Into the Breach With You (The Ladies Alpine Society #3)

Chapter One

Into the Breach With You [AS1]

1869, Zermatt, Switzerland

Justine Brewer didn’t mind a lot of things. She didn’t mind the cold; she didn’t mind her friends being so in love that they draped themselves endlessly around their sweethearts. Or overhearing their whispered saccharine sentiments so often that it made her teeth hurt.

But what she did absolutely mind was being forced to sit still for three days straight: from the ferry across the Channel to the train from Calais to Paris, the train from Paris to Strasbourg, the train from Strasbourg to Zurich, and the donkey ride from Zurich to Zermatt. She was going to crawl out of her bloody skin.

As it was, she already wished she were climbing the mountain herself instead of being strapped onto the back of a donkey like piece of luggage, feeling the cold and observing how the snow gathered on rocks and trees, until finally—finally!— the valley unfurled, and beyond was the stately, snowy, scooped-out peak of the Matterhorn. It loomed above all other peaks, and on the cold, clear day, it glowed with its hard bright-white angles.

The donkeys ambled down into Zermatt, the church steeple at the far end lording over the shadowed valley, a pale echo of the mountain beyond. The town itself was not large, but well established. The snow crusted on the rooftops of the wood-and-slate Alpine houses, which were utterly unlike English cottages. They all possessed a tightness and squareness, each window and shutter at right angles. Not a single board leaned even a centimeter out of place. There were few people out in the streets, all wrapped tightly in woolen scarves and hats, barely anything but eyes showing against the chill air.

When they finally arrived at their inn, Justine was too impatient to wait for someone to help her down off the donkey. She slid off herself and threw the reins haphazardly. But oh, that air! Nothing had ever tasted as good as this air—crisp and fresh and cool, she felt like she could drink it. She was even more anxious to run, to feel that air deep in her lungs, to replace all the fetid air of the three days’ worth of enclosed trains.

In front of her, Ophelia and her father, Lord Rascomb, dismounted. Another train of donkeys pulled up behind them, hauling all the luggage and climbing equipment they’d brought from London or picked up along the way. One step closer to the top of the Matterhorn. If she weren’t positive Ophelia would get annoyed with her for wandering away, she would have gone on a walk around right then. She stamped on the snow, hearing the cold crunch of it under her boots.

“Fr?ulein,”

a man said to her, indicating the way into the hotel.

The building was freshly built, the light-colored boards still smelling of trees. The rugs were new, and Justine thought about how much melted snow these would absorb over the years. Her carpetbag was already waiting at the front desk, along with Ophelia’s.

“Güete n’Abu,”

the man at the desk said. He was older, perhaps in his sixties, with frothy snow-white hair and a round face. His cheeks were pink, which contrasted with the bright blue ice-chip color of his eyes. “Ich bin der Herr Brunner.”

“Good afternoon,”

Justine said, not understanding a word that was spoken. Instead, she looked around, waiting for Lord Rascomb to speak with the older man. There was a staircase that obviously went up to guest rooms, and another doorway that gaped open. Through it, she saw tables and chairs. She pointed, then mimed bringing a fork to her mouth. “For eating?”

The man’s eyes brightened and he nodded. “Ja, fürs Essen.”

It looked pleasant enough. Simple accommodations, but that’s all they needed. She was looking forward to her simple dresses, the solitary runs, and this delicious crisp air. No dances, no balls, no dinners. Just mountains.

Lord Rascomb approached, pulling letters out of his coat pocket. The men spoke in German, which Justine ignored and instead looked about at the potted plants and the red and yellow painted designs on the exposed beams above her head.

Ophelia joined her. Justine pointed upwards. “The English never decorate a ceiling.”

“Untrue,”

Ophelia said, sniffing.

“All is well?”

Justine asked.

“I should like a bath, that’s all,”

Ophelia said.

Justine didn’t respond because she didn’t need to. They’d endured the hell of puberty together, their first menses—for Justine’s first blood came as she shared a bed with Ophelia and would have been the most mortifying event in the world had Ophelia not been so drattedly kind about it. And while Justine had received the taunting of Ophelia’s older brother, Tristan, now thankfully wed and thoroughly besotted with Eleanor, it wasn’t as if Justine hadn’t given as good as she’d gotten. Until Tristan had told Justine’s nickname to his influential friends and it became the work of the scandal sheets.

But it didn’t matter to Justine, and Ophelia stuck by her through it all, even though other girls told Ophelia to cut ties with Justine because of her reputation. Ophelia always told them that Justine was an innocent. In the matters of men? Yes, absolutely. In the matters of other mischief? Perhaps not. And her older brother Francis, Tristan’s schoolmate, was of no help whatsoever. He didn’t defend his little sister at all.

It didn’t help that no matter what kind of gown Justine wore, her slim waist, short stature, and buxom endowments made her look as if she were hoping for a tumble in the hay. The only true resistance to this presumption was to laugh at them. And she did. She had gotten used to needing to be unkind, needing to be loud and forceful. And, in one particular horrifying instance when she was at her debut, being very well seen , so no man could carry her off.

“I like the red bird motif,”

Justine said, still staring at the Alpine ceiling. “It’s cheerful.”

“It’s bloody,”

Ophelia said.

Justine looked to her friend. Anxious indeed to be so judgmental. It wasn’t like her. Justine was about to say something, when there was a thunder on the stairs and the rest of the Ladies’ Alpine Society came tearing into view.

Eleanor flung herself on Justine, while Prudence embraced Ophelia.

“We’ve missed you!”

Eleanor squealed. Their quiet and withdrawn knot-tying genius Eleanor was capable of squealing? Marriage had loosened her.

“Who are you, and what have you done with Eleanor?”

Justine admonished. But Eleanor moved aside, and Tristan moved in for a hearty embrace, something he had never done before. Puzzled, Justine suffered his affection.

“Bad News,”

Tristan uttered the nickname he’d bestowed.

“Arsehole,”

she said, the only name he’d ever earned.

Tristan laughed and let her go, leaving her to greet Prudence and then have a very awkward handshake with Mr. Moon, their expedition accountant who was not supposed to be here but had followed Prudence.

Not that Justine would blame him. Prudence was a kind of American goddess, embodying all the things Englishwomen wouldn’t dare do: smiling at strangers, for one. Prudence was tall and moved easily in her skin with a confidence that even Justine envied.

Justine took Prudence’s hand and squeezed it. “Darlings, it’s lovely to see your gorgeous faces. Well, except yours, Tristan. It’s abominable as usual.”

Tristan was considered one of the best-looking men in London. He shared his golden hair and doll-like blue eyes with Ophelia and their mother, as well as an easygoing disposition that was often construed as sweet. But Justine knew what an arsehole he was and had no inclination to stop telling him so.

“However,”

Justine continued, “a bath is crucial. Where might the bathing facilities be located?”

“Won’t you need to unpack first?”

Eleanor asked.

“No need,”

Justine chirped, gesturing to the carpetbags she’d set aside. “We have our changes of clothes at the ready.”

“I can show you the way,”

Prudence said, picking up one of the carpetbags. “Follow me.”

A bath, then a dinner of sausages and potatoes and sauerkraut, and they were in their beds, a small portable iron brazier glowing to keep them warm. Justine shared a room with Ophelia, each in their small beds, and while her friend fell asleep immediately, Justine felt like it was the middle of the afternoon. She was ready for tea and gossip, or even a training run. It had been ages since she’d been allowed to move properly.

She lit the small oil lamp next to her bed and tried to read. But even her mind was restless. Eleanor had given her a book about Mary, Queen of Scots, which normally would have been interesting, but Justine could not concentrate. Not when her body screamed for permission to move.

A young lady shouldn’t go wandering about a hotel in the middle of the night—it wasn’t done because it wasn’t safe. But she would die if she had to lay still any longer. With a jealous glance at Ophelia’s sleeping form, her angelic face arranged like the porcelain dolls her mother gifted her every year, Justine got out of bed. She put on her heavy woolen stockings, her dowdiest dress—meant for climbing mountains in—and an extra shawl that she tied about her shoulders and waist. She pulled on the warm, wool-lined slippers and crept out of the room.

. . . Where she discovered it was very cold. Very cold indeed! The iron braziers heated the rooms individually, but the passageways were freezing. Justine would need to find a fireplace quickly. And perhaps a dose of local flavors that could help her fall asleep.

Was she a nightmare for chaperones? Yes. Was she Bad News, as Tristan Bridewell had said so many years ago? Possibly. Would she lose her mind if she didn’t wander the Alpine inn right this minute? Absolutely.

Carrying her oil lamp with her down the passage and then down the stairs, she followed the heat. It was easy to feel the draughts as they circulated through the building. As she got to the bottom floor where the innkeeper had greeted them, she could feel the warmth emanating from the dining room, where the door was now closed. She followed it, opening the door without thinking what would be behind it.

It had been where they ate dinner that night, where breakfast would be served in the morning; it was just a dining room.

But when she opened the door, all she could see was a man’s shoulders, powerfully built, achingly obvious, outlined by firelight. The man whipped his head around, holding a shirt to his chest.

“Oh my,”

Justine breathed, her heart thundering at her discovery. She was unable to move or to quit staring.

Recovering from his shock, the man relaxed and pulled the shirt on, vaguely tucking it in before pulling up the leather braces that had been hanging at his sides. “Guten Abend, Fr?ulein.”

“I . . .”

Justine trailed off. “I don’t speak German.”

The man nodded, looked aside for a moment and then began again, this time in English. “Good evening, miss. Do you need something?”

His accent was clipped, and in the firelight, his lined forehead became even more pronounced as he frowned. “Not right. I mean to say, may I help you?”

“Your English is very good,”

she said, hoping a compliment would somehow make amends for her bursting in on him.

“Thank you,”

he said. “May I help you?”

Justine frowned for a second, then realized why he was insisting on helping her. It was the middle of the night and she was prowling around like a burglar. “Do you work here?”

“Ja,”

he said with a chuckle. “And you do not.”

“No,”

she said. Then she realized he wasn’t wearing socks or shoes, and she was suddenly embarrassed. Justine Brewer, of Bad News Brewer fame, was embarrassed .

“Then what are you doing out of your bed?”

He leaned forward, and the light hit him so she could see his features more plainly. And it was awful. He was even better looking than Tristan had ever been. This man had unkempt and unruly blond curls—far longer than what any Englishman would wear. He had light eyes and a jaw that could cut glass. Of all the damnable things. Now she would end up hating him. Handsome men were often atrocious, in her experience.

But he hadn’t seemed to imbue his words with innuendo. He wasn’t mentioning her bed with the idea that he might be getting in it. He was merely asking. How . . . unexpected.

“I couldn’t sleep,”

Justine said, uncertain as to how to feel suddenly.

He blinked and nodded, as if that were a substitution for words. “Do you not read?”

What? Was he asking if she was literate? “Of course I read,”

she snapped. But then she realized where she was—a remote town in the mountains. There were likely many people here who did not read. And it was an activity one did to help a person fall asleep. Oh, she was being an arse. Don’t be an arse, don’t be an arse, she chanted to herself.

“Then why not read to sleep?”

“Are you shivering?”

she asked, noticing a tremor as the light caught a billow of his white shirt.

“Ja. I am very cold.”

“Then stand closer to the fire! Are you daft?”

Without thinking, she pushed him back towards the impressively large decorative iron stove, with its open glowing grate. He let himself be guided, her hands on his shoulders. Justine was very aware of how much taller he was than her, and he stared down at her, amused.

“I am to help you,”

he said. “I am trying to be of service.”

“You won’t be of service to anyone if you catch your death,”

Justine snapped. “Do you not have thicker blankets?”

He chuckled again, a soft rumble from his chest that was more akin to a cat purring than a man laughing. “Why, when I am next to a big fire?”

The heat was powerful. Already, Justine’s forehead prickled with sweat. She dropped her hands from where they had inadvertently started to droop to his chest. Oh dear. It was a firm and solid chest. Not at all like the soft, padded London men she was accustomed to chasing her. But then she realized that his clothes were damp. “Why are your clothes wet?”

“You ask many questions. I ask one. Will you please answer my one question, and then I promise I will answer whatever question you have. Promise?”

Justine looked up and blinked at him. She felt strange. Like the world had tilted in some way. Was it vertigo from the altitude change? Was she becoming ill? She was likely ill from all her travels. But there was nothing on God’s green Earth that would persuade her to go to bed now. She felt like she needed to run for a full day to be rid of whatever energy possessed her right now. “Fine. What’s your question?”

“May I help you?”

he asked again, his words slow and emphasized.

“Oh. Erm, no? I can’t sleep, that’s all.”

She trailed off, not knowing how to describe the sensation in her limbs, so she shook them to demonstrate.

“Ah.”

He nodded as if he not only understood her flailing, but could sympathize. He held up his hand. “Moment.”

He padded off into the darkness, and there was something about being able to see the bare bottoms of his feet that made Justine feel as if she were doing the most inappropriate thing possible. Her. Bad News Brewer , who had repeatedly stolen whole bottles of sherry from her parents’ wine cellars to consume with Ophelia, getting drunk and playing stupid games as the room spun.

Bad News Brewer , who wore two dance cards so that the men who filled the same dance slot could argue or possibly fistfight over who got to have the waltz with her. Bad News Brewer , who once climbed the ancient oak at the Bridewells’ London townhouse to dance on the slate-tiled roof because stupid Tristan had said she would be too scared. And that same Bad News Brewer was worried that the bottom of a man’s foot was too much? What was the world coming to?

“Get ahold of yourself,”

she whispered to the giant iron stove.

He appeared out of nowhere, holding a bottle and two of the tiniest wine glasses in the world. “Hold what?”

Justine shook her head. “Nothing.”

He gave her a confused smile, and Justine was reminded of Prudence, who smiled at every bloody turn of the day because she couldn’t stop the facial tic. Bloody Americans and bloody Swiss.

But he didn’t question her, only raised the bottle and the glasses and said, “Brandy.”

“Of course,”

Justine said, relieved that there would be an activity, even if the activity was drinking some kind of alcohol, which had been drilled into her since practically birth that a young lady did not do in the company of men.

And for good reason. Because the middle of the night was a strange time, bound by its own rules, populated by its own sounds and scents. The dictums of day had no business interfering with whatever nighttime prowling discovered. Which was precisely why Justine preferred it.

The man poured the two glasses and handed her one. She accepted it and sniffed at the goldish-looking liquor. It smelled like apples and honey and the low burn of alcohol. Frankly, it smelled delicious. He held his glass out as a toast. “Proscht.”

“Bless you,”

Justine said, knowing it was rude, but he smiled at her. “Cheers.”

She didn’t move to touch his glass with hers, though he did with her. She didn’t realize it was something she should have done, but she knew for next time that touching glasses was preferred here.

She sipped, tasting what seemed like a very nice French apple brandy. “Is this from here?”

she asked. “Locally made?”

He shook his shaggy blond head. “Imported from Calvados. For the English. For you.”

Justine laughed. “Of course the Swiss import French liquor for the English.”

“You like it?”

She giggled. Oh God, she giggled . “Of course. Calvados is excellent.”

He gestured to the seat near the fire, clearly where he had draped his clothing to dry. “Sit, please?”

She moved towards the chair but then stopped, her heavy woolen dress swinging against her ankles. “Where will you be?”

He gestured to another chair, further back in the dining room. When he saw her concern, he reassured her. “I will bring the chair to the fire.”

She nodded, taking his glass from him as she sat, giving him the opportunity to use both of his hands to move the chair over.

He placed the stiff-backed wooden chair closer to the fire and took his glass from her, taking a hefty swig, nearly emptying it. He looked at her expectantly.

“You’re not saying I should—”

she mimed tossing the glass back, as he had done.

“Ja,”

he said, his rumpled golden hair somehow adorable and not at all making her want to hate him for being pretty.

“Young ladies shouldn’t,”

she protested before feeling very stupid about explaining what proper British ladies did as she sat in a Swiss inn at the foot of the Matterhorn. She was doing the extraordinary. She was full of daring. So with a smile, she tossed back the brandy with a swift motion. The apple liquor burned delightfully down her throat.

He laughed and clapped for her. “Brava!”

He finished his glass and then poured another for both of them. “Warms you up for the temperature and for the conversation.”

“I have to warm up for the conversation?”

She watched the liquor spill into her glass.

“Maybe my English is not so good after all,” he said.

“I suppose not. I don’t even know your name. We should at least be introduced.”

Was she flirting on purpose? There were so many times she’d been accused of flirting that she didn’t even know the meaning of the word anymore. Scandal sheets reported that she flirted if she shook someone’s hand, or laughed at a joke. She flirted when she did what every other young lady did, but if Bad News Brewer did it, the action was somehow imbued with extra meaning.

“Do we need names right now?” he asked.

“So I know what to call you? Better than ‘O! You there!’”

“Is it?”

he asked, stretching his legs out in front of him and crossing them at the ankles.

Justine noticed his thighs. She was not a person who noticed men’s thighs. But his were powerful and as thick as her waist. This was a man who could build you an inn. Her mouth was unexpectedly dry, so she sipped again at her brandy, steadying her breath.

“If I know you, then I must treat you as a guest, and not as a ghost roaming the hotel at night.”

He chuckled to himself. “I want to be off-duty, just for these hours.”

“I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

She had never served anyone, never worked. She was obsequious to exactly no one, and planned on keeping it that way. But to live a life of service, whether a maid in a big home or in a simple Swiss mountain inn, had to take its toll somehow. “Then that’s fine. Or as my American friend might say, ‘O.K.’”

He pulled his chin back and looked at her askance. “What does this mean? The two letters together?”

Justine shrugged, another gesture she wouldn’t have used if they had been properly introduced and not been drinking brandy in front of an open grate of an enormous iron stove where she could discreetly admire his very pretty thighs, the open vee of his shirt, the way his leather braces clung to his shoulders. “No clue. But she says it all the time. I believe she means it as something like ‘yes,’ but not as formal or certain of a yes.”

The man pursed his lips as he looked into the fire, considering the new Americanism. “Interesting. I will try it. Maybe it is a useful thing. Yes, but with a circumstance.”

“Exactly. ‘Yes, but I have opinions.’”

“O.K.”

He tried it out.

She grinned. “O.K.”

He clinked his tiny glass to hers, and the crystal rang out in the dining room, a clear sound that seemed loud enough to raise the dead. “O.K.”

“Cheers,”

Justine said, and dashed back the second mouthful.

“Good,”

he said approving of her intake. “More?”

Justine eyed her glass. There wasn’t much in a single pour, but she was already sensing the delightfully warm tingle in her toes, and it probably wasn’t the fire making her feel that way. “I really shouldn’t.”

“Bah,”

he said, bringing the bottle over to pour her another. “My ghost, please, another.”

“I’m the ghost?”

Justine said, holding her glass out. “You’re the one who should be the ghost. You speak the language and all that. I only came down from my room, innocent as can be.”

“Innocent? We are drinking the good apple brandy. Mein Onkel will be upset if he thinks a ghost drank the whole bottle.”

“We are not drinking the whole bottle,”

she protested.

“Not if you go upstairs. You must help. Simple.”

He poured her a glass and tipped his own back, then refilling it.

“This must be the last one,”

she said, feeling the brandy swish to one side of her lips as she sipped. She licked at it with her tongue, and she noticed him watching her very carefully. As an experiment, she did it again, and he watched, going utterly still. Justine wondered if he would try to kiss her. She certainly wouldn’t mind, nor would she stop him. Maybe being a ghost wasn’t a bad thing.

He cleared his throat. “Why must this be the last glass?”

“Because alcohol affects me very strongly. I’m not as big as you are, after all.”

“No,”

he agreed, his voice suddenly quiet and serious. The joking edge that he’d had earlier was gone, and he stared into the open grate of fire, not at her.

The atmosphere of the small dining room shifted, and she wondered if she’d done something wrong. The feeling had never happened to her before. Men—and honestly, some women—kept pursuing until they finally realized that Justine was serious when she said their suits were pointless. Justine was incapable of feeling that way towards someone.

Until now, anyway. When she wanted this Swiss tree trunk of a man to turn to her and beg to kiss her, beseech her for her name, give her trinkets and favors until he ran out of money or time. Instead he stared into the fire. Somehow that camaraderie was lost, leaving her a bit put out.

But there was nothing she could do about it, she decided, ghost as she was. In order to escape all the sooner, she tossed back the last of the brandy and stood, holding her glass outstretched for him to take. “Thank you,”

she said as he accepted it. “That was most—”

Then the world swayed, and she felt as if the room was being turned on its side, the way a child might turn a picture book. Even in that smallest increment of time, she dreaded her head hitting the floor, knowing she was unable to stop it.

Instead, there was warmth. Too much heat. She was sweating so much, so hard, so fast. And her stomach did not feel right at all. And this lovely, warm tree cupped her face in his giant hands and said something she didn’t understand at all.

*

“Scheiss,”

Karl said, swearing. She was but a little thing, small enough to bind up like an infant and haul on his back. He’d caught her as she fell, trying very hard to forget about her softness as he accidentally—accidentally!—brushed his hand along her bodice. But she had gone pale very quickly, and if there was one thing Karl knew very well, it was the signs of a novice drinker being sick.

He had just mopped this floor, one of his many tasks at the inn. He mopped, chopped wood, penned animals, milked the cows and the goats. And now, he needed to find a pail for his ghost.

He started to explain his plan, but he couldn’t think of the English words, so he just ran behind the long bar that attached to the dining room and found the snow bucket. Easy enough to clean out, anyway. If he’d had his socks on, he could have slid across the waxed floor, but as it was, his bare feet squeaked and quaked across the new wood. He arrived in time, her mass of dark hair coming out of the pins she’d no doubt used in haste, not thinking she’d come upon anyone in the middle of the night.

She lifted her head. “I do apologize,”

she said and then began retching. He held her hair back, marveling at the silky tresses, knowing this would be the only time he’d get a chance to feel them in his hands. Was it an ideal moment? No. Was this as close as he’d been to a woman in almost a year? Yes. His world was not built for women to inhabit it. So the pleasure of running his hand through such silky and well-maintained curls was a rare one.

Given Karl’s profession, he was more than capable of understanding pain and suffering while simultaneously wondering at the grandeur of the view and accomplishment. There was a dichotomy in life, one of profound beauty, and one of profound pain, and they often occurred at the same time.

Like this girl, beautiful and delightful, and also vomiting and not always keeping it confined to the bucket. He would need to mop again before breakfast.

“I’m too hot,”

she panted.

Karl took a closer look and saw she was wearing wool, head to toe. He tore off the woolen shawl tucked around her shoulders, revealing a tiny waist and an exquisitely ample bosom.

She retched. “Still too hot.”

He scooped her up, hooking the pail with a spare finger, and took her to the back door of the dining room.

The massive wooden door didn’t so much as creak as he yanked it open by its heavy iron ring. There was plenty of snow to cool down this English miss. He put her down, and she sank to all fours, her palms firmly planted in the ice. He pulled her hair off of her neck, taking the initiative to try to re-pin some of her tresses. Her nape was sticky with sweat, so he scooped some snow in his hands and placed it there. She sighed in pleasure.

It was a sound he could not have accurately imagined. And now that he’d heard it, it would never go away. He knew that sigh would echo in his mind for years to come. Every lonely night, he would hear that sigh and remember his hands in those dark tresses, and his self-ministrations would move swiftly.

She scooped some of the crusted snow into her mouth, her body relaxing. Karl did his best to not look. For she was ill, and he still harbored very unprofessional images that flipped through his mind at the speed with which one might shuffle a deck of cards.

“I’m better,”

she said, still panting.

No doubt her heart pounded too quickly, and her stomach was still convulsing.

“Will you put more snow on my neck?”

she asked, as if it were too much trouble.

It was no trouble at all. He very much liked holding his hand across the nape of her neck. She shifted, sitting back on her haunches, her hair a mass of unruly strands, tumbling loose about her shoulders. He had not done a good job pinning up her hair, but he did not care.

“This is perhaps the most embarrassing thing I have ever done.”

She slapped her hands on her knees, then winced. “And that is saying something.”

He grinned. “We all make mistakes. Mine was giving you the expensive brandy. If I’d know it was all going to come up, I would have picked a different bottle.”

That at least got a wounded chuckle from her. She was still in fine spirits, then. She might be hungover the next day, but that would ease as well. Perhaps he could give her some of the local remedies, which he had to admit helped.

“I normally can handle my liquor,”

she said, her eyes closed. She scooped the snow in her hands and smeared it across her face.

Karl was helpless. He could only watch her hands drift over her features, wishing it were him. No, not helping. Tomorrow, he would have to step into his professional role. There was no time to be dallying with foreign women. “Altitude. We are very high in the mountains already. Far higher than London. You cannot drink as much up here without feeling the effects.”

“Why did you not tell me earlier?”

She sounded genuinely upset.

“Who would not know this? Who would come to the Alps and not know?”

This was silly—of course everyone knew that drinking at altitude saved money. This was a great joke for all mountaineers. But, he supposed, softening, as a maid in England, where there were no great heights, she might not have understood this.

“I didn’t know!”

She attempted to stand, but wobbled.

Karl was there, using his body to block her from falling inward on the hardwood floors. He put a hand out in front of her to catch her if she fell forward onto the snow. “I have you.”

At least he could remember that in English.

It wasn’t second nature yet, to speak in English. His native Bavarian was not that far from the Swiss dialect spoken in Zermatt, which was an easy switch to make. And the Italian had been so similar to French, that hadn’t bothered him much either. But he’d guided multiple trips in those languages. It was not having anyone to practice his English with that made it so difficult to remember.

But this girl guaranteed he would try. He was already formulating plans to ask for English lessons from her in the evenings after her duties were concluded. He didn’t need them, as his father had drilled in the importance of English for expanding their trade routes, but perhaps he could ask for colloquialisms and the like. It wasn’t a lie, merely an exaggeration.

She gripped his hand, her smaller palms disappearing into his. But she didn’t move again for quite some time. She balanced well, standing and breathing a steady rhythm, much as he did while ascending difficult terrain.

“I’m perfectly well now, thank you.”

She turned to face him, and if she had not just emptied her stomach all over the dining room, he would have tried to kiss her. Perfect bow lips. She was like a caricature of the perfect woman—cute but still possessing the curving traits that made his mind flip over to far more seductive thoughts.

She walked past him, veering into the wall. He scooped her up before she fell. She weighed nearly nothing. Despite her whispered protests, he tucked her close against his chest.

“You really don’t need to—”

He shrugged, jostling her a little. She was still pale, her face turned up to his. Would she appreciate this heroic gesture? As he delivered her up the stairs, she told him her room number. Ah. The room with the viscount’s daughter. So she worked for the honorable Miss Ophelia Bridewell. He tucked that information away.

He set her down on her feet, being as gentle as he was able. “Goodnight.”

“Thank you,”

she said, clearing her throat. “That was quite the delivery.”

“I do what is required of me,”

he said, with a smirk.

She returned the smile. “Most gallant.”

Instead of a kiss—again, he’d given her too much brandy—he bowed to her.