A Flight of Fancy (19 page)

Whittaker gave him directions, then rounded the fire to offer Cassandra his arm. The way he intended to show her home, along well-trodden paths with no stiles to climb, she would be in his sole company for a quarter hour. He must use it wisely. He must not say anything that would prevent him from finding more time with her alone, a quarter hour, a half an hour, a lifetime.

He thought of nothing to say. No letters formed words in his brain for sentences to come out of his mouth. She held his arm, gripped it, actually, and seemed to lean her weight upon it, slight though that was. Too slight. She was too thin, her gown too loose.

“You should not have come out so soon after your illness.” The comment spilled out unbidden, unwise.

She glared up at him. “I do a great number of things I should not do, but you have no place telling me so.”

“You were going to be my wife.”

“Yes, I was. Past tense, my lord.”

The use of the formal address cut deeply into his middle, it slid so easily off her tongue.

“Cassandra—”

“Miss Bainbridge.”

“No.” He stopped in the middle of the lane and faced her. “You have been Cassandra to me for nearly two years. You will be Cassandra to me forever.”

“I can be nothing to you forever, Lord Whittaker.”

“Why?”

“Because . . . because . . .” Her lower lip quivered. Her eyes grew bright with moisture. “If you wish to help tomorrow, you will not press me.”

Blackmail seemed to run in the family.

He inclined his head. “I will desist for now if you intend to come to the assembly tomorrow night.”

“I already promised Honore I would.”

A bit lighter in spirit, he resumed walking, her hand tucked into the crook of his elbow, his other hand twitching with the desire to cover her slender fingers. He had promised not to press his questions today. The following evening was another matter. Meanwhile, he changed the topic back to her chemical compound for sealing air inside the balloon. He had learned more than a little about chemistry while learning the work of the mills, mainly for dyes. A method of keeping water out of or even inside cloth could prove valuable. Weave the cloth, then treat it for water tightness and sell it for the making of cloaks and greatcoats.

“The rather unpleasant smell is the trouble,” Cassandra was explaining as they entered the house. “One has to be careful when selecting birdlime. That from Spain—oh, I am sorry.”

They had walked into the hall and a sea of faces—at least a dozen people milled about with refreshments and polite smiles. All of a sudden, Whittaker recalled their odorous, smoke-stained, and dusty clothes. From her reddened cheeks, so did Cassandra, and her hair was not even pinned up. She
had tied it back with a ribbon and pushed it inside the collar of her cloak.

“I must wash,” she muttered, and fled as fast as a lady with a decided limp could.

Whittaker caught his mother’s eye from across the hall, shook his head, and skirted the room to the door to his wing. A few neighbors greeted him. He paused long enough to nod or make his excuses and then vanished. Mama would make his excuses for not returning to her gathering. Even if she did not, he cared little. He and Cassandra had enjoyed the best dialogue between them since the night of the riots and fire. And she had promised she would see him tomorrow—twice.

That made getting through the evening long and tedious. The bulk of the visiting neighbors left before Whittaker changed his clothes with the help of one of the footmen, as he did not waste money on a valet in the country, but Mama, the major, Miss Irving, Miss Honore, and the cousins awaited him in the hall.

“Cassandra is resting,” Miss Honore greeted him. “She seemed rather weary.”

“I can see why.” Miss Irving’s finely etched nostrils flared as though smelling something unpleasant. “I should think that long a walk was more than a cripple could manage.”

“What was Miss Bainbridge doing this afternoon?” William asked.

“Ask her,” Laurence said.

Everyone followed his gaze to the opposite end of the hall, where Cassandra now hesitated in the doorway, her face a pale blur beneath the pile of her dark hair.

She looked at the younger of the cousins. “We were cooking birdlime and turpentine for a balloon, Master William. It
is a messy, smelly business and must be done outside and away from a house.”

“What’s birdlime?” William asked. “Is it the same as bird drop—”

“No,” the adults chorused.

Cassandra laughed and came forward, her limp a bit more pronounced than earlier, but her cane not in view. “It is a sticky, messy substance made of holly in this case, but sometimes other things, and it works to keep the air from leaking from a balloon.”

“A dangerous business.” Miss Irving yawned. “And tedious.”

Whittaker joined Cassandra with the boys, conscious that Major Crawford, seated on a sofa beside Miss Honore, went so far as to turn his head and watch him move, keeping his lips firmly set as though Lord Bainbridge had asked him to chaperone Whittaker and Cassandra. And perhaps he had. His lordship did, after all, blame Whittaker for Cassandra’s accident, a blame he no doubt deserved.

He could make up for it, though, show her the depth of his love—somehow. For now, he settled for being interested in her project, which did interest him.

She stood before the boys, her face soft in the candlelight. “Warm air goes up higher than cold air, so we have to keep the warm air inside the balloon and the cold air out so the balloon will float and carry us up and up and up.” She raised her arms to demonstrate. “But cloth isn’t perfectly woven—”

“Even cousin Whittaker’s cloth?” William interjected. “My papa says the Hern mills are some of the finest, for all they are small.”

“I expect they are fine, as Lord Whittaker works hard to make them so,” Cassandra said.

Feeling like she had handed him a precious gift, Whittaker
added, “But we make cotton and wool, which is too heavy. I expect Miss Bainbridge’s balloon is made of Spitalfield silk.”

“Or something smuggled from France?” Laurence giggled.

Cassandra laughed too, and Whittaker wanted to hug her close with the joy of the sound. “I only helped pay for the balloon. I did not order the fabric, so I have no idea where it was woven.”

William’s and Laurence’s faces shone with delight. They both began to speak at once, asking to fly in the balloon, to see the sealant being applied, how the balloon knew to go up.

Appearing bombarded, Cassandra glanced to Whittaker, a plea in the look.

“Not now, lads.” He rested a hand on each of their thin shoulders. “Another time if Miss Bainbridge’s friends do not disapprove.”

“Her very good friends,” Crawford said from behind Whittaker. “Are they not rather good friends for a lady to have, even if they are gentlemen?”

“They are scarcely gentlemen,” Mama broke in, “and we have had enough talk of balloons for one night. Off to the schoolroom, boys. Whittaker, do lead Miss Bainbridge into the dining room. I am certain supper is ready and see no need for her to sit and then have to get right up again.”

“With so much difficulty.” Miss Irving rose without the assistance of even a hand on the arm of her chair—all tall, fluid grace like a cat—reached out her hand as though expecting a gentleman to appear for an escort, then scowled as Major Crawford, the only other gentleman present, offered his arm to Mama.

“You may take her in if you prefer,” Cassandra whispered. “I do not mind walking in with Honore.”

“You are the highest-ranked lady here after Mama. Miss Irving is the lowest.”

“Whittaker.” Miss Honore shot him a frown.

Apparently Miss Irving had heard the exchange despite their hushed tones, and her glare should have frozen him into a pillar of ice right then and there. So much for Miss Honore’s scheme to have him pretend to court Miss Irving to make Cassandra jealous. It would not work where Cassandra was concerned, and Miss Irving appeared to have no liking for him either.

He grinned and tucked Cassandra’s hand into the crook of his elbow. This was good. This was right. He should be taking her in to supper in his dining room every night. And afterward—

He focused on being a good host, offering a blessing over the meal, keeping conversation from flagging. With six of them to table, talking solely to one’s immediate neighbor was not necessary. Cassandra talked and ate too little, but when he started to admonish her, Miss Honore kicked him under the table, reminding him to stop being autocratic like their father.

It was not his intent; he simply wanted to keep her safe, make her well, protect her from ever being hurt again.

That, of course, meant keeping her out of the balloon and away from flammable birdlime and turpentine. With the former, he might succeed. With the latter, he had promised his assistance, despite Major Crawford’s presence to ensure he stayed away from Cassandra. Messages would take so long to reach Lord Bainbridge, Whittaker might have a chance to win Cassandra without her father’s wrath coming down upon him.

Before he could no longer avoid returning to the shepherd’s cottage.

On the following day, for the sake of spending more time with Cassandra and rebuilding her trust in him, Whittaker fended off his cousins to keep them from coming along, and he and Cassandra headed across the garden toward the farthest outbuilding, where the sheep were shorn of their wool in the spring. Not that he had ever seen the shearing. First he had been too young, then he had been away at school or university, causing a bit of a difficulty in playing his current role.

The role of Cassandra’s suitor came much easier to him. Having her beside him felt so good, so right. He smiled down at her. “Your ankle seems to pain you less.”

“It is doing well, almost as though the fresh air is good for it. If the surgeon were not such an ugly little man, I would kiss him for deciding not to cut off my—to amputate.” She laughed. “That sounds mean, since he must have lost a good fee on that.”

“Better his fee than your ankle, my dear.”

In truth, Whittaker had paid the man anyway, mostly to make him leave. Agreeing with Miss Honore that Cassandra might be grateful enough to Whittaker to wed him should he ask her again, he said nothing of the fee or who had made the decision.

He said nothing else of a personal nature. A dozen questions crowded onto his tongue, but he bit them back and talked of the weather—no rain yet, but more threatening than the night before—the music they would hear at the assembly that night, the time Miss Honore was spending with the major.

“Father does not want any of us marrying a military man,” Cassandra said. “But Honore is a natural flirt, and he is the only eligible male present other than you.”

“She would not flirt with me.”

“Ha!” Cassandra’s snort was derisive. “She was clinging to you like a limpet yesterday, and she kicked you under the table last night.”

“She is not flirting, and it would not matter if she were.” He smiled down at Cassandra. “Would it?”

“She is as much a Bainbridge as I and has the same size dowry.” An edge biting like the north wind sweeping toward them had crept into her voice.

For a moment, Whittaker stared at her, uncertain what was wrong. Before he worked it out or asked, he caught the whiff of birdlime and turpentine and heard Kent calling to them from beneath the shelter of the shearing shed roof.

It was not a proper shed, having only a floor, a roof, and low walls on two sides, but it was a good shelter for their purposes. Already the balloon lay spread out on the floor and a fire burned in the pit over which the water was heated for cleaning the wool. The cauldron rested above the flames, kept low until they needed to heat the vat of sealing substance.

“We waited for you,” Sorrells greeted them. “Weren’t sure how much to heat your receipt.”

“Just enough to make it spread.” Cassandra paused to peer into the vat of the sticky, oily stuff and wrinkled her nose. “It smells rather more peculiar than I thought it would.”

Kent picked up the container and headed to the cauldron. “Maybe it’s the fermenting for a day that does that.”

As Kent walked past, Whittaker’s nostrils flared.
Peculiar
was a mild word for the reek of the sealer. He caught the pungency of birdlime and turpentine, and beneath those aromas—

“Do not!”

He dove after Kent in an attempt to stop him from pouring
the formula into the already hot pot. He struck the man from the side and Kent staggered under the impact. The vat tipped. Cassandra screamed and threw herself against Whittaker and Kent, shoving them backward with all her insignificant weight, as the slimy sealant splashed onto the fire and exploded like Guy Fawkes fireworks.

16

“What did I do? What did I do?” Roger Kent’s voice rang out in shrieks of horror. “Oh, oh, oh, my arm! What did I—”

A crack like a whip cut off his hysterics.

“Get control of yourself, man,” Whittaker said in calm, dispassionate accents. “Cassandra? Sorrells?”

“Yes, quite all right, if a bit shaken,” Sorrells said.

Cassandra opened her eyes and pushed herself upright. Mr. Sorrells and Whittaker stood over her, their faces tense. Mr. Kent squatted a few feet away, nursing the imprint of someone’s hand stark against the paleness of his cheek.