“So you think that lust is a solid foundation to marriage.”
“As good as any, yes.” Karl kicked a stone just as she had, watching it shoot out across her path before tumbling down the hill as hers had. “But why only lust? We have far more in common than only this. It is fun, yes, but there are other things.”
“Like what?” she demanded. “You are from Bavaria.”
“Yes. What does this matter? We met in Zermatt.”
“I don’t want to live in Bavaria.”
“Have you been?” The self-centered nature of Londoners was famous throughout the world, so he should not hold it against her. He had likewise never been to London. It was probably an amazing city, full of wonderful parks and palaces. But he didn’t want to live in any city, let alone London.
“No, I have not been to Bavaria.”
“Ach, so you don’t know if you like it or not.” Karl did his best to shrug and seem unbothered by her bias.
“I’ve also never drowned, but I know I don’t want to do it.”
The comparison stung him, and he chanced a look at her. The muscle of her jaw flexed, and he saw her annoyance. She had no idea the wound she’d inflicted. “That is perhaps a bold comparison. I would not say my hometown is akin to death.”
“I didn’t mean that,” she said, though the contrition in her voice was not obvious. “I mean that I know my own mind, and I don’t like being told what to do.”
“That is clear.” Karl picked up his pace. She had made an idea that he found beautiful—a marriage that had both a physical component and a spiritual component—and turned it into something small and tired and degrading. A night of deflowerment. A single event, where they sated themselves and walked away. Something he had done before, yes, true. But he had not felt this way before.
Why was this different? He didn’t know, but it was unmistakable. She was wrong, but she couldn’t admit it. He would have to show her, but he didn’t know how.
**
She couldn’t believe that in the end, Karl was just like every other man she’d ever met. Wanting to trap her like a butterfly, pin her to a board and keep her quiet and beautiful and most of all, contained.
From their talks and walking from one end of the Zermatt valley to the other, she thought he understood that she craved movement, fresh air, outdoors. She wasn’t ready now—maybe never—to be the little wife who stayed home mending his shirts and pushing out squalling babies. A woman who was tired, red-faced, sagging from her unnoticed exhaustion. She didn’t want to have a world that small. If Ophelia managed to stayunmarried, then she and Justine could adventure the world together!
Perhaps while they were young, they had to keep themselves purer, but as they aged and society and newspapers found them less conventional, they would stop caring if they took lovers, as long as there were no children. And didn’t that sound exciting?
There were no guarantees that the beautiful, rich, aristocratic Ophelia would stay unmarried. In fact, it seemed a rather slim chance. And it would leave Justine alone in a world that would ridicule her for her choices. And the idea of hiking with Karl every day wasn’t a bad one. In fact, she rather liked the idea.
“What is in this for you?” Justine asked, trudging next to him on the wide dirt path. This was more than a footpath, rather a dirt road large enough and well-traveled enough to host full carts if it needed.
Karl huffed out a laugh. “You must ask this?”
“Yes, I must ask this. What do you get out of marrying a woman like me?” Her limbs felt jittery, as if she wasn’t walking fast enough, like she needed to run or skip or jump to expel the energy.
“I don’t wish to marry a woman like you. I think marrying you would be . . . fun.”
“I think your translation of the wordfunis suspect.”
“Why would it not be fun? You and I can have fun together, that is proven.”
“Yes, but when I’m your wife, I’m supposed to be at your house cleaning and cooking and having babies and mending shirts and—”
“Why could you not hike up mountains? That is what I do.”
“I hate to shatter your worldview, Karl, but I am, in fact, a woman.”
He gave her an irritated look, and she smiled brightly at him. “There is no one more aware of this fact than me.”
“Besides, we couldn’t suit. We aren’t even the same religion. And Anglicans and Catholics do not mix.”
“I would not know. I am not Catholic.”
