Sherry Thomas - Ravishing the Heiress

“How do you heat the air?” she asked.

“The air is not heated. That is hydrogen inside the envelope, madame.”

“Hydrogen is lighter than air, isn’t it? How will we descend?”

“Ah, very intelligent question, madame. There are two air sacks inside the hydrogen envelope and these we can fill or empty. And when they are filled, the entire weight of the airship becomes slightly larger than the lift provided by the hydrogen and we will come to a very gentle landing.”

She glanced at Fitz.

“Only if you wish to go,” he said. “But you must make up your mind soon. Or it will be dark before we reach the English coast.”

She expelled a long breath. “Let’s hurry, then.”

The moment they’d settled themselves inside the basket, which Monsieur Duval called a gondola, his assistant began tossing bags of earth overboard, while Monsieur Duval coaxed his battery-powered engine to life. The propellers rotated, at first lazily, then with vigor.

The basket lifted so gradually that Millie, absorbed with Monsieur Duval’s handling of valves and gauges, didn’t even notice they were airborne until the basket was three feet off the ground.

“Last chance to jump,” murmured Fitz.

“Same goes for you,” she said.

“I’m not afraid of falling into the English Channel.”

“Hmm, I am quite afraid of falling into the English Channel. But if I jump now”—she looked down; the ground had receded dramatically—“it is a certainty I’ll break my limbs. Whereas it is only a probability that I will need to swim.”

“Do you know how to swim?”

“No.”

“So you have entrusted your life to this mad venture.”

She exhaled. “I trust I will be all right with you by my side.”

For a moment he looked as if he didn’t quite know what to say, then he smiled. “Well, I do have a compass on my watch. Should we hit water, I’ll know which direction to push the gondola.”

The fog. She’d forgotten about the fog altogether.

Above them was a clear sky, beneath them the French countryside—dotted with sheep, cows, and hamlets. Children pointed and waved; Millie waved back. Two boys threw stones that fell far short; Fitz laughed and shouted something that sounded like French, but did not contain any French words Millie had ever been taught.

The airship kept rising. The livestock were now pinpricks; the land a parquet of tracts in varying shades of green and brown.

“How high are we?” Fitz asked.

Monsieur Duval consulted a gauge. “The barometric column has dropped almost two inches. We are about fifteen hundred feet up—half again as high as the top of the Eiffel Tower—and we are still ascending.”

After some time, Fitz shaded his eyes with his hand. “I can see the fog now. Are we approaching the coast?”

“Oui, monsieur le comte.”

The fog was the most spectacular sight Millie had ever seen, a sea of cloud upon which the airship cast its elongated shadow. The thick vapors erupted and writhed, with currents and climates of its own. And as the sun lowered toward the western horizon, the peaks and ridges turned into mountains of gold, as if they were being given a tour of heaven’s own bank vault.

Fitz draped his coat around her shoulders. “Magnificent, isn’t it?”

She stole a look at him. “Yes,” she said, “in every way.”

“I’d once hoped my marriage would be an adventure—and it has turned out to be just that.” His gaze still on the fog, he placed his arm around her shoulders. “If something should befall us this day, know that of all the heiresses I could have married four years ago, I’m glad it’s you.”

At times she’d wondered how her life might have turned out differently had she been given a choice in the matter of her marriage. Now she knew: There would have been no difference, for she’d have chosen the very path that led her to this precise moment. She gathered her courage and put her arm around his waist.

“I feel the same,” she said. “I’m glad it’s you.”

There was just enough light for Monsieur Duval to set down the airship on an empty field, causing much excitement to several Sussex villages. Millie and Fitz arrived in London by midnight.

Millie spent the next week by her mother’s bedside. At first it seemed that Mrs. Graves might make a miraculous recovery, but Millie’s hopes were dashed when her condition further deteriorated.

Mrs. Graves slipped in and out of consciousness, sometimes awake long enough to take some nourishment and exchange a greeting with Millie, sometimes falling unconscious again before she’d even quite oriented herself.

Mrs. Graves’s sisters and cousins sometimes sat with Millie during the day; Fitz was there every night, keeping her company. They did not speak much during these long nights, each dozing in a chair, but his presence was a source of immeasurable comfort.

One morning, just after he left to have his breakfast, Mrs. Graves came to.

Millie leaped up. “Mother.”

She hurriedly reached for the glass of water kept on the nightstand and fed her mother several large spoonfuls.

“Millie,” Mrs. Graves murmured weakly.

Millie had not meant to, but she found herself weeping. “I’m sorry. Forgive me.”

“Forgive me, for leaving you much sooner than I’d intended.”

Millie could deny it, but they both knew Mrs. Graves had not much time left. She wiped her eyes. “It’s not fair. You should be as long-lived as the queen.

“My love, I’ve lived a wonderful, enviable life. That it will be a little shorter than I’d liked is no cause for complaint.”

She coughed. Millie gave her another three spoonfuls of water. Her breathing was labored, but she waved away the tonic Millie offered. “No, my love, the only unfairness here is what your father and I asked of you—that you give up your own happiness so that we could have a grandson who would one day be an earl.”

“I am not unhappy.” Millie hesitated. She’d never spoken aloud the secrets of her heart. “I do not wish to be anyone’s wife except Fitz’s.”

Mrs. Graves smiled. “He is a lovely young man.”

“The best—like you, Mother.”

Mrs. Graves caressed Millie’s still-wet cheek. “Remember what I said years ago? No man can possibly be more fortunate than the one who has your hand. Someday he will see the light.”

“Will he?”

But Mrs. Graves’s arm slackened. She was again unconscious and passed away the same day, late in the afternoon.

Fitz was by Millie’s side. He kissed her on her forehead. “I’m so sorry.”

Her eyes welled again with tears. “It was too soon. She was the last of my family.”

He handed her his handkerchief. “Nonsense. I am your family. Now go have a lie down; you haven’t slept properly for days.”

I am your family. She stared at him, her vision blurred. “I haven’t even thanked you, have I, for giving me more time with Mother?”

“You don’t need to thank me for anything,” he said firmly. “It is my privilege to look after you.”

Her vision grew ever more watery. “Thank you.”

“Didn’t I already tell you not to thank me?”

She mustered a small smile. “I meant, for saying that.”

He returned her smile. “Go rest. I’ll take care of everything.”

He left the room to speak to Mrs. Graves’s butler. She stood against the door frame and watched him disappear down the stairs.

I’m glad it’s you.

1896

Fitz had not been in the mistress’s rooms since he walked through the town house upon inheriting it. A great many renovations had taken place since then, to turn the house from a near hovel to an airy, comfortable home. Their marriage, in fact, could be traced plank by plank, brick by brick.

Even now the enhancements continued: The draining of the lavender fields had been improved in the spring; a second beehive had been commissioned for the kitchen garden—it was to be a scale replica of the manor at Henley Park; and, the servants’ quarters, which had been overhauled once four years ago, were being worked on again.

Her room was light and pretty, with wallpaper the summery, crisp green of a sliced cucumber. Potted topiaries stood guard at either side of the fireplace. Above the fireplace hung a painted landscape that looked rather familiar—not the painting, but the landscape.

She stood in the center of the room, still in her full evening regalia, her fan held before her like a plumed breastplate. She glanced at him, but did not otherwise acknowledge his presence.

He did not want to make her more nervous than she must be. Instead of approaching her, he crossed the room to take a better look at the painting. “Is this Lake Como?”

“Yes.”

His gaze dipped to the mantel. Upon it were a row of framed photographs that had been taken in summers past, at their country house parties. Each photograph contained the two of them, though never alone; sometimes they were in a large group, sometimes with only her mother or his sisters.

At the edge of the mantel, another familiar object. “Is this the music box I gave you for your seventeenth birthday? Looks much better than I remember.”

He lifted the lid of the music box. It emitted the same thin, slightly discordant notes. Still worked. Who would have thought?

She watched him. But when he looked at her, she glanced away immediately.

“Where is your maid?”

“I told her not to wait up for me.”

She dropped her fan onto the seat of a nearby chair. The gesture was determinedly casual. Yet as she stood next to the padded armrest, her throat wobbled with a swallow. The sight of it—the implication of it—made his blood hot.

“It won’t be disagreeable,” he said. “It can be made quite enjoyable.”

“Oh, it had better be,” she said tartly. “I’ve heard plenty over the years on your amatory prowess. If I’m not on the roof crowing, I will consider myself disappointed.”

He smiled and put the music box back on the mantel. “Into the bedchamber with you then, lady.”

For a few seconds she stared at her dropped fan without moving. Then she went for the switch and turned off the electric sconce on the wall. The lamp in the bedroom had been left on, illuminating the path. She walked past him and disappeared inside.

So, we come to it at last.

A mundane marital task, was this not? An obligation he’d put off for too long. Why then, as he advanced toward the bedroom, did he feel as if he were being swept out to sea? That the tides and currents would be unlike anything he’d ever known in the calm estuary that had been his marriage?

She turned off the light the moment he’d closed the door behind him. He supposed he shouldn’t be too surprised—he was dealing with a virgin after all. But they knew each other so well it seemed she shouldn’t be shy at all.

“Wouldn’t you want me to see what I’m doing?”

“No.”

He smiled. “Not even when I have to wrestle with tricky bits of your gown?”

“There is nothing here you haven’t encountered enough times elsewhere.”

The darkness was impenetrable: Her windows had been shut and shuttered, the double curtains tightly drawn.

“This will be a first for me,” he murmured. “Fumbling about in the dark. I ought to have you sing a hymn so I can find you.”

She snorted. “A hymn?”

“The heavenly host rejoice tonight: At last I am doing something ordained by God and immortalized by Christ’s love for his Church—et cetera, et cetera.”

“What should I sing? ‘Hosanna in the highest’? Or maybe we ought to really make our rector proud and recite the Lord’s Prayer, too.”

He knew where she was now: by her vanity table. She jumped as his hand settled on her shoulder. Had she not heard his approach in the dark?

“All right, so you found me. Your turn to hide now and mine to seek,” she said, her voice just a bit squeaky.

“Some other day. We’ve business to attend to, Lady Fitzhugh.”

She wore long kidskin gloves that extended well past her elbows. They were fastened at the top with three ivory buttons each. He popped the buttons—one, two, three—pushed one glove down and pulled it off.

“I forgot to say so earlier, but you looked quite lovely tonight,” he said. He slid his palm along her now-exposed arm. So much of her was a mystery to him.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice barely audible.