A Flight of Fancy (20 page)

“I believe I am all right,” she said. “A bit winded.”

And her heart galloped like a runaway mare. If she could catch her breath, she might have hysterics like Mr. Kent. The fire—the flare of exploding oil and an ingredient none of them had added to her sealer—came too close to her gown. A scorch mark ran along the edge and the heat seared through her, igniting awareness of every burn scar on her legs.

She drew her knees up and wrapped her arms around her legs to hide them more than her petticoat and gown already did. “I am all right.”

“Trying to convince us or yourself?” Whittaker crouched beside her and cupped his hand beneath her chin, tilting her face toward his. “Your formula seems a bit dangerous.”

She ground her teeth. “It was not my formula. You know it was not.”

“What was it then?” Mr. Kent demanded. “We all nearly blew up like a powder magazine.”

“I believe,” Mr. Sorrells drawled, “that this is about what was in that vat, no, Miss Bainbridge? Lord Whittaker?”

“Yes.” Whittaker continued to gaze into Cassandra’s eyes. “I smelled it a second too late.”

“As did I.” To break eye contact with Whittaker, Cassandra looked around for her cane to help her rise. It lay a dozen feet away, thrown by her or the explosion, or just left behind when she dove to push Whittaker back from the fire. She did not remember. She simply recalled catching a whiff of saltpeter amidst the turpentine and birdlime and throwing herself at Whittaker.

Sorrells must have caught her glancing about and guessed the reason, clever man that he was, for he headed for the cane. “I’ll get this for you, Miss Bainbridge.”

“I will help you up.” Whittaker slipped his hands beneath her elbows and lifted her as though she weighed nothing.

He stood too close to her now. The frog clasps on her cloak brushed the round buttons on his greatcoat. His hands burned through the fabric over her elbows, and he would not stop looking at her, embracing her with his eyes, his lips curved in just enough of a smile to imprint the dimple on his cheek. Her hand twitched, wanting to lay a finger on that dimple as she had so often—

She jerked away, landed on her right foot, and gasped at the pain in her ankle.

“Shall I fetch a litter to carry you—ah, we are about to have company.” Whittaker finally stepped away from her and turned toward the track leading from the house.

A crowd of people approached, including Miss Irving, with her rich hair and bright green feathers on her hat, gliding like a swan upon the surface of a lake. And Honore, also graceful but in a more athletic way—a colt.

“We heard a loud bang,” Honore called out. “Is everyone all right? Cassandra?”

“I am well.” Cassandra reached out for the cane Mr. Sorrells provided for her. Their fingers brushed and she felt nothing. Gloriously, no blazing spark.

At least she was not a wanton with every man, just the one still too close to her.

She moved away from him, but he followed. They arrived at the group of guests and servants together.

Miss Irving looked Cassandra up and down as she seemed in the habit of doing whenever they met. “Your gown is spoiled. Unless you want to sew a ruffle there.”

“Thank you for an excellent idea.” Cassandra nodded to the older lady. “It would save the cost of a new gown.”

“Cassandra,” Honore hissed.

“What happened up here?” Major Crawford asked. “We saw the flash from the orangery.”

“It was like Guy Fawkes Day,” Laurence cried.

“Can you do it again?” William wanted to know.

“Please, no.” Mr. Kent scrambled to his feet but still emitted a tremor every few minutes. “I came half an inch from going up like fireworks too.”

“What did happen?” Miss Irving asked.

“Someone put—” Cassandra and Whittaker began together.
They glanced at one another, back toward Mr. Sorrells and Mr. Kent, then shrugged.

“I have no idea,” Whittaker said. “Someone must have mixed the formula incorrectly.”

“That is what happens when a female plays at alchemist.” Major Crawford gave Cassandra a condescending look. “Perhaps if you like mixing things together, the cook will let you make us biscuits.”

“You would never wish to eat them,” Honore interjected. “Cassandra tried that once with our former chef Lisette. She woolgathers and forgets to add something or adds it twice.”

“It was grand. As bright as the sun,” William declared.

“Was not.” Laurence bestowed a scornful glance upon his younger brother. “Perhaps the moon, but the sun—”

“Enough.” Whittaker broke into the potential argument with his quiet firmness. “It was bright and hot and dangerous, and everyone needs to leave here until we are certain all is well. Ca—Miss Bainbridge, do please return to the house with the other guests. I am certain Major Crawford will lend you his arm.”

“Most definitely.” The major removed his arm from Miss Irving’s hold, though his other arm was free, and held out his hand to Cassandra.

Cassandra glared at his white glove, then at Whittaker. “This is my project. I am not leaving you to it. But thank you, Major.”

“You should not be up here,” Whittaker insisted. “This is—” He broke off and grinned. “If you insist. The rest of you, assure Mama and the household that all is well and we will be back in time to dress for the assembly.”

“The assembly!” Honore and Miss Irving grabbed at their hair, which Cassandra thought looked perfectly coiffed, especially compared to her tangled locks.

She resisted the urge to shove a tumbled hank of hair behind her ear. Unlike Miss Irving, she was not wearing sapphire earrings, and her lobes suddenly felt naked. She did not even know if she had earrings for that evening. She did not recall packing any jewelry. Honore would have thought of that, though. She thought of everything. But Cassandra did not care.

Except at that moment, gazing at her lovely sister and the heiress, she did care that, in the company of four gentlemen, she must look like more of a ragamuffin than the grubby schoolboys did.

Schoolboys. Pranks. Harmless intent gone wrong.

As the party from the Hall returned at a leisurely stroll, save for the cousins, who chased one another like a couple of puppies, Cassandra watched them through narrowed eyes until their images blurred into shadows, then blended into the surroundings. Still, the childish, piping voices rang back along the lane, faint, but a few snatches distinct. “I dare you!”

“What are you thinking?” Whittaker asked from too close behind her again.

“Dares.” She headed toward the vat of sealant. “Schoolboy pranks unknowingly dangerous.”

“You are right, Miss Bainbridge,” Mr. Kent said. “With two lads that age about, one can never be too careful.”

“Where would two lads that age get gunpowder?” Mr. Sorrells asked.

“From the cellars at the Hall.” Whittaker sounded pensive.

Cassandra glanced up from the concoction in the vat she was now heedlessly stirring with the tip of her walking stick. “You keep gunpowder in your cellar?”

“My father did. I have not thought about it in ages, as I have
been too busy to go shooting since my brother died. What are you doing, Cassandra?”

“Seeing how much is in here.” She lifted her stick out and allowed the sticky, oily substance to slide off the end. “Probably enough to blow us all up if we had spilled any onto the fire after the rest was poured into the pot. And certainly after we started heating it. Your clumsiness did us all a favor, Mr. Kent.”

“Not my eyebrows.” He rubbed at his face, and his eyebrows all but vanished, charred from the flash.

A chill ran up Cassandra’s spine, and she backed away from the vat, the fire probably still too close at hand. “A-are you all ri-right?” She clenched her teeth to stop them from clacking.

“Of course, my dear. They’ll grow back.” Mr. Kent stared at her with a wrinkle on his denuded forehead, the only indication now that he wanted to raise his eyebrows.

“I think,” Whittaker said, “that you are the one who is not all right.”

“Of c-course I am.” Cassandra intended to bark out the words. A remnant of a quiver ruined the effect.

“Why don’t we walk her back to the house?” Mr. Sorrells suggested. “We can clean up this mess and mix another batch later and keep it under lock and key somewhere.”

“Against ill-informed and mischievous schoolboys,” Mr. Kent added.

“I will walk Miss Bainbridge back to the Hall.” Whittaker grasped her left hand and tucked it into the crook of his elbow. “If you gentlemen will please dowse the fire completely and get rid of this muck.” He toed the vat. “Burying it in the middle of a field seems like the safest thing.”

“It will poison the ground.” Cassandra had stopped shivering. Her voice returned to calm and steady. “The woods might
be better, not someplace the sheep graze. Beneath an already dead tree.”

Whittaker audibly exhaled. “The Lord knows we have enough of those in the park. I can send up one of the groundskeepers to assist you.”

“Thank you, my lord.” Mr. Sorrells was as calm as ever, a man with a dispassionate nature.

Father would approve. Philip Sorrells owned little property, but he had a comfortable income and a good enough family name, and he saw nothing wrong with her aeronautics interest. If Father insisted she wed, perhaps an unflappable man like Mr. Sorrells would make a good catch. He would likely not care any more about her scars than he seemed ruffled by the near disaster this afternoon.

She flashed him a warm smile. “Before you mix a new batch, let me think about the formula a bit more. Now that it has sat a day, it seems too thick. I am wondering if some linseed oil might thin it down while doing the job well.”

“Or your objection to using elastic gum might not be valid,” Whittaker suggested.

“I am considering that,” Cassandra admitted. “Gum is harder to get and harder to melt, though, especially in this cold. But perhaps if we . . .” She stopped talking to think, only then realizing that Whittaker had started down the lane to the house and she had followed meekly along.

She did woolgather. Now she did not know what to say. Discuss the accident that was no accident? Pretend nothing happened so Whittaker would not find one more thing to count as too dangerous for her? Say nothing at all?

She chose to say nothing at all. He had been kind. She did not want to argue with him.

He remained silent too, until they drew close enough for Cassandra to be able to see the trees beyond the steamy glass of the orangery. “Are you well enough to attend the assembly? If you are not, I can stay—”

“Of course I am well enough. Do you think I am some fragile flower?”

“Not usually, but these past two and a half months have been difficult for you.”

“And I cannot sit about and think the world is unkind to me and so intend to avoid it.”

Even though she would prefer to do just that—the avoiding part anyway. But not if Whittaker intended to remain home if she did.

“Honore and our maid have helped me take in one of my gowns so I will not shame your household by appearing like I have gone to the assembly in a sack.”

Whittaker stopped at the door to the orangery and faced her. “You would be beautiful if you did appear in a sack.”

“You are absurd, my lord.”

“Honest. Your hair is glorious.” He lifted a handful and let it trickle from his fingers like a waterfall. “Your eyes are so dark and wide.” He touched the tip of his finger to the corner of her lid.

She blinked and turned away. “Only so I can see where I am going more than a yard ahead of me.”

“Your spectacles are useful in that.”

“And hideous.”

“They are charming.”

“You are addlepated.”

“Possibly.” He smiled and stroked his thumb down her cheek. “You have the most beautiful skin. If the Spitalfield looms could
produce satin like your skin, they would have no competition from smuggled French goods.”

She swallowed and stood rigid, trying not to melt against him at his smile, his words, his touch. This aching need to be close to him was wrong. She had learned her lesson, relearned it every time she felt one of her scars.

Which were far from the creamy perfection he expected—more like the product of a weaver gone mad and mixing silk with raw wool, cotton, and nettle fibers.

She pressed her hand to her middle. “I must go,” she croaked.

“Cassandra, not yet. I want to—”

“No.” She shoved open the door of the glasshouse and slammed it behind her, then turned the latch so he could not enter that way. By the time he went around, she would be in her bedchamber and beyond his reach.

He rapped on the glass. “I have not thanked you yet.”

“For what?” she mouthed back so no one inside the house could hear her.

“For saving my life.”

There, it was out, the words neither of them had wanted to say aloud.

Cassandra spun the latch and opened the door. “It was nothing, an accident I managed to prevent this time.”

“No, Cassandra, that was no accident. You are too intelligent to believe that was a schoolboy prank any more than I do.”

She sighed and dug her cane into the muddy earth outside the orangery door. “I know, but who would someone want to injure or—or kill? Mr. Kent or Mr. Sorrells? I cannot see either of them having enemies. They are too congenial. Or could it be me?”

“Or me?”

“You?” Her head shot up.

Whittaker’s mouth compressed into a thin, hard line for a moment. “I can think of a dozen people who knew I was going to be working with you today.”

Stomach roiling, Cassandra asked, “So which one of us was a target, and why?”

17

Whittaker backed Cassandra into a corner, and now he could not answer her question with the answer he considered. To his knowledge, only the Luddites would want him dead if they had found him out, or else the one man who had shown enmity to him.

Cassandra’s father.

In no way could he tell her that. She did not always get on well with her autocratic parent, but she did love him and respect him as her father, if nothing else. In turn, Lord Bainbridge loved his daughters. He exercised his full right to control their lives, and all of them managed to elude that control in some way, Cassandra most of all. She might believe Lord Bainbridge capable of plotting against his daughter’s former fiancé, but he would not have had one of his minions tamper with the balloon coating. He would not risk Cassandra’s safety or her life itself in such a way.