“We’ll look after you,” his sister promised, resting her head upon his shoulder. “Harold and I won’t let anything bad happen to you, Max, I promise.”
The spring morning was clear apart from the usual foggy haze that hung over London, the product of its coal fires and factories. Once Marietta and Lil had reached Vauxhall Bridge the air seemed fresher. Below the nine cast-iron arches, the Thames was wide and brown and busy, with lighters and boatmen and the larger barges, all plying their trade.
Lil, who had been hurrying along in Marietta’s wake, complaining that Vivianna should not have sent her out when Lil needed to be in Berkley Square to help with the baby, stopped and stared in delight.
“Oh, but this is pretty!”
“There you are then,” Marietta said. “Now, do come on, Lil. I want to get to Vauxhall Gardens before dark.”
Lil’s smile gave way to a frown. “Why couldn’t we have taken a hackney, miss? Me feet are killing me.”
“That’s because you’re wearing those half-boots you bought at the warehouse in Regent Street. You know they’re too small for you.”
Lil tossed her head. “I want to look me best, miss. Nothing wrong in that.”
Marietta smiled. “Then stop complaining, Lil, the walk will do you good. I believe you’ve grown very lazy living here in London. You’ve forgotten what it’s like at Greentree Manor, where you can walk for miles and miles and never see a single soul.”
“I was born in London,” Lil retorted, and tugged at her gloves, straightening the wrinkles from the fingers.
“Then it must be nice to be home,” she said levelly, continuing on over the bridge towards the gardens on the other side. She could see the gleaming pavilions above the trees and her heart lifted—Vauxhall, which had grown a little shabby over the years, had been recently refurbished. “Look,” she said, pointing. “Will we stroll down the Grand Walk, Lil? Or perhaps we can lose ourselves in the Dark Walk. At one time that was closed down, you know, the Dark Walk, because that was where so many ladies lost their virtue.”
Marietta did not say it aloud but the thought of meeting a mysterious gentleman in one of those isolated avenues, echoing with the sighs and whispers of lovers down the centuries, had always appealed to her.
Lil barely glanced up. Her fair hair was plaited and fastened neatly on her crown, and her small ears were pink, as if, thought Marietta, she scrubbed them clean every morning.
“London wasn’t so good to me,” Lil said at last, and closed her lips tight, as if she had no intention of saying anything more on the subject.
Marietta did not know a great deal about Lil’s past, apart from the fact that Vivianna had found her in York and insisted she be given a home at Greentree Manor, to which Lady Greentree had acceded. Lil had been a fixture there ever since. That she had had an unhappy childhood was perhaps not surprising, and it explained her single-minded determination to adhere to the rules. Marietta sensed that Lil believed that, if she was very, very good and never stepped outside the boundaries, then nothing bad could ever happen to her again.
Perhaps nothing bad would, but in Marietta’s opinion such a life must be very rigid and tedious. Surely part of the excitement and pleasure in this world came from taking the occasional risks, even small ones. Lil probably saw this visit to Vauxhall Gardens as overstepping her personal mark.
Marietta saw it as an adventure.
Something large and globular was now visible through the trees in front of them—Marietta recognized Mr. Keith’s gas balloon. She laughed as Lil’s eyes grew big at the sight of it. “Gawd!” the maid gasped. “Would you look at that, miss! It’s one of them balloons.”
“Haven’t you ever seen a gas balloon before, Lil?”
Lil shook her head, her eyes still firmly fixed on the balloon as it swayed on its moorings. “It don’t seem possible,” she said, her hands strangling her drawstring bag. “Won’t it fall down?”
“Not at all. In fact when the ballast is thrown out it will go much higher.”
“How high?”
“Until London seems tiny beneath you.”
Lil gave her a suddenly suspicious glance, and Marietta remembered Lil didn’t know she had been up in the balloon herself. To distract her, Marietta said, “Why don’t you come and meet the aeronaught, Lil? He’s a very nice man.”
Lil’s eyes narrowed even more. “Aeronaught?” she declared with a sniff. “I don’t hold with bohemians or eccentrics, miss. And what do you know about this aero-person? How do you know his name, Miss Marietta, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Marietta gave her a vague smile and hurried ahead. Despite her uncomfortable footwear, Lil caught up with her but by then she was too busy gazing at the rotunda, where a band was currently playing, to ask anymore questions.
Very soon they were entering the area where the balloon was tethered. Lil’s steps dragged as they drew closer, and Marietta caught her hand and tugged it impatiently. “Do come on, Lil. I promise it won’t bite!”
Reluctantly Lil let herself be pulled forward. “Don’t you leave me alone near that thing,” she said. “You hear me, miss?”
Marietta laughed. “What a scared little rabbit you are, Lil!” Looking up, she realized that Mr. Keith had seen their approach. He had been busy in the basket, making some adjustments, but now he lifted one long leg over the rim and, with the help of his assistant, jumped down to the ground.
“Miss Greentree!” He greeted her with a smile, before his eyes slid to Lil’s prim and upright person. “And a friend, I see.”
“This is my…this is Lil,” Marietta said, surprised and pleased to note the spark of interest in the aeronaught’s eyes.
“Are you planning another ascent today? If the wind holds I am hoping to fly right over the top of Buckingham Palace.”
“Buckingham Palace?” Lil gasped. “Her Majesty would have you arrested!”
Mr. Keith laughed. “She’d have to catch me first, Miss Lil. Is that short for Lillian, by the way?”
Lil blushed. “That’s none of your business,” she said grandly, but chose that moment to trip over one of the tethering ropes. Mr. Keith leaped forward to save her, catching her arm and holding her steady. Lil’s face turned even redder than before.
“Careful, Lil,” Mr. Keith said gently. “I have many silly traps laid here for unwary maidens.” His eyes twinkled at her, and Lil could not help but respond with a little smile.
“I’ve never seen a balloon before,” Lil admitted, thawing somewhat.
“Lil was saying on the way here that she could think of nothing more exciting than flying high in the sky,” Marietta said innocently.
Lil’s mouth opened and shut, but before she could give Marietta the set down she deserved, Mr. Keith interrupted.
“Then please, be my guest. I can take you up on Saturday. Weather permitting, of course. I would like to show you London from the air, Miss Lil.”
Lil wriggled, clearly uncomfortable at the thought.
Mr. Keith finally seemed to remember Marietta was there. “Did you say you wished to make another ascent, Miss Marietta? It promises to be a perfect day for ballooning.”
“Another?” squeaked Lil, with an accusing stare.
Marietta ignored her. “Thank you, no, Mr. Keith. I came because I wanted to speak to you about Lord Roseby.”
“Max?”
“I have had the opportunity to speak with him, at length.” Well, Marietta spoke and Max listened, but Mr. Keith did not need to know that.
“Dare I hope you’ve taken a shine to my tragic friend? And on such short acquaintance, Miss Greentree—that does bode well for him. I admit, I hoped at the time the two of you might hit it off.”
A matchmaking aeronaught? Marietta wondered if she was as red as Lil, and hoped not. A brief flash of memory filled her head—Max’s mouth on hers. Aphrodite had made a kiss from Max her first task—or rather asking Max to show her how. That meant the spontaneous kiss they had exchanged did not fulfi
ll her mother’s requirements. She would have to do it properly next time…
Marietta smiled. Next time.
“Actually, Max and I met again after the ascent,” she said. “He was hurt…struck down in a lane outside Aphrodite’s Club. He is recovering, so please don’t grow alarmed, sir.”
“Good heavens,” Ian Keith muttered under his breath. “I don’t like the sound of this. Struck down, you say? Did he tell you that this is but one of many times he has been hurt, or almost hurt, in an accident? When he was a boy he nearly drowned, twice, and there were other things…near misses and close calls. Two just last year, before he was disinherited. And now this. It is very strange, more than strange. Miss Marietta, I have to say that I find it downright suspicious!”
So many accidents! It could be coincidence, of course, and yet it did seem odd. Was Mr. Keith right, was it suspicious? Marietta felt a little tingle inside her, and it was a warning that she knew she should heed. After all, the last time she had felt that tingle was just as she and Gerard Jones were cantering away from Greentree Manor, on their way to the Scottish border.
“Do you really think someone is deliberately trying to hurt him, Mr. Keith?” she asked.
Mr. Keith seemed to realize that in his shock he had spoken hastily, and now—perhaps in deference to Max—he tried to play down his concerns. “I am Max’s friend but I know little of the rest of his family. We met years ago, you know, at Valland House, when my balloon came down in the grounds. He was fascinated by the workings of it, and I took him up several times—to his parents’ dismay, I might add. The duke was worried his only son might be hurt.”
“And now he has hurt him in the worst way possible, by denying Max his heritage.”
Mr. Keith looked doubtful. “Struck down, you say? It does sound odd, doesn’t it?”
“Suspicious.”
Mr. Keith smiled, and glanced sideways at Lil. “Miss Marietta is very determined, isn’t she? Do you think Max knows she’s taken him up as her cause? I don’t know if he’d be happy if he did. Max is a very private person.”
“Then you’d best not tell him,” Marietta suggested.
“Miss Marietta is headstrong,” Lil said, with a sniff. “She an’ her sisters all are, the three of them, like bolting horses. I don’t try an’ rein them in anymore, sir. I just let them run until they’re done, and then I give them a piece of my mind.”
He laughed, his gray eyes sparkling. “What part of London are you from, Miss Lil? I am a London boy myself.”
She looked startled, then wary. “I don’ know what you’re talking about, Mr. Keith.”
“You’re a Londoner, I can hear it in your voice.”
“I’m from Yorkshire, same as Miss Marietta.”
It was ridiculous, thought Marietta. Her accent was indisputable, but clearly Lil was having none of it. She didn’t want to discuss her past with Mr. Keith and she wasn’t going to—if she said she wasn’t from London then nothing he could do or say would make her admit that she was. Marietta caught the aeronaught’s eye and gave a slight shrug.
“How did you come to be flying balloons?” she asked instead.
“Sheer luck. I was hired by an aeronaught to help with the maintenance of his balloon, and I showed I’d some skill. He began to teach me, and when he decided to give it away I was in a position to buy the balloon off him. They were using hydrogen gas then, not the coal gas we have today, far more dangerous.”
At that moment his balloon jumped on its tether, caught in a swirling breeze. Lil gave a little shriek. “Miss Lil, there is nothing to be afraid of! Here, let me show you,” he coaxed her towards the basket, although Marietta could see Lil dragging each step, her already ramrod-straight back like a soldier’s rifle at attention.
“No, sir, I don’t think I—,” Lil was protesting, but Mr. Keith was impervious.
“How will you ever know whether or not you enjoy something if you don’t try it?” he told her gently. “Now, come and look at this, Miss Lil. This is a wicker basket and you couldn’t wish for anything stronger and more flexible…”
On the way home Lil was subdued, a stunned look in her brown eyes. “Do you know, Miss Marietta,” she said at last, “I didn’t realize such things was possible. That Mr. Keith, he’s very clever.”
“He is, yes. Despite being a bohemian and an eccentric.”
Lil cast her a speaking glance. “And I’ve not forgotten about you going up in the balloon without telling anyone, miss. Don’t you think I have.”
“Sometimes I find it kinder not to tell people my plans, Lil—they only worry.”
Chapter 8
The following morning, Marietta was busy writing a letter to Lady Greentree, telling her all that had happened—within reason, of course. Just as she was sealing the bulky folded pages she became aware of voices downstairs, and rose to gaze from her window, which overlooked the green plane trees of Berkley Square. There was a carriage in the street outside the Montegomery townhouse, and she recognized it at once as belonging to Aunt Helen and Toby Russell.
Marietta smoothed her skirts with a grimace. She loved Aunt Helen dearly—Helen was Amy Greentree’s sister—but Toby was an appalling character and he was only tolerated by the family for Helen’s sake. He had run off with her when Helen was too young and silly to see him for the fortune hunter he really was, and William, as the head of the Tremaine family, had given in to Toby’s demands rather than allow a full-blown scandal. Toby had soon gone through Helen’s money and now they lived in a state of perpetual penury.
Parallels had been drawn between Aunt Helen and Marietta, and she supposed they were justified. They had both been foolish enough to give their hearts to men who were completely unsuitable, and then proceed to run off and ruin themselves. But whereas Helen had ended up being married to her bounder, Marietta had not—and when she looked at Toby, she couldn’t help but think she had the better bargain.
By the time Marietta entered the drawing room, Aunt Helen was wiping away her tears as she viewed Vivianna’s son in the arms of his nursemaid.
“Now, now, old girl, pull yourself together.” Toby shuffled and looked embarrassed. “I thought you were over all that silly nonsense.”
Toby had been a handsome man in his youth, but in the last ten years or so his indulgent lifestyle had seen him change. Surreptitiously Marietta eyed his rigid waistline, and decided he must be wearing a corset.
“Such a shame that Amy cannot travel yet,” Helen was saying. “She will be longing to see this dear little man. Just think, she is a grandmamma!”
“And she’s not the only one,” Toby said, with a knowing smirk.
Vivianna shot him a look full of dislike, and there was a little silence. Then Helen straightened and spoke with uncharacteristic boldness.
“Well, as to that, I told William I do not care.” Her voice trembled a little, for she was very fond of her brother William and very much influenced by him.
“I told him that I could never look upon Amy’s girls as anything other than family, and that I loved them all dearly, and if that made me a fool or…or a dupe, then it was just too bad!”
“Oh, Aunt Helen!” Marietta came and gave her aunt a warm hug. “We love you too.”
“Good Gad,” Toby shuddered at so much open emotion, and went to peer out the window.
“It’s just that I rely upon him so,” Helen spoke in a little voice. “I do not know what I would do without him. William is so strong, and I have never been very strong.”
Marietta exchanged a glance with Vivianna. They both knew that Toby was useless and that Helen did rely on William. In his way, he had watched over Helen. He had even paid some of his sister’s outstanding debts when Helen could not do so, and Toby would not do so.
“We don’t expect you to do anything that will make Uncle William angry with you,” Vivianna assured her. “Truly, Aunt Helen, you must not do that. But do you know, it might be a good thing for you, and good for Uncle William, too, if you s
tand up for yourself occasionally. If you were to say what you really think and feel, rather than saying what you believe will please him most.”
“Well, as for that…You can ask William yourself, Helen,” Toby called out, as he turned from his position by the window with an insufferably smug smile. “He’s just arrived.”
Helen took a deep shuddering breath. Vivianna and Marietta exchanged looks, before Vivianna went out into the hall to welcome her Uncle William, and Marietta clasped her aunt’s hand and squeezed it, at the same time shooting Toby a speaking glance. He responded with a mocking grin.
William’s voice boomed in the hall, and then he was following Vivianna into the room. He took Helen’s outstretched hand with a brusque, “Sister,” and greeted Marietta as if he would rather she wasn’t there. Dutifully the nurse presented Vivianna’s son to be admired—William peered at him suspiciously and grunted—and then he sat down in the most comfortable chair in the room.
“I’ll have a little milk in my tea, Marietta. And two of those tea cakes,” he said, watching critically as Marietta fetched them for him. “It really is too bad,” he grumbled. “Despite the fact that Her Majesty the Queen graciously acknowledged Amy’s girls three years ago, I still cannot go anywhere without mention being made of the scandal of their birth. I wish it had never come to light. I don’t know what any of you were thinking to allow the truth to leak out.”
“No one mentions it to me,” Vivianna said with only a slight edge to her voice. “And Her Majesty is perfectly comfortable in the company of Oliver and myself. I think you should tell these gossips, whoever they are, to mind their own business, Uncle.”
Helen drew in a little gasp of air, clearly far more upset by the exchange than any of the participants. William glared at his eldest niece and informed her in his most pompous voice, “Until you came along there was nothing remotely scandalous about the Tremaine family.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Toby spoke up.
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