Chapter Eleven
“Ibeg yourpardon?” Julian stood on the freezing stoop of the Rascomb townhouse, only to be told that he would have to endure this agony all over again.
“They will not return before calling hours have ended. If you have a message to convey, however,” Ferris, the butler, intoned.
Julian waved his hand. “No, no. That’s quite all right. If you tell me where they’ve gone to, perhaps I might catch up with them.” If he could muster the courage. He wasn’t sure this was something that could be duplicated. It had taken a bit of brandy to walk out the door this afternoon.
“Bond Street, sir. Miss Bridewell has begun assembling her trousseau.” Ferris looked at him sharply, as if he knew every stray thought Julien had ever had regarding Ophelia, and was now astonished that he would allow another man to enter her life. Well, that made two of them.
“Many thanks, Mr. Ferris. I’ll see if I can track them down.”
Ferris shut the door, and Julian turned back to the street. What was a man like him to do when his lover was shopping for her wedding trousseau for another man? No, that wasn’t quite it, was it? Because if they were still lovers, he’d have talked to her at least once in the past two months.
Could Julian bear to track them down? That was the rub. He pointed himself in the direction of Bond Street and hoped he would come to a decision before he met up with them. He perversely wished for a long engagement.
There was no part of him that believed Ophelia cared for the man. She was careful with her emotions and didn’t trust easily, it seemed. Or at least not with men, anyway. A gust of wet wind swirled down the street as he crossed, causing Julian to hunch his shoulders even more.
No, this was the height of foolishness. In the meantime, he needed to worry about his own life, and his own plans. There had to be a grant of some kind lurking in this city for a surveyor like him. Some way to take him out of London, away from Europe.
Instead of Bond Street, he went to RGS, and on a blustery day like this, he walked in looking as trod upon as he felt. As he was drying in front of the fire, another man walked in, soaking wet.
“Quite the deluge out there,” the other man said.
Julian made a noncommittal noise back, for politeness’ sake.
“I don’t mean to be too forward, but are you Sir Julian Dunstan? I read your recent article about climbing Ben Nevis. Brilliant work, there. You made it seem like I was on the mountain with you.”
Julian gave a terse smile as the knife of guilt twisted into him further. “I am Sir Julian Dunstan, yes. But I’m afraid there was a mistake in the article, it wasn’t mine. I was submitting for a friend.”
“Oh? A bit of intrigue, how fascinating. Who was the explorer I should be complimenting then?” The man had an open and easy smile.
“They wished to stay anonymous.”
“How disappointing. But I suppose if I could write like that, I’d be writing all kinds of salacious things for money.”
Julian made his polite noncommittal noise again. They stood there in silence, drying. What was he thinking, charging off to find Ophelia and apologizing in public? That would ruin her reputation and provide gossips with enough ammunition to absolutely murder her in the papers.
The man had said it himself—salacious things make money. And if he hunted Ophelia down like a spurned suitor, Lady Rascomb would never forgive him. Nor would he forgive himself.
*
The seamstress tookOphelia’s measurements while Lady Rascomb chose fabrics, and Portia second-guessed with a critical eye. Eleanor sat nearby on a plump round stool paging through a magazine of current styles. There was nothing about this that seemed fun to Ophelia, but the women in her life rallied to her in a way that seemed excessive, given the circumstances.
But her mother, sister, and sister-in-law were the women that would sustain her through the doldrums of her marriage. Life seemed so small all of a sudden. This would be what she was reduced to?
Prudence and Leo had already left Europe again, and Justine had returned to Augsburg after Paris. Justine had insisted that the winter celebrations were superior in Munich to London, and while she trusted Justine, Ophelia couldn’t imagine missing out on the weeks they spent at the Berringbone property. Which of course, would change, for as a wife, she would be expected to stay with her husband and his family during a holiday season.
It seemed interminable. Like all of this drudgery.
Arthur had said he’d fought hard to keep her plans for the Matterhorn intact for this summer. Fairport had fought any future promises, but contractually, he had to allow her time to be at the Matterhorn this summer and he had no say in who might accompany her.
This meant Julian, of course. That despite a marriage to Fairport, she could still climb the Matterhorn with Julian, but only if it happened this summer, and not the next.
The contract, the clothing, the constant chatter regarding Fairport, it all suffocated her. The only fresh breath of air she could gulp was when she thought of the Alps. Those days two summers ago when they climbed so many peaks surrounding Zermatt. The way the cold and sludgy spring melted into the buttery fresh summer. It was the best Ophelia had ever felt. The freest, most expansive feeling.
And now she’d found its opposite: the small world of London and its decayington. But it was this cloying suffocation that she was supposed to want. The oppressive wet grayness that was her greatest achievement. It made her, frankly, want to wink out of existence. To take a step sideways into a shadow and go to sleep for a hundred years. Let her family continue on without her, oblivious to how she made herself smaller and smaller, until they didn’t notice that she had disappeared.
The seamstress stopped taking measurements and scurried off. Eleanor shut the magazine and came over, taking hold of Ophelia’s hand.
