Chapter Twelve

L eo was up at dawn. He was normally an early riser, but not usually this early. He’d slept poorly, anticipating his talk with Prudence. She’d seemed so happy to arrive last night, and he was sure that she felt... what, exactly? She’d traveled through a snowstorm to see him. Clearly she felt something positive.

And what was he asking for? His training as a broker reared up. He needed to be clear about what he wanted before he could make any demands of her. They certainly couldn’t be so cavalier as to fall into bed together without making sure feelings were known. Even though he’d missed her so much. The knowledge that she slept in under his roof made it difficult to think straight. The memory of her taste, of her feel, the swell of her calves as they melted into the back of her knee, and the rise of her strong thighs... he needed to not think that way. He was getting hard, and that made thinking impossible.

Leo worked in his study, and when he heard stirrings of others in the house, he took the daily newspapers into the breakfast room. He felt as if he were lying in wait for Prudence. And in some ways, he was. But not as one might ambush an enemy, more as a man impatient for the woman he liked very much.

His mother would not be down for breakfast—she had always taken a tray in her room. Reggie would sometimes take a tray and sometimes come down. “Jeffrey,” Leo said as the footman came in with his coffee, “would you be so good as to make Mr. Morgan a tray? He should take breakfast in his room.”

Granson appeared, filled his plate and sat down. His mouth full of jammy toast, he asked, “What?”

Leo shook his head, as if he weren’t wishing Granson gone with all of his being. Then Prudence appeared. She looked lovely. Her dark-green day dress was embroidered with white and pale-green botanical designs, and Leo barely managed to keep himself from sighing as she swished across the room.

Granson watched Leo watching Prudence. He swallowed his toast hard and picked up his plate. “Excuse me, I have somewhere to be.” He scurried out of the room, for which, if he noticed correctly, both he and Prudence were glad.

Leo said nothing as Prudence fixed her plate. Jeffrey asked if she would prefer tea or coffee, and Leo was gratified when she answered coffee, just like him. “Good morning,” he said to her as she sat down next to him.

She gave him a tentative smile, which confused him. Prudence was known for her embarrassingly large American smiles. He frowned as she returned his greeting in a small voice.

Then he noticed the puffy redness about her eyes. She’d been crying. He didn’t know what to say, so he put his hand on the table, palm up, inviting her to hold his hand.

She looked at it, as if she were debating the wisdom of touching him, but then slid her hand into his. Even that small contact felt so good to have.

“May I ask what has you out of sorts?” Leo curled his fingers around her hand.

She looked away. Leo didn’t blame her, speaking of discomfort was against his upbringing as well. But they had to find some way through the thornbush in their relationship. She withdrew her hand as Jeffrey entered and placed a coffee pot between them. He poured Prudence a cup.

“Jeffrey, please excuse us. I’ll ring for you when we are finished.” Leo dismissed him, once again taking the room for the two of them.

Prudence sipped at her cup with both hands, clearly fortifying herself. Leo could do nothing, say nothing. He was at an utter loss.

“Who is Granson?” she asked after she cleared her throat.

Leo started. “He is my father’s grandson and aide-de-camp. Why?”

“ Who is he? Was he the man that appeared at the cottage last summer? The menacing stranger?” Her eyes finally met his, but he saw no warmth there. This must be how she was when she did business. Cool, polite, detached. Her bearing was confident but not aggressive. Like encountering a wall of smooth concrete.

“He was, yes.”

“The one asking for Lenny Morgan.”

“Yes.”

“Which was you, at one point.”

“Correct.” Leo felt like he was being interrogated. “What is this about?”

Prudence squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them again, she took another big sip of coffee with both hands. “Do you remember that morning at the cottage?”

“Of course I do. I remember every moment at that cottage.” Leo had never dreamed it could have been so good between them. When he’d bought it outright in his own name years ago as an investment, he’d never thought to use it as a vacation home for his... what was Prudence to him? Mistress sounded so wrong.

“Then you’ll remember your panic over Granson’s appearance there.”

“Yes. And at the time, based on what I knew of my father and his previous activities, it was warranted. I was unwilling to risk an encounter with my father while you were at my side.”

She cocked her head to the side, and her expression wasn’t a smile, nor was it exactly a grimace. Leo did not like what it meant. “If that fear was about me, why did you tell me that you would leave me there?”

“I certainly did not say that,” Leo protested. Did he say that? It didn’t seem like he would.

“You, in fact, did. I refused to leave without knowing more about what had you spooked, and instead of explaining or even looking at me directly, you told me in no uncertain terms that you were leaving and I could stay if I liked.”

“I was only trying to get you to come with me,” Leo protested. Now that she put it like that, he did remember saying it. But he hadn’t meant it. Not in so many words. It was an ultimatum employed to get her to do the right thing.

“Can you look at that scenario from my point of view? I’m an American in the English countryside, and the man with whom I’m having a scandalous affair threatens to leave me in the middle of nowhere when an unknown man who scares him shows up?”

Leo frowned. “But I wouldn’t have left you there.”

“But you said you would.”

“Yes, but I didn’t mean it.”

Prudence sat back in her chair. He could see the muscle in her jaw ticking. “And now that very man who scared you lives in this house. The man who frightened you enough to abandon me slept under the same roof as both of us last night.”

“You were there when my father arrived,” Leo said. Prudence was twisting things around. Granson was helpful and mild. Really, he was a wonderful man, needing only a bit of direction now that he was in London. “You saw how convoluted and messy everything was between us.”

Prudence looked away, and Leo could see tears shining in her eyes.

“Prudence, I didn’t mean to hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you. Is that why you stopped reading my letters?”

A giant tear rolled down her cheek, and Leo realized then and there that he’d rather be punched in the face by Granson than witness this. Prudence nodded her head. So that had been his error: threatening to abandon her to a man that he’d convinced her was dangerous. Oh, that made him feel very bad. Very bad indeed.

“But I didn’t know. If you’d told me, I could have—”

“—Explained?” she interrupted. “I asked for that explanation, and you refused to give it. Not there in the cottage, not on the train. You made it very clear, Leo. I existed for fucking, not for talking.”

Her vulgarity made him draw back. He couldn’t even speak. That’s what she thought of him? Was that the American brazenness coming to bear in their conversation? “That is not—”

“I know you’d never say it aloud, Leo.” Prudence leveled him with a gaze that he’d never seen before on anyone. The malice there. “Because you’re too polite. But was that not our initial agreement? No relationship, just bedsport? Well, we did that.” She looked out the window.

Leo still couldn’t speak. The world had upended itself, and he hadn’t a clue what was happening.

“The weather has cleared up. I’ll take a hack to the hotel and be out of your hair.” Prudence stood, drank the rest of the coffee, and left the room. Leo stared at her untouched plate of food. He felt as if an explosive had been set off in the room, and he sat there dumbfounded, ears ringing.

He was still sitting there when he heard the front door slam. She’d left. How had everything gone so horribly, horribly wrong? She had seemed so happy last night, dazzled by the holiday décor, by the friendly chatter of his parents. It was the sight of Granson that changed her. Reminded her of the perceived injustice, for honestly, who in their right mind would leave a woman alone in the countryside to be discovered by undesirables? He certainly would not do so.

But he had said he would, and why would she not believe him?

It was too early for scotch. Besides, he found that he liked the sweet molasses taste of Kentucky bourbon.

*

When Prudence arrived at the hotel, she discovered they’d rented out her suite. She knew this was a possibility, and all of her extra trunks were packed and stowed in the basement of the hotel. She was, after all, planning to be gone for at least a month.

According to Mr. Brown, the red-cheeked manager with brown hair and red whiskers on his face, a minor German aristocrat arrived and needed a place befitting their rank. They were perhaps related to Prince Albert? Or had met him once? Or perhaps they were to be the new ambassadors? Mr. Brown was unclear and wheezing, making it very difficult to follow the very long and apologetic explanation. This same aristocrat had likewise filled the rest of the rooms with his extensive entourage, and there was no place for Prudence to stay there.

Still, she collected her mail that had not yet been forwarded to the countryside and left.

With no room at the inn, which Prudence tried to find humor in during this holiday time, she was at a loss of where to go. She most decidedly did not want to return to Berringbone’s estate where there were games planned and jolly times to be had. She needed a place to hole up and lick her wounds, like a stray cat. She went the only place she could think of: the in-town home of Ophelia’s family.

A year ago, if someone told Prudence that she would be imposing upon a viscount during the month of December, she would have been appalled. But their friendships had grown deeper, and she knew the staff wouldn’t turn her away. She stopped and sent a note to Lord Rascomb regarding her hopes to stay until her hotel suite became available, and after a nibble at the café where she’d met with Mr. Morgan, she went to the Rascomb townhome, weary and in need of solace.

The housekeeper, the solid Mrs. Murty, knew to expect her arrival, and while Lord Rascomb had gone out, and would be gone until late, Prudence was welcome to stay and avail herself of anything he had to offer, including access to his private cellar. Prudence was grateful for the hospitality, almost bursting into tears to have access to the indoor plumbing of the residence, and the cold cheese and fruit tray with excellent Madeira port.

Under normal circumstances, Prudence would not be someone to drink to excess. But tonight, after her hot bath that left her pale skin red like a lobster, it seemed not only a good idea, but the best possible one. She paced in her room, drinking from her glass, railing against Leo. She redrew her words from earlier that morning, making them more elegant, more pointed, more biting.

And then she went into the other things that he’d done to hurt her. About how he didn’t win her at the ball. About how he kept himself so apart from her with the exception of when they were in bed together.

She drank until she started to laugh. Then she finished off the plate of hard, salty cheese and fell asleep.

The next morning came without remorse. Days did not have any compunction when dealing with the brokenhearted. Her body felt stiff and her eyes felt dry, but she felt calmer than she had the day before. Having no plan for the day, and no company—not that she would be fit for it anyway—Prudence spent longer brushing her hair and massaging lotion into her dry hands.

Without prompting, Mrs. Murty brought up a tea tray in the midafternoon, noting no doubt that Prudence had not eaten yet, nor come out of her rooms.

“I wanted to make you aware that you will be having company this evening, and that dinner has been ordered,” the housekeeper said as she placed the tray on the table near the fireplace.

Prudence felt her cheeks heat. Had her one-sided argument grown too loud last night? Had they noted how much wine she’d drunk? Embarrassment flooded her. “Thank you, Mrs. Murty.”

“Mr. Sellers has sent over for your trunks at the hotel. Perhaps there is a gown from there we can ready for you?”

It was then that Prudence realized she had left her day dress out and had managed to spill wine on it last night in her pacing. Mrs. Murty had no doubt noticed that. And noted her lack of luggage.

“Thank you. Yes, if you have someone to spare for me, I would be very grateful.”

“Of course. I shall send a maid up once the trunk arrives.” Mrs. Murty left, perfunctory and thorough, as a housekeeper must be.

It made Prudence think of Mrs. Moon, and her background as a housekeeper. The thought of Mrs. Moon was the first pierce of that day’s armor, and it wasn’t long until Prudence was back in the bed, wishing she could sleep through the fact that her chest felt as if it might cave in. She should have wondered what company was coming, but she didn’t care. Nothing mattered.

She must have slept, because the scratching at the door woke her. In crept a maid with one of Prudence’s dinner gowns in her arms. And not far behind her was Justine, followed by Eleanor, and then Ophelia running down the hallway to keep up.

“You’re here!” Justine crowed.

“And awake!” Eleanor added. Eleanor was wearing house slippers and shucked them off and climbed into Prudence’s bed.

Ophelia flounced onto the end of the bed. “How did it go?”

Prudence sat up, and they all saw her face.

“Oh,” Justine said, the response they all seemed to have as one. “That bad?”

Prudence flopped back down. “I can’t.”

“Of course not,” Eleanor tutted, taking Prudence’s hand. “Now, what can you not do?”

“Everything,” Prudence groaned. “Anything. Be a reasonable person. Love another person. Forgive. Forget.”

“Do we know what exactly Mr. Moon did that was so unforgiveable?” Ophelia whispered to Justine.

“Do we want to know is the better question,” Justine said.

“I’ll tell you the details,” Prudence said. “If you want.”

Prudence opened up every secret to her friends, the bits she’d glossed over before. She ended her recital with yesterday morning’s argument, and his inability to speak after she accused him of wanting her only for bedsport. She even admitted precisely what she’d said that shocked Leo so much. Even Justine was shocked.

Prudence lay back again, unsure of what to do with herself. She felt tired all over again. Eleanor left the bed, leaving a cold spot behind. But soon she returned with Mrs. Murty’s tea tray. Eleanor poured a cup and made Prudence drink it.

“I don’t really even like tea that much,” Prudence protested, but the other three all gave her resoundingly cold glares. Eleanor poured a second cup after Prudence finished the first, and then insisted on Prudence eating the nibbles left on the tray.

“I wish we could just go now,” Prudence said.

“Go where?” Ophelia asked.

“Switzerland. I want to go now.”

Ophelia ducked away, almost as if Prudence had struck her. “There are far too many details to prep, Prudence. There is no way we could leave yet.”

They sat in silence.

“But what about if Tristan and I went ahead with her?” Eleanor suggested. “We could keep her company, and perhaps we could stop in France for a bit before we set off?”

France! Yes, what a delightful side trip. Prudence looked to Ophelia. They still had much to look over to see if it was possible.

“We can ask my father tonight at dinner,” Ophelia said. “Besides, it might be nice to have someone scout ahead.”

“Excellent!” Eleanor clapped.

At dinner, Lord Rascomb expressed interest, and Lady Rascomb suggested she might go along as well, to keep company with Prudence since newlyweds could sometimes be too caught up in themselves.

Prudence couldn’t taste the meal, but she drank her wine with enthusiasm, which made her queasy, and she excused herself from the drawing room after dinner.

When she awoke the next morning, she had a headache, but was pleased with herself for not crying. She took a quick, cold bath and changed into her day dress and went downstairs, suddenly famished. The hour was later than she thought, and the butler, Mr. Sellers, was directing the footmen in cleaning up the breakfast room. Prudence snagged a piece of toast and some coffee, which was all she really wanted anyway.

But after her coffee, Prudence couldn’t find the other women all morning. It was as if they had all vanished. She wandered from room to room, but they were not in their bedrooms or out of doors, training in the snow. Nor were they keeping company with Lady Rascomb in the drawing room. Prudence found a spot in the library where she amused herself reading some Sir Walter Scott.

“There you are!” Eleanor cried from the doorway. “I’ve been looking for you all over.”

Prudence looked up from her spot in the window and put her finger in the poetry book. “Me? I haven’t been able to find you lot.”

“Well, come with me now. We’ve made a plan, and I think you’ll absolutely adore it.”

*

After Prudence left, Leo sulked. And then he raged by taking long, cold walks around London. He drank some, with Granson, mostly. Then Eyeball came by for some year-end advice, which devolved into more drinking. Fortunately, no one mentioned Prudence.

Until his mother did. She entered with her usual flair, knocking his study door open at some ungodly early hour with her cane. The door hit the wall with a bang. “Granson, go to your room.”

Granson was on his feet instantly, though he wobbled from the amount of scotch they’d put down the night before.

“Your Lordship,” his mother said.

“Yes, Mrs. Moon,” came a reply from the floor, as Eyeball struggled to his feet. When he gained his feet, he faltered only a little, catching the chair to steady himself. “Mrs. Moon. Good morning.”

“It’s well past noon now. I’m asking you very politely now, Lord Grabe, to please get out of my house.”

“Yes, Mrs. Moon,” he said, taking a step and gulping as his giant body heaved in revolt.

“Potted plant in the hallway will do nicely,” she said as he made her way past her, and then Leo could hear the retching.

The sound did not bother him while he lay with his eyes closed. It was when he opened them that he could smell absolutely everything. Himself, the cushions, the scotch bottle that Lord Grabe had brought over to celebrate a new year.

When Leo sat up, his world spun and his stomach clenched.

“Water!” his mother called, and in came Jeffrey with an ewer. After Jeffrey left, his mother banged the study door closed with her cane.

“Your timing is impeccable,” he said, his voice rasping against his dry throat. She sank down in a nearby chair and watched as he drank directly from the ewer, and then used its accompanying bowl to splash his face.

“Better?” she asked.

He nodded as his stomach flipped over. “Coffee?”

“It is on the way,” she promised. “But first I need you to answer some questions.”

He felt suddenly as if she were his captor, making promises in exchange for something she wanted. “Of course.”

“Why have I received a letter from Prudence Cabot lamenting the end of our friendship?” She held up a letter. “It’s postmarked from Paris.”

He snatched it away from her, desperate for word from her. He’d checked her hotel, but she wasn’t there, and then the next time he’d gone by, even her luggage was gone. The manager would give no forwarding address. He’d debated going to the houses of her friends, of going straight to Lord Rascomb, but then he felt too desperate and wanted to wait until he could think straight again.

My Dear Mrs. Moon,

I write to tell you how much I have valued your friendship, expertise, and strength during my time in London. You must know now that your son and I pursued a type of courtship that did not bloom as it could have. While I sincerely love our friendship, the tenor of my last conversation with Mr. Moon prevents me from continuing our acquaintance. It is too painful to consider the reminder, especially in light of what you shared with me regarding your past. One must value the relationships that protect and strengthen, not threaten and abandon.

I am now on my travels to Switzerland, and I ask you to watch the newspapers come June and July for reports of our successful ascent. The path will be grueling, but I know that I am capable of enduring hardship.

My sincere admiration,

Prudence Cabot

Leo let the letter drop into his lap. She was already gone. He felt hollowed out, as if his blood had been filled with ice and shattered. He looked up at his mother.

“What did she mean ‘threaten and abandon?’” Mrs. Moon looked quite serious.

Leo shook his head. “I didn’t threaten her.”

She lifted her eyebrows, looked expectant.

“She is accusing me of something I didn’t do,” he tried again. The horrified look on his mother’s face had him equally horrified when he realized what she thought. “No no no. No. Mama. Mother. I would never.”

She frowned, but still said nothing.

He cleared his throat, wishing he had some coffee. “Last summer, while you were away, I also went away, with Mrs. Cabot. Prudence.”

His mother canted her head when he said Prudence’s given name. But he’d have to grit his way through his discomfort for his mother to think him a decent human being. His father had not given her the best mold of manhood, and he couldn’t blame her for being skeptical.

“While we were away, in Thornridge, at the Garden Cottage—”

“You took her to Thornridge.” She blinked rapidly.

“Yes, I did, I thought—”

“—and you thought you could show up anywhere near Thornridge and your father would not find out you were there?” She thumped her cane.

“I wanted to show Prudence something beautiful, something I knew.”

His mother shook her head, and he knew she was thinking of him in disparaging ways. “And a few days in, Granson shows up at twilight, asking for a Lenny Morgan.”

His mother looked unimpressed. “You say that as if you expect me to realize something important.”

“It was very important! It made me uneasy. I am not typically aware of that particular sensation, and I wanted to get out of there as soon as I possibly could.”

“And that’s when you threatened her?”

“I did not threaten her. I never threatened her. I would never.” Leo sighed. Where was the blasted coffee? “She wanted to know who Granson was, why I was frightened, and why I wanted to leave. She insisted that she would stay in the cottage if I didn’t tell her everything, to which I agreed.”

“You agreed to stay?”

“No. I agreed that she could stay. But that I would leave.”

“So you said you would leave her to a stranger who frightened you?”

“It sounds terrible when you say it.” Leo’s head felt like it had been suddenly cleaved into two distinct halves. Both of which pounded. “And I only said it so that she would come with me.”

His mother made a noise of understanding and rocked in her chair, thumping her cane.

“So you understand?” he asked, feeling very relieved that his mother was on his side.

“Of course I do. And that was the threatening part. I love you dearly, Leo, but I hope you have adequately apologized.”

He sat back, stunned. “Well, I would have apologized.”

Again her eyebrows went up. “Would have?”

“If she would have seen me. I felt that an apology had to be made in person. But for months, she ignored my notes. I couldn’t help it if she didn’t want to see me.”

“Fair point, but you could have done some sort of gesture to let her know of your wish to speak with her.”

“I did! I went to her ball. I was there at midnight and raised the bidding to an extravagant amount!” Leo was sweating, and it smelled like the garbage heaps in summer.

His mother once again cocked her head at him, and he knew in his bones that she would not be taking his side. “The ball I forced you to attend. And pray tell me, who won the bidding to escort Prudence into the dining room?”

“Eyeball.”

They sat in silence. Jeffrey entered with a pot of coffee and a breakfast tray. The footman poured the cup, which Leo snatched up immediately. He drank it so quickly he scalded the roof of his mouth. The shame coursed through him. He hadn’t wanted to spend the money. The money that kept them fed and warm.

The money that had seemed so necessary and essential, because without it, Leo felt like he couldn’t breathe properly. But now his father was here. Granson was here. And that fist that had lived, knotted in his stomach, had relaxed and released. He no longer worried his father might arrive and take it all. His father was here, and surprisingly, was very thrifty.

If only his father had arrived before the ball, Leo would have acted differently. He would have to let Eyeball raise the price to the sky, and he would have still outbid.

His mother waited, looking enormously displeased. “Leo. I am your mother, and that means I will always be your champion. But when you act in counterproductive ways, it makes it difficult to cheer you on. Therefore, I must ask you, do you wish to have an ongoing relationship with Prudence Cabot?”

He looked out the window, dull winter afternoon sunlight gilded the nude tree branches. Could he even say what he wanted aloud?

“Tell me the truth, Leo. Even if you are embarrassed to do so.”

He closed his eyes, which was a terrible idea. The world spun until he opened them again. “Yes. I want more time with her. She—the time I spent—it was more—I mean, the happiness that—” He sighed and splashed the cold water from the ewer on the back of his neck.

“Very articulate, thank you. Do you think you might be in love with her?” His mother asked this question as if it were as simple as saying it.

“I don’t know. What does that word even mean?”

“It means, do you think you’ve made a terrible mistake in letting her go to the Matterhorn without telling her how you feel?”

Leo stilled. “I beg your pardon?”

“The Matterhorn kills people. That company of women might very well die this summer. Are you willing to let Prudence Cabot fall to her death thinking that you don’t care about her?”

“That’s ridiculous! Of course she knows how I feel about her!” Leo’s gut churned again. The Matterhorn was an abstract. The venture equally as mythical. But the letter said she’d already left for Switzerland. A panic started to rise in him, deep, as if manifesting from the earth beneath his feet.

“Does she?” his mother asked coolly. “Because you may be too late. She is traveling, which means she had no address. We don’t know where she’s staying in Switzerland, so you cannot send her a letter expressing your affection.”

“Are you trying to make me go to Switzerland?” he demanded.

“I’m asking if you want to go to Switzerland,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

His eyes wandered to the window, again looking at the tree, looking dead in winter, knowing that in a few months it would spring to life once again.

“I’ll leave you to think on it,” his mother said, and hoisted herself out of her chair. “But be honest with yourself. I’ll not have you moping around this house for nothing.”

*

The ferry to France was choppy, but settling into the south of France was lovely. Prudence enjoyed the warmer weather and the time to relax with Georgie, Eleanor, Tristan Bridewell, and Lady Rascomb. It was the aristocratic name that opened the doors for them, and Tristan Bridewell’s arms that carried the luggage through them when a porter was not available. Georgie kept her mouth shut most of the time, not even conversing with Prudence. They stayed in little hotels along the way from Calais to Paris, from Paris down to Marseilles.

Not every hotel was equal. Some were as lavish as the hotel she’d stayed at in London, fit for a foreign aristocrat. But some were small and full of holes in the mortar, desperately poor, having never recovered from the Reign of Terror that ravaged France almost a century before. While they were extraordinarily generous with those inns, usually run by an elderly couple, they moved on quickly, as February was not a month one stayed in drafty rooms.

Over the trains and carriage rides, Prudence had gotten close with Lady Rascomb—Joanna—which she was grateful for. Eleanor and Tristan were a giggling mess most of the times they managed to leave their rooms. But Joanna regaled Eleanor with her climbs of this mountain or that mountain, and her wistful tone made it clear that she wished she were ascending the Matterhorn as well.

Prudence often wondered if Georgie listened to Joanna’s tales as well, but it was impossible to tell, given the woman’s constant placid demeanor and lack of facial expression. She always had a book open, and given how slowly she did everything, it was unclear if she was reading or listening.

But despite Joanna’s stories and the beautiful snow-covered countryside that gradually melted into fallow southern French fields, Prudence was restless. She wanted to see the mountain, which she was gradually feeling ownership over. The Matterhorn was quickly becoming her mountain in her mind. The mountain she shared with Eleanor, Ophelia, and Justine. Their lives were so intertwined in this goal, living and breathing it, training, looking at maps and potential routes up the mountain, Ophelia scouring newspapers and journals for any mention of the next party attempting its ascent, how could they not feel close to it?

And now, she was in France, and she could see the French Alps. Joanna spoke of their ascent of Mont Blanc, where she’d injured her leg, how Tristan had carried her down the mountain after the avalanche had buried her. How she’d have died had it not been for her son there when she needed him. But Prudence didn’t care about Mont Blanc.

Prudence needed to be at the Matterhorn. Waiting any longer was impossible. It had been a month since they left London, but it was only February. They had planned on taking the Strasbourg-Basel railway to pass the miles into Switzerland. But now, they were in the south, as far from Strasbourg as they could be and still be in France.

At the breakfast table one morning at a quaint inn fifteen miles outside of Marseilles, Joanna noticed. “Did you sleep well, Prudence? It looks as if something is bothering you.”

Prudence smiled her expected American smile. “I’m fine.”

But Joanna, perhaps it was her experience as a mother, perhaps as a mountaineer, peered closer. “You are restless. Would you like to get on with it?”

“On with what?” Prudence asked, distracted momentarily by Eleanor’s giggle—a noise that she only made when she was near her husband. Tristan was gallantly buttering her toast.

“Going to Switzerland. We could attempt the St. Cenis train around the Alps.” Joanna’s offer was considerate, but Prudence had to be equally considerate.

“But how will we get through the other passes in February? I’d be concerned about cave-ins and then the long journey through the mountains to get to Zermatt.” Prudence didn’t want to mention that traveling with Joanna, given her leg injury, would make things exponentially harder. As hale as Joanna was, she was twenty years older and had not been training as they had.

Still, the older woman grimaced, knowing that she was the slowest link the in the chain of their expedition. Well, Prudence considered, Georgie was not known for her speed either. “So we take the Strasbourg train as we’d planned.”

Prudence nodded. The trip to get back to Strasbourg would take a week in the winter. But she would be one step closer to the Matterhorn.

“Tristan, Eleanor,” Joanna called down the table. The couple looked up, red cheeked, as if they were naughty schoolchildren caught smearing mud on the walls. “We will be departing today for Strasbourg. Please see that your belongings are ready.”

They both nodded and then hastily excused themselves from the table. Prudence wanted to roll her eyes. It wasn’t that she begrudged them their happiness, it was that neither of them could acknowledge the world around them.

“Newlywed couples,” Joanna said with a wistful smile. “I’m sure you once felt like that, too.”

Prudence winced. She had, but not when she was newly wed. Gregory had never been that entranced by her. They were at arm’s length most of the time, if not further. They chatted as academics and polite acquaintances across his dinner table. They were proper and distant. And the nights were dark and perfunctory.

But she had felt that giggling effervescence with Leo. The day they’d shopped on Bond Street, pretending still to dislike each other. And those days in the cottage, just the two of them, before Granson had appeared and ruined it all. They had been so swept up in each other. She knew that her irritation with Eleanor and Tristan stemmed from not having that feeling herself.

But in her very marrow she knew that his threat to leave her in the English countryside alone was unforgiveable. If not unforgiveable, it would at least take a reasonable apology to forgive. Something he still had yet to offer.

And so they packed their trunks and boarded yet another carriage to get to the Marseilles train to Paris. It took two days to get there, given the weather, but upon arrival, the trains whisked them off in relative comfort. Until Strasbourg.

In Strasbourg, a warm week had melted the snow and, coupled with rain, flooded the city of canals. The bridge over the Rhine was imperiled, and the trains could not run underwater. Prudence and her group, like many other passengers, were turned away at the train station, with no idea when they could leave the flooded town.

They holed up at Strasbourg’s “English” hotel, reassured that they would be comfortable there as they waited out the storms. Two days passed, with daily treks to the train station in the rain, checking once again on conditions. Finally, on the third day, they were reassured that the train would run the following morning, and told to return with their luggage.

Tristan didn’t mind being the pack horse, and of course there were no complaints out of Georgie or Eleanor. Joanna bore the inconvenience with aplomb. It made Prudence feel surprisingly petulant. She was already out of sorts, and this delay had not made her feel any better.

The next morning, they trundled over to the train station early, hoping to get their first-class tickets. The station was already full of four days’ worth of irritated passengers. Prudence made her way to the ticket line with Tristan, jostled by the sheer number of people. Once, in a flash, she could have sworn she saw Leo. It only added to what felt like the sheer mayhem of the morning.

They managed to prove their ticket purchase for first class seats, but the clerk told them they would be in second class. Tristan puffed up his chest, and Prudence swore he grew three feet taller as he protested on his mother’s behalf. The clerk would only bend so far, and in the end, they were able to obtain three first class tickets. The rest would be in the second-class car.

“That’s fine,” Prudence said. She and Georgie could be in second class, and it wouldn’t bother her a bit. At least they would be in Switzerland by the end of the day.

But boarding the train proved another feat. Strangers stepped on the hem of her dress, and Georgie, despite being quite a solid woman, was pushed into several times. A less sturdy person would have fallen.

“If you are a single passenger, please queue here,” a clerk shouted between the cars. He shouted the same phrase in French and German, and then back in English again.

Prudence and Georgie boarded and found two seats together, settling in them with a feeling of finding safe harbor at last. Georgie, in rare form, looked disturbed by the experience.

“At least we got on the first train,” Prudence said.

A clerk walked through the car, noting empty seats. One of the seats opposite theirs was empty. An older woman occupied the window seat, and she peered out of it, even though they were still inside the train station. She had white hair, pulled back into a severe bun and a black hat pinned into place.

“Pardon me, madame, do you have a companion with you?” Prudence asked. She certainly didn’t want the clerk to get the wrong idea and give away a seat that was needed.

The woman peered at Prudence with watery blue eyes and blinked. “Kein Englisch.”

Which Prudence took to mean that she didn’t speak any English, and she gave up. The clerk who spoke German could sort it out. The meager words that Prudence had managed to learn in the last year were not enough to have a complex conversation. They were barely enough for a simple conversation.

A gentleman was ushered to sit down next to the older woman. He was round in every way—a round face, a round belly, and his fleshy palms round with short fingers that he curled over his kneecaps. “Guten Morgen,” he said with utmost seriousness.

The old lady returned the greeting as uninterested as she had spoken to Prudence.

“Guten Morgen,” Georgie returned, and Prudence shot her a glance. Georgie shrugged and whispered, “The German colony was the next town over from me.”

Prudence shook her head and was relieved as the train lurched forward. Finally. Finally, she was on her way to the mountain. The one bright spot she had left. She stared out the window just as the old lady did. The train left the station, revealing gray clouds and flooded roads. Once outside of Strasbourg, the landscape was sodden and the rivers were bursting. Mud churned as they slid by on a surprisingly smooth track.

A flurry of German was spoken, but Prudence didn’t bother trying to pay attention. And then Georgie elbowed her. She looked over as the round man stood and made way for another gentleman. A clerk was in the aisle as well.

“This man says he is a business acquaintance of yours?” the clerk asked in accented English.

Prudence looked at the seated man, who still wore his hat, and her heart flipped. It was as if the breath had been knocked out of her. Leo sat there, looking polished and fine and angular and capable.

“He is,” she managed. The clerk looked pleased and shuffled off.

Leo stared at her, and she couldn’t manage to break his gaze. Georgie elbowed her again.

“Switch seats,” she whispered, standing. Prudence slid over, so that she now sat directly in front of Leo. Could touch him if she wished.

“What are you doing here?” Prudence asked.

He examined her, as if memorizing her face. “I came to apologize.”

“You came to France to apologize?” She felt a grin coming unbidden to her face.

“I had never wanted to make an apology in writing. It felt too easy. I needed you to see my face so that I wouldn’t use the wrong words to make things worse.”

Prudence gobbled up the sight of him, the sound of him, but she bided her time. She needed sweet words at last. No one had ever said things like this aloud to her, and she was anxious for them as she was for her mountain. “I see you.”

Leo swallowed, as if he were nervous, and it touched her.

“I have had time to think about us. About our months together. It was the happiest I’ve ever been in my life, Prudence. In fact, it might have been the first time in my life that I was happy. I have had successes, yes, but those were financial and social, but none of it made me happy. They made me and my mother comfortable, and that’s different.”

Prudence understood. She had been happy as a child, but not as an adult. Her accomplishments were satisfying, signing documents to purchase new railway systems, ordering new track to be built. Even ordering stock trades on behalf of the incapacitated Gregory. But she hadn’t been happy .

“That week at the cottage was—” Leo broke off, looking down in his lap.

It had been transcendentally happy. “Sheer happiness,” Prudence supplied.

Leo nodded. “To have you there, with the morning birds, and my sketchpad, it was new and different, and made me the man I want to be. And I’d thought, that night, coming down from the Hooper’s Hill, I could be this man all the time if I wanted.”

Prudence waited. She knew there was an exception coming.

“But when Granson showed up, and called me that name—that name who, as far as I’m concerned, belongs to a dead man. It all came flooding back—why I couldn’t be that man in the garden with the sketchpad. Why breakfasting with you amongst flowers was impossible. Why London was the only place I could be. And I wanted you with me, still. But I wasn’t willing to give you up. I shouldn’t have said I would leave you. Because I wouldn’t, Prudence. You have to know that I was desperate. All that helplessness I’d had with my mother in that place, it all came flooding back. And the idea of you knowing that weak and helpless starving boy—I snapped.” Leo took a shaky breath. “I am so sorry for not explaining it to you. For not behaving better. For not being the man in the garden with the sketchpad. He would have held you and told you everything. He would have brought you along every step of the way as a partner, not as baggage to haul off and put on a train.”

“Your sketches were rather good,” Prudence said.

“I mean it, Prudence, more than you can imagine. When you showed up at the house in the snowstorm, I thought this was what I had waited for. I was waiting for you. What I didn’t understand was that you were waiting for me to realize that I still hadn’t found the man I was for those few days. And I desperately want to show you how my life has changed since this summer.”

Her heart ached to forgive him. She wanted to forgive him so badly. But there was still more, and she felt so childish for wanting to know why he didn’t outbid Lord Grabe at the auction. She squeezed her eyes shut, trying not to cry.

“I wanted to say all this to you the night of your ball. Which was beautiful, by the way. The room was stunning. You were stunning. But I couldn’t get to you.”

“But you could have,” she whispered, cracking open her eyes. “You could have.”

Leo hung his head. “I don’t know how to explain this bit. There were times, when I was a child, that my mother starved so that I would have just a tiny morsel in my growing belly. She was so painfully thin that it hurt to look at her arms. So gaunt. Since then, I’ve been determined to always have enough money for us. I needed back-up accounts and hidden accounts, places that no one could find the money I kept on hand for us. I’m not proud of it. But the sum of eleven thousand pounds was too much for that part of me. The starving little boy, who was watching his mother reduce herself to a skeleton. I couldn’t. And when you looked down at me, and I saw the disappointment in your eyes when I didn’t bid, it undid me. I was wretched. And I thought, how can I explain this to her? How on earth could I make someone like you—who had a lovely childhood with lovely parents—how could I make you understand what it was like to have Reggie Morgan hounding my every move?”

Prudence swallowed hard. She’d never felt that instinctive need for money. The drive he described. But she could understand how a man like Reggie Morgan could make a boy feel like that.

“And then you saw him arrive in my house. You cannot know the embarrassment and shame I suffered that day, watching as everything unfolded in front of you. All the things I’d sought to keep away from you. All the nasty bits of my life and my family.”

“All families have their own dynamics. No one’s is perfect.” Prudence knew this was true, and while hers had squabbles, she loved them all so much.

“Living with Reggie and Granson has changed me, Prudence. Because you are correct—my family is strange and odd. But Reggie is a different man now. No longer drinks, and is surprisingly frugal. How my mother bosses him around, it’s really quite funny.”

Prudence ducked her head, smiling, because she heard affection in his voice. “I’ve missed visiting your mother.”

Leo smiled—he actually smiled! “It was your letter to her that made her beat me hard enough to get my head out of my arse.”

Prudence reared back. She couldn’t imagine.

“Metaphorically speaking,” Leo said, holding up a hand. “I was full of whisky and keeping company with Granson and Eyeball every night. It wasn’t a healthy choice.”

“Eyeball?” Prudence asked, flipping through her memory, searching for the name.

“Lord Grabe. He’s known how ardently I’ve regarded you for some time.”

Prudence giggled, reminding herself of Eleanor. “Ardently regarded?”

“Most ardently,” Leo assured her, scooting forward on his seat, so their knees touched. He removed his gloves and stowed them in his coat pocket. Then rested his hands on his knees, palm upward. “Prudence. I hadn’t known the meaning of the word until I missed you so badly I didn’t want to be in this world. I love you. The words scare me and compel me and make me drag myself across a very cold continent to find you. I love you. And I don’t ask for anything in return. I would never be so presumptuous.”

A warmth inside of her chest glowed brighter. As soon as he said the words, she felt them echo in herself as well. “I love you, too, Leo. I couldn’t breathe for how much I loved you.” She laid her gloved hands in his bare ones.

“Wunderbar!” cried the old lady next to Leo, clapping her hands. Even Georgie joined in, a smug look on her face.

“I doubt you’d be willing to kiss me in public, would you?” Leo asked.

“Would that not scandalize you? I’m an American, after all. I’m nothing but scandal.” Prudence tightened her grip on his fingers, pulling him toward her.

“I’m willing to risk it.”

He leaned forward, and she met him, the feel of his lips and the scent of him reeling her in to a place she hadn’t even known she thought of as home. Her shoulders relaxed for the first time in weeks, and the rightness of it—of him, of the train, of the applause—felt the same as the hum of the wheels as they picked up speed.

Because there was a future there. A place they both belonged.

*

Leo did not remember the transfer from Basel to Zurich. Nor did he remember much of the long carriage ride from Zurich to Zermatt. They had to ride donkeys to get through the climb up to Zermatt, which was bumpy and uncomfortable, but all Leo could think of was getting Prudence to a room and making love to her. Showing her with his body all the ways that he loved her, cherished her, wanted her.

“They won’t allow us to share a room, Leo. It isn’t proper.” Prudence had giggled as she’d whispered it, when their two donkeys narrowed the gap between them.

“Then marry me. Now. Tomorrow. As soon as possible. I don’t care. Prudence, I love you. I will do anything to be with you.”

Apparently, their conversation was nowhere near as quiet as they’d supposed. The cold mountain air and the snow let their voices travel.

“The town of Zermatt is mostly Roman Catholic,” Joanna said, conversationally. “If you were to marry in a Catholic church, the Anglican church would still require yet another marriage license for England.”

Leo frowned for a second, but then took her meaning. He wished he could take Prudence’s hand. Give her a proper proposal. “Would you mind becoming Mrs. Moon earlier, without the fanfare?”

“Is not the room name already under Mrs. Cabot?” Prudence asked, teasing.

“If you want me to become Mr. Cabot, I absolutely will.” He didn’t mind changing his name. It wouldn’t be the first time. Prudence giggled again, and Leo was finding the sound to be more and more erotic as the trip wore on. But then, everything about her was. Dear God, he wanted to lick up the expanse of her neck, from the high collar of her traveling cloak to her chin.

“I appreciate it, but I think I would rather become Mrs. Moon. Another connection to your very formidable mother.” A serious expression darkened her face. “And I’ve already been married to Mr. Cabot. It wasn’t bad, but I think it’s time for a new chapter.”

“Mrs. Moon it is,” Leo pronounced. “And I notice you haven’t said yes to marrying me.”

“Very perceptive.” Her lips glistened, and he was nearly felled when she bit her lip. “Let me think on it. I’ve been married before, you know.”

“I’m well aware.” Leo kissed her cheek, given the surrounding company of the crowded carriage. “But I will wait for you Prudence. For however long you require.”

She put her hand to his cheek, and even through her glove, her touch lit a fire inside of him. “And I promise I won’t make you wait a moment longer than you must.”

*

The inn was a blur of luggage and blonde wooden boards lacquered and freshly built. It had taken ages to finally get the key, exchanging impatient pleasantries as Leo held her hand.

His anxiety to be alone matched hers. Finally, finally! The door to their perfunctory room with its large, unadorned bed, and simple white feather duvet, closed. Leo had tipped the broad-shouldered attendant who carried up their trunks, and it was he who closed the heavy wooden door.

“We’re here,” Prudence said. He was rumpled from the train and subsequent donkey ride. She had no idea how she looked—probably not dazzling. But the way he looked at her made her feel that perhaps she was.

“Here as in Zermatt, or here as in a private room together?” Leo asked, taking slow steps towards her.

All of it felt right to her. The Matterhorn loomed at the end of the valley, distant but yet so close. So forbidding, but yet familiar. They’d talked of it, planned routes up it, scoured maps of it for the past year.

Leo felt the same—exciting and new, but also familiar and beloved. She felt the magnetism of him, the nearness of him as he approached slowly. She wet her lips and watched his eyes dart to them.

“Both,” she said. There was a flash in her mind of how she must smell of donkey, about feeling dirty from a long day’s worth of travel. But she didn’t care if Leo smelled of donkey and wool soaked in old sweat. It didn’t matter. She loved him clean, and she loved him full of the hardships of the road.

“May I?” Leo asked, taking her hand, finally close enough to gently pull her to him.

Her breasts pressed flush against his hard chest, she swallowed. “Please do.”

Slowly, too slowly, an ache flowing through her, he lowered his face to hers. Pressing his lips against hers, gentle, not presumptuous in the least. But Prudence was. She was presumptuous and needy and feeling not at all slow or gentle. She deepened their kiss, licking at the seam of his lips to make them open and admit her tongue. A low groan emitted from his chest that she felt ripple through her.

“Leo, I know that this fast but—” Prudence gasped between kisses. He tasted like everything she knew and wanted.

“Fast is fine,” he said, ripping off his coat.

“Good,” she said, kissing him again as she undid the buttons on her own. The four large silk-covered buttons slipped and skittered beneath her imprecise fingers, but she tore the garment from her shoulders.

He ripped off his neckcloth and collar and then helped her with the small pearl buttons on her shirtwaist. Enough were undone that he helped her pull it over her head. Pins from her coiffure pinged on the wooden floor. He pushed down his braces, letting them hang from his waist before pulling his own shirt off over his head. Finally. Skin.

She shivered in her corset and shift, despite the woolen stockings still in place. She worked the hook at the waist to her heavy woolen traveling skirt. He looked at her with hunger and need. She couldn’t keep her focus. She stepped out of the skirt pooled on the ground and pulled his face to hers. It was as if she stopped kissing him, she would drown.

“I need you, Leo.”

He picked her up. She squeaked in surprise, not realizing someone might do such a thing. He placed her on the bed, his steel-gray eyes strong and fully focused on her. “I need you too.”

He kissed her, and they both rucked up her long shift, pulling off her boots and the woolen stockings and drawers. He unbuttoned his trousers and shucked off his shoes.

He dragged his hand from her jaw down her neck, across her still-cossetted breasts, down between her legs. His fingers gently swirled there, testing her, pleasing her. “I love you, Prudence. I do. I would do anything for you. I won’t ever keep anything from you again.”

“I know, I know,” she said, her back arching as pleasure built. “And I won’t stay away. You’re stuck with me now.” She gasped sharply as her climax shot through her, surprising her.

Leo shifted himself quickly, entering her as she was still in the throes of her pleasure. “I missed you.” He thrusted into her, and she wrapped her legs around him, grabbing his arms, urging him into her, pulling him, begging him with her body. They needed to be closer. They needed to be one, together, united.

And finally they were. Leo bellowed as he came, and Prudence shuddered in pleasure as he did.

Afterwards, hastily cleaned by their own dirty garments, Prudence lay in his arms, one long leg draped over his. “You’re stuck with me now, Mr. Moon. I hope you are prepared.”

He snorted. “I’m the one with the scandalous and strange family. You should be worried about that, not the other way around.”

“You haven’t met my family yet,” Prudence reminded him. But someday, she hoped he would. In fact, she looked forward to the quiet but strong handshake between her father and him. How her mother would tut and go to the kitchen to make him a plate of food.

He kissed her hair. “But I will. Let’s hope they’ll accept this London ne’er-do-well.”

“I’m just glad your mother can accept an American.”

“She’s full of misguided sentiment. Just look at her husband.”

Prudence gave him a playful bite on the arm and he chuckled. They were quiet for a moment. “Thank you for coming after me. I wouldn’t have thought you wanted me otherwise.”

“You are awfully hardheaded, like all Americans. But you are my hardheaded American.”

“Go to sleep, you smelly redcoat.”

Leo murmured, and soon they both drifted off, exhausted from travel and misunderstandings, heartbreak and resolve. The Matterhorn sat unmoving in the distance, unwavering and majestic, awaiting the future and what it might bring.

The End.