Page 1 of Into the Sky With You (The Ladies Alpine Society #4)

London, 1871

“S ir Julian Dunstan?” a man called out in the cold downpour.

Julian startled at the honorific. Even at hearing his entire proper name. He’d been Julio to the miners, El Cabro and sometimes its variations to the men he smuggled for across the Serra do Mar, the Mantiqueiras, and the Andes. For a decade, he’d crawled across the South American continent, nothing more than a sunburnt goat in a hat to the people he came across. And here was a man giving him a “sir” as if he were more than the dirt-slinging low life he knew himself to be.

And yet, to be in cold, bitter, dear-God-what-is-that-smell London was good. He couldn’t wait to show his maps to Rascomb, the only man in existence who would share his pure joy at a compiled topographical map. Well, the fellows at the Royal Geography Society would also be curious to see it, but he didn’t think they would appreciate that Julian took the data and collated it himself. He sent his numbers and calculations back in dispatches, as he was obligated to do, but it was Rascomb who told him to draw the map himself. Only he could verify if the measurements and math were correct in the end.

Julian waved at the porter who’d called his name, taking his time on the slippery gangplank. His maps were safely tucked in the long cylindrical case on his back. He’d replaced the strap a number of times, but he’d carried it thousands of miles just as he did now, slung over his shoulder.

The woman in front of him slipped, and he caught her elbow as she over-corrected.

“Thank you, kind sir,” she said, looking back at him with foggy blue eyes.

Cataracts , he thought immediately, as the shock of hearing English spoken so freely hit him. Still, he smiled broadly at her, wondering how much of his face she could make out. How much of the dark, disorganized stubble across his face looked a proper beard. “My pleasure, madame.”

Her elderly husband took that long to twist his own body around and see the predicament. “Strong young men means a strong country!”

Julian smiled at the compliment and tipped his hat, a gesture he barely remembered to make. He was practically feral. He knew he smelled, so he hoped whatever odor he added to the fumes of the Thames would be not accredited to him.

If he wasn’t covered in dirt, he couldn’t find it in himself to bathe. It was a waste of time that could be spent on compiling more of his data, more maps, finer details. Since he was only stopping in to see Rascomb, he wouldn’t bother cleaning up. The man would understand.

Pushing through the crowd of disembarked passengers, Julian made his way to the porter. Even staking his claim of space near the luggage, the crowd still surged and pushed into him. This would be something else to get used to again.

He arranged for his trunks to be sent to the rooms he had leased via correspondence, and set off in the general direction of the Rascomb townhouse. He knew the address after a decade of regular dispatches, but London felt changed and overflowing with people.

The traffic was obscene. Some of the main thoroughfares seemed an ocean of all manner of vehicles: broughams, hansom cabs, omnibuses, and wagons. Pedestrians streamed by on both sides of the street, ignoring the rain, their faces snugged down in their mufflers and hats.

Julian was proud he only got turned around once, but it did take him quite out of the way. Fortunately, despite the long sea journey, he was more than accustomed to a long walk. He wasn’t sure how he would manage city life, not trekking every day as he had.

But this metropolitan sojourn was to re-establish himself as an explorer and cartographer. He would write articles, give lectures, and then hopefully take on another commission from the Royal Geographical Society to some other part of the world. Rascomb had been unwavering in his support and enthusiasm for Julian’s career, and so like a schoolboy running back to his favorite teacher, Julian would not even detour to shave before presenting his work.

The rain thickened, nothing compared to the tropical afternoon storms he’d experienced in the jungles, although much more uncomfortable and quite cold. By the time he reached his friend’s home, the butler let him in out of pity.

Julian stood dripping wet in the marble foyer. He checked the map case—safe and dry. He pulled off his sodden cap to identify himself when he saw a woman descending the wide staircase. Her golden hair was loosely pinned, and it shone like lamplight. The nostalgia of his boyhood fancy for Rascomb’s wife hit him so hard he nearly staggered at the sight of her.

He swept into a gallant bow. “Lady Rascomb!” He watched the water drip from his hair down onto the floor. He kept speaking as he rose. “You likely do not remember me, though I remember you. Sir Julian Dunstan, here to see his lordship. I apologize for my appearance, I did not think I would encounter any ladies as I...”

The look on the woman’s face could be described only as pained. Julian stopped talking, glancing to the butler, who glared at him. There was something very clearly amiss. And that was when he noticed the woman’s black collar and dress.

“You wear black, my lady. Tell me, who has died?” His heart thudded hard in his chest.

And then another lady descended the stairs, this one with a clear limp and a cane in one hand. She too, wore black.

“Sir Dunstan,” the new woman called to him. “You mistake my daughter for me, but I thank you for the compliment.”

He bowed again, feeling foolish and heavy and bull-headed. “My apologies. I have been away for some time. I forget the world soldiered on without me.”

“We are in mourning for my husband. I regret to inform you so callously, but the previous Lord Rascomb passed away last summer, following an injury while attempting the Matterhorn.”

The breath swept out of him. His mentor was gone. The man who guided him, steered him, advised him, cheered him on, had died. But Julian had maps to show him. How could he have died without seeing the maps?

“I beg your pardon.” Julian felt the cold seeping into his bones and his teeth threatened to chatter. But it wasn’t just the cold rain. It was the shock of the news. The blow to how Julian saw the world. “My sincere condolences. I did not know.” He glanced around blindly, unsure of what to do. “I must go. Please, may I call on you tomorrow, when I am presentable?”

“At your convenience.” Perhaps she smiled or offered some other graceful gesture, but Julian couldn’t see it, blinded by panic and loss. He mumbled his goodbyes and stumbled back into the street. His chest felt as if it were caving in, and so he walked. He walked without direction, without seeing, without caring, sodden and cold.

Eventually, his inner compass took him to his rooms, the top half of a quaint townhome. The landlady, Mrs. Talbert, lived in the bottom half, and greeted him. She was a ruddy-faced pleasant-looking woman who promised him a bowl of stew with bread and butter and a pot of tea to be sent up right away.

Julian nodded, but didn’t care. Even when Nicholas, the erstwhile combination footman, valet, and man of all work, arrived sometime later with a tray, Julian found himself just standing in the middle of his new flat, dripping a puddle, unable to move.

Without Rascomb, how would he gain those introductions he’d hoped for? Without Rascomb, who would tell him his work was good? He would be stuck with the fellows at the Royal Geography Society without the only decent man he’d ever known. It was like losing a father all over again.

*

Ophelia’s maid, Lucia, set out a gray and lavender gown again, as she had been doing for the last months. It had been over a year since her father passed, since Arthur became the new viscount Rascomb, since everything in her life turned away from her.

As she had done every morning that a gray or lavender gown had been set out, she went into her closet to find a black one. This time, every black crepe gown had been replaced. Ophelia narrowed her eyes. Fine. She rang for Lucia, who helped her dress in silence, and then had the audacity to suggest some smoky topaz earbobs.

“Why?” Ophelia asked, ending her silent standoff.

“Because you will have a caller this morning, miss. Your lady mother bid me to help you feel better.” Lucia had the washed-out complexion of many city dwellers. Her skin was tinged a sallow color and her light brown hair already showed streaks of gray. The woman was younger than Ophelia’s mother, but older than Ophelia. She was competent, stalwart, and took Ophelia’s oddities in stride, but she’d been hired after her father’s death. Ophelia’s previous lady’s maid had been poached by another young lady about to debut, and Ophelia wished her nothing but the best. It was a far more interesting household than theirs.

“Earbobs are supposed to make me feel better?” Ophelia flicked her fingernails against each other. Thumb, forefinger, middle finger, ring finger, pinkie, then back to thumb. Three times through her sequence and she felt calmer.

“My apologies, miss. I mean to say what your lady mother said: that is, to make you feel more like yourself.”

Ophelia stared at them. They had been a gift from her father. A collection of stones from a friend in South America, that he’d had made into jewelry for the women in his family. And the smoky topaz was an opaque gray, suitable for mourning.

Guilt washed over her. Not only for her father, but also her mother who had been managing the household upheaval and all of her children while she grieved a man she had loved. Ophelia clipped on the earbobs. Obedience was the least she could do.

She was the youngest and only unmarried child in the family. And now that Arthur had moved into the Rascomb London townhouse with his bride, Lady Emily, everything had changed. Ophelia’s mother was now the dowager Lady Rascomb, no longer in charge of the daily upkeep of the household, and while Lady Emily was gracious in the transition, she knew it must smart to lose control.

While Ophelia was unmarried and there were no little Arthur and Emilys running around, Lady Rascomb was bid to stay on. But when Ophelia married or Arthur started his line of progeny, the dowager would be expected to move on to a different, smaller household. Ophelia might be compelled to go with her. After all, she was twenty-eight. No man married a twenty-eight-year-old.

Ophelia joined her mother in the drawing room. The light was cheerful, and the fire danced a low flame. Her mother was darning one of Arthur’s shirts.

“Shouldn’t Lady Emily be doing that?” Ophelia asked.

“Good morning,” her mother said, ignoring Ophelia’s blunt question.

When her life was perfect and happy, Ophelia struggled with her blunt opinions and queries. Now that she struggled with the depths of her own grief, it had somehow worsened.

“Lady Emily is abed for the day. She says that she can smell her megrim.”

Ophelia made a face. “Does it smell like that fish sauce she makes us eat on Fridays? If so, I pity her.”

Her mother chuckled, but didn’t acknowledge Ophelia’s complaint. Lady Emily had brought her own cook in, and none of the Bridewells had taken to the cuisine. Dinners were bland when they ought to have been savory, cloying when the pudding was meant to be sweet, and positively maritime when it was fish.

And while typically Ophelia welcomed routine, she found she preferred her mother’s subtle three-week rotation of dishes, rather than Lady Emily’s weekly habit.

“I suppose I will—” Ophelia peered into the mending basket only to find it empty. There were three women to do the darning, and only one man in the house to mend for. “Embroider some linens for a dowry I will never use.”

Lady Rascomb paused her efforts. “Would you like to have another go at a Season?”

“Mama!” Ophelia chided. “I’m twenty-eight! They’ll laugh at me.”

“We don’t have to go on the marriage mart, fuss with those sorts of parties and balls. We could be subtler about it. Find a matchmaker.”

No. The answer was no. But Ophelia saw hope in her mother’s eyes, and felt the earbobs sway as she lifted her head. If it would make her mother happy, she would do it. “But I will only go through with it if it is a love match. I must like my husband, if I am to have one.”

“That’s a reasonable request, I think. And you aren’t too old to bear children, no matter what anyone says. I had you when I was your age.” She picked up her mending and hummed.

Ophelia found her embroidery hoop. She felt ridiculous. It wasn’t that her embroidery wasn’t good—it was very good, in fact. She’d created scenes from her favorite stories, illustrated whole gardens across pillows, and had even started learning effective portraiture and shadowing through the medium of embroidery. It was what Justine had always called Ophelia’s “maddening brilliance.” But just now, Ophelia felt so at a loss for what she should say or do or feel, that embroidery was pointless.

Ferris appeared in the doorway. “A caller, my lady.”

“As I expected,” Lady Rascomb said, her voice suddenly subdued. “Is it Sir Julian?”

“Indeed. And he is now dry.” Ferris kept his expression neutral, but Ophelia knew he was teasing. At least Lady Emily had let them keep their butler of all these years.

“Show him in, and refresh our tea and add some of that plum cake, please. I would wager Sir Julian has not had good English cake in some time.”

“Who is Sir Julian?” Ophelia asked as Ferris left to retrieve the man. When he appeared on their doorstep the day before, he hadn’t seemed like anything more than a wretch, soaked to the bone, with unseemly scruff obscuring his face. He’d mistaken her for her mother, which was a compliment. Her mother had many admirers throughout the years, and Ophelia was sure he had been one of them by the way he’d spoken. Ophelia was not as good with recognizing emotions as she was embroidery, but given Justine’s proclivity for suitors, she’d trained herself to notice the symptoms of that sort of male admiration.

“His father was a friend of your father’s, and then after he died, Sir Julian also became a friend. They’ve corresponded for years. Your father helped him get the commission to map the South American mountains for a collection of mining interests. Of course, your father convinced him to conduct topographical surveys as well.”

The idea of her father encouraging someone to do more, create more, lit a candle in Ophelia’s heart. A small remembrance that she hadn’t previously known. Of course he’d pushed someone to think more broadly than was expected.

“He was of a younger crowd and idolized your father. As many did.” Ophelia’s mother put down the mending and stood, wincing as she put weight on her foot. “All this sitting is doing me no favors.”

“We can walk more.” Ophelia stood and smoothed out her gray and lavender gown. “Since we are officially out of mourning.”

By rights, they were, and Lady Rascomb could remarry if she wished. But instead, Lady Rascomb wore black, even though she prodded Ophelia to go to half-mourning.

“Sir Julian Dunstan,” Ferris announced.

The man who entered the drawing room looked wholly unlike the man from yesterday. His face was smooth, his clothes were well-tailored and tidy, and his bearing was upright and polished. “Lady Rascomb, Miss Ophelia Bridewell, I am at your service.” He gave a gallant bow.

He had been striking yesterday, but he was handsome now, with dark hair, almost black, that accentuated the darkness of his coal-black eyes. He was thin at the waist but broad at the shoulders, and moved with the same practiced purpose as her father. His skin was tanned in a way Englishmen were not supposed to be, but she supposed the South American sun had something to do with it.

“Sir Julian, thank you for calling. I was profoundly upset to deliver such horrid news to you while standing in our doorway yesterday.” Lady Rascomb gestured to the chair opposite her.

He unslung a wide strap connected to a leather tube that he’d carried across his body. “My sincere condolences to your entire family. I am much aggrieved to hear such news. I had wondered why I hadn’t heard from him in so long, but I knew of the Matterhorn attempt and hoped it had been all the traveling that kept him from responding to me.”

The mention of their failed attempt to scale the Matterhorn made Ophelia burn with shame. She wanted to look down, but she forced herself to meet his eye. It was her failure. Her responsibility as expedition leader included being blamed for the death of her father, even if it had been his loose footing on an ice wall that had caused his injury. They’d done everything they could, and even the physician from Zurich had said that the cold conditions had helped keep him alive.

Despite the months he had lingered, and few moments of consciousness, he had died of pneumonia the winter after the climb. Tristan, Ophelia’s other brother, had tried to make her feel better, as he’d blamed himself for years for the accident that injured their mother. But their mother lived. There was no penance she could make for her father’s death. And she had to suffer the humiliation whenever someone mentioned her hubris.

But Sir Julian didn’t seem to want to mock or shame her. “I thought you’d like to see the maps I’ve made. Lord Rascomb was the one who got me interested in the science of topographical mapping. It’s terribly challenging and requires a great deal of maths, but it is extremely useful. Integrating the data is even more difficult and painstaking. It took me far longer than I’d anticipated, but it was Lord Rascomb who helped me persevere.”

Ophelia loved a map. She scooted to the very edge of her chair. Topographical maps were a new way to visualize every peak and valley. While initially difficult to read, the more accustomed one became with seeing elevation charted, the quicker one understood it. If only every mountain had a topographical map made, life would be so much more interesting.

“Please,” Lady Rascomb said.

He uncapped the leather tube and pulled out rolls of paper. They were unwieldy, but eventually through much awkward wrestling and paper crinkling, they were spread flat, held down by a teacup, a teapot, and his hands.

And his hands were nice. There was something about their decidedly ungentlemanly ruggedness that seemed correct. Proper, in the way her family was unusual and valued such physical competence. Sir Julian’s hands weren’t English proper, but rather mountain proper. As if declaring his ability to pitch a tent or make a fire, or haul a person up a rope.

“These are surprisingly beautiful, Sir Julian. I commend you.” Lady Rascomb leaned over the table, looking closer at the drawing.

Ophelia took an opportunity to look as well, noting all the red, razor-thin lines that denoted an elevation change. “This must have taken ages.”

Sir Julian looked up at her with pride evident in his almost-too-perfectly proportioned face. “Indeed. Thank you for noticing, Miss Ophelia.”

“I have not seen many topographical maps, but I understand the theory of them,” Ophelia said.

“I sent my data and measurements back over the years to the Royal Geographical Society, so they may make their own maps, but it was your father who insisted I draw my own, in order to double check the accuracy of my numbers. Fortunately for him, I’ve always been good with numbers.”

She felt as if she were looking down on the three of them, peering over this map. As if she were outside her own body, not wanting to feel that new wave of grief, encountering her father’s influence over this man.

“I am by no means an expert, but this looks excellently drawn.” Ophelia’s mother smiled at him in the way Ophelia recognized as maternal doting.

Sir Julian beamed, as any child would. It made Ophelia wonder where his parents were.

“I should get these off to the Royal Geographical Society. Not that I’m looking forward to showing them to anyone there. They won’t be near as kind as you two.”

“They should at least recognize your hard work,” Ophelia said, doing her best to be as sisterly as she could. But when he looked back at her, he didn’t have a brotherly look on his face. Nor anything else. Not the warmth he showed to her mother, but as if she were a stranger. Which, she supposed, she was.

They helped him roll up the map and tuck it safely away in its leather case. “The last time I saw you, Miss Ophelia, I believe you were ten years old.”

Her eyebrows went up of their own volition. “I’m very sorry to say I don’t recall the event.”

“I daresay you wouldn’t. I was a young man, very much trying to gain the attention and respect of your father. I believe you were lecturing your brothers on some matter. You’d all been allowed to dine with us.”

“Once the children became interested in the outdoor pursuits, we would allow them out of the nursery when we dined with future explorers. We thought it would take the spark out of them when they heard how physically rigorous it was.” Ophelia’s mother looked to her affectionately.

“That worked on Arthur, but I’m afraid it only whetted my appetite,” Ophelia said.

Sir Julian looked down. “I know that it is difficult to speak of failed attempts—I can’t tell you how many of my own I have had—but I should be very curious about the Matterhorn expedition, Miss Ophelia. If you’d be willing to tell me.”

Heat filled her cheeks. “Another time,” she said, wondering if she would be brave enough to do so.

“Thank you for your hospitality, my lady. May I call upon you again?” Sir Julian stood, slinging his map case across his body.

Lady Rascomb stood, as did Ophelia. Her mother didn’t even bother looking at her when she told he was welcome to visit them anytime. It wasn’t that Ophelia minded, but she felt quite at odds with herself. There was something she didn’t like about this man, this stranger, having this paternal connection to her father without her knowing about it. As if he somehow was claiming something that belonged to her.