Laurie Alice Eakes - [Daughters of Bainbridge House 02]

by A Flight of Fancy

  “Cassandra, you cannot.” Whittaker sounded desperate. In the torchlight, his face gleamed pale, tense.

  “I cannot stop it.” Cassandra started to lean toward him, realized she was not rising all that quickly and he might still manage to pull her from the basket. “It truly is safe, Whittaker. Never you—”

  “But it is not. Cass—” With a noise rather like a growl, Whittaker leaped onto the box she had used, grabbed the edge of the rising basket, and half-dragged, half-rolled himself over the edge. “How do we get this to land again?”

  “We do not.” Cassandra glared at Whittaker, her tone hard. “You are here for the duration of the journey.”

  “But you do not understand.” Breath coming in gasps, Whittaker scrambled to his feet and caught hold of Cassandra’s shoulders. “It is dangerous today. After the other morning, I’ve learned some things. I warned you that you were in danger.”

  “While with you.” She smiled at the glorious expanse of the sky arching around her. “Alone, or rather, with my aeronaut friends, I am perfectly secure.”

  “But you are not. Jimmy, one of the Luddite weavers—oh my.” His eyes went out of focus. His face turned green. “We’re off the ground,” he said in a strangled voice.

  Cassandra glanced at the diminishing figures on the ground, growing blurry to her even with her spectacles on. “About two hundred feet. No more than that, I expect.”

  “Two hundred? Two—”

  “Standing is better in a balloon, but kneel if you are going to be sick, preferably over the edge.”

  He sat. He lowered his head to his knees. “I dislike looking over the gallery into the great hall. That is only twenty feet. Two hundred . . .”

  Cassandra resisted the urge to kneel beside him and offer comfort. “You got in of your own free will.”

  He raised his head, perspiration beading his brow and upper lip. “I thought you would land it again.”

  “Because you ordered me to? I am your mother’s guest, not yours. And, as you admitted yourself, our betrothal is most definitely over; therefore, you have no control over my actions.”

  “I do if I am trying to save your life.”

  “The risk I take coming up in a balloon is my risk to bear.”

  “No, you do not understand.” He rose, shaking visibly, and grasped the edge of the basket behind him. “Cassandra, this is more than you simply going up in a balloon. I learned a few hours ago that the rebels intend to stop you from flying today so you do not see their activities this morning.”

  “Stuff and nonsense.” Cassandra brushed past him to inspect the apparatus that kept the balloon afloat.

  Just enough fire burned in the brazier to heat the vitriol and iron shavings in a glass beaker suspended above the flames. Heated, the iron and acid produced hydrogen. From the beaker’s mouth, a canvas tube coated in wax led up to the balloon to carry the hydrogen gas and give them buoyancy—all a marvel of chemistry and physical science, the newest joys in Cassandra’s life.

  All seemed well. The balloon and basket continued to rise, swooping upward on a current of air. To the east, what had been a band of bright light now shone as the first rays of a pink and gold sunrise. To the west, the sea sparkled like a dark diamond shot with fire.

  “Look.” Cassandra pointed to the east. “Besides the fact that we are already a quarter mile off the ground and out of range to all save military guns, making stopping us nigh on impossible, is it not worth being up here?”

  Whittaker barely glanced at the sun. “Cassandra, I have no idea how they plan to stop this flight, but they do. I heard the plans with my own ears and would have been here sooner had I not been delayed by . . . I am such a fool.”

  He looked so distraught, so shaken and pale, Cassandra could no longer maintain her air of indifference or her true anger for his interference. “You are not and never have been a fool, Geoffrey. Unless it is getting into this balloon when you hate to be off the ground.” She tried to smile at him. “But as long as I am sensible, we are in no danger. Mr. Kent and Mr. Sorrells are following our progress on horseback. You might be able to see them on the ground. You know I cannot see that far away, which is a disadvantage for me.” She touched the metal frames of her spectacles. “But I know they will be there, so no one—”

  “Be quiet and listen to me,” Whittaker snapped. He took a deep breath and added, “Please. I would have tried to stop this flight even with someone else aboard. I do not know enough about these contraptions to know what the rebels can do to stop you, but they intend to because of the other morning.”

  Cassandra wrapped her shawl more tightly around her. “They who? What are you talking about?”

  “The trouble I am in. Blackmail. Luddites.” He released the side of the basket long enough to shove his hand through his hair, then paused, his hand on his head. “Are we not moving?”

  “Quite quickly, I expect. Perhaps as much as fifteen miles per hour. It’s a bit too fast for the horses to keep up with us. Why?”

  “I feel no wind.”

  “That is because we are traveling with it, not going faster or slower than it. If you look down, you will have a better idea.”

  Whittaker shuddered. “No, thank you. I’d rather not shame myself by shooting the cat in front of you. I have done enough to shame myself, but apparently it runs in my blood.”

  “What are you saying, Geoffrey? Truly, I have heard that sometimes being up high in the air can make a man a bit mad, but we have not gone nearly that far off the ground. That is up miles and miles and—”

  “Stop.” He was looking greenish-white again. “I have to tell you this. Will we be here awhile?”

  “That depends on the wind. If—” She changed her mind before she said that she would set them down before they reached the sea itself. She did not wish to humiliate him by making his fear of high places cause him to be sick over the side. He seemed shamed enough already.

  “I think,” she said, “you had better tell me everything if you want me to set this balloon down before we have been up more than a quarter hour.”

  “Yes, but—eh.” He turned his head away from her, must have caught a glimpse of the earth far below, and closed his eyes. “I cannot think up here. How can you like this?”

  “Be still a moment and stop thinking about how high up we are.”

  He took a long, deep breath and kept his eyes closed. First his hands loosened on the basket edge enough that the knuckles did not gleam white through his skin. Then his jaw relaxed, the knot of muscles in the corner smoothing out. Finally he opened his eyes and looked at her. “I have never seen you more beautiful than you look right now with the sun shining on your face.”

  “I have my spectacles on. I must resemble some kind of insect with the sun shining on the lenses.” She snatched them off and the world beyond the basket grew blurry.

  Whittaker smiled. “I told you six months ago I find them charming. I still mean it. Cassandra, when will you believe me when I tell you I find you beautiful?”

  When she stopped loving him so much she wanted to believe him. When she knew he understood the worst of her scars and did not look repulsed even at the mention of them.

  “When you are honest with me about everything else,” she said.

  “I intend to be.” He glanced down at the small basket of food at his feet. “I expect one advantage of being up here is that no one will interrupt us—so long as we are safe. That is, if the soldiers in Manchester took action after I rode there to tell them.”

  “We are safe right now.” Though a glance up at the balloon told her they needed either more of the iron shavings inside the beaker, a new coating of sealant, or a better formula, as the balloon was losing too much air and their elevation was dropping more than she liked.

  She turned her back on Whittaker and applied the bellows to the brazier. Fire licked at the coals. The vitriol bubbled and the balloon expanded again. Up they climbed, first a little jerk as the balloon tugged on the basket,
then the glorious sensation of floating, like gliding on a quiet pond, only better because one was not fighting against the folds of a bathing dress to stay afloat.

  She faced Whittaker and caught a gleam of admiration on his face. “You are so unsure of yourself in Society but completely at home up here.”

  “Yes, it is why I am not an appropriate countess for you. I am a bluestocking at best. It will do nothing to advance you as a member of Parliament.”

  “You know I have no political ambitions, Cassandra. I go because my title obliges me to. I listen to the speeches. I vote for what I think is right. It is my duty as a nobleman. Beyond that, I want a wife and family. But if I am right, I am not going to live long enough to enjoy either.”

  “Yes.” Cassandra found her knuckles white against the dark wood of the basket. No longer could she avoid being his confidant. “We are quite safe here now, but why did you think someone wanted to stop the balloon? Why did someone throw a knife at you?”

  “Or shoot me?” His smile was tight, the dimple nowhere in sight. “It started six months ago. You ended our betrothal because you thought then we were not following God’s will for our lives.”

  “And you quite happily walked away without a fight.”

  “I learned that one of my weaving mills had been destroyed by the Luddites. I had to find out about the damage and set repairs in motion. The riots have been senseless and harming no one save for the weavers themselves.”

  “And owners like you who were losing money.”

  “Yes, it was a financial blow.” He glanced away. A shudder ran through him, and he returned his focus to her face. “Do we have to be quite so high?”

  “No, but it is more peaceful up this high. One cannot hear a thing from the ground, and if you fear someone may shoot at us or something, the higher we are, the safer we are.”

  She wanted to be higher, high enough to see the Pennines, but the balloon was not cooperating this morning. Perhaps one of the men had mixed the vitriol incorrectly and the gas inside the balloon was not quite light enough.

  “Safe a thousand feet or more off the ground?” Whittaker snorted. “Ah, Cassandra, you may consider yourself a bluestocking, but you are not a tediously dull one. Never once have I found your company tedious.”

  “Thank you, I think, but return to your story. You assessed the damage to your mill.”

  “Yes, and grew angry enough to disguise myself as a weaver and join the rioters to learn who was behind it.”

  “You never—” Her stomach dropped as though the balloon had lost all its air and plummeted them toward earth. “Geoff—Whit—did you want to kill yourself?”

  “No, I wanted to find a peaceful way to end the riots.” He speared his fingers through his hair, still long and shaggy like a man without the means to—

  “The hair!” she cried. “You are doing it again.”

  “Yes, but not by my free will. Last spring was enough of a taste of the violence for me. I escaped detection but managed to give the Army the names of two of the ringleaders and see them brought to justice for killing loom owners.”

  “You, my quiet, bookish fian—I mean—” She stumbled to a halt. He was her nothing, then or now.

  But he smiled. This time the dimple showed. “I was taught how to shoot and use a sword, you know.”

  “Yes, but that is spying. I should think you too honest to want to participate in a deceptive act of espionage.”

  “But not so honest . . .” He shook his head, and his shaggy hair lifted on a downdraft.

  Frowning, Cassandra turned back to the balloon to blow more air into the bag. It seemed to be losing the gas far more quickly than it should. But she could see nothing wrong except that her formula for sealing the silk was imperfect.

  “Is, um, something amiss?” Whittaker sounded a bit strangled.

  “No.” Cassandra turned back to him with a bright smile and noted his white knuckles again. “The gas inside the balloon needs to stay warm and lighter than the air outside to keep us aloft, so I need to feed it from time to time, as it leaks out.”

  “I thought that is what that foul-smelling substance was for.”

  “It was, and I am still perfecting the formula. So do go on.” His tale-telling distracted him from their height, which was increasing now, enough that she thought she could indeed see the Pennines to the east and an expanse of the Irish Sea to the west. “You played spy, then came back south and convinced me I should wed you. The riots seemed to quiet down up here in the north.”

  “But have only quieted. They are not over.”

  “No.” Feeling as sick as he had looked once he realized they were hundreds of feet off the ground, she said, “Someone has learned who you are and wants to kill you for it.”

  “It is far worse than that, Cassandra.” His gaze slipped past her. “Are you planning to sail us to Ireland?”

  “Not today. Now continue.”

  “I would rather continue on the ground.”

  “I think perhaps we are safer up here if someone is trying to harm you.”

  “No one would expect me up here. But I get all out of order.” He took a long, shuddering breath, loud in the stillness of being aloft, and continued to look past her rather than at her. “Your father did not withdraw his approval of our marriage because he thought I dishonored you and would therefore not be a good husband to you.”

  “I know.” Cassandra rubbed at her right thigh. “He blamed you for my—my scars that make me unmarriageable to any man for a dowry no larger than mine. I would have to be an heiress like Regina—”

  “Stubble it,” Whittaker barked. “A man who truly loves you will have no care about scars.”

  “And you care.” She made it a statement, not a question.

  He had looked as sick upon learning about her scars as he did upon leaving the ground. Well, she had accepted the end of their future together, had she not?

  She gazed at him with her spectacles on, a rarity, took in his strong silhouette against the rising sun, and understood why she had rejected God at the same time she ensured the betrothal would not continue—guilt, plain and simple. Regardless of punishment from God or whatever the cause of her physical suffering, she had not for a moment repented of her behavior with this handsome, kind, intelligent man. Looking at him now stirred up memories and thoughts she knew to be wrong, and the knowledge burdened her with guilt. In no way could they begin a marriage with guilt weighing her down.

  And him too. His unwillingness to look directly at her spoke volumes about his regret over their past. No wonder he cringed at the mention of her scars. They were forever a reminder of their improper behavior with one another. Yet knowing she had lost him forever was no reason for not repenting, for rejecting the truth of God’s will for her life and His grace. His will was perfect. If God did not want her married to Geoffrey Giles, Earl of Whittaker, then He had a better plan for her life. She knew that. She had believed it in the spring, and then Whittaker came back only to have her behave abominably once again, against all her moral understanding, because she was too sure she knew what was right for herself and did not truly trust that God did.

  “I understand,” she added. “It is all right.”

  “No, Cassandra, you do not understand.” He took a step toward her. The basket swayed a little, and he halted, paling again. “I am going to sit down if I may.”

  “Yes, but the view is better standing.”

  He smiled tightly. “I know.” He seated himself cross-legged on the bottom of the basket and still gripped the side with one hand. “A bit better. Now, what was I saying? Yes, you do not understand about your father and me, and—and he—” He took a long, deep breath, then let it and the words out in a rush. “He knew about my mother, that my elder brother was not my father’s son, and that I have proven I have too much of her temperament of disloyalty and dishonor, and with your tendency to rebellion, I should not wed you.”

  “What did you say? No, no”—she waved her h
and in the air—“do not repeat it. I heard you. I simply mean—” Her legs wobbled, and she sank to her knees before him, the brazier a soft hiss behind her, the balloon a bulbous shadow above, and the glorious open sky a blue and gold canopy around them. They might have been the last two people left in the world. “Your mother committed . . . against your father, and because we were . . . indiscreet, my father withdrew his consent to our marriage? I thought he blamed you for my accident.”

  “He does. I led you astray because I have my mother’s—”

  “That is preposterous.” She grasped the sides of the basket to keep herself from the foolishness of springing to her feet and probably stomping her foot right through the floor of the car. “I was just as complicit. I encouraged you. I have done everything others did not wish me to do since I was at least out of my cradle, if not sooner. I am the one with the rebellious heart, and you are the one bearing the shame.”

  She never before admitted the truth of her rebellion, and she saw it for what it was now—the author of her pain, her isolation, her losses.

  “You are not to blame, Geoffrey. Not for any of this. How could my father, knowing me, believe such a thing of you?”

  “I am not without guilt, my dearest one.” He brushed a strand of hair from her cheek, then held it, stroking it between his thumb and forefinger. “We both lost our sense of right and wrong to some extent after I became the earl. We were angry with God for tossing us into a future neither of us wanted, instead of accepting it as God’s will for our lives and learning how He could use us.”

  “And the consequences are of our own making.” Cassandra bowed her head as though she could see through her skirt and petticoats to the marks on her legs. “I have been blaming God and my father has blamed you, and—”

  “Used his knowledge about my mother to blackmail me into joining the rioters again.”

  “He is blackmailing you into danger like that?” That plummeting feeling punched her middle again.