"I now pronounce you man and wife. What God
hath joined, let no man set asunder."
As Erno kissed the bride with great
enthusiasm, Rory scooped up a red parachute. She tossed it over the
side. As it drifted back to earth, it would signal those below that
the ceremony was complete.
Rory offered the couple her congratulations,
and then produced a bottle of champagne from the bottom of the
basket.
"On the way down, we'll drink a toast to—"
She halted in midsentence as the balloon gave a wild lurch.
Dropping the champagne bottle, she pitched against Erno.
Miss Glory gave a little squeal as the
balloon began to rise. "What's happening? Why aren't they bringing
us down?"
Rory recovered her footing and braced herself
against the side. Instantly, she knew that they were not only
rising, but also drifting swiftly to the east.
Peering over the side, she saw the green
splotch of earth and the mere specks that were the circus vanish
from view. The next instant they were enveloped in the eerie gray
world of the clouds. It was like being lost in a heavy fog. Rory
didn't know how it had happened, but somehow that blasted Angelo
had let the rope come free of the winch. The Katie Moira was now in
a pattern of free flight.
Her passengers looked puzzled, but only a
little frightened, until the significance of the balloon's
movements dawned upon Erno.
"Why, we've broken loose," he said.
The Reverend Allgood gasped and sagged down
in the basket. Miss Glory shrieked.
"There is no cause for panic—" Rory was cut
off by a roll of thunder. A burst of lightning seemed to electrify
the entire cloud.
Rory gave up on any attempts to calm her
passengers. She had to act and quickly. Snatching up a knife from
the basket's floor, she bent over the side and began slicing open
the ballast bags, setting free a cascade of sand.
Erno seized hold of her wrist. "What are you
doing? That will make us ascend even higher."
Rory wrenched free and explained with all the
patience she could muster. "We have no choice but to go up. We have
to get above the storm."
When she could make him understand, Erno
moved to help her. "That's enough," Rory said. Gradually, the Katie
Moira lifted out of the cloud cover. The sky above them emerged in
a burst of blue, the sun more brilliant than the most sparkling
summer day. That hushed calm descended, that absolute quiet which
Rory had never found to exist anywhere on earth.
"Are we dead?" Reverend Allgood quavered. "Is
this Heaven?"
"No," Rory said, consulting her barometer.
"It's only about fifteen hundred feet."
"We shall have quite an adventure to report
when we land back at the fairgrounds." Erno chuckled.
The fairgrounds? Rory arched one brow but
said nothing. She didn't know where they would be landing. She only
knew it wouldn't be anywhere near the circus. At this height, the
movement of the wind was deceptive, but Rory knew they were being
carried far from their point of departure. According to her
compass, they were headed in a southeasterly direction. Rory's one
concern was that they should not end up in the Atlantic Ocean just
as her father had done.
She was quick to set the thought aside,
concentrating on her more immediate problem. Now that there was no
shielding of clouds, the sun was heating the gas in the balloon,
causing it to expand. The falling barometer told Rory they were
rising steadily. The higher they went, the thinner the oxygen would
become.
Rory tugged at the valve line, releasing some
of the gas from the balloon. She pulled again and again, letting
out a little more air each time. The balloon's descent became
swifter until they were lost in the cloud cover once more.
Rory was certain they had outdistanced the
storm. She could only hope that she would find some decent place to
land, hopefully a nice level field.
As the cloud cover parted below them like
vanishing mists, Rory peered downward. When she got her first good
view of the terrain, she bit her lip. "Damn!"
Below them it looked as if some giant's toy
box had been upended, scattering rows and rows of little blocks in
a dense hodgepodge. The rows were actually solid walls of towering
buildings, an endless maze of streets. New York City. The very
heart of it. And cooled by the cloud cover between the balloon and
the sun, the Katie Moira was making a rapid descent.
Rory groaned and grabbed for her knife. Miss
Glory stole a peek downward.
"Ooohh, Fifth Avenue. All the shops. Miss
Kavanaugh, I don't suppose you could land—"
"No!" Rory slashed at a sandbag, but the
balloon was still dropping. There was not much ballast left. At
this rate, they were soon going to slam into the rooftop of one of
the taller buildings. Reverend Allgood appeared to have fainted,
but Rory hadn't time to concern herself over the fact.
"Throw everything out of the balloon," she
shouted to Erno and Glory.
Everything was not much, since no equipment
or provisions had been loaded for this short trip. But the
champagne went, along with Rory's compass, barometer and telescope,
even the seats of the gondola.
To Rory's relief, the balloon steadied
itself, but she knew it couldn't last long. The bottom of the
gondola scudded perilously near the high, sloped walls of the
Croton Reservoir, and astonished sightseers on the walkway trained
their field glasses toward the balloon.
"Should we make a jump for it?" Erno asked,
dubiously eyeing the reservoir's expanse of blue water.
"Are you crazy?" Rory cried. Shading her eyes
with her hand, she scanned the distance for some safe place to
land. Before her stretched nothing but Fifth Avenue. The balloon's
sudden appearance had shaken even the New Yorkers out of their
indifference.
Traffic had snarled up on the avenue. Rory
could make out horses plunging in terror, the flow of carriages
brought to a halt. Heads tipped back as everyone stared and pointed
upward. The shrill sound of a policeman's whistle drifted to Rory
with startling clarity.
She spared one glance for the chaos she was
creating, her gaze shifting to the distance. Perhaps they could
come down in Central Park. She grimaced. Rory hated landings in
trees. She had broken her arm that way once. She had been lucky it
hadn't been her neck.
But the Katie Moira had leveled off enough to
give her hope. If her memory served her correctly, the land beyond
the park should be a vista of open fields. Crossing her fingers,
Rory murmured a brief prayer.
But to her dismay, she saw that it had been
far too long since she had been north of Central Park. The area had
changed. No more was it the expanse of green country she recalled.
The mansions of the wealthier element of the city now sprawled out
even here.
"What a way to scrape up acquaintance with
the Vanderbilts," Rory muttered. She tensed, realizing the balloon
was losing altitude again, drifting ever closer to one of the
larger mansions.
It was a fantastic structure of massive white
stone walls and towers, like a chateau that should have been
nestled somewhere along the banks of the Seine. Rory thought it
looked ridiculous near the bustle of Manhattan, but at least the
mansion boasted something many city dwellings did not—a broad lawn
surrounded by an iron fence.
"Brace yourselves," Rory warned her
passengers. "I am going to try to bring us down over there."
"There?" Erno gasped when he saw where she
was pointing. "But Miss Kavanaugh, that's Morrison's Castle."
"So?" Rory started gathering up the length of
rope and grappling hook.
"It is only that I have heard strange things
about Mr. Morrison. He doesn't like trespassers."
It was the second time that day someone had
told her that. Vague memories chased through Rory's mind of
Angelo's foolish chatter, something he had been reading out of the
papers about a sinister millionaire who hated reporters. But as the
Katie Moira dipped lower, the recollection was of little
importance. The balloon was coming down on this Morrison's property
whether he liked it or not, whether Rory liked it or not.
And she didn't. The lawn was far from ideal.
It was crowded with a lot of damn fool people having a garden
party. Lilting orchestra music wafted upward, but the strains of
the waltz abruptly ceased. As the Katie Moira drifted overhead,
some of the party guests started to point and shriek.
Rory yanked on the valve line and gritted her
teeth. She had a feeling this was not going to be one of her better
landings. As the balloon surged downward, she bent over the side
and tossed out the grappling hook, trying to catch the iron fence.
But she missed, snagging a slender tree instead.
Rory swore as she watched the sapling bend
double. It would still have been all right if those idiots below
had had the wit to seize onto the balloon's rope lines and help
haul her down. But most of those gentlemen were doing little but
gaping upward beneath the brims of their high-crowned hats, the
ladies gesturing shrilly with their parasols.
One tall, broad-shouldered man shoved his way
forward and attempted to grab the rope, but it was already too
late. The sapling tore free of the ground, and the Katie Moira
lurched onward, dragging the tree, roots and all. Erno and Miss
Glory lost their balance, tumbling atop the prostrate Reverend
Allgood.
Rory clutched the side of the gondola,
catching a dizzying glimpse of the havoc she was wreaking below.
Her tree "anchor" plowed through linen-covered tables, sending
china flying. The orchestra dove for cover, abandoning their
violins. Silk-clad ladies ran shrieking, likely faster than they
had ever moved in their lives.
"Grab the ropes, you fools. Grab the—" Rory's
cry was cut off as the balloon rapidly lost altitude, causing the
gondola to smack against the ground. Rory lost her footing, joining
the heap of flailing arms and legs that was her passengers.
The Katie Moira leaped upward, as though
making one last desperate effort to regain the skies. Rory
struggled, elbowing Erno sharply as she grabbed frantically for the
valve line. The gondola rocked and Rory tugged harder at the line
than she had intended.
Like a prizefighter doubled over by a blow to
the stomach, the great balloon gave up the last of its air with a
mighty whoosh. Someone screamed. Rory was not sure if it was Miss
Glory or the Reverend Allgood.
She had no chance to figure it out before the
gondola plunged downward. Her breath left her lungs in a rush as
the basket slammed into the ground with bone-jarring force.
Cobwebs of darkness danced before Rory's
eyes. She thought she was going to pass out. But she fought the
sensation. She retained enough awareness of her situation to
realize her face was pressed against the ground, blades of grass
prickling her cheek.
She had been thrown clear of the gondola. But
what of her passengers? Miss Glory? Erno? Reverend Allgood? Rory
raised her head, attemping to call out their names, but her voice
came out in a wheeze. God, how it hurt to talk, even to breathe.
When she tried to move, everything hurt. She must have broken every
bone in her body this time.
Rory blinked, shaking her head to clear it.
She managed to get some air into her lungs in a few pain-wracked
gulps and then raised herself up onto her elbows. She was alarmed
to find herself draped by heavy yards of blue silk, but only for a
moment. She had crept about beneath the balloon's envelope to
attach rigging enough times that she did not feel unduly worried at
the prospect of being smothered by the Katie Moira's collapsed
weight.
She crawled forward, trying to find her
fellow travelers. Perhaps she hadn't broken any bones after all.
The chief hindrance to her movement was the damn dress, its folds
tangling about her legs. It seemed to take forever to reach the
edge of the balloon cover. She did not know whether to feel
encouraged or alarmed when she did not encounter the forms of any
of her passengers.
Beyond her, she became aware of muffled
voices, the thud of running feet. Brushing aside the edge of the
silk, she poked her head out and felt the welcome rush of cool air
against her cheeks. As she struggled to rise, her hand came down
upon the toe of a man's shoe. Her nose all but collided with a pair
of legs encased in elegant gray trousers.
Hunkering back on her heels, she tipped her
head up. There seemed no end to those long legs, but she did come
eventually to large fists propped against flat hips, a silk
waistcoat straining across a hard stomach and broad chest, a
pin-striped coat set over powerful, squared shoulders.
Rory had a hazy memory of having glimpsed
those shoulders, that tall frame before. Of course, he was the one
who had tried to help by attempting to grab onto the balloon's tow
line. But as Rory stared upward into the stranger's face, he did
not look so helpful now. In fact he looked very much as if he were
ready to murder her.
CHAPTER TWO
The breeze tossed sable strands of hair
across the man’s forehead, but it did nothing to soften his harsh
expression. Rory took brief note of his inflexible jaw, his
slightly crooked nose, his heavy black brows drawn together, but it
was his eyes that caught and held her. Dark eyes, magnetic eyes,
roiling-with-fury eyes. The mere contact of his gaze made Rory feel
as though she had crashed all over again.
He reminded her of a thunder god she had once
read about in school—that is until Sister Mary Margaret had caught
Rory and rapped her knuckles for studying myths instead of her
catechism.
When the man bent down and reached for her,
Rory shrank back instinctively. His hands caught her about the
waist and hauled her to her feet, not ungently but in a manner that
brooked no resistance.