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

Chapter Nine #2

Karl watched as the Englishman weighed down the donkey. Even Luc, who normally resisted commenting on anything, seemed surprised.

“Do they need all of these things?”

Luc asked in Swiss German.

“Apparently. They have all sorts of gadgets I have never seen before, but Fr?ulein Bridewell assures me it is all necessary.”

Karl answered back in the same language, and noted that a few of the other mountain guides arrived to see them off. No doubt they wanted to see these ladies in their climbing gear to take their measure.

Marco, Francois, and Hans came to stand next to him, also watching the loading of the equipment.

“How many people are going on this venture?”

Marco asked in Tyrolian, a language that sounded very much like German, but with significant differences, even more than the Swiss dialect.

“Seven,”

Karl answered back. “Eight if you count Luc, but he will stay at the Hornli camp.”

Francois swore gently in French but then asked in German, “Who is the one who is insisting on bringing her paints?”

Karl gave his friend a look of incomprehension. “Not one of this group paints.”

“They are English ladies, do they not all paint?”

Francois asked, switching now to French.

“Not these English ladies,”

Karl said.

Hans watched, not commenting, because Hans was not a man who spoke often.

“You are going, too, Luc?”

Marco asked the older man.

“Only to the first camp at the base of the mountain. I will cook for their return, take care of the donkey.”

Luc was not the most obvious touchstone of mountaineering in the Alps, but he had been on many expeditions. He stayed at the base of the mountains, maintaining camp, tending to animals, helping with set-up and return packing.

“Will you be able to accompany my expedition next week?”

Marco asked.

“Of course,”

Luc said with an easy shrug that looked painful to Karl, given the twist and hunch of his back. But the gesture didn’t hurt Luc, and it reminded Karl that he was as capable as any of them standing there. He was a valuable member of their community, raising children he did not father, donating excess milk from his goats during the cheese-making days, and working harder than anyone else at the public ovens on bread-making days.

The realization made Karl feel useless and selfish. He did not know how to make cheese or bread. He could milk cows and goats, and did so when needed. But he spent so much time caring for the inn or guiding expeditions that he did not have time to give back into the community. Which bothered him. Luc was able to do much more with much less. Another change he would have to make for himself. Find ways to give back, to be a part of something, not always on the periphery, up a mountain instead of helping his neighbors.

Fr?ulein Bridewell and Justine exited the inn, squinting against the bright summer sun. Karl knew the group planned to leave soon after the ascent, but he hoped they would stay on. They had been here for the worst of the Alps, the freeze-thaw cycle of spring, and not the glorious warmth of the summer, with the endless green grass and meadow flowers.

He wanted to show Justine the high, hanging meadows filled with tall grasses dotted with tiny yellow buds and the short spread of the white, starry-shaped edelweiss.

“Mr. Vogel.”

Fr?ulein Bridewell nodded in her greeting, and then extended to the rest of the guides who stood by him. “Mr. Meynet, gentlemen.”

They all doffed their caps and gave shallow bows in acknowledgment. Karl clutched his hat in his hand, feeling as if he were a schoolboy about to be admonished. She had that air about her. “Fr?ulein Bridewell. Is all well?”

“Yes, very much so. However, I would appreciate if you and Miss Brewer scouted ahead for weather conditions. Between me and Mr. Meynet, I think we should be able to lead the donkey and the rest of our team once we are finished with our preparations.”

Karl frowned. “As your guide, I should be with the bulk of the team. It is my duty to ensure that—”

“Between myself and Mr. Meynet, we shall find the way. I have excellent map-reading skills, and I’m certain Mr. Meynet’s memory will serve him well. Miss Brewer is ready.”

Karl gritted his teeth. He didn’t need this sort of dressing down in front of his colleagues. They’d already mocked him for accepting this job, called him a nursemaid and worse. But to have this girl, who looked more suited to reading French fairy stories to children than climbing the most dangerous mountain in Europe, dictate how to conduct himself in front of his guiding colleagues was a blow to his pride.

But she paid his wage. And she had proven herself over the last months as being thoughtful, precise, well prepared, and well informed. He glanced over to where Justine stood, straight as an arrow, her hands slipping on woolen half-gloves. Fr?ulein Bridewell’s face didn’t give any clue to an ulterior motive, but Karl had his suspicions.

Mr. Brewer exited the inn and stared Karl down, his arms folded across his chest. Well, off he went then, by order of the expedition leader.

“I am ready. I will see you all at the church. Should there be any barriers, we will remove them in time for the rest of you.”

Karl nodded his farewells to his friends, who all looked vaguely shocked to be in the presence of a woman like Fr?ulein Bridewell. Marco, who considered himself a connoisseur of women, couldn’t seem to speak, which made Karl want to laugh.

“Close your mouth,”

he murmurer to Marco, in German, and the man seemed to come back to himself.

Justine had not yet spotted her brother, and Karl hoped they could escape without his censure. “Güete n’Abu,”

he greeted Justine. He put his hat back on, snugging it down against any unexpected wind.

“Good morning.”

Her greeting was terse, and there were small lines on the sides of her mouth, gentle curves in a hard set.

“Fr?ulein Bridewell bid me to take you ahead of the rest of the team. We will clear the path of any debris on the way to the church. Did she tell you this?”

His palms were sweating, he realized. He had never been nervous to talk to her before, but yet now his heart pounded as hard as it did on a steep ascent. Perhaps it was the clearing out of the alcohol in his system. He had imbibed too much the night before.

“Let’s go,”

she said, and there was no warmth in her voice, no sparkle of mischief in her eye.

Warning bells went off in his head. Typically on this day, the preparation day before the Matterhorn, he felt clear-headed and powerful. Today felt as if he were traversing a snow-covered glacier, unable to see the fatal crevasses cleaving around his feet.

“Justine,”

hissed Mr. Brewer, coming up behind them.

“Francis, I’m embarking on our climb. What do you want?”

Justine stopped and turned toward her brother.

Karl likewise stopped but couldn’t help feel like all the eyes were on them. His mountain guide friends, the members of the expedition, Tante Greta who had come outside with foodstuffs wrapped and ready to pack.

“We need to talk,”

Francis said to his sister, but he looked at Karl.

Karl looked over to Fr?ulein Bridewell, who made a shooing gesture with her hand.

“And we must go. You may walk along with us as long as you are able. Yes?”

Karl looked to Justine for approval.

Thankfully, she smiled. She understood what Karl meant. That with his thin-soled shoes and lack of physical conditioning, there was no way he would be able to keep up with them, nor harangue them. He’d be lucky if he kept up for the first kilometer.

“That’s fine. Come along, Francis,”

she said, and Karl began to wonder which of them was older. Francis certainly seemed like the older one, but now he was not so sure, the way she spoke to him.

They started walking, Mr. Brewer maneuvering between them. “I’m glad both of you are here.”

Karl let Justine set the pace, and she was quick. He fell easily into her rhythm, reminding him of those first marches he’d taken her on, determined to see her break. But she didn’t. She kept up, didn’t complain, kept going, no matter how fast he went. She was impressive.

Mr. Brewer, however, already began flagging. His dance-floor-ready shoes slipped on the dirt path, making it harder for him to keep to his sister’s speed.

“I was hoping to speak with Mr. Vogel myself,”

Justine said, glancing over at him.

Karl winced. He was back to the honorific, or perhaps that was just for her brother’s sake.

“I am here, let us speak.”

Karl did not want to have any kind of conversation in front of Mr. Brewer, at least not by the look that was on her face.

“I feel Mr. Vogel and I need to speak again as well, for I need to understand what he intends,”

Mr. Brewer panted.

“My intentions are clear,”

Karl said. Out of everything everyone had said, he felt he had the clearest position. He wanted to make Justine his wife. He had lustful feelings, but since he was a good man and she a good woman, they would marry and sate themselves within the bonds of marriage. She would be Frau Vogel, his wife and companion. What could be clearer?

“I’m not clear on them,”

Justine chirped, giving Karl a pointed stare.

“But we agreed,”

Karl insisted. “You were there. We said after the Matterhorn—”

Mr. Brewer tumbled into the dirt with a yelp.

“Francis!”

Justine stopped, but did not go to help him stand up or brush the dirt off his coat.

Mr. Brewer stood up, his dark curls falling into his eyes as he tried to catch his breath. “After the Matterhorn, you said Mr. Vogel?”

“Yes, our agreement was for after the Matterhorn, we would—”

“Why does this concern you, Francis?”

Justine put her hands on her hips, a gesture that highlighted her slim waist and ample bosom. Karl was an ardent admirer of this pose.

“Because I am your brother. I am your guardian—”

“No.”

Justine shook her head. “You are not. Father is. You have no legal rights, and nor will you. Go back to the inn, Francis. I will speak with you in two days, after we’ve climbed this mountain.”

“How dare you—”

Mr. Brewer’s cheeks splotched red, almost as if he’d been struck across the face.

“Go. Home,”

Justine announced, not yelling nor angry. Karl was impressed. She and Fr?ulein Bridewell were a formidable pair and spoke to men without the deference most women did. No wonder both he and Mr. Brewer chafed at it.

“I will write to our parents,”

Mr. Brewer threatened.

“I will speak to you after the Matterhorn.”

Justine turned on her heel and took off down the trail.

“I must go. Auf wiedersehn.”

Karl left Mr. Brewer to find his way back to the inn, the few meters they’d gone. He did want to stay cordial to the man he hoped to be his brother-in-law, though he felt like his chances of that were somehow diminishing the more steps they took.

He caught up to Justine in a few strides, opening up his gait and exceeding her pace. Her steps were so small.

“Do you really believe I agreed to marry you?”

Her voice exploded out of her body, and the birds in the nearby trees took flight in surprise. She didn’t seem to notice.

Karl glanced behind him to see if Mr. Brewer had heard and was running to keep up, but he wasn’t. He couldn’t even see the man anymore. “Yes, I do, because you did.”

“When?”

She was angry. He may not always understand the complexities of others, but this he could see very easily.

The best he could do was appease her, remind her, and not argue. Which he was not good at. “The night by the fire. When your feet were cold, and I held you there because you’d stood out in the snow. Do you not remember?”

“I remember kissing you.”

Her cheeks blotched red just as her brother’s had as she said it. He liked the sight of it, proud to see that the memory affected her, because it very much affected him. “I remember standing in the snow, looking at the stars while you sent your uncle back to bed. And I remember you holding me in front of the fire to warm me.”

Her voice softened as she recounted that night.

The satisfaction he felt in that moment was not one he could have described. He was outside, on one of his favorite walks, with the dark forest trees on either side of them, the cows lowing, their bells clanking as they moved slowly from meadow to meadow. And here was a woman impressive enough to out-hike her older brother and send him back home with her stern words, despite their notable height difference.

“But you never asked me to marry you,”

she said in a low tone that he was starting to realize meant that she wanted to scream the words at him but didn’t want to lose control.

“But it was understood,”

he said. Thinking back to the conversation. “We said that after the Matterhorn, we would have time to ourselves to . . .”

he trailed off. He did not want to be a man who spoke so crassly to a woman. Or a man, for that matter. It was not how he wanted to speak to anyone.

“I thought you meant an assignation.”

He tested out the word in his mouth. “I do not know this word. Assignation.”

“A tryst. A night of passion. You know. What we’d been doing, but more.”

Justine’s cheeks flamed again.

His mind blanked out for a moment, his body wanting to take over, but he wrested control back. He very much wanted an assignation. “Yes, that is what we said. But you are no barmaid. Loose woman? To have this night, we must marry. And then we have many, many assignations.”

Justine looked at the sky, and with a big gesture of her arms open wide she screamed and groaned at the same time. He’d never heard a person make that sound before, and it startled him. Why was he wrong? He was not wrong, he was sure of that.

“You are from a respectable family.”

He put his hand out, as if that represented her family. “I am also from a respectable family.”

He put his other hand out. “To be together, we marry.” He clapped his hands together. “Why is this bad? Why is this wrong?”

“You don’t know anything about me, Karl. Nor my family. How do you know we could have a successful marriage?”

“Because we are both stubborn,”

he answered immediately because he had no doubt in his mind. “To stay married is a matter of will. If you can climb the Matterhorn, you can have a marriage.”

“But I want to be happy,”

she said, looking at him as if he had suddenly sprang goat horns.

“Then you will be happy,”

he said, still very much bewildered as to why they were arguing.

“You don’t understand.”

She kicked a stone off the path, sending it tumbling down the side of the hill. The gradual incline of the trail was why Karl like this one so much. It was an easy walk, beautiful, and felt more like a rolling stroll than the hard climb of the mountain that stood so tall and so striking that they could not see the summit from where they stood.

The mountain’s weather contained many small areas of different climates, of which, the fog was the most hazardous. It was hard to see what was coming, as the white of the snow seemed to blend with the white of the air surrounding them.

But here they were surrounded by lush greenery, and Justine’s extravagant frustration was no hindrance. Only confusing.

“So you think that lust is a solid foundation to marriage.”

“As good as any, yes.”

Karl kicked a stone just as she had, watching it shoot out across her path before tumbling down the hill as hers had. “But why only lust? We have far more in common than only this. It is fun, yes, but there are other things.”

“Like what?”

she demanded. “You are from Bavaria.”

“Yes. What does this matter? We met in Zermatt.”

“I don’t want to live in Bavaria.”

“Have you been?”

The self-centered nature of Londoners was famous throughout the world, so he should not hold it against her. He had likewise never been to London. It was probably an amazing city, full of wonderful parks and palaces. But he didn’t want to live in any city, let alone London.

“No, I have not been to Bavaria.”

“Ach, so you don’t know if you like it or not.”

Karl did his best to shrug and seem unbothered by her bias.

“I’ve also never drowned, but I know I don’t want to do it.”

The comparison stung him, and he chanced a look at her. The muscle of her jaw flexed, and he saw her annoyance. She had no idea the wound she’d inflicted. “That is perhaps a bold comparison. I would not say my hometown is akin to death.”

“I didn’t mean that,”

she said, though the contrition in her voice was not obvious. “I mean that I know my own mind, and I don’t like being told what to do.”

“That is clear.”

Karl picked up his pace. She had made an idea that he found beautiful—a marriage that had both a physical component and a spiritual component—and turned it into something small and tired and degrading. A night of deflowerment. A single event, where they sated themselves and walked away. Something he had done before, yes, true. But he had not felt this way before.

Why was this different? He didn’t know, but it was unmistakable. She was wrong, but she couldn’t admit it. He would have to show her, but he didn’t know how.

**

She couldn’t believe that in the end, Karl was just like every other man she’d ever met. Wanting to trap her like a butterfly, pin her to a board and keep her quiet and beautiful and most of all, contained.

From their talks and walking from one end of the Zermatt valley to the other, she thought he understood that she craved movement, fresh air, outdoors. She wasn’t ready now—maybe never—to be the little wife who stayed home mending his shirts and pushing out squalling babies. A woman who was tired, red-faced, sagging from her unnoticed exhaustion. She didn’t want to have a world that small. If Ophelia managed to stay unmarried, then she and Justine could adventure the world together!

Perhaps while they were young, they had to keep themselves purer, but as they aged and society and newspapers found them less conventional, they would stop caring if they took lovers, as long as there were no children. And didn’t that sound exciting?

There were no guarantees that the beautiful, rich, aristocratic Ophelia would stay unmarried. In fact, it seemed a rather slim chance. And it would leave Justine alone in a world that would ridicule her for her choices. And the idea of hiking with Karl every day wasn’t a bad one. In fact, she rather liked the idea.

“What is in this for you?”

Justine asked, trudging next to him on the wide dirt path. This was more than a footpath, rather a dirt road large enough and well-traveled enough to host full carts if it needed.

Karl huffed out a laugh. “You must ask this?”

“Yes, I must ask this. What do you get out of marrying a woman like me?”

Her limbs felt jittery, as if she wasn’t walking fast enough, like she needed to run or skip or jump to expel the energy.

“I don’t wish to marry a woman like you. I think marrying you would be . . . fun.”

“I think your translation of the word fun is suspect.”

“Why would it not be fun? You and I can have fun together, that is proven.”

“Yes, but when I’m your wife, I’m supposed to be at your house cleaning and cooking and having babies and mending shirts and—”

“Why could you not hike up mountains? That is what I do.”

“I hate to shatter your worldview, Karl, but I am, in fact, a woman.”

He gave her an irritated look, and she smiled brightly at him. “There is no one more aware of this fact than me.”

“Besides, we couldn’t suit. We aren’t even the same religion. And Anglicans and Catholics do not mix.”

“I would not know. I am not Catholic.”

Justine stopped short. “Excuse me? But everyone here is Catholic. The church—”

“I am not from here, Justine.”

Karl sighed and gestured for her to keep walking. “You say that I do not know you, but you do not know me. I pay very close attention to you. I know you do not like the sweet white wine. I know that you prefer berries to apples. I know that you prefer cheese instead of cake after a meal.”

Justine’s mouth dropped open. “But—”

“You favor your right side to your left. You believe you can do anything, even if you don’t know anything about it. This one is perhaps the most concerning, for I fear you do not understand your own limits, but given how you were raised, I am not surprised.”

Her hackles went up and instead of stopping, she sped up. “You don’t know anything of how I was raised.”

“No,”

he agreed, which was more infuriating than if he’d argued. “But I know you are the youngest sibling, and that you have rebelled.”

“I don’t know what Francis has told you—”

“Francis has told me nothing,”

Karl said, but it was him who stopped this time. He grabbed her arm to stop her, and his touch melted through her sleeve. She loved bickering with him on these nature walks. It made her forget to worry about the Matterhorn tomorrow. It made her forget that Francis was being an arse and would likely bring down the full force of her mother onto her head when they returned to Zermatt. “You are not wanting to be trapped. I am saying I would not trap you.”

She couldn’t bear shaking off his grip, so she stayed stock still. “Said the hunter to the rabbit.”

He sighed, let her go, and continued walking. It was a disappointing feeling, like he’d given up. She knew, of course she knew, that if she pushed him far enough, he’d stop pursuing. Because that was the point, wasn’t it? But it seemed that if he didn’t want to marry her, then he wouldn’t want to talk to her either. And she would lose the teasing friendship they’d built.

But she didn’t want to think about that. She ran after him, catching up easily.

“How do I know this isn’t a ploy to get my family’s money?”

she challenged him.

Again, he laughed. “I do not want your money.”

“Everybody wants money,” she said.

He gestured to the mountains and trees and the absolutely stunning mountains that surrounded them. “This doesn’t need money. And this is what I love.”

Justine sighed. “Me too.”

“Then . . .”

Karl blew out a disgusted breath. “I do not want to talk about this any further.”

“You don’t want to talk about this? So we aren’t getting married anymore?”

She was teasing, but as the words came out, she saw the emotions flit across Karl’s face. He was done. She’d pushed too far.

“I will not make you do something you do not wish to. Consider this my sincere apology.”

He sped up, outpacing her faster than he’d ever done before.

She tried to keep up at first, out of anger, but then realized she didn’t want to talk anymore either. Embarrassment flooded her. He had every right to be upset, but didn’t she as well? She’d been informed by her brother that she was engaged. This whole thing had been Karl’s fault. His mistake.

But she hadn’t let him make it gracefully. She'd teased and shamed and blown up at him. It was not well done of her. Not at all. And this felt worse than any other time a man had walked away from her. She let him get far out of range, knowing there were no turns or ways to get lost on along the way to the church. She walked alone on the ridge, the looming slopes of the mountains comforting her, as if they were her confidantes.

**