Amanda Scott (12 page)

Her two companions did not speak in whispers, as her siblings had done under like circumstances, but they did speak cryptically, and as old acquaintances, even erstwhile playmates.

“You saw it, did you, Hermie?”

“When I rode over.”

“What did you think?”

“Not so vast as Lunardi’s.”

“Perhaps not, but safer and much more efficient.”

“Rather gaudy, I thought. What do you call it?”

“Royal George,
but hush now. You’ll spoil the surprise.”

But Anne, who had first been silently scolding herself for indulging in foolish fantasies, and secondly wishing she had not changed from her stout shoes into the flimsy slippers she now wore, had begun to suspect where they were taking her. That suspicion, in light of Lord Michael’s strictures the evening before and her own escapade with Andrew earlier in the day, only heightened the feelings she had of mischief and wonder afoot. Even so, when they topped the low rise separating the house and parkland from the more open meadows along the river, the first view she had of the huge red, white, and blue striped balloon, its colors brilliant even in the rapidly fading light, nearly took her breath away.

“You’ve had it filled!”

“Aye, I told you I’d ordered the makings. We make our own inflammable gas from iron and sulfuric acid, you see, and once it’s filled, it can remain so for a month if it’s well tied down.”

He and Lady Hermione paused to let her drink in the sight, but only a moment passed before he said, “Got to hurry now. Won’t do to let nightfall catch us on
terra firma.”
He glanced at the western hills, adding with satisfaction, “Still enough light and practically no wind. Gives us an edge, you know. All these hills make for an early sunset in our little valley.”

Anne suddenly remembered his promise of a second sunset and realized exactly what he had meant. “Merciful heavens,” she said, “you don’t really mean for us to go up in that thing, do you?”

“Certainly, I do,” he replied over Lady Hermione’s chuckles.

“But three of us, and in near darkness? Surely, it’s far too dangerous. You’ll never manage that thing alone, and I don’t know the first thing about what to do. Do you, Lady Hermione?”

“Oh, yes, a bit,” she said calmly.

“That
thing
is called an aerostat, and it’s only difficult to manage on the ground,” Lord Ashby said as he hurried them across the meadow toward the balloon. “As to darkness and danger, we’ll keep it on a tether. Two of my lads stay with the
Royal George
—to guard against mischief, you know—so they can help. Here we are. In you go now, the pair of you—unless, of course, you are afraid!”

Glancing at Lady Hermione, Anne considered the suggestion only until she saw the older woman’s grin. Realizing that she was grinning herself now, and just as widely, she said, “Have you truly done this before, ma’am?”

“Oh, yes. Three or four times with Ashby here, when I was home for visits, and once, in London, with the famous Italian aeronaut, Vincent Lunardi. I took care to make out my will first, of course,” she added with a chuckle.

“Well, I have not made a will,” Anne said, “so I shall just have to trust to Providence to bring us safely home again.”

One of Lord Ashby’s assistants sprang to unlace the narrow gate to the gallery, which, to Anne, looked like nothing more than a large wicker basket connected to the huge balloon by netting draped over its top.

“Is it really safe?” she asked as she stepped inside. “If the gas is truly inflammable …”

“We won’t set off any fireworks,” Lord Ashby said cheerfully. “Scientists call the stuff hydrogen. Fellow name of Cavendish discovered it twenty years ago, and it’s safe enough so long as one don’t set fire to it. One fellow tried to set a balloon filled with hydrogen atop a cylindrical neck filled with hot air, thinking he could go farther that way. That notion proved unwise, but in point of fact, hydrogen is easier and safer to use than hot air. One is not so likely to burn up the container, for one thing.”

Taking care not to step on any of several odd items on the floor of the basket as she moved over to make room for Lady Hermione and his lordship, and watching in fascination as the two assistants scurried about, detaching all but two of the ropes tying the craft to the ground, and the coiled tether, Anne said, “But what keeps the air in the balloon?”

“We use flexible varnish made with India rubber, over taffeta. Makes the cloth quite airtight, I assure you.”

But Anne scarcely heard his words, for he had given the signal to release the last pair of ropes, and the balloon was rising. Its ascent was slow, majestic, and sure. Lord Ashby held a bag of sand over the side of the gallery, and when their ascent slowed, he poured some out of the bag to the ground below.

When they reached the end of the tether, he snorted in annoyance. “Dash it all, not high enough. Find the knife on the floor, Hermie, and the trumpet. We’ll have to cut the tether.”

“But if we cut loose, Ashby, we shall be late for dinner.”

“I didn’t ask for advice,” he said, “and if we’re late, it certainly won’t be my fault. The tether’s too short. Promised Anne a second sunset, I did, and by Jove, she shall have it!”

Taking the speaking trumpet from her, he shouted to the men below, “Slight wind from the northwest now, lads. Follow us as best you can. We won’t go far, for I mean to set her down on the east moor near Wadshelf, if the wind don’t change.” Exchanging the speaking trumpet for the knife, he cut the tether.

As the balloon began swiftly to rise again, the men below waved, looking like dolls, the Priory like a large doll’s house. The shadowy, rapidly receding landscape began to look like a crazy quilt with a shimmering silver satin ribbon running through it. Anne could still make out details—the houses and cottages in the village near the Priory, and even a large, well-lighted boat tied up at a long dock opposite and a little above the north end of the village. For a time the silent balloon followed the Derwent, but when they rose above the hilltops into sunlight, the river soon fell behind and Anne saw that Lord Ashby would keep his promise.

“Hermione,” he said suddenly, his voice loud in the silence that had enveloped them, “that lacing’s not fastened at the gate there. Can you secure it?”

“Certainly,” she said, kneeling at once. At the sound of a loud crack, she added ruefully, “I believe I’ve knelt on some piece of equipment or other, Ashby.”

“By Jove, if you’ve broken the barometer—You have! Dash it all, Hermie, why didn’t you look before you knelt down? Now we shan’t have the least notion of our altitude.”

“Well, if you wouldn’t put your stupid instruments and such all higgledy-piggledy on the floor—”

“That’s hardly my fault. Where would you have me put them?”

“What house is that?” Anne asked, pointing to one she was sure must be as large as Rendlesham.

“That is the Hall, my brother’s house,” Lady Hermione said without looking. Her attention was still fixed on lacing the lower half of the little gate shut. As she rose carefully to her feet again, she added, “And yonder, on that rise, is Sir Jacob Thornton’s home. You’ll meet him soon, no doubt. He is well acquainted with my brother, and he knew Edmund quite well, too. Used to go to the Newmarket races together every year.”

“I have met him,” Anne said. “He stood up with Lord Michael at our wedding.”

“My goodness me, did he indeed? I did not know.”

“You need not sound so shocked,” Lord Ashby said dryly. “You don’t know everything. He offered and Michael accepted. Would have been dashed uncivil to refuse, and not everyone is as offic—”

Anne interrupted hastily. “Sir Jacob said he had important business in Derby, which was why he offered to support Lord Michael. He seemed to think it rather a good joke, in fact.”

“Not surprising,” Lady Hermione said. “They are not the close friends that Jake and Edmund were, nor is Michael of their cut. And, too, wasn’t there something about a wager, Ashby?”

“None of your affair if there was,” he said bluntly. “And as for Michael being so unlike Jake or Edmund, considering his past career, I’d say the only great difference is that he had the good sense not to saddle himself with a dashed cold fish for a wife.”

“Well, I won’t argue that Agnes was a bit chilly or that Maria is anything but an insipid woman. No doubt she will pay you a bride visit, Anne, but she is not, by and large, a social person, even now that most of her children are away at school. Her oldest is by way of being one of Andrew’s few friends, I believe.”

Lord Ashby began pointing out various villages and houses, and when Anne said the landscape looked like a child’s map, he chuckled and said, “I own, I see it all now in terms of good landing places or bad ones, but I suppose it does look like a map of sorts. One certainly sees where things are in relation to towns and villages. There in the distance you can see the rooftops of Chesterfield. But look to the west. Your second sunset is beginning, by Jove.”

Anne looked and her breath fairly caught in her throat, for the entire western horizon—a much more expansive horizon than before—glowed crimson and was already beginning to deepen to shades of purple. The colors blazed behind the dark undulating shapes of distant hills, as the great red half-ball of sun slipped with surprising swiftness below the dark horizon, leaving ribbons of mauve, maroon, and purple in its wake.

Anne realized the balloon was turning on its axis, and the sensation was particularly odd because there was little sense of any other motion. They were traveling with the wind, which she had discovered meant that unless she watched objects on the ground, the balloon felt as if it were standing still.

Realizing she could scarcely identify one object now from another in the darkening landscape below, she said, “Will it not be quite dangerous to land in darkness, sir?”

“Only if one cannot determine one’s altitude,” Lord Ashby said with an accusing look at Lady Hermione.

“Poppycock,” she said. “You need not try to cast the blame on me, Ashby. You could not read the instrument in the dark, anyway. I say,
have
you ever landed in darkness before?”

“Oh, yes,” he said with an air of confidence that Anne hoped was not spurious. He reached up to pull the line that opened the valve, and she heard the hiss of escaping gas. The sound was eerie, for in the absence of conversation, the silence had been nearly absolute. “We can descend quickly now,” he said, “for we’re over the moor. And it won’t be totally dark, either, for there’ll be a bit of moon to give us light once the last of the sunset is gone. At all events, we should come down near Wadshelf, just as I promised the lads. There’s a large field there that’s excellent for landing. I’ve put down there a number of times before.”

Except for occasional bursts of escaping gas when he opened the valve, a companionable silence fell as the balloon drifted steadily onward and the sky around them darkened. Anne, still fascinated by the odd sensation of floating above the land, looked down and watched lights begin to appear below, scarcely noticing the falling temperature until Lady Hermione said quietly, “Is the wind not beginning to rise rather sharply, Ashby?”

“Aye,” he murmured, pulling again on the line. “Believe you’re right. Realized when we began twisting about on our axis that we’d encountered crosswinds. Don’t tease yourself, though. I’ll just let the gas out more quickly. You can see the lights of Chesterfield yonder, Anne. That small group there to the east ought to be Wadshelf. We’ll overshoot it a bit, I’m afraid, but the lads ought to be able to find us easily enough.”

“The first time Ashby took me aloft,” Lady Hermione said, “we soared right into a cloud, and then above it.”

“Goodness, I didn’t know one could pass right through a cloud,” Anne exclaimed. “What was it like to do so?”

“Damp,” Lady Hermione said wryly. “I was soaked to the skin, but it was truly awe-inspiring to be drifting above the clouds. You must get Ashby to take you up in daylight next.”

Despite their calm voices, Anne was beginning to feel nervous. What had been exhilarating moments before was rather frightening now. She could indeed see the lights of Chesterfield in the distance, and she could see the much smaller group of lights his lordship had identified as the village of Wadshelf. But she could not see much more, and she wondered how he could be certain they would not crash into a grove of trees, or even into a cliff. To divert her thoughts, she said abruptly, “Perhaps the children would like to go aloft one day. Is it safe enough for them to do so?”

“Safe enough for anyone,” Lord Ashby said stoutly. “Daresay Michael wouldn’t agree to it, though.”

Lady Hermione said, “You know, Ashby, that might be the very thing to bring young Sylvia out of herself.”

“Or frighten her totally witless,” Lord Ashby said. “Not right in her head, young Sylvia ain’t, if you ask me, by Jove.”

“Why, what do you mean?” Anne asked, diverted from her fears at last. “Is something wrong with the child? Why has no one mentioned it to me? She is coming home very soon, you know.”

“Is she, indeed?” Lord Ashby said.

At the same time, Lady Hermione said stoutly, “Nothing wrong with her at all. Her mother’s death distressed her, that’s all, and no one can be surprised by that. She’s no doubt her old self again by now, after being with Charlotte and the children.”

“But what was wrong?” Anne tried to see Lady Hermione’s face, but it was too dark to read her expression. “Losing their parents one right after the other like they did must have been dreadful for both children. I assumed the duke and duchess had fallen to some disease or other, but Lord Michael said that was not the case.”

A silence fell before Lord Ashby muttered, “No, that was not the case with either of them.”

Lady Hermione said, “If you do not tell her, Ashby, I will, for it is nonsensical to think she will not hear the truth from someone, and quite soon. Indeed, it’s astonishing to me that some well-meaning servant has not already told her.”

“By Jove, Hermie, there you go again. Always interfering and offering unwanted advice. Our servants know better than to gossip about us, if you do not Ireland didn’t change you much; that’s plain enough.”