“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.
“I have no idea,” Whittaker said. “Perhaps I am starting at shadows.”
“Then we both are.” Cassandra looked at him, her eyes wide and clear, so dark brown they were nearly black, a startling and lovely contrast to her flawless complexion.
He shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat to stop himself from touching her again. “I will see you this evening. We are taking two carriages, so I may not see you until we reach the assembly, as I may end up in the other vehicle.”
“That is probably best.” She closed the door. Through the misted glass, he watched her walk away, leaning on her cane as though she bore a heavy burden, not putting her weight on her right foot.
How terrible that burn on her ankle must have been to still cause her such trouble.
His own shoulders threatening to slump beneath a dozen burdens, the last of which being guilt, he trudged around the house and entered through the front door. For once no one sat in the hall. The fire burned low on the hearth, neglected with no one warming beside it. He should have at least two hours to have some refreshment and go over his accounts or read. Both had been neglected over the past two and a half months, as he joined the men reconstructing his mill destroyed in the spring in an effort to use physical exertion to work off the pain of Cassandra’s rejection. It had not worked, and he had sought her out. He would keep seeking her out despite Miss Honore’s advice.
He must also seek out his comrades amongst the Luddites and try to discover if any or all of them had learned his identity through his too-thin disguise. Together they played their roles of conspirators too well. But if he could meet with them separately, meet with each man on his own ground, perhaps he could learn all he needed to know and bring an end to the masquerade and to drawing Cassandra into danger.
Drawing Cassandra into danger.
He halted halfway up the steps and leaned on the banister. If the explosion was aimed at him, then being close to him proved dangerous to Cassandra. Yet whoever had done it must have known she would be with him; therefore, the person did not care if she were hurt. But where would the rebels have obtained such a quantity of gunpowder? It was expensive.
He spun on his heel and retreated down the steps to the kitchen, where he found the housekeeper and maids sipping tea. At his entrance, they sprang to their feet with a clatter of earthenware crockery.
“Milor’?” Mrs. Tims wrung her hands. “Is aught amiss?”
“Nothing to concern you. I simply need the key to the cellar.”
She blinked but was too good a servant to question why. She simply removed a key from the ring hanging from her chatelaine and gave it to him.
Whittaker thanked her and crossed the room to the cellar door, unlocked it, and then turned back. “Is this always locked?”
“Yes, milor’.” Mrs. Tims nodded. “And I have t’only key I know about.”
Whittaker frowned and turned back to the steps descending into blackness.
“Milor’.” A maid spoke close behind him. “You’ll be wanting a candle.” Feeling foolish for not having thought of that, he turned back, thanked her, took a candle, and headed downstairs to the dank cellar smelling of mold and mice. Little used for storage now and even less frequently cleaned, the cellar bore the marks of recent passage. Behind a stout door, the room lay empty save for more dust, with a clean circle in the center of the floor where a barrel had stood. Someone had made an effort to brush out footprints in the dust and had been unsuccessful. Imprints of two different shoes stood out against the stone, one large and one smaller, recent enough to show up in clear outline.
He climbed to his room, pausing long enough to return the key to the housekeeper. His head whirled with questions, notions, everything but answers save for one—someone had taken the gunpowder from the cellar. Someone had gotten into the house, through the locked door, and then back out again. Not impossible with so few servants about. Anyone from one of those servants to a perfect stranger could have gotten in.
But they would have had to know about the gunpowder to take such a risk.
A servant then, someone who had been in the Hall long enough to know his father and brother. A man who did not like Geoffrey Giles as the earl, or a man in sympathy with the Luddites who knew of Whittaker’s activities?
Nauseated, his arm throbbing, he entered his rooms, which were isolated and quiet and forever smelling like the cheroot smoke that had seeped into the carpet and paneling from his predecessors. He would tear it all out and replace rugs and walls when the estate could afford it.
If anything happened to him, the estate would never be repaired. His uncle was not well and his cousins were too young to manage it and the mills. Mama could never cope. She had no head for numbers.
Cassandra could manage. No doubt she could manage better than he. But Cassandra must go. She was not safe with him.
“Lord, I do not know what to do.” He stood staring out the window at the overgrown parkland and barren fields. “I have truly made amok of everything.”
No answers came to him. He closed his eyes and could not even think of an appropriate Bible verse to give him guidance and wisdom. He had set himself too far away from the Lord to have a consequential relationship with his Savior. Once upon a time, he would have discussed this feeling of distance from God with Cassandra. She would have said something wise. They would even have prayed together. Somewhere along their path, they had pushed God aside in favor of their own wants.
Guilt plucked at his spirit. He needed to change his relationship with the Lord but did not know how. Mama would know. She was a wise and godly woman and his best chance at a spiritual adviser. Perhaps even an adviser about Cassandra.
He went to the bellpull to ask a footman where he might find his mother and remembered Cassandra’s cut bellpull. He had not yet repaired it. Tomorrow—no, that was Sunday. The day after, before he slipped away, he would ensure she was not left without the means of getting attention quickly if she needed it.
And why would someone rob her of that means of communication? The idea that she was the target of someone’s malice sent him to the door, ready to sweep her up and take her immediately away from Whittaker Hall. But he could not do that and risk Major Crawford thinking he had abandoned his mission and revealing Mama’s indiscretion of the past.
Cassandra’s safety or Mama’s reputation. Neither option sounded good. A thought began to form in his mind, then someone knocked on the door. He opened it to see Gareth.
“Lady Whittaker sent me here to help you dress, milord.”
“Of course. The assembly.”
He donned his evening dress, too elegant for a country inn assembly, as it was made for London. The tightness of the coat pinched at his still-healing arm. If Cassandra were not so insistent that she was attending, he would stay home. For some reason, she chose to go to the sort of entertainment she normally despised. So he bore the discomfort with the hope that the wool would stretch a bit with wear and took to tying his own cravat until it fell in snowy folds over the placket of his white shirt. In the center, he affixed his best pin, a sapphire Mama had given him for the previous Christmas, created from a ring she never wore. Black knee breeches, white silk stockings, and black shoes with silver buckles completed the austere ensemble.
“You would look quite elegant,” Mama said when she met him in the corridor, “if you had gotten your hair cut. It quite ruins the effect of a man about town.”
“I never was much of a man about town.” He offered her his arm. “But I was out enough to know you are prettier than any of the London mamas.”
“Do not speak falsehoods.” Mama laughed and rapped his knuckles with her fan. “But thank you for the attempt to flatter this aged lady.”
“Not at all flatter
y, and should ladies half your age be so lovely.”
She did indeed look lovely in muted violet satin and foaming lace over her shoulders.
“I expect Miss Irving will outshine us all,” Mama said.
Miss Irving was indeed a vision in green silk spangled with gold and accented with emerald jewelry. Miss Honore shimmered in blue the color of her eyes and a pale gauze overskirt.
And Cassandra!
She wore a gown the color of pink roses with creamy lace and pearls. His pearls. Or the ones he had given her for a betrothal gift. Not family heirlooms, so she had been under no obligation to give them back. That she had not, that she wore them now, sent his heart singing with hope.
Instinct drew him forward to go to her, but he hesitated and Miss Irving stepped into his path. “You will be so kind as to escort me, will you not, my lord? I know no one here but will soon if you take me in.”
She was a bold piece but absolutely right. To deny her would be churlish and rude.
He offered Miss Irving his arm. “Certainly. This is a small country affair. Everyone will be friendly.”
“I have actually spent most of my life in the country,” she prattled. “Each year I beg for a Season, but with no one to sponsor me, it has been difficult to manage.”
They reached the carriage. Mama was inside. On the other side of the drive, Major Crawford handed Miss Honore in with a bit too long a hold on her gloved hand and an exchange of flirtatious smiles. Cassandra must have entered that vehicle first, for she stood nowhere in sight.
Resigned, Whittaker turned to Miss Irving and gave her his hand to steady her ascent into the vehicle. “Country folk can sometimes be as exacting in their acceptance of strangers as London.”
“Worse,” Mama said. “London is so large they expect that strangers and even those on the fringes of social acceptability can get a place in the finest houses with the right manipulations. But here, if one’s reputation is tarnished, judgments are harsh, as one stands out more.”
Laurie Alice Eakes - [Daughters of Bainbridge House 02] Page 16