A Heart in Flight (3 page)

She made her tone deliberately sharp. “You presume too much, milord.”

He nodded ingratiatingly. “A frequent mistake of mine. Will you forgive me?”

She wanted to be angry, she should be angry, but that was to no avail. He was really very good at this sort of thing. And she was sadly out of her depth. “Yes,” she said shortly, turning back to the shelf.  The man was intoxicating. He made her feel ... Yes, that was it. He made her feel as she had imagined she would feel
up there.
Breathless and awestruck. Soaring higher and higher.

This was the outside of enough! No
man
was going to make her feel things like that. She moved away from him.

He followed immediately. “Yes,” he said. “I find nothing more relaxing than a nice romp with a knight and his lady as they extricate themselves from the toils of a despicable villain.”

“I should think a man of your stature would wish to occupy himself with other, more important, things.” The memory of his conversation with Alvanley returned, and she colored.

He didn’t seem to notice. “I do sometimes read for the edification of my mind,” he replied soberly. “But even in doing that I must be most careful.”

“How so?” She could not help being interested. Uncle Arthur and Harold scoffed at her romances. Neither one had ever so much as opened a novel and certainly not a romance.

“If I read novels,” he said. “I am endangering my character. Unless, of course, I choose them carefully.”

Aurelia had to smile. He
did
know Dr. Johnson. “I hardly think Dr. Johnson had men of your stamp in mind. You are neither young nor ignorant.”

“Nor idle,” he added with that charming grin.

“Nor are you so impressionable as to take an erroneous view of the world from such works.” She banished her smile and tried to keep her expression severe. This was not a matter for laughter, but for serious discussion.

“You are right enough about that,” said the Earl, moving slightly closer. “I have been on the town for some time. However, this is the first I have ever encountered a woman conversant with Dr. Johnson’s theories on the novel.”

“And you are the first man I have known who ...” Her tongue seemed to get twisted in itself, and she could not finish.

He did not seem to mind. “Ah, we have something, then, in common. Besides our passion for things aeronautical.”

When he used the word
passion,
he smiled at her again. It was only a smile, a lazy sort of expression, but she clasped the book that she held tightly, hoping to still the quivering of her fingers. No wonder the Earl did so well with the ladies; few women lived who could resist such a man.

Of course, he was only playing with her. This was probably his usual attitude with women. But he had mistaken his game.

Although the pleasures of love had so far been denied her, she could not consider indulging in them without benefit of matrimony. And certainly matrimony was a far cry from what the Earl’s eyes proposed.

“I should still be happy to give you a ride home,” he said pleasantly.

She shook her head. The afternoon had been enjoyable. Too enjoyable, in sober fact. Now it was time to be sensible. And the sensible thing was to cut this short. “No, thank you. As I said, I have several errands to do.” It was a lie, of course, but surely one was allowed a small lie in such a situation.

Ranfield found, inexplicably, that he did not want this conversation to end. She was different. She was entertaining. She was ...

“I should be happy to put the services of my carriage at your disposal.”

Again she shook her head. “No, thank you.”

She was stubborn, too. “Miss Amesley, Be sensible.”

She turned ice maiden. Evidently he had said the wrong thing. Maybe it was that word—
sensible.

“Has it ever occurred to you that I might not enjoy your company?”

“No.” He kept his smile cheerful, that smile that had served him so well for so long. “Actually, my experience has convinced me that women find my companionship desirable. Indeed, they are even apt to go to some trouble to acquire it.”

She bit her lip, but the icy look remained. “You are quite insufferable. And exceedingly high in the instep.”

“I know,” he agreed, waiting for her smile to break. “But I cannot help it; it’s part of my considerable charm.”

She didn’t smile; she frowned. “Milord, since you refuse to take even a broad hint, I am forced to be quite plain. I do not desire your company. Neither today nor at any other time.”

It struck him quite forcibly that perhaps she was not playing a game, not trading
bon mots
like ladies of the
ton.
Perhaps she had taken a distinct dislike to him.

The thought was decidedly unpleasant. He refused to consider it further. No woman had ever persisted in refusing him. Still, he must act the gentleman. If she said she didn’t want to see him, he must believe her. For the moment.

He bowed from the waist, formally. “I beg your pardon. I shall not bother you any further.” And then he marched away, his back straight beneath the well-tailored coat.

For some moments Aurelia stood, staring at the titles through a blur of sudden tears. She had really offended him, and she could not help being sorry. Their conversation bad been the most enjoyable she’d had in a long time. It was too bad to have driven him away.

Miss Rutherford would have been proud of her, though, giving him a set down like that. A little smile came to Aurelia’s lips. Miss Rutherford would have had some choice phrases about behaving like a green schoolroom girl. The Earl had probably been plagued with
ennui
and had used their chance meeting as a little diversion. Something to wile away an afternoon. By tomorrow he would have forgotten all about- it. And so would she.

So she gathered up
The Dark Stranger,
selected another volume by a Miss Eliza Muscat, entitled
Cave of Corenza,
and made her way to the desk. She did not look around her, and, even if she had, the tall man watching her from the shadows of a remote corner would probably not have caught her eye. So, when she stepped through the door and out into the spring air, she had no idea that the Earl of Ranfield was smiling thoughtfully, and looking not at all like a man who had just received a proper set down.

By the time Aurelia reached the second floor rooms off Bloomsbury Square that she now called home, she had thrust the meeting with the Earl out of her mind. She had to consider the evening meal.

At her insistence, they had dispensed with the services of cooks and maids in order to free more funds for air flight. She did not mind doing household chores.

She only wished Uncle Arthur would listen to her. She wanted so much to go up, to become a female aeronaut like Madame Blanchard. When other girls were playing with dolls, she had been playing with balloons. When they were thinking of trousseaus and weddings, she was thinking of ascending into the heavens in a wicker basket. But Uncle Arthur ...

The door opened. “If the wind is favorable, everything should go right,” declared Harold, running a rough hand through his brilliant hair and unbuttoning his shabby coat.

“Just so long as it don’t change after they get up,” Uncle Arthur said. “You remember what happened to Sadler when he went up during the Victory Celebration in ‘15. Got blown off course and landed in the Mucking Marshes.”

Uncle Arthur’s red hair was not as vivid as his son’s, and there was much less of it. But it presented a rather startling picture, curling as it did round a shiny bald pate.

“I’m sure it will go right,” repeated Harold. “We’ve considered all the things we could.”

Uncle Arthur sighed. “It’s the things we can’t consider that worry me. If we’re ever going to get anywhere with commercial air flight, we’ve got to show people that it’s safe and convenient. That it can actually work.”

Harold scratched his peeling nose, constantly sunburned from his days outdoors. “We need a female aeronaut. To prove it ain’t dangerous.”

Bless Harold, he was trying his best to help her go aloft.

But Uncle Arthur just frowned. “A female’s got no place in air flight. Wouldn’t want one in a balloon with me.”

Biting her lip, Aurelia turned back to the pot of soup she was ladling up. Why couldn’t Uncle Arthur understand? Why couldn’t he see that a female could be as devoted to air flight as any man?

“I want to read again about the Montgolfier flights,” Uncle Arthur went on. “Even though we are using hydrogen gas instead of hot air like they did, we may find mention of something we’ve missed.”

He looked at his son. “You have consulted your records on air currents, temperature, and pressure variations? Wind velocities, too? You know how important they are.”

“Yes, father. I know. I’ve studied them carefully. We have all the information ready.”

“Oh, if only I were going up.” She was unaware she’d spoken aloud until the men turned to regard her.

“This is not a task for females.” Uncle Arthur’s face reddened. “It takes intelligence and judgment. A man has to make quick decisions. And right ones.”

Aurelia bristled. “Do you mean to say that I have no intelligence and judgment?”

“Of course not, my dear.” Uncle Arthur’s tone was placating. He rubbed his bald head in that way he had when he was worried. “Aurelia, you know that I gave your father my word that I would not let you go aloft.”

“But it’s not fair. You know it’s not fair.”

Uncle Arthur sighed. “Would you have me break my word? To your poor dead father?”

Of course she didn’t want that. But neither did she want to be forever denied the joy of ascent. She had more intelligence than many men. But even if she could prove that, it was no use. He had promised Papa.

But
she
hadn’t promised. Somehow, some way, she was going to get up there. She meant to experience the heavens firsthand.

“You took the handbill to the printer?” Uncle Arthur asked.

“Yes.” Harold gave her a commiserating look. “He promised them faithfully for Tuesday morning.”

“Good. That will give us ample time to hand them out. Tell me again, how did the wording read?”

Harold closed his eyes and recited. “Thursday next, 11:00
A
.
M
. Balloon Ascent from Hyde Park. Howard Amesley, Celebrated Aeronaut. Spectators welcome.”

Uncle Arthur nodded. “Very good, my boy. Very good indeed.” He pushed back his chair. “Now to dinner.”

* * * *

Some time later, the remains of the meal cleared away, Aurelia retired to her room and lit the lamp. She did not join the men in their computations. They would simply figure and refigure—an exceedingly dull task.

She did not put a match to the little fire laid on the hearth, but instead pulled her shawl closer and settled down with
The Dark Stranger.
Lady Incognita’s romances could always be counted on to keep one’s interest. And that night she needed something to distract her mind from the intended flight and Uncle Arthur’s unreasonable attitude.

She was several chapters into the book when she realized that she had been casting the hero in the likeness of a certain Lord Ranfield. From piercing eyes to broad shoulders, the dark stranger, whose name the heroine had yet to discover, was the image of the Earl. A slightly sobered Earl, perhaps, but still amazingly like.

Aurelia made a
moue of
distaste. This afternoon’s adventure had been just that—an adventure and nothing more. She should not be so foolish as to refine on it.

Still, she let her eyes slowly close. Talking to him had been invigorating. Even now her blood raced at the memory. What a terribly vivid blue his eyes were. And how they could hold a woman’s gaze! For several minutes she let herself imagine what might have happened.

For one thing, they might have attended the theater together. Though she’d never had a chance to attend, she’d heard about the performances at Drury Lane and Covent Garden. How the
ton
went to see each other, not the play.

She and the Earl might have ridden in Hyde Park, behind the highsteppers he no doubt kept. Or they might have waltzed at Almack’s, the “wanton” waltz as Byron called it, because he said it heated the blood. And, perhaps, the gossips whispered, because his clubfoot prevented him from enjoying it himself.

She stirred uncomfortably in her chair. She didn’t need a waltz to heat her blood. Just imagining a look from the Earl’s heavy-lidded eyes could do that quite adequately. The thought rather shocked her.

She was a grown woman, of course, with some knowledge of the ways of the world. And she’d turned down more than one invitation to matrimony for the very reason that she could not countenance intimacy with the man who offered it, even though some of them had been likable enough. But this was a far different feeling than any she had previously experienced. And really rather strange. It made her feel ...

She sighed. Perhaps she should put
The Dark Stranger
aside and try instead Miss Eliza Muscat’s book.

She was quite determined to think no more of the Earl. Consequently, she had read a great deal of Miss Muscat’s
Romance of the 18th Century, Altered from the Italian,
by the time she rose to prepare for bed. What a strange book it was—imagine a seventeen-year-old heroine passionately in love with a married man of fifty. Surely this was too much.

But she had to admit that these romances had considerably brightened her own dull existence. Without them, her winters would have been exceedingly drab. And no matter what their peculiarities, she did not intend to give them up.

By the time she turned out the lamp and slid between the sheets, she had made another decision. She would think no more of the Earl of Ranfield.

However, this excellent resolution proved not so easily achieved. For immediately upon the conclusion of her prayers, the image of the man intruded again upon her consciousness. With an irritated exclamation, she admitted the truth to herself: Wrong and utterly hopeless as she knew the thing to be, an idea much more fitting for a green schoolroom girl than a grown woman of sense, she very much desired to see the dark, handsome Earl again.