A Flight of Fancy (10 page)

“Tomorrow night in the south field,” Mr. Sorrells said. “Lady Whittaker said she sees no reason why we should not use it, as it is fallow right now.”

“Of course,” Mr. Kent added, “I doubt she would have agreed if she knew you were going to come watch.”

Only watch, alas. Cassandra wanted to join them, but even they refused.

“We do not know how things will go with it.” Mr. Sorrells’s long, pale face grew longer with concern. “Your design for the basket appears sound, but we have our concerns about the wings working.”

Mr. Kent, as round as his friend was long, nodded. “Your calculations appear right, but everyone else so far has used paddles for steering.”

“Which makes no sense to me.” Cassandra drew a lemon branch down to inhale the sharp tang of the fruit. “Paddles are for the water, those American boats they call canoes. But what do ships use? Sails to catch the wind. If one is sailing with the wind, doesn’t the use of sails make more sense?”

“They look more like parasols,” Mr. Kent grumbled.

“You convinced us enough to attempt it this once.” Mr.
Sorrells smiled at her, softening his angular features. “But we will not risk you even for your own design.”

“You’ve suffered enough, Miss Bainbridge.” Mr. Kent blushed. “If you do not mind me saying so.”

She did, but she would not say so. If she let them dwell on her infirmity, they might turn all protective like Whittaker and refuse to let her go up at all. But she would, if she had to fly the balloon on her own in the middle of the night.

As matters stood now, the aeronauts had chosen to go up after dark so as to draw as little attention to themselves as possible. She would participate by keeping torches lit in the field to guide them back, if they could maneuver the balloon and not get swept out to sea by an offshore wind—always a risk. Inland, one could always find a place to land that was safe, if inconvenient. But if swept out to sea at night . . .

Well, she had agreed perhaps she should remain on the ground for the time being. She had caused her family enough anxiety over the past several weeks. But torches?

She bit her lower lip as she slipped the note from the aeronauts back into her drawer. Thus far, fires in fireplaces and grates did not frighten her. Nor had she backed away from the braziers that kept the orangery warm. Candles certainly did not distress her. But the thought of keeping torches lit for an hour or more sent a shiver racing up her arms and burning down her legs. She might grow weary and drop one onto her skirt or, worse, her shawl. A bit of hot tar might land on her sleeve. Perhaps if she simply stuck them in the ground she would be all right. But then she might brush the flame with her shawl or skirt while lighting a fresh one if the men stayed up too long. And if they did not maneuver back to the field, she would not know when she could leave.

No matter. She must overcome even the thought of what could happen if she wanted to see the launch, actually help with the launch, unlike the ascents she had witnessed outside London. Those had been as a spectator from afar. This time she would loose the tether ropes herself.

Her heart began to race. Maddeningly, the clock told her the time was half past six of the clock. Soon the bell would ring calling them to the light supper Lady Whittaker served in the evening—bread and soup, fruit, and perhaps a jelly or ice.

Cassandra braced her hands on the edge of the desk and rose. With short, aching steps, she crossed the sitting room to where she had purposefully propped her cane beside the door. She would not depend on it forever. By Christmas, she would walk on her own even up stairs. She must do so if she wanted to show Father by the time he and Mama returned from Scotland that she could be independent so they would not attempt to find her a husband or toss her onto the marriage market again. With a bigger dowry, some men would ignore the scars.

Like Whittaker?

His house certainly needed repairs and refurbishments. His grounds needed tending. Eventually she would have Lady Whittaker drive her around in the little pony cart she liked so she could see how the tenants fared, though that was no longer any of her business.

For now, she tapped her way to the parlor Lady Whittaker used for family suppers. With its red-velvet draperies at the windows and red Turkey carpet on the floor, it offered warmth on a chilly autumn evening. So did her ladyship’s smile at Cassandra’s entrance.

“Tonight we dine alone, my dear.” She nodded to the footman who pulled out her chair, then he moved to pull out one
for Cassandra adjacent to her ladyship’s place setting. “Honore has been invited to the Luvells’.”

Cassandra paused in the act of lowering herself onto the chair. “She said nothing to me about it.”

“Well, you see—no, Jennings, leave everything here on the table. We’ll serve ourselves.” Her ladyship said no more as the footman transferred a soup tureen and other dishes from the sideboard to the table and left the room, closing the door with barely a click of the latch. Then she turned her lovely dark brown eyes on Cassandra, and the pity in them made her ill. “It’s all young people, and quite a romp they’ll have, knowing the Luvells, so Honore and I thought you might not like it above half, being a scholar and all.”

“No, no, I would have made my excuses, of course.” She could not go to the balloon ascension if she had gone. “But—”

No, saying Lady Whittaker had made an error in deciding for her was rude. Still, she would have liked to have been able to choose for herself. They might call her a scholar, but making a decision for her was treating her like her brain had been burned along with her legs.

She stared at her glass of lemonade, the candlelight reflected in the pale yellow liquid like miniature dancing flames. “I’ll appreciate a quiet evening. Honore does chatter a bit too much when the major is here.”

Which was too often.

“I find her chatter delightful. And so does the major.” Lady Whittaker ladled soup, thick with chunks of meat and vegetables, into Cassandra’s bowl. “He would be an excellent match for her, you know. A very good family and respectable prospects in his future.”

“He does seem to be an improvement above her last beau. But
after Lydia’s experience, Father isn’t fond of the idea of one of us marrying another military man.”

“With the right lady, most men will sell out. Oh dear.” Lady Whittaker colored beneath her dusting of rice powder.

Lydia’s first husband hadn’t sold his officer’s commission to stay in England with his bride.

“Lydia is happy with her new husband,” Cassandra said. “I doubt she even thinks about Captain Gale anymore.”

“No, no, of course not. But still . . .” Lady Whittaker picked up her spoon, set it down again, spread her serviette over her lap, then raised it to dab at her lips, though she had neither eaten nor drunk anything.

Cassandra curled her fingers around the edge of the table. The aromatic soup was making her stomach ache and even give out an embarrassing little growl. “My lady, is something amiss?”

“No, no, do please eat.” She broke off a dainty morsel of bread, buttered it, and popped it into her mouth.

Cassandra followed suit, though with a larger chunk. She needed nourishment if she was to walk nearly a mile.

“But now that we are alone for once,” Lady Whittaker said as soon as Cassandra’s mouth was full, “we can have a comfortable cose about my son.”

Cassandra swallowed too soon. She would have seen the danger signs of this supper
à deux
if she hadn’t been thinking so much about the balloon ascension. The bread stuck in her throat, and she consumed half of her lemonade washing it down before she could respond, “There is truly little to say about your son, my lady. God has shown me quite clearly that we should not marry. I thought as much last spring, but then Whittaker persuaded me most . . . um . . . fervently. But this time . . . I am sorry, but it is quite, quite clear to me.”

“Not to him. He loves you dearly, you know.”

Cassandra selected a chunk of meat from her bowl, something that would keep her chewing awhile and negate the need to speak. She could not say she did not love him. She could only say she no longer
knew
if she loved him. She could not say that perhaps her aeronautic interests overshadowed her desire to be his wife.

“He did not want to be away while you were recovering here,” her ladyship continued, still nibbling on her food. “But he is so preoccupied with this Luddite rebellion and the danger to the mills. Not that a nobleman should involve himself with something so vulgar as trade, but that, alas, comes from my family. We were completely bourgeois, you know, we Herns. Quite beyond the social pale for an earl’s wife was I, except we met by accident and . . .” She sighed and blinked her luxuriant eyelashes. “My father offered him a dowry of twenty thousand pounds.”

Cassandra choked on a morsel of Cheshire cheese. Nearly three times her own dowry, which was considered quite handsome.

“It wasn’t in the least a love match.” Her ladyship spoke as though Cassandra hadn’t reacted to the amount of the dowry. “Love for me came later. Almost too much later.” Color tinged her cheeks. “But it would not in the least be that way for you and Whittaker. He is not interested in marrying you for your dowry, you know. He has offered to forego it to prove that to you, draw up some sort of marriage agreement that will give you control, if that can be done, which I am certain it can. Solicitors can make anything happen with their contracts. So if that is your apprehension, especially seeing that Whittaker Hall is in need of funds, please put it from your head.” She huffed out a quick breath of relief. “There. It’s said. I’ve been wanting to say that since you arrived, but we have not had a moment.”

“Thank you.” Cassandra did not know what else to say.

“So you agree with me?” Her ladyship leaned forward, reaching one slender hand toward Cassandra. “When he is able to return, you will agree to the wedding? It would have to be between Advent and Lent, of course, which is the middle of winter and harsh up here, but—”

“My lady.” As gently as she could, Cassandra interrupted the excited flow of chatter. “I merely thanked you for telling me about the dowry. I did not say I would agree to the wedding.”

“But why not?” The question was practically a wail. “My son is handsome and kind and intelligent and responsible. He’s nothing like his—well, he does favor my brother more than the Gileses.”

“If your brother had your beauty, my lady,” Cassandra said diplomatically, “then in looks, Whittaker certainly must.”

She had seen a portrait of Geoffrey’s father, the seventh earl of Whittaker. He was sandy-haired and florid, handsome as an overblown rose is beautiful. Geoffrey and his brother were as beautiful as their mother, except with the square jaw that gave their faces a masculine cast. Perhaps too beautiful for Cassandra’s good. Too tempting with those walnut-brown eyes and almost black hair, chiseled features, and a gentleness, a tenderness of spirit . . .

“He got my brother’s intellect too. Not that the late earl, my husband, and my first son weren’t intelligent,” Lady Whittaker hastened to say. “They simply lacked his curiosity.”

Cassandra’s own curiosity reared its head long enough to wonder how a mother could speak so calmly and with so little emotion about a son she had lost a little less than two years earlier. Mama cried when Beau left for university each semester. Whittaker had come close to weeping over the loss of his older
brother, though part of his grief stemmed from having to take on the role of the earl, the head of the family, when he preferred the mechanics of the weaving machinery.

Cassandra tamped down the interest. Curiosity had gotten her into too much trouble already. Now she must pretend she did not particularly care about Whittaker’s background, his interests, or even where he was. Guarding his mills, of course, as he had in the spring. She understood why, now that she’d seen firsthand his need for their prosperity.

She also saw the time racing toward the hour for her to leave, if she was to make her way to the field on time to be of use, to see her balloon fly. If it flew and did not catch fire or crash or remain stuck on the ground. But she could not rise from the table until after the countess, who had barely touched her food.

Cassandra hadn’t eaten much of hers either. Her stomach ached, but not with hunger. Her legs throbbed from sitting on the hard, wooden chair, where the edge scraped against a particularly tender scar behind her knee, despite gauze padding wrapped around her thigh and beneath her garter. If she sat much longer, she would not be able to make the walk in the half hour she estimated it would take to go the distance.

Two months ago, she could have made the trek in fifteen minutes.

She rubbed the pulling skin on her right leg, realized what she was doing, and jerked her hand up to take a slice of apple from the plate before her.

“I am keeping you sitting too long, am I not?” Her ladyship’s gaze dropped from Cassandra’s face to her lap. “Are you still in much pain?”

“Not a great deal.”

At least not in her legs.

“But the scars pull on the skin and muscles, the physicians told me. I have to walk quite a bit to pull everything back and regain my strength.”

“Then we shall continue our talk tomorrow in the garden if the weather is fine, and in the long gallery if it isn’t.” Her ladyship rose. “Would you like that fruit sent to your room? I worry so about Whittaker that I scarcely eat these days.”

Cassandra pulled herself to her feet. “But surely you do not think he is in danger at the mills. I mean, have not the Luddites been subdued?”

“Subdued but not defeated. And he—” Lady Whittaker turned away with an abruptness verging on rude. “Good night, my dear. I look forward to our talk tomorrow.”

She left before Cassandra needed to speak a response, leaving her wondering if Geoffrey’s mother was a bit touched in her upper works. Perhaps losing her husband and eldest son had unhinged her mind, which maybe even added to her younger son’s betrothal ending, denying her the daughter-in-law she obviously wanted. Or perhaps the dowry that she denied them wanting. Sometimes Cassandra’s own head felt crazed. She acted so foolishly around Whittaker, denying the solidity of her training and principles.