“Enough!” Eleanor shouted. It at least cut through their chatter long enough to quiet them. “Neither of you bothered to meet me at the train, so I can’t imagine you are terribly upset.”
Hollow sputtering came from both of them. Eleanor held up her hand to quiet them.
“I climbed Ben Nevis. I got all the way to the top—we all did—without trouble. We made great time, all of us fitter than wethought we’d be. Then, on the way down, a snow cornice fooled me, and I stepped right through it, and down I tumbled, taking Mr. Bridewell with me, as he was standing next to me.”
“He should have—” her mother insisted, but quieted when Eleanor held up her hand.
“Snow cornices aren’t visible from the top. I didn’t see it, neither did he. No one is to blame. In the tumble of the fortunately not-too-steep edge, I hurt myself, and then compounded it by walking on it, even when I knew I was hurt. I made the mistake, not wanting to confess to my injury.”
“Did the rest find you?” her father growled.
“No,” Eleanor answered, wanting to be absolutely truthful, because it was the clearest way to get what she wanted. “The fog drew in too quickly, and we couldn’t see. I couldn’t walk by then, but we found a ravine to settle into for the night.”
“You spent the night alone with that man?” her mother asked, her eyebrows nearly meeting her hairline.
“I did. And the next morning, he carried me down the mountain and we returned to Fort William, and then to Edinburgh, and then home.”
Her father crossed his arms across his chest, nodding to himself. Her mother stared at her father.
“Did he—” her father choked. “Did he—”
“Have his way with me?” Eleanor asked with the same serenity that Lady Rascomb displayed. “Yes, he did.”
Her father’s face turned purple. Eleanor’s mother gasped and ran out the door.
“That was either very stupid or very wise,” her father said. The mottled purple color was changing to red, which was a good sign. Still, he ground his teeth. “But for right now, I cannot speak to you. I’m disappointed in you. So very disappointed.”
He followed the path Eleanor’s mother took, slamming the door behind him. Eleanor sat back against the pillows onceagain, her appetite gone. Their disapproval hurt. Why was her accomplishment of summiting Ben Nevis not celebrated? Why was that feat washed away by the revelation of her virginity? It didn’t seem fair. Eleanor felt far more like a woman who had climbed a mountain rather than a woman who’d engaged in carnal relations outside of wedlock. She went to sleep, secure in the knowledge that Tristan would ask for her hand, her father would be forced to accept, and she would live happily ever after.
But the next day, Tristan didn’t call. The physician came and examined her ankle, saying the same things that Tristan had said in the gully. He wrapped it with a clean bandage and instructed her to keep her foot elevated. But by evening, she was anxious. Hobbling downstairs, she went through all the calling cards on the silver platter next to the door. Tristan’s was not among them.
“Mrs. Piper said you were ill and not receiving callers,” Sellers, their butler, informed her.
“Indeed,” Eleanor said, managing the stairs with the aid of Lord Rascomb’s walking stick.
The next day came and went, and still she’d had no word from any of the members of the Ladies’ Alpine Society, nor from Tristan. Her heart sank. After all that, she was just forgotten?
Again?
*
Tristan was aboutfoaming at the mouth. He’d never been so angry in his life. First, he’d been denied at the Pipers’ home residence. Then his letters were returned to him. He couldn’t get a note to Eleanor, he wasn’t allowed to see her, and her father refused to take a meeting with him. He was ready to punch through a wall.
Finally, he staked out the man’s offices down at the docks. Tristan dressed down, not wanting to draw too much attentionto himself. Still, the quality of his tailoring, his excellent skin, and his polished boots gave him away. Tristan didn’t care. He was on a mission. He waited until he saw the Pipers’ carriage arrive and the man himself descend.
He waited a few minutes, thinking that he would be in a better mood if he’d had a chance to settle into his workday before being interrupted. Then he snuck in past the man with the slate who’d thrown him out last time. Tristan dodged around the crates being opened and the others being hauled in, the bustle and movement an ideal way to not be noticed.
But it was on the stairs he found his way blocked by a man with an epically flowing silver beard and an eyepatch. “Who ye be?”
Tristan pulled his hat off, an attempt at showing respect when he’d been found out. This had to be Eleanor’s Captain Smythe. “Tristan Bridewell, sir. Here to see Mr. Piper.”
“And Dreggles down there sent you up?” The bearded man squinted at him. He likely needed glasses, Tristan thought.
“No sir, I did not go through Mr. Dreggles. He denied my entrance last time.”
“Oh? That’s unusual. Very few are blacklisted round here. Why would Dreggles send a well-dressed chap like you away?”
Tristan’s hands sweated into the brim of his beaver-skin hat. He turned it, hoping to not deform it or leave a mark. “Well, you see, I’m here to ask for the hand of Miss Piper, and I don’t think Mr. Piper wants that to happen.”
