“We have come for a tour,” I told him.
“An inopportune moment, my dear,” he returned blandly. “The floor is strewn with nuts and bolts, and other bits and pieces.”
“Then may we peek in the door, one by one? I fear we are all grown quite tired of secrets.” Was I pushing our rapport of last night a trifle too far? Very likely. But why should ladies be excluded from knowledge just because we are female?
“Very well,” my husband pronounced. “One at a time.”
I stood at the foot of the steps, acting as conductor, motioning each lady forward in turn. Lexa hung back, even after Lady Carlyon indicated she should go ahead of Lady Wandsley. For a moment I feared she might grab Lexa’s arm and drag her to the ship. I motioned to Lady Wandsley, who stepped forward with alacrity, defusing the awkward moment. Lady Thistlewaite and the others ladies followed suit until only Phoebe and Lexa were left.
Offering an encouraging smile, I motioned them both forward, leaning down to whisper for their ears alone. “I’m going to walk with each of you.. We are friends, are we not? Lexa, you’re first.” Giving her no opportunity to refuse, I offered my arm, and we walked the few steps to the airship together. The narrow stairs were not wide enough to accommodate us both, but I clasped her hand tightly in mine until Julian could take her arm and boost her inside—something he had not done for anyone else. Through the open door I could see him speaking quietly to Lexa, pointing out each feature of the airship.
“Special treatment?” Phoebe whispered in my ear.
I nodded, offering a friend-to-friend grin. “Don’t worry, you’ll get your turn.”
After helping Lexa descend and giving her a brief hug for her bravery, I looked up to find Lady Carlyon staring at me, and not in a friendly manner. Turning my back, I motioned Phoebe forward. When she came back out, with Julian exiting directly after her, I announced, “I believe now is a good time for the christening.”
My husband’s face remained grave, but I’d swear I saw his lips twitch. “The gentlemen might not appreciate being left out,” he suggested.
“Then by all means send for them.”
Rochefort looked over my head toward several of the airship’s ground crew. “Fetch Carlyon and Wandsley, ” he ordered. “Try the stables, the gameroom, the library, the Abbey workshop.” As the men scattered like quail before beaters, Julian turned back to me. “I suppose you came prepared with champagne.”
I produced a bottle from the overly large reticule I had been dragging about for the last hour. Rochefort shook his head. Oh, no! He would have preferred to make the arrangements himself. I dashed up to him, scattering his mama and honored guests. “Julian, I’m so sorry. Would you rather wait?”
He took me by the shoulders, leaning down to speak directly into my ear. “Minta, I was well aware I was not marrying a quiet mouse without a thought in her head. Yes, sometime’s you surprise me, but that is your right. I have ruled the roost alone for far too many years. I need my ears trimmed back, on occasion.” He raised his head, addressing all of us, his voice pitched to carry to Lord Carlyon and Lord Wandsley, who were coming toward us at a rapid pace. “I am delighted to announce that my wife will now christen our airship. Though you’d best whack it on the propeller instead of the bow,” he added more softly. “I doubt wicker will provide the necessary crack, and the front viewport can do without being smeared by champagne.”
I was such an idiot. A wicker basket was a wicker basket, no matter how large or what shape its construction. Meekly, I removed the bottle from my reticule and walked toward the propeller. And if the bottle didn’t break, I’d be the laughing stock of every guard, every crewman, peers of the realm, their wives and daughters.
I grasped the neck of the bottle in both hands, sent up a quick prayer. “I christen thee Aurora!” I cried. And swung with all my might.
A great cheer went up. I was soaked in champagne but smiling from ear to ear.
Aurora, goddess of the dawn. Aurora, harbinger of a new day.
After I changed my clothes and sadly consigned my bonnet to the poor box, I joined the others in the courtyard, where Drummond had arranged a picnic luncheon. If the food was not quite up to Mrs. H’s customary standards, the ambiance made up for it. The sun had decided to stay out, adding a warm glow to our sheltered space. Over the fountain’s continual splashing, birds twittered, bees hummed, butterflies flashed their glorious wings. The enticing odors from the kitchen garden vied with the blossoms in the formal flower beds. An enchanted land, almost worthy of a storybook. As chatelaine of Stonegrave Abbey, I noted “picnic in the courtyard” as a form of entertainment worth repeating.
Chatelaine. Araminta, Baroness Rochefort. The words had a nice ring. Hopefully, I was finally on my way to fulfilling the duties expected of me.
Not to mention other, far more . . . well, ah . . .
My wifely duties, I concluded, ruthlessly stifling all warmer thoughts as I forced myself back to our all-female garden party. After an interminable half hour of social niceties, I drew Lexa into a more private spot near the rose garden. “Tell me about Lady Carlyon,” I said. “Why do you allow her to order you about?”
“She is a very powerful woman,” Lexa returned, obviously taking care with her words. “She was lady-in-waiting to . . . to the Duchess of Kent before she fled to the continent. And I am infinitely grateful to Lord and Lady Carlyon for freeing me from my mother, who is also a woman of power . . . and intent on seizing more. Believe me, Minta, compared to my mama, Lady Carlyon is an angel. ”
“You’ve not had an easy life,” I ventured.
Lexa sighed. “I have come to despise my mother and her lover who think only of how to seize power for themselves. Power to which they have no right at all,” she added with more decisiveness than I had yet heard from her.
“So you have exchanged one tyrant for another.” I offered a sympathetic smile.
“I fear so, but truly I have no complaints.”
“What do you want, Lexa?” I asked, abruptly changing the subject. “What would you do if you had no dragons looking over your shoulder?”
Suddenly, her face glowed, her eyes sparkled. She was another person altogether. “I love to draw,” she said. “I could spend all day at my sketchbook. And I love to ride my pony. I actually enjoyed what Mama calls the ‘wilds of Scotland.’” I liked the crisp, clean air, even the bagpipes.” She offered a gentle smile. “And I like to read. I do not mind the improving tracts and the sermons other young ladies scorn.”
“No novels?” I asked, with a conspiratorial grin.
“I’ve read some, of course. Scott and Miss Austen.”
I bit my tongue. Lexa’s reading could scarcely rival the scandalous tomes I’d acquired at Hatchard’s or the even more startling books I’d found in Papa’s library.
Lexa’s gaze dropped back to her lap, her voice softened. “I would love to be married,” she confided. “I have some cousins on the continent . . . several of them are quite handsome. And kind. It must be very fine to have a life’s companion. Is it not, Minta?”
She gazed at me with such hope in her eyes that for a moment I was speechless. My own marriage had been presented to me as such a fait accompli that I had somehow forgotten about my girlish dreams, my high hopes. And that Lexa might have as little choice as I had.
“You must marry a cousin?” I asked.
“So I’m told. But Arthur and Albert are fine young men, though I have not seen them in years, of course. And there are also cousins in another branch of the family. Lady Carlyon assures me I may have some say in the matter.” Lexa sat very straight, squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin. “I am certain I shall be very happy,”she declared.
“And the day will come when Lady Carlyon will not feel free to treat you so rudely.”
We both suddenly sobered.
“One way or another,” Lexa murmured. “One way or another.”
I walked with her back to her room, where we took a moment
to peer out at the activity around Aurora. “Don’t be afraid,” I told Lexa, and gave her a hug before returning to my room.
I might have been more helpful if Julian had explained how the airship fit into the plans for revolution. And Lexa’s seemingly special connection to the airship.
Evidently, not even passion was enough to make him trust me.
The trials continued. And so did my lessons in love. To the point where I began to offer a few lessons of my own. Perhaps Lexa’s naivety was not so wrong. It was indeed rather fine to have a life’s companion, even when his moods depended on just how well the airship had performed that day. After all, I’d had a lifetime of adjusting to men for whom machines would always come first.
Did I sometimes wish I might be first in my husband’s life? Certainly. But I accepted that this was a special time. If we lived through it—and I still had serious doubts about that—we would surely settle into a less stressful routine, where we could enjoy each other by day as well as by night.
Nearly a week after the airship’s maiden voyage, when she’d made four successful flights and surely all of Hertfordshire must be wondering about Rochefort’s latest obsession, I finally worked up the courage to ask, “Julian . . . the shot that hit us—was it aimed at you or at me?”
He was silent so long I wondered what lie he was concocting, but all he finally said was, “It might have been either of us. Or both.”
“The only reason anyone would wish to kill me is because, from a distance, I look like Lexa.”
My husband didn’t so much as blink. “Perhaps I have a villainous heir who doesn’t wish me to marry,” he offered.
“Do you?”
“My family has not been prolific,” he told me. “As far as I know, the estate is entailed on a second cousin who is quite content with his lot as a bishop. I cannot picture him with so much as a single murderous bone in his body.”
“Tossing out red herrings will get you nowhere. I am right, am I not?”
And at last he told me the whole.
Poor, poor Lexa. No wonder she hadn’t wanted to set foot on the airship.
Chapter 14
Two days later, I was flying. Not as I had in my dreams of Maia soaring above the rooftops in London. Not with the satisfaction of accomplishing the miracle of controlled flight by myself. But my twinge of envy as we rose high above the park was overwhelmed by my admiration for Rochefort’s genius. From my seat to Julian’s left, I peered out the airship’s front panes of glass and watched Hertfordshire unfold before me. Sheep, cows, fields of grain, oddly irregular hedgerows, clusters of trees. Farmhouses, villages, church spires a trifle too close at times, causing my heartbeat a hiccup or two.
It was glorious. For the moment, I must be content to put aside my own dreams of flight, Perhaps when life was calmer . . .
If, that is, Julian and I were still alive and not waiting for the hangman’s noose.
I caught my breath as Julian descended to landing height over a field of wheat, before putting on a burst of speed and ascending rapidly into the sky, narrowly missing the battlements of a castle. Castle?
“Wool king,” Julian replied to my questioning look. “Built himself a palace. Laughing stock of the county, but I’m told his plumbing works and so does his heating system. We really must learn not to mock the middle class. Many now have more wealth than our noblemen, and if they choose to flaunt it, who can blame them?”
“While you keep a foot in both camps.”
He flashed a wry smile. “Politics. Our cause needs support wherever we can find it.”
“You have mine.” A statement that surprised us both.
To my further astonishment, Julian leaned over and kissed me, rather soundly for a man who was steering an airship not quite high enough over the countryside. Aurora did a little dance. At Matt’s shout from the engine room—“Hey, Guv, whatcha doing?”—we broke apart, breathless and guilty. So much for high-flying romance. Julian checked his instruments, then turned the airship back toward the Abbey.
“Tomorrow,” he said, as the ground crew was securing the ropes to the rings, “we will do one final check of everything. The day after, you will organize a flight party that includes Lady Carlyon, Miss Smythe, Lady Phoebe, and any of the other ladies who wish to fly.”
“You expect your mama to fly?” I nearly choked on the words.
“My mother is a remarkably hardy soul. She may very well leap at the opportunity.”
“Lexa has no taste for flying,” I said, unwilling to come right out and say that the airship terrified her.
“It is hoped,” my husband responded without the slightest sign of sympathy, “that going aloft with other ladies of her acquaintance will ease her fears.”
I did not think so, but there was no point in baiting the lion. Except . . .
“Don’t you think you should experiment with a heavier load before taking us all—”
“We did that yesterday, with eight of our largest guards aboard. I assure you a few females will not top that load.”
“Oh.” Rochefort’s attractions might be growing on me but, on occasion, he could be truly annoying. I was, after all, accustomed to outthinking the men in my life. Julian made that rather difficult. “Thursday morning,” I confirmed, “a flight for ladies.”
And when I thought about it, I had to admit it was rather nice to know Julian had tested Aurora with a load of eight strong men before he would take me up for my first flight. Just Julian and I, with Matt and the coal heaver in the engine room. A treat beyond price. The fulfillment of—
Or was my flight merely a preparation for the other ladies . . . giving me reason to reassure them?
Addlepate! Today’s flight was solely for you. You know it.
Warmth suffused my body, pushing doubts aside. Julian knew I’d dreamed of flying since I saw my first balloon ascension when I was five. No matter how pragmatic his reasons for taking me on a private journey over Hertfordshire, he cared about me. At least a little.
“My lord, my lord!” As Matt threw open Aurora’s door, the customarily unflappable Angus Drummond stood on the ground below, looking decidedly agitated. “We’ve caught a trespasser,” he called. “With one of those machines that makes pictures. Daguerreotypes.” Behind him, two of the guards held up pieces of the unwieldy apparatus invented by Louis Daguerre.
Julian let out a forceful combination of the worst words I’d heard in Papa’s London workshop. A muttered apology, and he charged past me, making straight for the cringing photographer who was struggling in the arms of two burly guards. “Get him out of here,” he roared. “Are you mad? You’ve given him a close-up view of what he could only photograph from a distance. Move!”
Oh dear. I stood in the airship’s doorway and wondered if the Abbey had dungeons. It seemed unlikely monks would need such a thing. Then again, a few of Henry VIII’s charges against the church had not been false. The church and politics had often marched hand in hand.
Matt gave me a hand down, and I left the men to it. A spy for Rochefort’s German or French rivals? A spy for Wellington? Or a spy from rival monarchists, those favoring the King of Hanover or Cambridge, George III’s youngest son?
As I made my way back to the Abbey, I muttered a few naughty words of my own. If I were an ordinary person, married to an ordinary man, I’d be on my honeymoon in the south of France, or perhaps the Greek Isles. Possibly even viewing the great pyramids of Egypt. Yet here I was, aiding my husband on the next step toward the Tower.
I tiptoed down the corridor near the kitchen and slunk up the servants’ stairs. Encountering Mrs E at this point was simply more than I could bear. I needed time alone to settle my own fears and doubts before I could announce to my female guests, “Surprise! We’re going airborne.”
My announcement was not well met. As Lexa cowered in her chair, her slight form nearly swallowed by the heavy upholstery, Lady Carlyon’s scolding words became more strident. Drina would fly. Must fly. She had come here t
o fly. If she did not, all was lost. With this dramatic pronouncement the marchioness glared at the poor girl as if she were a naughty child still in the nursery.
Unacceptable. I might not outrank Lady Carlyon, but she was a guest in my house. My house. On the glow of that thought, my courage soared. I stood and declared, “Lexa has reached her majority, Lady Carlyon. You have no right to berate her in my house or, indeed, anyplace else.” As Lady Carlyon slowly pivoted to face me, as if she could not possibly have heard correctly, I saw Lexa begin to straighten in her chair, eyes glowing. Did she never before have someone to champion her?
“Lexa tells me she is not your paid companion,” I continued, “merely a friend of the family, so you have no right to order her about.”
“And who do you think you are, you sniveling daughter of a tradesman, to speak to me so? You have no right—”
“I have every right. As lady of the house and as Lexa’s friend.”
“Lexa!” Lady Carlyon spat out. “A foolish attempt to be someone she is not. She is Alexandrina—”
“And has the right to call herself anything she pleases.” I nodded to my friends, and Lexa and Phoebe followed me in what was supposed to be a grand exit from the drawing room.
A bit childish, perhaps, but I was rather enjoying it until Lady Thistlewaite called after us, “I will join the flight, Araminta. I should like to see my son’s invention from the inside. To see the world as the birds do,” she added more softly before turning to Lexa. “Miss Smythe, if an old lady such as I can venture aloft, I trust you will be willing to keep me company.”
Lexa offered a weak smile. “Of course, my lady.”
“Lady Wandsley?” I asked. The poor woman didn’t go pale, as Lexa had. She turned green. “Very well then, you may keep Lady Carlyon company while the rest of us go aloft.”
“You can’t!” Lexa’s nemesis cried. “I must be there with Drina.”
Airborne - The Hanover Restoration Page 13
