A Flight of Fancy (35 page)

“Are we not high enough?” Whittaker asked.

“I hope we can catch a current leading back toward land. We are not all that far out.”

Whittaker dared to look. She was right. The line of the shore seemed to grow closer at an amazing speed. “Will we set down once we are over land?”

“Yes, if the terrain is flat and we need not fear landing on top of a village.” She turned toward him. “I have the sails on
the sides, but they have proven to be inadequate for direction so far. I was going to experiment today, but this happened.” She gestured to the makeshift patch on the tubing. “It will not hold for long, so I will set you down on terra firma as soon as possible.”

He smiled down at her. “Will you still love me on terra firma?”

“I only said that to encourage you.” She turned her face away. “I may have realized that I brought my own disasters upon myself, and it does not change the fact that they happened.”

“Or my mother’s illicit behavior.”

“Do you think I care about that?”

“Do you think I care about your scars?”

“I know your mother and her goodness, her faith. You have not seen my scars.”

Nor could he outside the bounds of matrimony.

“And someone still wants me dead and is willing to hurt you in the bargain.” He looked at the approaching land, at Cassandra, at the sea. He listened to the quiet, the peace of floating through the firmament, and released his grip on the side of the basket so he could cup her face in his hands. “If nothing has changed between us once we reach the ground, I think I want to stay up here all day.”

“Geoff—Whittaker, we—”

He kissed her. “I prefer Geoffrey. Not the usual address for an earl but what you called me when we were friends.”

“We cannot be friends. You must marry—”

He kissed her again, longer, more insistently. She clung to him for a moment, then drew away. “Who wants to kill you, my lord?”

The question, coupled with the most formal of addresses, knocked him back to earth despite being a mile above it. He grasped the sides of the balloon’s car and stared at the colorful
ball of silk overhead, shining in the morning sunlight like a daytime moon. “I have spent the last six weeks trying to persuade the Luddites that breaking up looms is hurting them more than the owners. But I have no solutions as to how to fix the problem of low wages, nor any way to stop the mechanization that is putting many of them out of work, except perhaps if they emigrate to America, though they cannot do that now with this war on.

“So they continue to riot and destroy, and my job is to inform one man about the Luddites’ plans for attack on mills and other loom locations. He is also the one man who knew about your balloon flight thwarting an attempt on my life the other morning. When one of the rebels said he was going to stop the balloon from going up this morning so no one in it could identify any of the rioters if it sailed over the next target, I knew who wants me dead.”

“Major Crawford.” Cassandra said the name with the same surety Whittaker felt about the answer himself.

He nodded. “I knew it would not be you and doubted Sorrells capable of anything that would harm you.”

“No, he is too enamored with my aeronautic skills. But the major could not have known I was going up, and certainly not you.”

“Of course he knew you were going up. You were quite openly enthusiastic yesterday afternoon.”

“Oh.” She pressed her hand to her lips. “Then why did that man give himself away? But of course. We were supposed to be dead. Or I was.”

“And me too, but the man who was supposed to kill me, Jimmy, was in truth working for your father to watch out for me.”

Cassandra started. “My father?”

“He wanted my help with the rebels, but not me dead.”

“And this Jimmy?” Cassandra glanced up, then down.

Whittaker stared straight ahead. “I am hopeful your father will pay him, and he—Jimmy—will get his family away from here. I only told the soldiers about Rob and Hugh. And Crawford. But the soldiers were disinclined to believe that of a fellow officer.”

“I am afraid,” Cassandra said slowly, “they may have to.” She turned toward the brazier, lifted a jug of water, and doused the coals.

Steam billowed around them. Air began to hiss from the balloon. The car sank through the air with the glide of a bird riding the currents, currents that began pushing them toward the sea the lower they dropped.

“Open the sail on the left,” she directed, her voice too tight. Too even. “It will slow our outward progress, if nothing else.”

Whittaker did as she bade, working the parasol-type contraption on the seaward side.

It did indeed slow their seaward progress. For a moment, they hovered, suspended in space, then the makeshift repair on the tubing came loose. Her shawl fluttered to the earth, and they began to descend with too much speed.

“Open the other sail,” Cassandra barked. “Now.”

Whittaker did so. With a jolt, their downward progress slowed. The ground drifted toward them, a brown and gold field like a carpet scattered with grayish-white ants running in circles, bumping into one another, scattering, then bunching up again. The ants became cat-sized, then dog-sized, and finally resolved into sheep. Their panicked baas rose in a discordant chorus.

“Hold on,” Cassandra directed. “We will bounce a bit.”

They bounced. The basket touched the dried grass, sprang at
least twenty feet into the air again, dropped. Each time, more air hissed from the balloon until the trajectory of their upward flings grew shorter and shorter. Then the balloon collapsed.

“Hold on tightly,” Cassandra cried. “We are going to—”

The basket tipped over, tossing Cassandra and Whittaker onto the dirt, driving air from his lungs hard enough to stun him. Vaguely, he heard glass tinkle, knew to move because . . . because . . .

“The acid!” Whittaker scrambled to his feet.

Cassandra sprawled on the grass, wheezing and trying to push herself up with her hands. Whittaker caught her around the waist and hoisted her over his shoulder seconds before the vitriol from the broken beaker pooled and smoked where she had been lying.

“And you wonder why I think this is too dangerous.” He turned so she could see what had happened.

She pushed against him. “I would be all right if your friends had not wanted to stop anyone from observing their violence.”

“They are not my friends. I would not be involved if your father had not been complicit in forcing me into this to spare my mother’s reputation and family honor.”

“Your mother is the godliest woman I know. If people cannot believe in salvation from past sins after meeting her, even knowing the truth, then they are no one worth knowing.” She pushed against him. “Now let me down.”

He set her feet on the ground but kept his arms around her. Her glasses had fallen off somewhere, and her eyes were wide and dark, her lips parted and trembling.

“You just accused my father of being in collusion with a—a traitor.” Tears hovered on her lashes, then spilled down her cheeks. “And I fear my balloon is ruined. And—”

“Shh.” He brushed the tears off her cheeks with his fingertips. “I think your father has been duped by someone with an impeccable military record and good family. And as for your balloon being ruined—”

She sniffed. “You think it is just as well.”

“I want you safe and whole, is all.” Even before the words left his lips, he knew they were the last thing he should say. “I mean, Cassandra—”

She pulled away from him and turned away. “I hear horses. My friends are likely coming.” She shot him a glare. “They accidentally saw my scars and did not mind in the least.”

“Cassandra, I do not care—”

The riders were upon them, three of them, but not Kent, Sorrells, and another person. Miss Honore, Miss Irving, and Major Crawford perched atop their mounts.

And the latter two held pistols.

29

“We saw the balloon coming down.” Honore spoke in a rush, her words tumbling over one another in her haste. “Miss Irving and Major Crawford suggested we ride this way and see if it was you. And see, it is.” She let out a high, hysterical laugh.

“Is something wrong, Honore?” Cassandra squinted at her sister, wishing her spectacles did not lie back in the wreckage of the balloon. “You know I can scarcely see half a dozen feet in front of my face without my spectacles. It is one reason why I am not very good at—”

Whittaker’s hand clamped hard on her wrist, halting her words, as he murmured, “Crawford and Miss Irving have pistols.” Aloud, he asked, “How may we assist you?” In contrast to Honore, his voice was calm, his face relaxed and void of emotion.

“Pistols?” Cassandra wanted to join her sister in hysterical giggles. “And you thought me being up in a balloon was dangerous.”

“We have come to take you home, of course,” Miss Irving said.

“Miss Honore wishes to go home now, and I do believe Lady Whittaker is expecting us,” the major added. “I left her bound and gagged in her bedchamber.”

“You would not dare.” Only an infinitesimal tightening of his hand on Cassandra’s wrist shouted of his reaction to the news of his mother. “I know we have less staff than is usual, and someone will find her.”

“She has given orders not to be disturbed,” Major Crawford said, “and all the bellpulls have been cut.” His voice hardened. “Again. Yours should have stayed that way, Miss Bainbridge. Who would think that a lordling and his groom could make repairs?”

“Why?” Cassandra glanced toward the balloon car behind her, trying to catch the glint of metal and glass that might signify her spectacles. Plenty of glass sparkled in the sunlight—the wax-coated glass from the vitriol beaker.

“To make you uncomfortable.” Miss Irving sounded bored. Her horse shifted. “May we be on our way? We must not keep the horses standing.”

“Especially not with the sheep so distressed.” Whittaker’s tone matched hers. “They did not think much of our descent into their midst. But then, neither did I.”

“I th-think it would have made me ill t-to bounce like that,” Honore stammered. “Indeed, I feel quite ill now.”

“Cast up your accounts elsewhere, my dear,” Miss Irving said. “Lord Whittaker, do come take my reins. You shall lead my horse back to the Hall, as I will be holding the pistol on Miss Honore.”

“And you, Miss Bainbridge,” the major added, “shall ride with your sister so I can manage you both.”

“I think not,” Cassandra said. Whittaker’s hand on her arm proved a steadying force, like ballast keeping a balloon car stable in changing wind currents. The calmness of his voice helped too. She matched his tone. “Of course, if you truly intended
to make me uncomfortable here, forcing me atop a horse right now, especially pillion, would certainly be successful. Though I cannot imagine why you would wish to make me uncomfortable here.”

“Because you are here.” Miss Irving moved her horse two steps closer, close enough for Cassandra to see the gleam of sunlight on the barrel of her pistol. “You were supposed to be in London still recovering from those burns.”

“Or dead,” Major Crawford added.

“Dead?” she repeated. Whittaker removed his hand from Cassandra’s arm and her body went cold. “Why would you want me dead?”

Honore let out one of her high-pitched giggles, and the sheep baaed in protest. “Is that not rich? I thought he should court Regina to make you jealous, and she—she—” Her voice broke on a sob.

Cassandra took a step toward her. Her right ankle screamed in a protest of pain, and she sank to her knees.

“Get up,” Major Crawford commanded.

“I cannot.” Shooting pain up her right leg was making her ill.

“Then help her, my lord,” Miss Irving suggested, a sneer to her voice. “Since she is so precious to you.”

Whittaker did not move. “That is hardly the truth of it, is it, Crawford? Miss Irving is too beautiful and rich to resort to killing off her rivals. Not,” he added, “that she was ever a contender for my countess.”

Miss Irving emitted a throaty noise like a growl. “I would be if—”

“Stubble it, Reggie.” Major Crawford remained as even-tempered as Whittaker.

Cassandra wanted to set up a chorus of shrieks to release
the tension building inside her. But with a flock of sheep not a hundred feet away and already distraught, she had no idea what might happen. Did sheep stampede? They were not all that large, and yet enough of them could knock her flat, trample her with their little hooves.

She grabbed Whittaker’s arm and hauled herself to her feet.

“Of course Regina’s desire to be a countess is not the reason Miss Bainbridge cannot survive this day either,” Major Crawford was saying. “You would have to stay alive for her to wed you. And although I am happy to grant my niece a number of favors, keeping you alive is not one of them.”

Honore shrieked, and her horse shied.

Cassandra swallowed her own gasp of horror and tried to judge where everyone sat or stood, tried to think, to plan.

If sheep did stampede . . .

“You would have given in to Whittaker’s pursuit,” Miss Irving declared. “But it was hopeless. I saw how that wind blew straightaway. Even scarring you for life, Miss Bainbridge, has not kept Whittaker away from you.”

“Even scarring me for—” Cassandra’s breath strangled in her throat.

“The assault on my carriage and fire were no accident.” If he grew any more tense, Whittaker would snap like an overwound watch spring. “I guessed as much after everything that has happened since.”

“An accident would have been so much more convenient.” The major’s saddle leather creaked. “Then her ladyship could be found dead by her own hand, such a sad tale of her losing her sons so young.” His voice hardened, roughened. “Nothing more than she deserves after what she did to my half brother.”

“I do not understand all this,” Honore sobbed. “Cassandra,
explain. They will not even tell me why she has a different surname, let alone why they hate you all so.”

“Not now.” Cassandra took a long, slow breath to keep herself calm.

Beside her, Whittaker did not move so much as a muscle.