Page 5 of Into the Sky With You (The Ladies Alpine Society #4)

“I ’m warning you not to fall in love with me,” Delphine purred, tucking her hands around his elbow.

They walked among the museum’s exhibition hall, filled to the brim with paintings and people with large hats. He almost stumbled with her bold speech. “I beg your pardon?”

She smirked at his reaction, pleased she’d caught him off guard. This was their fifth outing together, and that seemed to be what she enjoyed doing the most. He had not yet tried to kiss her, not even her hand, for fear of what she might say next.

“Men tend to fall in love with me and then propose marriage, and I must tell you that I won’t be marrying anyone. My portion from my late husband stipulates that it lasts only so long as I remain unmarried. But that doesn’t dictate what I do in my spare time.”

Julian choked. She was most brazenly suggesting that she was available for not just museum strolls.

“I thought we ought to get that out of the way, so we can have a proper look round today. I didn’t want you to be distracted.”

Julian swallowed after a coughing fit. “Very considerate of you.”

She patted his arm. “Don’t think I wouldn’t look out for your best interests, for they dovetail quite nicely with mine.”

Julian wondered what his best interests were, precisely, but his entire mind had gone blank. They stared at paintings in lovely gilded frames, and he couldn’t remember a single one. His body buzzed with what she insinuated. The release that she promised wrapped up in the heady smell of vanilla and lilies. The woman was a walking scandal, and he had to admit, he didn’t want to leave her side.

Her lips were plump and pink and it was difficult to not think of what they might taste like. She caught him staring and her mouth curved in approval. He shook his head, trying to come out of the intoxication. It had been a long time since he had been with a woman, and he’d never been with a woman like this, so knowing, so confidant, so obvious.

He exhaled with an audible breath, trying to compose himself. It had been a long time since lust had made such a fool of him, too. At least he knew the difference now between lust and love. Lust made you feel a fool, love made you feel a monster. She snuggled deeper into his elbow, seemingly pleased with his discomfort.

They rounded a corner into the next room, only to run directly into the younger Bridewell brother, who looked so much like his father, only sporting his mother’s golden hair. The sight knocked the wind—and the lust—out of Julian.

“Sir Julian!” Mr. Bridewell exclaimed, looking thoroughly pleased. “So good to see you here.”

“Delightful,” Julian managed to say, wishing Delphine would loosen her grip on him.

“I’d like you to meet my wife,” Bridewell said, angling his elbow forward to bring his wife into Julian’s periscoped view.

“A pleasure.” Julian bowed.

“She too was on the Matterhorn expedition,” Bridewell boasted. Pride showed through his expression, and Julian marked it. There were few men who were so viscerally proud of their wives. Or at least, proud of the woman themselves, and not proud that they were the ones to marry her, for whatever reason. In Julian’s experience, men were proud of their wives’ beauty, not of their climbing skill. And it struck him suddenly that if he were the type to marry, he’d want to follow Mr. Bridewell’s example.

Mrs. Bridewell’s cheeks pinked, but she made no move to contradict him or belittle her accomplishment. She was pretty, with dark chestnut hair and warm brown eyes. “Quite the adventure,” she said instead.

“I can imagine,” Julian said, his heart warming for the charm of this couple.

“Miss Bridewell tells me you have an interest in the Matterhorn,” Mrs. Bridewell said.

Julian stiffened, but smiled. There was something instinctive about keeping Delphine out of the way of his mountaineering efforts. He simply didn’t want to share it with her. Not yet.

“I do. But first, let me introduce Lady DeMarius, the dowager countess.”

Delphine gave him a charming smile and fluttered her dark lashes at him. “Oh Julian, you make me sound so ancient.”

No one in the group could overlook how familiarly she addressed him. She was staking her claim on him as much as he’d tried to hide his interest in the Matterhorn. They chattered on aimlessly, Julian impatient to move them along the hall.

“Do you have a particular interest in art?” Julian asked the couple, hoping this would steer the conversation away from the speculation on Delphine and how deep his acquaintance with her was.

“I did not, at least, not until the Matterhorn,” Mrs. Bridewell confessed. “I had some ah, injuries, from the descent, and while I convalesced in Zermatt, I took art lessons from another lady climber’s husband. Oh dear, that does sound convoluted, doesn’t it?”

“It really isn’t,” Mr. Bridewell continued. “At least, not for The Ladies’ Alpine Society.”

“I beg your pardon?” Delphine asked.

“The Ladies’ Alpine Society, ma’am. It consists of myself, Miss Ophelia Bridewell, who is my sister-in-law, Mrs. Leopold Moon, and Mrs. Karl Vogel.”

Delphine looked bored by names she didn’t recognize. In response to Mrs. Bridewell’s recitation, she only made a hum of acknowledgment.

“Very brave, what they did,” Julian said.

“Or you could have stayed home, and you wouldn’t have been in danger,” Delphine said. “So lovely to meet you both. We absolutely must see the next room. I’ve been positively aching to be here for weeks.”

She pulled him away from the Bridewells so suddenly that he didn’t have time to argue. He let out a stunned farewell and let her pull him along. They stood in front of another painting.

“That was rude,” Julian commented, his consuming lust from earlier completely evaporated.

Delphine turned on him, her eyebrows drawn together in concern. “My apologies, Julian, I couldn’t bear to talk about a topic that everyone else loves and I do not. It makes me feel like my life has been utterly wasted.”

Julian softened at this. “But what you said sounded so insulting to Mrs. Bridewell.”

“Oh, did it? I certainly didn’t mean to make her feel bad, the words slipped out.” She turned her attention back to the painting, rather than seeking his forgiveness.

It rankled that she didn’t offer an apology, and he understood that she wouldn’t, because she said she was embarrassed for her actions. And her rudeness was not that she intended to insult the other woman, but rather suffered an insecurity which rose to the surface in polite company. Lord knew he had plenty of insecurities himself. He decided to let the matter drop. It wouldn’t do well to think so poorly of her, and he’d found that most people meant well, overall.

“Would you care for an ice? There’s a shop not far from here,” he suggested.

“Sounds delightful,” she said, as if she could intuit his forgiveness. “And then perhaps you wouldn’t mind walking me home?”

“Of course,” he said, confused as to why she would think he might abandon her in the middle of London.

“And stay for a bit?” she insisted, her dark eyes searching his.

“Er,” he said, before his mind understood the inference. Oh. “If you like.”

She patted his chest, as if she had fixed his pocket square. “I told you I have your best interests at heart.”

*

Family dinners on Sundays used to be a chore. As children, they were called down from the nursery to have them, all together, so that they might learn from watching their parents. Ophelia recalled her dread of them. Sundays were the worst day of the week, from the cold pews of the church in the morning to the tedious evening meal, she could barely keep herself from throwing herself out a window.

Now that she was older, she enjoyed the dinners. Her sister Portia and her husband came, Eleanor came with Tristan. And now Lady Emily joined their table as well. Well, typically, she did. It was lovely to have all of them together, the original Bridewell siblings and their spouses. Except for her, of course. She looked down at her hands. As the youngest daughter, it was conceivable that she would have married long before Arthur or Tristan, which was typical for the fairer sex. Men could wait until they inherited, or were set in a career so they could provide for their future family. Women, given limited self-reliance, were married off as early as some families could manage, as they were a drain on the household finances.

But she would not think on that now.

“A roast!” Tristan rubbed his hands together. “Finally.”

“Lady Emily has not been planning the menus of late,” Ophelia said. “Too ill.”

Arthur shot her a quelling look.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Ophelia insisted as her mother failed to chime in around the dinner table. “Lady Emily’s menus are boring.”

“I like her menus,” Arthur protested. When no one else seconded his comment, he scanned the room and found no one to meet his gaze.

Ophelia shrugged. “At least I’m willing to say it.”

Eleanor giggled. “Now that Justine isn’t here, someone has to take the job.”

Tristan snickered.

“And what is the news from Justine Vogel these days?” Lady Rascomb asked as she tasted her soup.

“Smashing, no doubt,” Tristan said. While he and Justine had made a sport out of bickering, after their subsequent marriages to other people and the bonding of a harrowing night on the Matterhorn, they’d become quiet champions of one another.

“We’re discussing meeting up in Paris sometime after the summer ends,” Ophelia said, glancing between Arthur and her mother. Someone had authority over her still—her brother, technically—though she didn’t know which one would protest this idea.

Eleanor clapped her hands. “That sounds like so much fun. I can only imagine you and Justine running wild through Paris.”

Ophelia wanted to kick her beneath the table. Arthur would protest anything that made her “run wild.”

“If you have an appropriate chaperone, I don’t see why not,” Arthur said, looking at Lady Rascomb.

“I cannot go,” Lady Rascomb said quietly. “I—I.”

“You don’t need to say anything, Mama.” Tristan reached over and grasped her hand. “Perhaps we could go. What do you think, Eleanor?”

“We could see what Prudence is up to! It’s far enough in advance for them to return to Europe, isn’t it?” Eleanor lit up.

“A reunion of the Ladies’ Alpine Society?” Ophelia smiled. She liked that idea quite a lot. Perhaps she could invite Julian, so that he might meet Karl Vogel, and understand the Matterhorn from the perspective of the team who’d attempted it. She was about to bring it up, but the subject was already changed.

“How was the art exhibition?” Arthur asked.

“It was lovely, nothing terribly surprising, of course.” Tristan glanced at Eleanor with a look that Ophelia found curious. “We ran into Sir Julian Dunstan while there.”

“Oh, did you? I didn’t know he was a patron of the arts,” Lady Rascomb said, the maternal pleasure evident in her voice.

“Perhaps,” Eleanor said, her entire posture changing from the confident straight spine of the Paris discussion to a rounded sag.

“What is it?” Arthur asked. He’d cultivated a relationship with Sir Julian as well, outside of the baronet’s regular drawing room calls. It had made Ophelia feel good that they were able to so honor a man who’d been a friend of their father’s.

“The woman he was with was—” Tristan shook his head. “Beyond rude.”

“Very rude,” Eleanor echoed.

“Who was she?” Ophelia asked, a cold feeling spreading in her chest.

“Lady DeMarius?” Eleanor said. “I didn’t know her.”

“Oh,” Lady Rascomb said, her voice flat. “I know her. She is a rude person, but she has her charms. For some.”

“Lady DeMarius?” Arthur looked thoughtful. “I remember Lord DeMarius. But he died some years back. Old as the Roman baths, he was.”

Lady Rascomb nodded. “This would be his fourth wife. His widow.”

“Four wives?” Ophelia sputtered.

“The previous three all died in childbirth. He has one surviving child from each wife.”

“Very Henry VIII of him,” Ophelia muttered.

“Very Catherine Parr of her,” Arthur joked, but no one laughed.

“But as his widow, she likely has a comfortable pension,” Tristan said drily.

Lady Rascomb gave them all a pinched smile. Ophelia couldn’t figure out if it was a way to compare their mother’s situation with Lady DeMarius’s, or if it was because she had unkind opinions of the woman.

“Whatever her financials,” Eleanor said, “I don’t care for her.”

“It’s Sir Julian’s business who he spends his time with, not ours,” Arthur pronounced as the footman entered with the roast.

Ophelia didn’t like the idea of that at all. “She must have some redeeming quality or else he wouldn’t spend time with her.”

Eleanor looked at her with open curiosity. “And why is that?”

“Because he is a discerning individual,” Ophelia said, almost insulted that Eleanor would ask such a thing.

“There are some discernments that men make that can be deemed erroneous in hindsight,” Tristan muttered.

“Are you suggesting—” Ophelia almost choked on her sip of wine. “That he is with her because she is a loose woman?” Her voice had raised in pitch so high that she was almost squeaking.

Everyone shifted uncomfortably in their seats. Oh, so it was true. Oh, and they’d all understood that from the beginning of the conversation, and she hadn’t. Oh. The idea of eating roast suddenly turned her stomach, but she kept still, refusing to flee the dinner table. Julian cavorting with an older woman. No, she amended, an age-appropriate woman most likely, just older than her. More appropriate than her. Better.

Which, of course, wasn’t relevant, because she had Lord Fairport to worry about. Or rather, his suit. And possible proposal. Which made her think of Portia, who was sitting there, completely silent on the matter.

“Portia, what do you think?”

“About what?” her sister asked, as if they had been talking about the weather and not what Sir Julian was doing dallying about with some strange woman.

Ophelia scanned the table, but from their shuttered expressions, she could tell no one wanted to continue the conversation. “Oh, er, me going to Paris.”

Portia gave her a critical and pitying glance. Ophelia hated that look, and it was the one Portia used most frequently on her. Portia seemed to glide through people, understanding them, liking them, getting them to like her, so easily. She could sort expressions and emotions and motivations better than anyone, while Ophelia had gotten none of that particular talent.

“With the proper chaperone, all should go swimmingly,” she said, echoing Arthur’s previous approval.

Ophelia nodded, and let them figure out conversation without her. She pushed the slices of roast around on her plate, listening to the pattern of clinking silverware as comfort. She stayed quiet through pudding, and then the cheese and port.

“Is all well?” Eleanor asked, as they were standing and moving from the dining room to the drawing room, where Lady Emily was intent on joining them for a chamomile tea.

Ophelia nodded, but Eleanor looked skeptical. Eleanor had met this Lady DeMarius. Ophelia wanted to ask her what she looked like, how she dressed, but Ophelia bit her tongue. It wouldn’t do to interrogate anyone over Sir Julian’s love interest. Whom he was absolutely free to have. Because he was a bachelor and owed no one his allegiance other than himself.

Eleanor tucked Ophelia’s arm in hers as they traipsed over to the drawing room, where Lady Emily already sat with her chamomile. Ophelia didn’t often see her, but she was wan and thin. Sickly-looking. None of the robustness than so many people touted motherhood giving to a person.

Arthur rushed to his wife’s side and doted upon her, which was somewhat comforting to see. A man who truly loved someone. They all filed in, taking up seats all over the room. Portia sat down at the piano and began to play. Lady Rascomb took the seat closest to the fire. Tristan poured the men a measure of brandy from the sideboard. “Anyone else?” he asked as he distributed the liquor.

Women said no, mostly. Lady Rascomb signaled for a glass. Sometimes Ophelia would as well, but she didn’t feel right. “I’m going to go lie down,” Ophelia said to her mother.

“Are you ill?”

“Just out of sorts. Excuse me.” Ophelia wandered out of the drawing room, feeling sick to her stomach. First Lucy Walker and now Sir Julian.

Eleanor caught up to her in the hallway. “Do you want to talk?”

The amount of empathy in her friend’s voice almost pushed her to tears. Is this how it had felt when they were in Scotland? When Eleanor and Tristan were flirting with one another? Is this how miserable she had felt?

“It’s nothing,” Ophelia said.

“Are you certain?” Eleanor pressed.

And Ophelia knew what she really meant: Is this about Sir Julian? And because the answer was probably yes, Ophelia didn’t answer at all. She nodded, and left her in the hallway.

*

Julian pulled up his trousers.

“Is that all?” Delphine asked, her dark hair spilling over her shoulders.

Julian laughed hoarsely. “It’s all I can manage. If you want more, you should find a younger man.”

“Surely someone as virile as you should have no difficulty with a refractory period.” Delphine’s silk robe slipped off her shoulder. She looked like the pornographic French postcards that circulated through the ship’s crew and male passengers on the voyage home. The curve of her delicate white breast, still high and rosy from her exertion, was visible in the part of her robe. There was no question Delphine was perfectly lovely. Her attentions were flattery, making him feel more appealing than he was.

He chuckled at her flirtation. “I’m not as young as I used to be. And I think my jaw is locked up.”

She threw her head back in a throaty laugh. “The first time is all about discovering each other’s favorite paths to pleasure.”

“I suppose mine was more of a meandering path?” He had spent long enough between her legs that he had doubted his abilities.

Her face softened and she looked at him almost like a teacher looked at a favorite pupil who’d gotten the answer wrong. “You are gentler than what I am accustomed to. It was very nice.”

He whistled. “Nice, is it?” The top button of his shirt felt too tight and he pulled at it. “Nice is a good roast or a dry wine.”

She laughed again, cutting off his soliloquy. “I stand by what I said. But I’m afraid I won’t stroke your ego.”

“Stroke other things, though.” He shouldn’t have said such a thing to a countess, but well, she wasn’t the sort of countess that was countess-y about physical intimacy. At least, not now. They’d spent themselves in play, joking and kissing, stroking and licking, but Julian was glad that she had not wanted to let him inside her. Oddly, he didn’t feel ready for that. It didn’t feel right to go that far, whether it was the risk involved, or the lingering echo of betrayal to be with another woman in that way.

Delphine ignored his comment and sighed, lounging back on her satin pillows. He honestly wondered how she didn’t slide right off her bed. “When shall I see you again?”

He finished dressing before answering. When he was finally ready, with the scent of her still all over his face, he said, “Are you sure you want to see me again? After all, I’m merely nice .”

She rolled her eyes, and Julian wondered if Shakespeare’s raven-haired beauty ever rolled her eyes at him.

“For a man who spent a decade in the jungle, I’m astonished your ego is so robust.”

Julian frowned. “For one, I spent my time in the mountains, which are not jungles, and two, what does that have to do with my ego?”

“Certainly you haven’t been with a woman during that time,” she countered, and while her voice was smooth, he could sense her insecurity.

Ungentlemanly behavior, but he let out a burst of laughter to match hers. He did not wish to tell her of Maria, of the life he had thought he was starting there. The home that he’d dreamt of, the children he’d assumed he would have had with her. But that wasn’t hers to know, and it was sacred. “Your hubris outstrips mine, Delphine.”

A sparkling and toothsome smile appeared on her face, and he could see it as false ease. “Then we are quite the pair, aren’t we?”

“Send me a note when you wish to see me,” he said, not knowing how to proceed. He was not a man of means that had an opera box or whatever it was that Londoners went to anymore. Besides, he was certain that whatever he chose, she would dismiss it as beneath her. “I’ll make myself available.”

He left without hearing a response, which felt like he somehow had an upper hand. He didn’t like that being with Delphine felt like a competition between them. Who would win? What could they possibly win? He supposed he could feel cheap, for being used like a rent boy, but he had wanted to be with her, and hers was an eager invitation. Still, he was anxious to bathe and remove her scent.

*

Ophelia was on her way to Tristan’s mountaineering shop—imagine, Tristan as a shopkeeper! It was ridiculous enough to imagine him working, but the idea of him at a shop? With bookkeeping to be done? But Eleanor was insistent they go visit. Ophelia wanted to go in a carriage, but her mother wanted to walk.

It was one of Lady Rascomb’s rare ventures out of the house, and Ophelia would do anything to help her mother emerge from the overwhelming grief. Their progress was slow, but the day was warm and sunny. The summer would be at an end soon, which would give way to more rain and more of her mother’s complaints about pain in her injured leg.

Ophelia sometimes wondered that perhaps her mother’s leg hurt more now than before because her father was not around to pull her outside in the garden, or take her out to the opera. To make her move. Perhaps this fledgling idea of a Paris trip would be good for her mother. She said she didn’t want to go, but perhaps she should?

They were resting for a moment at a café, and Eleanor had gone inside to retrieve a bolstering pot of tea.

“Is that Sir Julian?” Lady Rascomb asked, peering across the street.

“It certainly looks that way,” Ophelia said, standing. She waved her hand, but he didn’t seem to notice. She couldn’t very well scream over traffic for him.

But the table next to them chose that moment to leave, screeching chairs and clattering dishes, a commotion which made Sir Julian glance over. Once he spied her, he gave a small, tight smile, and faltered. He clearly had somewhere to be, but good manners dictated he come to greet them.

Eleanor exited the building and stopped suddenly as she saw Sir Julian approaching. Ophelia glanced at her, wondering what made her pause. “Tea shall be out shortly,” Eleanor said, taking her seat.

Ophelia was surprised at Eleanor’s choice to sit before greeting Sir Julian. Surely she had forgiven him for the faux pas of his friend, Lady DeMarius.

“Good morning, ladies,” he said, bowing to them all, even if only her mother deserved the courtesy.

Ophelia bobbed a curtsy back and invited him to sit, not that she expected him to.

He deflected all invitations, and there were murmured responses flying back and forth in a way that Ophelia couldn’t quite catch. She listened, marking conversations that were clearly direct quotes from deportment manuals, but there was a current she didn’t understand. It was like a secret code she couldn’t crack. She knew it was there, knew it existed, but no amount of study ever allowed her to decipher it.

Finally, as a way to send Sir Julian on his way, her mother invited him to dinner. And then through the maneuverings of politeness, invited the countess as well. Ophelia blinked rapidly. None of this made sense. She tapped her fingers together, thumb, pointer, middle, ring finger, pinky, and back again. It calmed her enough that she repeated the gesture.

A waiter brought out their tea and it was yet another cue for Sir Julian to be on his way. Not once did Julian meet her eye, despite the fact that she’d called to him.

She sat back down at the table, and watched as Eleanor and her mother exchanged pointed looks. Ophelia felt very perplexed. But if she couldn’t ask the question of these two women, her sister-in-law and her mother, who could she ask?

“I beg your pardons, but will you please tell me what happened here?” Ophelia poured for the both of them, looking up only when she’d completed her task.

Eleanor looked at her with a small amount of pity, not a great amount, but it was still there. Ophelia was very sensitive to pity.

“He was clearly wearing clothes from yesterday,” Eleanor said.

Ophelia glanced at her mother. “How would we know what he wore yesterday?”

“They were evening clothes, dear. Not something a man puts on first thing in the morning if he has a choice.” Her mother sipped at her tea, looking far off in the distance.

“Oh,” Ophelia sank back in her chair a moment, trying to recall what he was wearing. But she was so focused on trying to meet his gaze, trying to capture that elusive attention. She liked that when he called upon them that he turned his inky gaze on her, and she felt like the sun shone only upon her. As if she were special. Not in an Isn’t she odd? Sort of way. Nor in a Her father is a viscount , sort of way. But in a treasured sort of way. But there was something else in his demeanor that she detected but couldn’t parse. “There is another clue you aren’t telling me.”

“Ophelia,” Eleanor said in a low voice. “Not here.”

“Then where?” Ophelia asked, and she could feel a wildness trying to tear out of her throat. The kind of shrieking frustration she’d felt as a child when she realized how utterly unfair life would be for her and not for her brothers. The kind that Portia didn’t seem to mind or care to protest.

Lady Rascomb looked at Eleanor and put her hand on Ophelia’s wrist. “Darling. He looked and smelled as if he’d recently bedded a woman.”

The news sank in slowly, a lump of sugar sinking and dissolving all at once. “How can you know that?” she insisted.

Eleanor made a strange face.

“Once you are married, you will understand what the signs are. It is—” Lady Rascomb choked on her words.

“The signs are easy to spot when you know them. Like knowing a knot will easily fray, once you’ve tied enough of them.”

Ophelia nodded and drank her tea, suddenly feeling very, very stupid. She was. She was a spinster, no need to hide from that title. And as one, she wouldn’t know the signs of physical intimacy. It was an experience outside her own, and one that she would likely never have.

While the thought of never having children didn’t pain her, the thought of never knowing that sort of love did. The one that could be expressed physically. The kind that her mother and father had shared. The kind that swept over Tristan and Eleanor, Prudence and Mr. Moon, Justine and Karl Vogel. She was alone in her naivety.

She was a silly fool who would never climb a mountain, never find love, and never bed a man. Full of illusions of grandeur, what was real anymore? What had her life been except a string of humiliations?