“I can!”
“What, feeble in bed? Losing control of your bowels, or a rotten tooth, infecting you from the inside out?”
“No, of course not!” Ophelia drew back, trying to pull her hands from his grip. He stared her down, not letting go. She squirmed.
“You did the right thing,” he said again, boring into her with those dark, dark eyes.
“You keep saying that,” she said, shaking her head, pulling again, but he wouldn’t let go.
“And I’ll keep saying it until you believe me. I know what I’m talking about, Ophelia. I don’t need to climb the Matterhorn to know what it’s like to run an Alpine expedition. That’s what I’ve been doing for the last ten years of my life.”
“You can’t understand the Matterhorn until you climb it yourself,” she insisted, feeling like she had him at last.
“Then take me.”
She frowned. “What do you mean, take you?”
“Take me up the Matterhorn. Let’s go. You’ve already done the research and have the contacts. Let’s go. I haven’t climbed a mountain in months.”
“But.”
“Then say you made the right call.”
The acid churned in her stomach. “We only have a month until the end of July. We can’t put together an expedition so quickly.”
“Then July of 1872. You, me and whomever you deem appropriate.” His cool gaze was a challenge to her. Was he absolutely serious? He was trying to cow her into saying that her father’s death wasn’t her fault—which it clearly was—and thought she would balk?
“You cannot be serious.”
“Then say it wasn’t your fault.” Sir Julian wasn’t smiling. Wasn’t showing her any indicator that he was joking.
The thought of returning to the mountain both filled her with dread and thrilled her in equal measures. Would he really climb the Matterhorn with her?
“Or, you’re booked for the month of July in 1872?”
It was easily doable. That gave her plenty of time to return to the health required to climb the mountain. Plenty of time for them both to raise the money needed. She could recruit the original Ladies’ Alpine Society. She’d promised them a peak, after all.
“We’ll climb the Matterhorn in July 1872. You’d better not be teasing me, Sir Julian.”
“I don’t tease, Miss Ophelia.” Julian finally released her hands, and she felt a shift in the air that she couldn’t identify, but one that felt good. A shift that felt like more than relief, more than the lessening of her guilt, though those were present as well. There was an unknown new promise between them that she’d never felt before.
