Kathleen Y'Barbo (22 page)

“Believe me,” he said as he attempted not to laugh. “I am being tested right now.”

“Well, excellent. Do not let me interrupt you.”

“What is testing me is my inability to do justice to a response about your comment on being an ordinary female.”

He paused to nimbly guide the flying machine around Mama’s climbing roses and up to a gentle stop against the house. “Which, I will say, is absolutely untrue. There is nothing ordinary about you, Millie. I hope you understand that.”

“Believe me,” she said as she handed him the rope, “I cannot recall a time when I did not feel out of the ordinary. But that’s what having older sisters who are Father’s idea of the perfect example of proper femininity will do to someone like me.”

That was too close to the truth and an admission Millie instantly regretted. “Thank you very much for tonight’s adventure,” she said hurriedly as she tried to escape by releasing herself from the strap.

Unfortunately, instead of a graceful exit, she tumbled down from the flying machine to land in an awkward puddle of petticoats and dented pride. Before she could right herself, Kyle was at her side.

“What were you thinking?” he demanded as gentle hands helped her sit up. “Are you hurt? I did not realize you were about to step off the platform or I would never have allowed it until the device was securely tied up.”

Parts of her smarted from the collision, but she would never tell him which ones.

“Millie, look at me. Are you all right? Did you hit your head?”

She looked up and met his gaze. And then she looked beyond him to something moving just beyond his left shoulder.

The rope that should have tethered the flying machine to the balcony floated past.

Had she been able to speak his name, she might have called it right then. Instead, Millie pointed as shock and surprise refused to allow the words to come forth. Finally she gasped, “There. Behind you. Flying away.”

“Behind me?” Kyle turned and then tried to grab the cable, missing it by inches as it drifted out of reach. Muttering a few choice words that she was glad she couldn’t quite make out, he let out a long breath.

And then he just stood there, watching the balloon as it made a slow arc upward.

“I have made you lose your flying machine,” she said, ducking her head.

Her companion stood very quiet and still, not at all the reaction she expected from an inventor who was watching his prized gadget float away. When she looked up, she saw he had pulled some sort of metal half sphere from his pocket and was doing something with it.

“What is that?” she asked as she rose. “And why are you playing with one of your toys while the balloon is flying away?”

Kyle slanted her a quick glance. “It is not a balloon, and this is most decidedly not a toy. Now stand back.”

The balcony was small, but not so small that she could not give him the space he requested. He moved slowly, deliberately. Meanwhile, the balloon was getting away.

Just before the black silk of the runaway machine disappeared beyond the trees, Millie decided if he would not take swift action, she must. Reaching into her pocket, she removed the Remington from her pocket and fired one shot.

It was a direct hit.

The balloon sagged and swayed, ceasing its upward motion in an instant. At the same time, Kyle threw the metal device toward the balloon.
Because it was sinking fast, the metal object sailed past to lodge in the neighbor’s rose arbor. A second later, the balloon snagged on the topmost branch of a poplar tree on the corner of the neighbor’s property.

For a moment, it felt as if time stood still. And then he turned around to face her.

Unlike Father, whose face contorted in anger, this man merely wore his handsome features with only a bit less good humor. The real indication of his feelings, however, was his seeming inability to speak.

And then, “You. Shot. It.”

Each word was spoken softly, his tone something between incredulous and deadly. And yet she felt no fear, only surprise.

“It was getting away,” she said in her defense. “I knew the machine was important to you, and there it went flying over the trees. If I hadn’t shot it, who knows where it would have gone before someone found it, and then what would you have?”

Millie ran out of breath and words at the same time. Someone down the street called out, “Who is out there? Did someone shoot a gun?”

“Go inside,” he said through his clenched jaw.

Her heart sank. How could he not see she was merely trying to help? “But I was only trying to...oh, I have really done it, have I not?”

“Did you hear it, Officer?” a neighbor called, presumably to the policeman who had only just disappeared down the street.

“Go,” he said, this time in a slightly gentler manner. “You have enough trouble with your father, Millie. Best not add to it with this. At least there was no explosion.

“But I...” Tears threatened, and she blinked them back. “I am sorry, Kyle. Truly. I thought I was helping.”

He let out a long breath and rested his palms on her shoulders, holding her at arm’s length. “Thank you for helping. Now help me some more by going inside.”

“I caused this problem, so I should help repair the damage—”

“Inside. Now.”

She did as he asked and then watched as he put some sort of device on his shoes before disappearing over the rail of the balcony. By craning her neck, Millie could just barely make out what had to be his form crossing the lawn to disappear into the dark shadows of the shrubbery on the edge of the property just as the police officer appeared on the sidewalk.

Noticing her at the window, the man lifted his lantern in her direction and waved. Millie returned the wave in the hopes of giving Kyle more time to escape.

“Everything all right here, Miss Cope?” he called.

“Everything’s fine. Thank you, Officer Wells.”

“You didn’t hear a gunshot, did you?”

“A gunshot?” she said in a bid to stall him. “On Adams Street? Oh, my.”

“Now, don’t get yourself all upset, ma’am. I’m sure it was nothing.”

“Do you think so?” she said as she spied Kyle now halfway up the neighbor’s tree. “I truly would not like to think that someone was causing a ruckus in our quiet little neighborhood. That is most distressing.”

From behind her, she heard a knock on her bedroom door. “Mildred,” Father said. “Is that you talking to someone in there?”

“Yes, Father,” she called over her shoulder. “I was just speaking to the nice police officer down on the sidewalk. Apparently, someone has fired a gun and he was just asking me about it.”

“A gun? Tell Wells to stay there. I will be right down.”

Millie repeated the words to the officer, who nodded. And then Father knocked again.

“Before I go down there, I demand you open this door and show yourself.”

She straightened the wrinkles the tumble onto the balcony had put in her dress and then smoothed her hair as she walked to the door. Breathing a prayer, Millie pasted on what she hoped would be an innocent look and then opened the door. “Yes, Father?”

“Step out here.”

When she complied, he took two paces into her bedchamber and glanced around before returning his attention to her. His gaze swept the length of her and then stalled on her eyes.

“You have been in your room? What were you doing up here?”

She let out a nervous laugh, which she tried to cover by shaking her head. “What does a woman do in her bedchamber? Just now I was on the balcony speaking to the police officer about the shooting incident.”

“You know I frown on your habit of climbing out the window to access
that infernal balcony. I should never have allowed my mother to put those up. ‘Looks like home,’ she used to say. Well, I say it is not seemly to stand out in the open air when one has a perfectly good bedchamber in which to...”

He went on and on, but Millie’s attention had already wandered. Somewhere outside her flying companion was attempting to retrieve the invention she had broken. What seemed like a grand idea to catch the flying device before it flew out of reach now made Millie feel awful. She should be helping him. Perhaps offer to replace the silk she had shot through. And there would likely be damages to the system he used to guide the machine.

At the words “attic room” her attention reverted back to her father. “What was that?”

“The room in the attic.” He gestured toward the ceiling. “Third floor, Mildred. There is a room. Storage, the valet called it, but I must ask you what you know of this.”

“What I know of this?” she echoed. What could she say? “Well, I do know of the attic. It is for storage, is it not?”

“Yes, yes. But the room behind the locked door—”

“Say, Miss Cope,” Officer Wells called. “Is your father coming out or what? I cannot wait for him much longer.”

Millie tried not to allow her expression to show her relief. “What should I tell him, Father?”

He gave her a long look. He sighed and shook his head. “I’m going down now, but should I get any idea that something funny is going on up on the third floor, I will not let you get by with it. Do you understand? If you and Sir William are meeting up in some sort of rendezvous, you will not be doing it under my roof.”

Sir William? “Yes, Father.”

“And here I thought Trueck was away securing some sort of business deal that was going to allow me to purchase a lovely piece of property next to your castle in Cornwall. If he is back here and sneaking up my stairs to play fast and loose with my daughter...well, he will not get another penny out of me until he marries you right and proper. I have certainly spent plenty on him.”

Thankfully, Father did not wait around for any sort of response.
Instead, he went down the hall toward the stairs and left her to walk back into her room.

“Miss Cope?” the officer called.

Millie made her way to the window. “He is on his way, sir,” she called as she used the opportunity to see if Kyle had retrieved his craft yet.

Though the area where it had gone down was mostly hidden in shadow, Millie thought she saw movement near the tree’s top branches. When her father emerged onto the front walk, she stepped back with the intention of going for help once the coast was clear.

In the meantime, she closed her curtains and sat down to wait. To busy herself, Millie took out paper and pencil and made a list of things she planned to do tomorrow. A new sketchbook was in order as the last one she purchased was almost full. And as long as she was purchasing a sketchbook, she would buy new pencils.

And, of course, she would check on the repairs to her necklace and engagement ring.

Shifting positions, she felt the cypher and heart locket clang against the metal of her pistol. Millie took out the small revolver, set it on the bedside table, and then returned to her list. At the top, she wrote
Parker’s Jewelry.

A peek out the window showed her that Father and Officer Wells were still engaged in conversation. Millie let the curtains fall back into place and set the paper and pencil aside.

Then a thought occurred. Sir William was away on business. Why had he not let her know? He also hadn’t mentioned that Father would be their new neighbor in Cornwall. Although for the life of her, Millie could have sworn Sir William told her his ancestral home was in Somerset.

A trip to her desk and the collection of letters tied by a ribbon confirmed her thought. Trueck Abbey was in Somerset. And then she read a sentence that stopped her cold.

So she had not imagined he had claimed his mother to be alive. Setting that letter aside, she thumbed through the remainder of the thick stack. Several months ago, he had written this:

A check of the dates confirmed the mother who could not wait to meet her in December had apparently died in August. Interesting.

And then finally, on one of his earliest letters, this stood out:

She stacked the letters once more and retied the ribbon. If he was willing to lie, what else was he hiding?

“A grievous trespass indeed, Sir William.”

And why had she been so blind that she could not see any of this? Of course, she knew the answer.

She had seen what she wanted to see. And what she wanted to see was a way out of Memphis and the stifling atmosphere of the house on Adams Street.

In that moment, her path became clear. Someday she would walk out the door and leave this place and its awful memories behind. But when she went, she would go with all the things she loved, and if that meant packing up the entire attic room and carrying it out under dead of night, then so be it.

All she needed to do was to figure out how. That puzzle could be left for another day, however, because right now she was more concerned about a certain dark-haired aviator and his ailing flying machine.

Surely the door would slam downstairs soon when Father came back inside. When it finally did, Millie opened the window and stepped out onto the balcony, but she couldn’t see anything of Kyle or his balloon.

Going back inside, she shrugged into her coat, slipped down the stairs,
and went out into the night determined to offer help or, failing that, at least a proper apology.

But there was no sign of the dark-haired aviator. Millie retraced her steps to look for clues as to something he might have left behind but found nothing. She knew he was likely still staying at the Peabody, but how could she find him if she did not know his last name?

Returning to her room, Millie spied the Remington sitting on the bedside table.