Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
“The Montgolfier brothers’ first passengers were a sheep, a duck, and a rooster,” Cassie announced, her gloved hand gripping Augusta’s with crushing force.
“The duck was the control subject, because ducks can already fly. The sheep was included because sheep weigh roughly the same as a person.” She frowned.
“I can’t remember why they included the rooster. ”
Hyde Park had been invaded.
The wide sweep of lawn usually given over to Society’s most measured promenades teemed with spectators of every station.
Tradesmen and their families jostled alongside students clutching sketchbooks, while the ton observed from the safe elevation of carriage seats, as though human flight might prove contagious at close quarters.
Two enormous balloons strained at their tethers at the field’s edge, their polished silk gleaming copper in the summer sun.
“I suspect the rooster’s feelings on the matter were not consulted,” Augusta commented.
“I’ll add it to my list.” Cassie produced the folded sheet of twenty-seven questions she’d presented to Hudson at breakfast. “Number twenty-eight: What was the rooster’s purpose?”
Hudson walked half a step behind, sweeping his gaze across the crowd with the methodical vigilance of a man who cataloged exits the way other people noticed weather. Augusta was aware of him: the rhythm of his stride, the breadth of his shoulders against the sky.
“Your Grace!” an annoyingly familiar voice rang out.
A trio of ladies approached in formation, their pelisses pristine, their bonnets feathered, their attention fixed on Hudson with the focus of marksmen acquiring a target.
“Lady Falstone.” Hudson inclined his head.
“Your Grace.” Lady Falstone positioned herself directly before him with a grace that excluded Augusta entirely from the circle. “What a delightful surprise. I had no idea you were a devotee of science.”
“My sister expressed an interest in aeronautics.” Hudson’s hand came to rest on Cassie’s shoulder. “Lady Cassandra is studying atmospheric pressure.”
“How charming! Lady Cassandra, you’ve grown so!” Lady Falstone turned to her companions. “You remember His Grace’s sister?”
Her companions murmured. Their gazes slid over Cassie with the blankness of adults who had classified children as scenery.
“And is this…” Lady Falstone’s eyes found Augusta, cataloged her plain dress in a single sweep, and dismissed her. “Ah, your servant. Oh, pardon me. Lady Cassandra’s governess.”
Augusta swallowed.
Servant.
Merely an extension of Hudson’s property.
She stepped back, making herself invisible, letting the ladies’ conversation close around Hudson like water filling a gap.
She should have felt nothing but relief. The last thing she needed was a lady of the ton peering too closely at the Duke’s governess. And she did feel relief.
But Miss Williston—the youngest, in pale blue—had drifted closer to Hudson. Her gloved fingers rested on his forearm as she laughed, light and deliberate, curling against his sleeve.
“… the most incredible garden party of the year, Your Grace,” Lady Falstone was saying. “You simply must come!”
“Indeed,” Miss Williston intoned. “Do tell me, Your Grace, will you be attending Lady Wilcox’s annual ball?”
Augusta watched Miss Williston’s fingers on his arm and felt something twist beneath her ribs, sharp and hot and entirely unwelcome.
She had no right. She knew she had no right. She turned toward the nearest balloon and studied its construction with fierce concentration.
“Miss Norton!”
The Marquess of Ridgewell strolled toward them with his hands in his pockets and a grin that suggested the world had been arranged for his amusement.
“Lord Ridgewell.” She blinked. “I didn’t know you were—”
“Neither did I, until an hour ago. I was at my club, losing at billiards, when someone mentioned Oakhart had brought his sister to see the balloons.” His grin widened. “Either the world has ended, or the girl’s finally cracked him. Either way, I had to witness it.”
“Perhaps both,” she teased.
Lord Ridgewell laughed, then his face turned serious. “It is good,” he said softly, “to see him appreciate the beauty of life again.”
“You care for him a great deal,” Augusta observed.
Lord Ridgewell nodded. “He is like a brother to me. From the moment we met.”
“Oh?”
The single word asked far more than a thousand would have.
Lord Ridgewell nodded again. “I was a rather scrawny lad,” he explained.
“Hudson… had always been strong in more ways than one. He found me cornered by a group of insistent rapscallions when I was but a boy. I had ventured far off a path a future marquess should not have taken alone, but he was there regardless, and he burst into the group as though the dukedom belonged to him already. Even at twelve, the boys were afraid of him.”
He laughed, as though the memory brought up some warmth.
“My body eventually caught up with my stellar personality, but as an adolescent, I must admit that I started depending on Hudson. And he was ever so gracious to befriend me and my entire family. When my father fell into debt years later… He saved my estate. Never asked for anything in return.”
He surveyed the scene: Hudson hemmed in, Cassie tugging his sleeve, the ladies showing no sign of retreat.
“Ah,” he said, suddenly less serious. “The hunting party. Allow me.” He strode forward and inserted himself into the group.
“Lady Falstone! What a vision. I was just telling Oakhart that if he doesn’t attend your garden party, I shall go in his place.
And we both know what happened last time I was left near your punch bowl. ”
Within thirty seconds, he’d redirected every pair of eyes toward him.
Hudson took the exit without hesitation.
“Come along,” he said, his hand finding Cassie’s shoulder. “The lecture begins soon.”
They moved through the crowd, and Lord Ridgewell, having extracted himself from the ladies with a bow that was half homage, half satire, appeared at Augusta’s elbow.
“You looked ready to bore a hole into that balloon with your eyes,” he remarked. “I thought an intervention was warranted.”
“I was studying the construction. For Cassie’s benefit.”
“Of course. And I’m sure Miss Williston attempting to climb Hudson like an attractive tree had nothing to do with it.”
Heat crept up Augusta’s neck. Despite herself, a laugh escaped her.
Ahead, Hudson’s stride slowed. His shoulders shifted beneath his coat, the sign of a man who had heard something he didn’t care for.
Lord Ridgewell seemed to have noticed. His grin became private and deeply satisfied.
“Shall I take your arm?” he offered. “The ground is uneven.”
Augusta placed her hand on his arm, and he launched into an explanation of balloon engineering that was almost certainly invented on the spot and entirely entertaining.
Hudson’s strides became even more deliberate for the next two hundred yards.
The aeronaut’s name was Fitch.
“The envelope,” Hudson said, his voice carrying the calm, even tone Augusta had learned to identify as his most dangerous register. “Cotton or silk?”
“Both, Your Grace. Silk for the upper portion, cotton below.”
“The tether’s maximum tolerance?”
“Eight hundred pounds, sir.”
“Combined weight of four passengers, the ballast, and the brazier?”
Fitch blinked. “Approximately six hundred pounds. The margin is—”
“Show me the anchor points.” It was not a request.
They circled the balloon’s perimeter, Hudson testing each section of the tether with his own hands, gloves discarded, fingers running over rope.
He examined the basket’s construction, the ballast sacks, and the emergency release mechanism.
He inquired about wind tolerances, tear procedures, and the last inspection date.
“And if the wind shifts?” he asked.
“We descend immediately, Your Grace.”
He stepped closer. “Mr. Fitch, my sister is eleven years old. Her governess is in my care. If anything goes wrong during the ascent, I will hold you personally responsible. Not the wind. Not the equipment. But you. Do we understand each other?”
Fitch held his gaze. “I’ve been flying for nineteen years, Your Grace. I’ve never lost a passenger, and I don’t intend to start today.”
Hudson studied him, then nodded.
Cassie, who had been holding her breath, let it out in a rush. “That was very dramatic,” she whispered to Augusta. “He once did the same thing to the milk delivery man. The poor fellow nearly fainted.”
Augusta suppressed the urge to giggle.
The basket was larger than she had expected: reinforced wicker, lined with carpet, a metal brazier glowing at its center. Fitch handed them aboard one by one.
Hudson positioned himself near the tether mechanism. Lord Ridgewell settled opposite with his collar turned up. Cassie scrambled in, her hands already gripping the railing. Augusta stepped in last. The basket swayed. She gripped the railing hard enough to feel wicker bite through her gloves.
The ground crew released the tethers in sequence. The basket lurched, settled, and rose.
London fell away. The crowd shrank to upturned faces. Trees diminished to smudges against grass, and then the park itself became a shape, something she could hold in her mind the way one held a map.
“The Serpentine,” Cassie breathed, as though the sky demanded a quieter register. “And is that Kensington Palace? And the river. Miss Norton, you were right! It curves completely differently from up here.” She turned to Hudson, her eyes wet. “It’s beautiful.”
His hand found her shoulder and settled, his fingers spreading wide.
She leaned into his side. His arm shifted, drawing her closer.
For one suspended instant, they stood together at the basket’s edge. Brother and sister, looking out over a city that from this height seemed to hold nothing that could hurt them.
Augusta pressed her knuckles against her mouth and looked away.
The wind gusted, and the basket swung, tilting the horizon sideways.