by Diana Quincy
Will’s pale brows inched upward. “How do you mean?”
“This land has been in our family for more than a century. I might not be cut out for this cloak-and-sword business, but the people here are loyal to us.”
“Meaning?”
He shrugged. “Meaning it’s a mistake for anyone to underestimate the power of that allegiance.”
“You might be more adept at the spy game than you realize. But have a care, she could be dangerous.”
He held Will’s gaze. “As can I when pushed.”
Shading his eyes with one hand, Cosmo squinted against the sun, peering skyward at the striped balloon carrying Mari into the clouds. His stomach felt as if heavy, jagged rocks clunked around inside of it. Suspended impossibly high up between the heavens and earth, Mari cut loose from the silk contraption keeping her aloft thousands of feet above the ground. Relieved of her weight, the colorful balloon skyrocketed upward while she plummeted in the opposite direction, spiraling downward in the parachute gondola with stunning velocity.
His stomach dropped. When would her damn umbrella open? God’s breath! He must be out of his mind to watch Mari fall from the sky while he was sober. He should have had a glass of brandy. Or a whole bottle.
Just when his heart felt ready to explode, the parachute unfolded with a sudden jerk, unfurling a billowing white canopy over Mari’s head, arresting her fall. The basket lurched a few heart-stopping times, causing her to sway wildly, before the boat finally righted itself and settled into a calm descent. The afternoon sun glowed through the snowy parachute, forming a nimbus around her as she floated to earth. She looked ethereal and delicate, like a true angel drifting down from the heavens.
A sickening feeling welled inside of him. So much could still go wrong. Nothing stood between her and mortality except an umbrella-like silk contraption and a wicker boat. Not much to test fate with. He forced a breath. At least her parachute gondola had stayed intact, unlike last time, when she’d hurtled to earth without it.
A hush of wonder hung over the onlookers. Aldridge stood in the shadow of the house with the household servants gathered around him. The grooms had taken a break from their chores to witness the spectacle. Unable to bear being near them, Cosmo moved far across the open lawn, watching from beneath the trees. Alone.
She swung close enough for him to hear the wind whistle through the silk parachute. He discerned she had moved slightly off course and would not land in the open field as planned. His heart accelerating, he ran in the direction of the wayward umbrella as it swooped over the trees and out of his view. He raced through the wooded area, ignoring the sting of sharp branches scraping at his arms and face. The thud of Mari’s car hitting the ground, followed by a series of heavy hops, rolled through him in icy waves. He burst into the clearing to find her already out of the basket and on her feet. Cheeks flushed, her hair was askew as usual, unfurling about her shoulders like waves of black diamonds shimmering in the sun.
“Zut alors!” Hands on breech-clad hips, she unleashed a string of expletives in French. Relief flooded him. Clearly, she was fine. “I do not understand why I veered off course again.”
“You didn’t stray so very far.”
Her gaze snapped to him as though she’d just noticed his presence. “What are you doing here?”
“I rather hoped you’d land on me again.”
A smile twitched her lips. Surveying the collapsed umbrella, with its pole flopping to the side, she said, “Perhaps I had too many vents.”
“Was it not a good jump?”
She shrugged. “It was not so very bad, but I must work to perfect my landing.”
They moved in silence for a moment while gathering her equipment. “Why do you do it?” he asked in a quiet voice. “Surely you realize you endanger your life each time you disengage from a balloon.”
She shrugged. “I don’t think one such as you would understand.”
“One such as I?” That hardly sounded flattering. “Try me. Is it the risk, the danger?” It made perfect sense to him that a spy, if that’s what she was, would be drawn to the same pursuits as a parachutist—the lurking danger, the thrill of the unknown.
“No, it doesn’t feel that way at all.” A serene expression fell over her face. “In truth, it is wonderful. When I am up there alone, it is so very quiet and I am floating with the wind. It is the most peaceful feeling you can imagine.” She looked skyward, the rainbow of colors in her eyes—mostly greens, ambers, and soft browns—catching the sun. “It is liberté, the ultimate freedom.”
Her peaceful countenance made his throat ache. “Freedom from what?”
“All things.” Her face still tilted into the sun, she closed her eyes as though reliving the experience, her dark lashes fanning delicate shadows across her cheeks. “For a moment, I am flying. It is just me and the air and the sun. It is the most exhilarating sensation.”
The words, so bright and joyous, pricked his chest. “Icarus also found it to be so. He flew too close to the sun to his own fatal peril.”
She opened her eyes, where the brilliant revelry of color shone more brightly than usual. “He fell into the sea because his wax feathers melted. But had he been afraid, had he flown too low, the sea would have dampened his feathers and the result would have been as disastrous.”
“All the more reason to remain on dry ground.”
“All the more reason to be cognizant of one’s limits, and to ensure that my equipment works.” She held up a finger as though to prove her point. “And that I do not lose my head by trying to fly too close to the sun.”
It struck him anew that this unfathomable passion she had for falling from the sky could kill her. The idea of it made his chest sore. Pulling Mari into his arms, he caught the surprise in her eyes just before his lips covered hers. He suffused the act with the intensity of feeling roiling inside of him. Blood pounded through his veins as he pulled her body tight against his, indulging in the softness of her lips and the ambrosial taste of her mouth. Her body’s feminine curves snug against his, Cosmo exhilarated in the feel of having Mari safe in his arms, warm and alive.
She kissed him back with equal ardency, throwing herself into the intimacy with the same vehemence she demonstrated in everything she attempted. Mari nipped his upper lip, and a shock of pleasure shot through him when she sucked on it as though it were a sweetmeat she couldn’t get enough of.
Heaven. Not that there was anything angelic about the way she used her lips at the moment. It drove him to madness. He’d end up in bedlam if bedding her proved half as erotic as kissing her.
After several blissful moments, he reluctantly pulled away, remembering where they were and that one or—God forbid—both of the M brothers could come upon them at any moment.
A soft glow bathed her face. “Perhaps you are right,” she murmured after a moment.
Still dazed from the kiss, he barely heard her over the pounding in his chest. “About what?”
“About me liking a challenge.” She grinned, her wide smile showing the tiny gap between her front teeth. “Otherwise, why would I put up with the likes of you?”
A tenderness he shouldn’t feel for her swelled in his chest. “I cannot begin to fathom.” Taking her hand, he interlaced his fingers with hers. “I am a risky proposition for any discriminating female.”
They left her equipment neatly assembled for her brothers to retrieve after they located the balloon Mari had disengaged from, which would eventually find its way down somewhere in the vicinity. As they walked back to the house, it occurred to Cosmo that he understood Icarus’s obsession. Mari gave him that soaring feeling. She was like an opiate, and he wanted more and more of that heady sensation, despite the fact that it might not be good for him. Might even do him harm.
Blazes. At the moment, he wasn’t certain who was playing whom in this game of theirs. However, until he understood the full extent of her secrets, he’d have to take care not to fly too close to the sun.
Mari came down the stairs just as Aldridge bade farewell to Dr. Hodges, a small, gregarious man with a few strands of thinning hair brushed over his shiny pate. Marcel’s investigation of the man had turned up nothing to suggest the country doctor might be Aldridge’s accomplice. Still, the possibility remained that the doctor might be called upon to deliver a package whose contents he was ignorant of.
Aldridge turned to her with a smile. “Good morning, Miss Lamarre.” He glanced at her breeches. “I gather you have another busy day ahead.”
“I do indeed. The exhibition is not so far away now.” She glanced after the doctor. “I trust you are not unwell, my lord.”
“Oh, not to worry,” Aldridge said. “The primary purpose of Hodges’s visits is to divert me from boredom. It can be much too quiet here. Although you and your brothers have certainly brought excitement to our quiet little part of Dorset.”
Mari felt a twinge of guilt. She liked the man, and found it hard to imagine him acting duplicitously.
“Interrogating Aldridge, Miss Lamarre?” Cosmo called down from the top of the steps.
Aldridge muffled a cough with his fist. “You’re up early.”
“Yes.” Cosmo trotted down the steps, the muscles in his well-turned thighs sliding up and down under the buff breeches. “I have an appointment.”
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” Aldridge said, heading toward his study. “Good day, Miss Lamarre. I look forward to seeing you both at luncheon.”
“I don’t know if I will be back by luncheon,” Cosmo said to Mari after Aldridge had gone. “Since I have no idea what this appointment is about. Perhaps you’d care to enlighten me?”
“You could certainly use enlightenment.”
He followed her outside. “Dare I hope this surprise is of the carnal kind?”
Mari bit back a smile, finding it difficult to muffle her excitement. “Viens. You shall find out soon enough.”
He matched her long, purposeful strides toward the tethered balloon. “Where are the Ms?” he asked, looking around. “Marcel especially likes to be underfoot whenever I am within a horse’s length of you. He’s like a guard dog, that one.”
“And of course he has nothing to worry about,” she said dryly.
“To the contrary, he has excellent reason to be uneasy where my intentions toward you are concerned.”
“Maxim and Marcel have gone into the village.”
“On business?”
She shrugged. “Or pour le plaisir. Sometimes it is best for a sister not to ask.”
“Excellent thinking on your part. And on theirs. I’m all for the pursuit of pleasure.”
They reached the balloon, where a stable groom stood waiting to assist her. She stooped to untie one of the thick cables tethering it to the ground. “What I have in mind will give you great pleasure,” she said quietly.
His inky eyes went alert. “Is that so?”
“Release that cable, if you please,” she called to the groom.
He tipped his cap. “Yes, miss.” And proceeded to do just that.
Gesturing toward the other cable, she said to Cosmo. “Untie that, will you?”
“Whatever for?” He glanced at it before frowning back in her direction. “If you completely untether it, the balloon will fly away, as you well know.”
“Exactly.” She leapt into the wicker boat. “Allons. Let us go.”
“Go where? You want me to go up in that?” He took a step back. “I most certainly will not.”
She leaned over the edge of the gondola. “Pour le plaisir, remember?”
Shaking his head, he backed away. Switching to French so the groom wouldn’t understand, he said, “This is most assuredly not the sort of pleasure I meant.”
“You can show me what you do have in mind,” she said in the same language, as she bent over to retrieve and throw sand-filled ballasts out of the gondola.
“Come away from there and I gladly will.”
“I prefer that you come in here.” She offered him the most wickedly sensual smile in her feminine arsenal.
He blinked. Then swallowed. “Angel, you will be the death of me.”
“Perhaps just a little death.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. La petite mort was the French term for the peak of sensual pleasure. “Is that a naughty French reference? Or are you teasing me?”
She laughed aloud, exhilarated at the thought of soaring into the clouds with him. “You shall have to fly with me to find out.”
He cast a skeptical eye upward, his gaze roaming up to the apex of the balloon and then down again. The groom loosened the last cable and the balloon jolted upward.
She threw her hand out to him. “Do you want to come with me?”
He sprinted toward the gondola and vaulted over the edge. “Yes, I suppose I do,” he said, landing in the wicker basket with a heavy thump. “Perhaps you mean to push me overboard to get me out of the way.”
She laughed. “I can think of far easier ways to kill you.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
An unaccountable satisfaction swept over her at having him in the boat with her. “Now you will understand what it is that draws me to aerostation.”
He grabbed hold of one of the ropes to steady himself. “I presume you know how to pilot this contraption.”
Her hand perched on the hydrogen-release valve, she grinned. “It is perhaps too late to ask this question of me.”
He stared at her for a moment with a pronounced crinkle of concern between his dark brows. “Your future husband will certainly have his hands full with you.”
She snorted. “That won’t be a problem, since I do not intend to marry.”
His brows drew together. “Why ever not?”
“I am six-and-twenty,” she said with a shrug. “Well past the marriageable age.”
“With your considerable charms, you could easily catch a man.”
After Pascal, she’d been unable to fathom entrusting her heart to another man. “Few husbands would consent to me continuing my work.” Aerostation had saved her during her darkest hours, and she’d never willingly relinquish it. She swept a hand outward. “Look at that. I will never give it up.”
Following the direction of her gesture, he surveyed the view. “Good God, we’re already above the trees.”
He was silent for a moment, his eyes riveted by the scene below, as though the wonder of it began to crystallize for him. He stared down at how the fields, trees, and hills became textured patches of landscape—nature’s quilt draped over the earth. It was a view she never tired of seeing.
She inhaled, enjoying the feel of the air brushing against her cheeks and the absolute silence, save the occasional creaking of the ropes.
“How can we be certain we won’t end up over the water?” he asked.
“The wind is in our favor,” she answered. “That is why we fly on this day.”
“Is this it?” he asked. “I anticipated more rocking or swaying. Something a bit more jolting. Instead, it’s rather like being in a boat rocking gently on the sea.”
“Exactly. There’s nothing else in the world like it. You will see that the higher we go, the stiller it is.”
He peered down below. “It’s like the ground is moving away from us.”
She moved next to him, grasping the side of the wicker basket. “Nervous?”
“Not at all. I’m well past that. Beyond terrified actually.” He arched a look at her. “You didn’t happen to bring a bottle of brandy along with you?”
She suppressed a smile. “I am afraid not.”
“I rather thought that was the case.” The breeze rippled his ruffled mane away from his face, highlighting his strong brow and angled jaw. “How long do we keep going up?”
“We go wherever the wind takes us. However, the hydrogen-release valve allows me to control how high we go.”
“Not that I would mind being stranded in the countryside with you, but what happens when we land? Maxim and Marcel a
re not around to give chase.”
“I arranged for the groom to follow our progress on horseback, and another is bringing a cart. They should be on hand to attend us when we return to the ground.”
He turned his head from one side to the other, taking in the view. “I’ve been coming to Langtry since boyhood. I thought I knew every bit of it, but I see now I had no idea what was around us. It’s breathtaking, the trees and the water.”
When the balloon punctured the cottony clouds, a rush of chilled air wrapped around them. Within moments, they’d escaped the snowy mist, climbing higher into the comfort of warmer air. Beneath them, masses of silvery-gray clouds unfurled, forming an ethereal sea of rolling, velvet waves.
“Fantastic.” Inhaling, his lungs took in air which Mari always found to be crisper and more refined high up off the ground. “I begin to comprehend what draws you to this perilous enterprise. All earthly sensations pale in comparison.”
“Exactement.” Elation bubbled up inside of her. For some reason, she’d badly needed for him to understand her passion for flight. Grasping the solid curves of his arm, she said, “Now you see why I contrived to bring you up here. To show you what draws me to aerostation. There is nothing more beautiful.”
Glittering sable eyes regarded her. “No, indeed.” Keeping one hand gripping the side of the basket, he wrapped the other around the back of her neck, and tilted his face down to hers. His lips were soft and firm as they covered hers in a lazily sensual kiss that was slow and unhurried but very thorough. She wrapped her arm around his waist and pushed her body up against his, savoring the contrast between his solid strength and the floating buoyancy beneath them.
He thrust his tongue deep inside her mouth with a knowing sensual slide that left her lightheaded. His hand roamed to her backside where his hands kneaded the soft flesh of her bottom and pulled her tighter against him. Her legs quivered at the hard imprint of his arousal against her belly.
He broke the kiss on a ragged breath. “I want to see you as God made you.”
Putting her fingertips to her tingling lips, she came to a decision—one they’d been destined for since the moment she’d landed on him. “This evening, when everyone is abed. Come to me.” She pressed a soft kiss against his lips. “I will await you. As God made me.”
