Everything But the Earl

by Willa Ramsey

  She supposed that it did.

  “Whatever do you mean, my lord? We are out for a pleasant ride.”

  “Have you lost your wits, you crazy chit? How will we land? What can we do?”

  “Ah-ah-ah! No name-calling, Philip. May I call you Philip? Let’s be informal.” She flipped the knife so that the handle landed cleanly in her hand again. Mr. McNabbins, the juggler from Sadler Wells, had taught her the trick many years ago. She’d never dreamed she would make such excellent use of it.

  “You’re mad.”

  “Am I, Philip? Or am I a whore?” she replied, brandishing the knife at him. “It’s unlikely that I am both, or the good people at Bedlam would have locked me up by now. So which is it?”

  He stared at her.

  “You look rather mad, you know. Your hair is whiter than it was a moment ago.”

  He glanced around the car as if looking for an escape hatch, or a sign that this was all a bad dream. He didn’t find either, so he sat back again, shivering.

  “Do you know the other funny thing about balloons, Philip?”

  He shook his head.

  “If we get too high, the valve will freeze shut.”

  He looked up at the base of the envelope, where the valve was. “What happens then?”

  “Then we die.”

  “Well, stop the bloody thing!”

  She reached out and grabbed the delicate chain that dangled from the valve, pulling it once, hard, so that it released some of the gas with a hiss. The balloon stilled for several seconds before descending a half-dozen feet and leveling out again.

  Strayeth looked at her, desperation in his eyes. He scrambled to his feet as if to lunge for the chain.

  But she had expected this, so she held out her knife. “Ah-ah-ahhh! Sit, Philip.”

  He slunk to the floor. “What do you want from me, Caro?”

  “Ah! Now you are catching on. Now we are getting somewhere.”

  “Just tell me what you want, and get us down from here.”

  She clucked her tongue at him. “Tsk tsk tsk. So impatient! When you called me a whore—”

  He snorted at her. “I did no such thing.”

  She reared back, shocked at his arrogance. “I heard you, man! When you and Chum made your wager, I heard you! In the hall of my own home! And now, you’ll make me a few promises, or so help me God I’ll tell all of London that you mewled like an infant up here, and vomited on your boots.”

  “I did no such thing,” he repeated.

  She reached over the side of the car and sliced a bag of sand clean-through with her knife, then turned and did the same on the other side. They rocked violently and shot skyward.

  He shrieked. And really, Caro thought, the resemblance to a mewling infant is remarkable.

  “Firstly,” she began, “promise me that you will not tell Chumsley that I know about the wager, or anyone else that I was involved in it.”

  “I promise.”

  “And that you will never again speculate about a woman’s virtue. These things are not your concern.”

  “I promise. But you are taking away my favorite subjects of conversation, here.”

  She reached over and slashed another sand bag, whereupon he sputtered and fell forward. “Find some new subjects, Phil! For all our sakes’!”

  “We are dead,” he muttered. “We are both of us dead.”

  “Last thing: You will never again attempt to seduce a woman in bad faith. Say it.”

  His brows had burrowed deep between his eyes, and his famous forelock was slick with perspiration and plastered to his forehead. He gave a longish, primal sort of grunt, the likes of which she had heard only once before, from a rabid dog she’d come upon on a walk. “Both of you,” he seethed, “both of you are the worst sort of trollops.”

  “I beg your pardon! ‘The worst’? Honestly, Philip. It’s difficult to know what makes a good sort of loose woman, and what makes a bad one.”

  He gripped both sides of the carriage, breathing heavily but quickly.

  “And what do you mean, ‘both’ of us?”

  “You and the Ryland chit.”

  “‘The Ryland chit?’” She scoffed and huffed and glanced around, as if looking for someone to share in her indignation.

  Strayeth took advantage of her apparent inattention and lunged again for the knife.

  But she had seen desperate animals before. She knew how their posture, their expressions, and their breathing changed when they felt trapped. So she had already begun slashing several more sandbags, ripping through the burlap as quickly as she could, before Strayeth had even gotten to his feet. He slammed against the side of the car, much harder than before, then the floor. And this time, instead of sitting up he rolled onto his back and moaned—showing her his soft belly.

  She also knew a submissive animal when she saw it.

  “I promise I will not…seduce a woman in bad faith. Ever again.”

  At this, she pulled the chain and opened the valve again, causing them to descend a little. She did it again and again, slowly and masterfully, and they gradually made their way closer to the ground—still in Hyde Park, and far from steeples and sword-wielding statues. Soon, the figures below were close enough to recognize, and she could see that Adam had followed her as promised, with Mama and Papa in tow.

  “No one will even know I was up here, you know.”

  “Oh, look! Is that the man from the Gabster? How kind of him to accept my invitation to cover our little test launch this morning. I hope he doesn’t see what’s happened to your breeches.”

  “Fine. Please, just take us down now.”

  She brought the car gingerly to the ground, but before the nearly-deflated envelope came down on top of them, she made eye contact with her parents, who looked extremely relieved—and just a tiny bit angry. She also got a quick glance at Adam, who smiled at her. She wanted nothing more right then—at her moment of triumph— than to run over and embrace him.

  She was struck by the realization that perhaps, just perhaps, working with a partner had its benefits after all.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Adam’s heart was still racing as he walked into Corinthian Luke’s.

  He was so eager to see Caro, to see her standing with both feet on firm ground, and to touch her and ensure that she was still flesh and bone and breath, that he wasn’t quite himself. He was tense and excited, unable to calm down, and unsure how to pass the time until Edie’s coming dinner party.

  So he had made his way to the boxing gymnasium, for the first time in over a decade.

  “Ryland? Funny seeing you here,” Quillen said, getting up from a stiff-backed chair along the wall as he entered. His old friend had cherubic, golden curls, trimmed just below his ears. He was a great favorite with the ladies, if Mother was any indication; she had once described his pale blue eyes as the color of “washed-out violets, at the end of the season.”

  “Quillen—I was hoping you would be here. Let me join you.” He took the chair opposite him and before long, fresh coffee appeared on the low table between them.

  “I haven’t seen you in a fortnight, Ryland. And here I’d thought that with you finally in town, I’d have some conversation for once.”

  “You didn’t see me at Lady Blick’s? Playing the matchmaking mama?”

  “Sadly, no!” he replied, folding up his newspaper. “It was such a crush that I left for other haunts before midnight.” Quillen had cultivated a reputation of some mystery, and had come to be known as a smooth-talking dealmaker who knew everyone worth knowing—in government, the underworld, the aristocracy, and the arts.

  Adam glanced around. They were in the coffee room, but with the gymnasium just next door, the shouts and muffled thuds of the sport carried easily into their conversation. A steady stream of young bucks strutted to and from the gym, their boasts and back-slaps further punctuating the salty, sour atmosphere of the place. Adam’s leg was pumping up and down before long, and he put his hand on his kne
e to still it.

  “Pardon the intrusion, Ryland. But you don’t seem well.”

  Adam whipped around. “I am fine.”

  “This place makes you uneasy, still?”

  He glanced around again. Tattered old postings hung on every wall, advertising once and future bouts, and the walls themselves seemed deliberately shabby, as if the owner knew that his wealthy patrons would enjoy the sensation of having left their rarefied world for the grit of the underclass—albeit just in their heads, and only for a short time.

  “It’s odd,” Adam began, shaking his head. “This place just seems sort of…sad to me now.”

  “How so?” Quillen laced his hands together and sat back, looking at him sideways. There was no fooling his old friend. Quillen had never been one to tease him about boxing, or about his interests in the art and engineering of landscapes.

  He shrugged. “As a boy, all I wanted to do was to please my father, and that meant practicing athletics much of the day. Mainly boxing. When he died, I turned to the things that I liked, but I have always been ashamed of not continuing the things that Father loved.”

  “And now?”

  “Now, I wonder if perhaps the best tribute I could have given him would have been to become a champion in my own way.”

  “It’s not too late, you know,” Quillen replied, shifting in his chair. “What’s brought about this change of heart, by the bye? Will you be yelling it from the rooftops now, that you’re a pacifist who doesn’t fight with anything but the brambles on his estate?”

  Adam looked at the ceiling. His body still thrummed with the events of the morning—the fear brought about by Caro putting herself in danger, the thrill of witnessing her put her scheme in motion, the anticipation of seeing her again and holding her close. The thrum was all about Caro. His new outlook was all about Caro. Everything was about—and due to—Caro. He was in love with her.

  He sighed. “I’ve been spending my time lately with someone who pursues what she wants, damn the consequences, and damn what anyone thinks of it. I suppose it’s rubbed off on me.”

  The door opened and Chumsley wandered in, his hair looking a little greasier than usual, his clothes a bit more rumpled. Anger flared in Adam, and he was relieved when the idiot turned quickly into another room. He turned back to his friend and changed the subject. “Have you heard this morning’s news? Of the events at Hyde Park?” he asked, sipping his coffee. His hand trembled, and he struggled to take the hot liquid without spilling it.

  “I heard some talk of it, yes.”

  “I was there.”

  Now Quillen sat up. “What were you doing there?”

  “I’ve become a patron of the Crispins. And I was invited to view the testing of their balloon.”

  Quillen lowered his voice and leaned in close. “They’re saying Strayeth looked positively green when he got back to terra firma,” he said with a chuckle.

  Adam laughed and Quillen added, “So—should you be thanking me for introducing you to Miss Crispin, the night of her last ball?”

  Adam sat back. Had he been so obvious in his affection for Caro? Already? Before he could answer, Chumsley returned to the room and approached them. He stumbled a little, Adam noticed, and he stank of gin.

  “Have you lot heard the news?” he asked.

  “You mean your friend’s trip to the clouds this morning? We were just discussing it,” Quillen replied, looking around. “Where is he now? I expected to be plugging my ears for a week at least, just to avoid his blustering.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Chumsley replied, clenching and unclenching fists. “The devil’s gone and left town. Came right home, his man said, and asked for his horse straightaway.”

  “’Struth?” Adam could not believe it. Caro must have terrified him! He suppressed a smile.

  “Why has he gone?” Quillen asked.

  Chumsley shrugged. “I couldn’t say. But it looks as if he’s forfeited our little wager.”

  “It doesn’t follow that you have won it,” Adam replied. The grin on Chum’s face was the first thing he’d actually wanted to punch in his life, and the very thought made his stomach sour.

  Chumsley laughed. He hooked his hands inside the lapels of his coat and thrust back his shoulders with a slight wobble. “Soon enough, Ryland. Soon enough. With the competition gone from town—”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure,” Adam interrupted, his fist landing on the table much harder than he’d intended. The other men looked at him. He put his hand back under the table, and was beginning to feel rather frantic—as if he were about to cast up his accounts, and would soon need to excuse himself and find the nearest chamber pot.

  “Well, you’re all riled up, aren’t you, Ryland! Good! Are you going to the fights, then?” Chumsley asked, nodding to the wall behind them.

  Just above their chair backs was a poster that looked newer than the others:

  OPEN RING

  at the

  BEAUTON HARVEST FESTIVAL

  October the 1st and 2nd

  Celebrate the harvest with some punch!

  “That’s out near Banmoor,” said Quillen, referring to his estate, ten miles beyond London. “The theater people do it every year. It’s a casual sort of affair, but they draw serious fighters.”

  “The Duke of Portson will be there,” Chumsley added. “Now’s your chance, Ryland.”

  “Chance for what?” Adam breathed deeply, glancing around for a nearby window he could open.

  “To show everyone you’ve still got it.” He chuckled and wandered off.

  “Don’t mind him,” Quillen said once he’d gone. He picked up another paper. “He’s a bag of moonshine, that one. Utterly full of it.”

  Adam leaned back in the chair and took out his pocket-watch. The nausea had not yet abated. “There was no reason for the fight, you know.”

  “What fight?”

  “Mine and Portson’s. Back at school.”

  “You really are rather confessional this morning, Ryland.”

  “I’d just never had a real bout before,” he went on, unable to stop. “I’d only ever sparred. During training, with Father and his friends, and his friends’ sons. So when Portson challenged me that day at school, I figured it was time to try out the real thing.”

  Quillen put down his paper, as if intuiting that this was a sensitive matter. He was a good friend that way.

  “And then I broke his arm,” Adam continued. “And his nose. And it was all for nothing. Nothing! Nothing but stupidity, and a childish desire to prove to my dead father that I wasn’t too cowardly to do it.”

  “You were grieving, Adam. And Portson had quite a hold on you, as I recall. He was choking you.”

  “Yes, and I panicked. And I wanted to end the thing, because it was all so miserable. A real fight is nothing like sparring, Quill. Nothing. It is terrible.”

  “I know, Adam. I know.”

  For the first time in many years, talk of his boxing skills wasn’t what disturbed Adam the most. What disturbed him most was that he wanted to dust them off and use them.

  That, and the fact that there were still several days until he could see Caro again.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Caro was glad that Mariah Asperton had come to Edie’s small dinner.

  “Lady Ryland, what an extraordinary dinner this is,” Mariah said softly when they had settled into their first course.

  “Do not blame this menu on me!” Lady Ryland bellowed between sips of her onion soup. “Tell your grievances to my daughter—it is her party.”

  Mariah stopped chewing and turned to Caro for explanation.

  “Do not be alarmed,” Caro said, putting a hand on her arm. “In this family, it’s an entertainment of sorts to throw barbs at one another, and to pretend one doesn’t care for the others’ feelings.”

  Taking this as her cue, Edie replied, “Mother, you are just sore that Lord Quillen declined to grace us with his flaxen curls this evening.”

 
“Humph,” Lady Ryland replied.

  “You see?”

  Caro was also glad that she hadn’t heard or read any more gossip involving Mariah, let alone anything concerning a pregnancy. It seemed that society had not figured out that she was the “lady scientist” from the Gabster, though for some reason, she had not embarked to Bombay as planned, either. Perhaps Caro could broach the topic of her travel some other time, in a more private setting.

  “I’m curious,” Mariah said, taking a bite of her sole. “What do you all miss the most about Mrs. Hellkirk’s?”

  She and Edie swirled their spoons and thought for several seconds.

  “I would have thought it was the radical teachings,” Adam offered when no one spoke up. “Or the absence of the male half of the species.”

  “No, indeed,” Caro replied. “We missed your lot terribly. If only because we had no one to dominate.” They exchanged smiles over their spoons.

  “Caro, is it true you were the youngest-ever pupil at Mrs. Hellkirk’s? That you started when you were nine?” Mariah asked.

  Caro nearly choked on her soup.

  “Is that true?” Edie exclaimed. “The rule is that one must be at least ten!”

  Caro took a sip of her wine. “That’s almost true,” she said finally. “Except I was actually eight when I started.”

  “However did you manage that?” Adam asked. “I had to beg them to take Edie, and she was eleven.”

  She frowned at his playful insult. “All I know is that my mother wrote to Mrs. Hellkirk repeatedly, and that she refused to accept my going to any school with a traditional curriculum.”

  “Now we know whom your stubbornness comes from,” Edie added.

  “There was a sizable donation involved, too, partly in the form of free building services,” Caro continued. She looked to Mariah, eager to shift the conversation to a topic other than herself. “What do you miss the most about school, Mariah?”

  “I miss the discussions we would have. I’ve found that spirited, well-meaning debate is extremely difficult to find outside our little school,” Mariah said softly.