“Give it to me when you are ready, and I’ll see if I can get it run. I’ll tell them it is from an anonymous friend who doesn’t wish to boast.”
Ophelia couldn’t help the bubble of laughter rising from her. “I wouldn’t want your fame. I don’t have the shoulders for it.”
Julian chuckled. “I wouldn’t wish it upon you. The women of London are positively rabid.”
“It is a very good article, Julian,” Lady Rascomb said.
“Isn’t it?” Ophelia said, knowing that she was gushing. “Someday I want to go to South America.”
“Perhaps someday I’ll take you,” he said, beaming under Lady Rascomb’s praise. She didn’t begrudge him the maternal petting he received. Nor his relationship with her father, not anymore. He clearly was in need of that delightful closeness that developed between parents and children when children became adults. Everything shifted, and while they weren’t friends exactly, the nature of the relationship deepened and stretched. The love grew stronger every day. At least, with her parents it did. And she was wise enough to know that not everyone had that. Eleanor, for instance, her sister-in-law, never had that with her parents, and likely never would.
Lost in her own thoughts, she wasn’t sure how much time had passed when Julian cleared his throat. It shook her from her reverie, and she frowned when she saw how his posture had changed. He’d been proud and loved, and now he looked pained.
“There is an item of business I must discharge,” Sir Julian said, looking down into his cup, as if he must concentrate sincerely on his tea. “Which is why I haven’t brought it up until now.”
“Sounds so serious,” Ophelia said, sipping the lukewarm tea.
“I have been asked, as a friend of your family, if you would be amenable to being courted.”
Her mother’s spine straightened at that statement. “By whom?”
Sir Julian winced. “I’d rather not say as of yet. I don’t wish to make anyone think more of it than what it is on either side.”
Ophelia’s heart pounded. No one had offered a suit for her hand in ages. But the way Sir Julian acted about it clearly made him uncomfortable. She wondered why, thinking it could only be for two reasons. One, the man in question was not someone Sir Julian respected, or two, it was Sir Julian himself.
The latter idea warmed her. Sir Julian was handsome, and the scandal rags of London were not wrong about his shoulders. She sipped her tea as she considered the idea of marriage. It was a concept she’d put aside for herself, much as Prudence had once, even while receiving missives from Justine on the benefits. But Prudence had changed her mind. And Eleanor had no complaints, and she was married to her brother Tristan. But for Ophelia? It wouldn’t be so bad if it were someone like Julian who understood her passions.
“I think that while my daughter can answer for herself, as her mother and adviser in such dealings, it matters greatly who is asking.”
Ophelia nodded. “I concur. I would only consider marriage to a man who would encourage my mountaineering and attempts to gain what the male mountaineers enjoy as their due.”
Sir Julian met her eye. “I’m glad to hear that. A stifled person, man or woman, cannot survive.”
“So who is this potential suitor?” Lady Rascomb pressed.
Sir Julian winced. “Lord Fairport.”
Ophelia nodded and fell back into her seat once more. He’d danced with her at every social occasion, but so had a few other gentlemen, Sir Julian included. Would Fairport be as encouraging of her mountaineering as she required him to be? That was an unknown.
And somewhere, a small part of her wondered why it was Lord Fairport who was inquiring. As Portia’s former suitor, would he recognize Ophelia as her own person? And if Lord Fairport was interested, why not any of the other men? Why not Sir Julian?
“You make a face, Sir Julian,” her mother reprimanded. “What is it about this man you do not wish us to know?”
“When we chatted earlier, he made an allusion to something that I did not care for. About the attempt on the Matterhorn.”
Ophelia felt herself collapse inward, as if her muscles cinched her up towards her middle. What had been relaxed and happy in the weeks since Sir Julian first visited them pulled themselves taut and closed. “And what was that insinuation?”
Sir Julian studied her. “I don’t wish to say—not as of yet. But I would now like to press you for the details of your experience. Not that I wish to cause you pain, but I need to know how my mentor perished and be able to properly defend and disseminate the facts, as your friend.”
Ophelia stopped breathing. It was a moment she hated reliving, yet she did so nightly, sometimes waking from a dream, her father’s bloodied head cradled in her hands. The silence in the room was deafening.
Lady Rascomb stowed her embroidery. She cleared her throat and flexed her bad foot. “You should tell him, Ophelia. But I apologize, I cannot hear this again. I will leave the door open.”
Ophelia watched as her mother left the room abruptly, abandoning Ophelia to the grief and guilt that had for so long colored her existence. The change from joy and hope to the shuttered pain of the last year was jarring.
“I apologize again,” Sir Julian said, a blush creeping over his tanned face. His dark eyes searched hers. “I ask as a friend. As someone who loved your father as well.”
Ophelia nodded. If she’d ever worried about crying in front of a stranger, those days were over. The entire affair had made her so numb that she didn’t think she could descend back into the days where she thought she’d cry enough to soak her entire wardrobe.
