And he had absolutely no idea it was coming.

Dinner at Oriel Estate had become increasingly difficult to schedule. That realization annoyed Anna Teucher far more than she cared to admit in polite company. There had been a time when her son simply came home at dusk. Now his presence had to be negotiated through an administrative calendar weeks in advance.

Monday was an all-day executive session with the Royal Railway Commission. Tuesday involved operational audits at Teucher Iron & Steel. Wednesday had become a full-day inspection of locomotive chassis alignment at Machine Works No. 3. Thursday was reserved for route surveys regarding the proposed Dunwell maritime corridor.

Friday—Anna had simply stopped asking.

So when Ernest finally agreed to join his parents for dinner that evening, Anna had laid down one non-negotiable condition: no cabinet ministers, no civil engineers, no railway inspectors, and no corporate directors. Just family.

Technically, Ernest had complied. Technically.

Anna stared across the candlelit dining table. Her son sat opposite her, a plate of roast beef, roasted potatoes, and autumn vegetables cooling untouched before him. In his left hand rested a thick operational report; his right hand held a gold-nibbed fountain pen. A second leather portfolio sat directly beside his water goblet, and three large rolled engineering drawings occupied the empty chair to his left.

Anna’s left eyebrow twitched.

Victor noticed the telltale sign immediately. He quietly reached for his wineglass, taking a slow sip. Thirty years of marriage had taught him precisely when not to intervene in a domestic skirmish.

Ernest turned a page in the ledger. The dining room remained dead silent, save for the rhythmic ticking of the longcase clock in the corner.

Another page turned.

Anna placed her silver fork down on the porcelain plate.

Clink.

Ernest made a small notation in the margin of the document.

"Ernest," Anna said softly.

"Hm?"

"The report."

"Yes?"

"Put it down."

"I am listening to you, Mother."

"You haven’t looked at me once since you sat at this table twenty minutes ago."

Ernest raised his eyes from the paper, looking directly across the candles at her. "I am looking at you now."

Anna stared back, her expression flat.

Victor coughed into his linen napkin. Ernest’s gaze flicked sideways toward his father, who immediately found something profoundly captivating in the grain of the dining table.

Anna folded her hands neatly on the tablecloth. "Put. It. Down."

Ernest looked down at the report, then at his mother’s unblinking stare, and finally back at the report. He closed the folder with a soft sigh. "Fine."

He set it beside his bread plate.

Anna’s eyes shifted significantly toward the rolled blueprints resting on the adjacent chair.

Ernest let out a defeated breath. He gathered the drawings, placed them beneath the leather folder, and set the entire stack on the floor out of sight.

For what might have been the first time in months, there was nothing between Ernest and his dinner plate.

Anna offered a radiant, satisfied smile. "Thank you, darling."

"May I eat now?" Ernest asked.

"You were always permitted to eat."

"I was multitasking."

"You were ignoring your family."

"I was sitting directly in front of you," Ernest pointed out.

"Physically, perhaps. Mentally, you were inspecting rail turnouts in Harrowfield."

Victor’s mouth twitched behind his napkin. Ernest caught the movement instantly. "You are enjoying this, Father."

"Immensely," Victor replied, cutting a slice of beef.

"You are supposed to offer paternal solidarity."

"I have been married to your mother for considerably longer than you have been alive, Ernest. I possess a keen military understanding of which battles cannot be won."

Anna cast an approving glance at her husband. Ernest shook his head, muttering under his breath about domestic treason.

For the next ten minutes, dinner proceeded under a veneer of normalcy. Victor inquired about the traffic volume along the Northern Line. Ernest explained that freight demand was running nearly thirty percent above forecast and that the machine works had been authorized to expand locomotive production. Anna asked whether the route to Dunwell was proceeding, and Ernest outlined the Royal Railway Commission’s pending statutory authorization.

Everything appeared calm. Almost suspiciously calm.

Ernest gradually noticed a subtle pattern. His mother kept glancing at Victor with meaningful, pointed looks. Victor continually avoided her eyes, suddenly displaying an intense interest in his buttered potatoes whenever Anna caught his gaze. Every few minutes, a silent, coded exchange occurred across the table.

Ernest set his fork down.

Anna noticed instantly. "What is the matter, Ernest? Is the beef dry?"

He looked between his parents. "Nothing is wrong with the beef."

Victor cleared his throat and reached for the wine decanter.

Ernest narrowed his eyes. "You two have coordinated an agenda."

Anna’s face was a picture of pure, maternal innocence. "Whatever would make you think that?"

"Because you have looked at Father seven times in the last four minutes," Ernest stated.

"I have not."

"Eight times now."

Victor coughed into his hand again.

Ernest turned toward his father. "And you only clear your throat in that particular cadence when you are about to present me with an uncomfortable proposition."

Victor stopped coughing, lowering his glass with a rueful grimace. Anna stared at her son, and Ernest stared right back.

Finally, Anna let out a soft, theatrical sigh. "Very well. There is no deceiving you, is there?"

Ernest leaned back in his chair, folding his arms. "There it is. Let us hear it."

"Your father and I wished to discuss a personal matter with you."

"That phrasing is always the prelude to an ambush," Ernest remarked.

Victor chuckled softly, but Anna ignored the interruption. She looked directly at her son, her expression shifting from maternal exasperation to earnest gravity.

"Ernest," she said clearly. "When do you intend to get married?"

Silence dropped over the dining room like a lead weight.

Ernest blinked. Once. Twice. His expression did not change in the slightest. For several long seconds, he simply sat motionless, staring at his mother.

Of all the potential topics he had anticipated—the capital expenditure for the Dunwell maritime corridor, the blast furnace expansion, the labor shortages in the locomotive shops, or the fact that he hadn’t taken a rest day in two years—this was not on any agenda he had conceived.

"...What did you just ask?" Ernest said, his voice flat.

"Marriage," Anna repeated calmly.

"I heard the word."

"Then why ask for clarification?"

"Because I assumed my hearing had suffered from standing too close to the converter blast."

Victor looked down at his plate, trying and failing to stifle a grin.

Ernest looked at his father. "You were party to this conspiracy."

"I am a signatory to the declaration, yes," Victor acknowledged.

Ernest turned back to Anna. "Why on earth are we discussing this tonight?"

"Because you are a grown man, Ernest."

"I have been a grown man for several years."

"Precisely," Anna said, leaning forward. "You are in your twenties, yet you have spent the last five years conducting your life like a fifty-five-year-old managing director of a bankrupt empire."

Victor let out a loud laugh. Anna pointed a finger at him without breaking eye contact with Ernest. "Do not encourage him, Victor."

"My apologies, dear."

"You work from six in the morning until past midnight," Anna pressed on.

"That is a temporary operational necessity," Ernest protested.

Anna fixed him with an unyielding stare. "You have been describing your schedule as a ’temporary operational necessity’ since you were sixteen years old and building water turbines in the cellar."

Ernest opened his mouth to offer a structured rebuttal, found no factual basis to contradict her, and closed it again.

Anna smiled with quiet triumph.

"Mother, I simply do not have the operational capacity for courtship," Ernest said, attempting to introduce cold logic to the discussion. "I have no time for marriage."

"You found the time to rebuild half the municipal infrastructure of Helmarte," Anna countered instantly.

"That was a public health emergency."

"You found time to establish three independent mining companies."

"Industrial necessity."

"You found time to construct an integrated steelworks and roll thousands of rails."

"Economic survival."

"You found time to lay a railway across two hundred and forty-seven kilometers of mountains and valleys," Anna concluded, folding her arms. "Yet spending an evening speaking with an intelligent young woman is mathematically impossible?"

Victor leaned back, shaking his head. "She has you thoroughly outflanked, son."

Ernest glared at his father. "Your lack of tactical support is disgraceful."

"I know which battles result in heavy domestic casualties," Victor replied smoothly.

Ernest rubbed his temples, feeling a headache forming behind his eyes. "Mother, I am managing the largest industrial enterprise in the kingdom. The Northern Line is operating, we are designing the Dunwell corridor, the steelworks is commissioning a second converter vessel, and the machine works is producing new locomotives every month."

"I am aware of all your accomplishments, Ernest," Anna said, her voice softening slightly. "And that is precisely the danger."

Ernest looked at her.

"There will always be another railway corridor to survey," Anna said gently. "There will always be another factory to build, another mine to open, another locomotive to design, and another crisis the King wants you to resolve. You tell yourself that you will make time for a personal life later. But when is ’later,’ Ernest? When you are sixty?"