“How are you faring?” Eleanor asked, straining her neck to look up at Ophelia from where she stood on the center platform.
“As well as could be expected,” Ophelia said, not wanting to lie.
“You don’t seem...” Eleanor trailed off, examining Ophelia further. “You seem very unhappy.”
“I am.” Ophelia didn’t feel there was any way around saying so.
“Ophelia, if you do not want to marry Lord Fairport, do not. There is no pressure.”
Ophelia stared down at Eleanor and had the urge to laugh. But she didn’t, as she knew Eleanor would not understand. Instead, Ophelia pointedly looked at her mother and sister holding court amongst bolts of fabric. “Is there not?”
Eleanor glanced over at them and set her mouth in a line. “If your family requires you to marry him, you may come live with us. There is no reason to sacrifice yourself for some ridiculous idea of family honor.”
An angry chuckle moved as a wave in Ophelia’s body. Was there not? She was a Bridewell. She was the daughter of a viscountess. For nearly a thousand years, blood was spilled to elevate one family over another, and hers had survived. They survived by alliances, by blood pacts in the form of shared children. Her job, her very existence, was to be in service of this centuries-old tradition. And there wasn’t pressure?
Ophelia opened her mouth to educate Eleanor on all the ways her family’s title made their traditions different than those of a ship captain’s family, but was rescued by Portia.
“I’m famished. Let’s take a small break from this, shall we? A little tea and cake helps everything.” Portia seemed to be getting thicker around the middle, and it could be tea and cake, or it could be another child on the way. Not that Ophelia minded any excuse for a respite from this tedium. A seamstress came back in and helped Ophelia back into her dress and adjusted her garments and clucked about her hair.
But Eleanor’s offer stuck in Ophelia’s mind. Arthur would be most unhappy if she did not carry through with this marriage to Fairport—after all, he had spent the time negotiating a contract. And he would be responsible for caring for Ophelia if she did not marry at all. She would be a burden on him. A burden to Lady Emily and their child when it came.
They bustled down the street to duck into the closest café. The weather was volatile, and not for being out in. But her mother had been insistent they do this today. Granted, the weather had not been this bad earlier.
As they were settled in at a table, and tea was brought, Ophelia saw a sliver of hope in the distance. She could not abandon her family and not marry. But she had remained unattached this far. Could she not ask to wait until after her Matterhorn ascent to marry? Yes, that was preferable. There would not have to be such a scuffle about merely a postponement.
Instead of spending her preparatory season buying a trousseau and setting up house, she could focus on the Matterhorn and outfitting herself and her company. She had Eleanor and Tristan, Justine and Karl. Prudence had said she would go, but Ophelia wasn’t certain Prudence would be back from her world travels in time. She would write to her and see.
She didn’t know if Sir Julian was still amongst their party. He had not specifically said he would not go, which is what Ophelia waited to hear from him. Otherwise, could it all be just a misunderstanding?
She would plan for eight members, just in case. And that space in her accounting ledger where the money from the RGS was supposed to be... she wouldn’t count it, just to be safe.
It made her feel better, just the thought of planning. Because if she could do the Matterhorn, nothing else in her life would matter. And if she stepped sideways into those shadows afterwards, no one would notice.
*
Stepping into thestudy made her stomach flip. This room had been her father’s domain, and she hadn’t wanted to see how it had changed now that Arthur had taken over. While they weren’t a family that kept up with the royal set, there were still land and estates to be watched over and dealt with. A land steward met with Arthur a few times a year, and then there was a passel of officious men who paraded through as well. Money men and accountants and managers. Ophelia had always ignored them. It had come as a shock to find out that Prudence was marrying Mr. Leo Moon, after all, since he’d been one of those men that had paraded for so many years. It was odd to think of those men as having lives outside of their time sitting in her father’s study.
It was late now, but the lamps were still blazing, so Ophelia didn’t feel as if she were encroaching on any special time of Arthur’s. They’d finished dinner hours ago, and their mother and Lady Emily had retired, too. Ophelia knocked at the door, even though it sat well ajar.
As she spied him, his head bent scribbling at the wide mahogany desk, it seemed so much like a scene from her childhood that her throat caught. How many times had she burst into this room demanding her father’s attention? And how willingly he had given it. She would sit on his foot while his legs were crossed and he would bounce her while he balanced a ledger. Or she would chatter at him endlessly about whatever her latest hobby was while she sat on his desk and he sat back in his chair, his hands folded over his middle, listening.
And here was Arthur. Stepping into those same shoes. The idea was dizzying, the repetitive nature of it all, how the circle had turned and while her father was gone, Arthur was here, training himself to be the father to a new child that was blossoming in Lady Emily’s womb. But where was she? Stuck in time. Frozen. Unable to be a part of the circle, because she didn’t have the faintest idea where she would be happy if she were not the child.
“Come in,” Arthur said without lifting his head. “I hear you lurking, Ophelia.”
“How did you know it was me?” she asked, finally crossing over the threshold.
“I can hear that flicking thing you do with your nails.”
She looked down at her hand, unaware that she had even been doing it. “I wanted to speak with you.”
Finally he looked up, and the illusion that he was her father dissipated like fog blown off the Thames by a breeze. His wide-set eyes and pointed chin were an echo of a different relative, one that they did not know. His resemblance to their father was not as pronounced as Tristan’s. Arthur motioned to the chair opposite. “Unless you’d rather sit more comfortably by the fire?”
Ophelia scooted across the room and sat in the chair he gestured towards. “This is fine.”
There were dark circles under his eyes, and he looked tired, but he still gave her a kind smile. “What would you like to talk about?”
“The er—” Ophelia hoped he wouldn’t be mad at her. “The marriage contract.”
