In the Money With You (The Ladies Alpine Society #2)

Chapter Twelve - 2

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.