The Daring Exploits of a Runaway Heiress (19 page)

He nodded. “Nor should you.”

“And even you must admit that everything I have done thus far has been well thought out and equally well planned.”

“Yes, I suppose it has.”

“Make no mistake, Cameron Fairchild.” She met his gaze directly and there was a distinct challenge in her eyes. “Should I decide to allow anyone to seduce me, it will not be because I am some silly, vapid female prone to swoon into the bed of the first man to whisper passionate phrases into my ear.”

“I should hope not.”

“Furthermore, if I were to permit someone to seduce me it will be for no other reason than because I wish to be seduced. Which means we are no longer talking about the seduction of one person by another but something much more mutual. Even democratic, if you will.”

“I see.” He stared at her for a long moment, then smiled slowly. “And will that be well thought out too?”

Behind him he heard the artist return to the conservatory. Lucy smiled a welcome, then leaned close and spoke low into Cam’s ear. “Goodness, Cameron. It already is.”

“I’m not sure how you managed to arrange this,” Lucy said, forcing a bright note to her voice. “And so quickly as well.”

“Yesterday you challenged me to help you complete the tasks on your great-aunt’s list.” Cameron grinned. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t flying one of those you had yet to accomplish?”

“Indeed it is,” she said weakly, trying very hard not to let her gaze stray over the edge of the gondola of the balloon that was taking them ever upward and probably to their doom.

Fortunately they were tethered to the ground and would rise no farther than the length of the rope. A rope that did seem to be unreasonably long. The gondola itself—and she preferred to think of it as a gondola rather than a creaking, insubstantial wicker basket more suited to the storage of yarn than the carrying of people—was square in shape and no more than five or six feet across, adequate for perhaps four inhabitants, although she and Cameron were alone on this ascent. Unfortunately, the limited space meant anyone who might not wish to watch the earth rapidly growing smaller beneath them, someone who might prefer to curl up in a small ball on the floor and pray for an end to this particular adventure or at the very least a swift and painless death, was unable to do so. No, such a person had little choice but to bravely face her fate and smile and pretend that she was having a wonderful time.

To make it worse, it was shockingly cold up here. Lucy could no longer feel her toes. She pushed her hands further into her fur muff and hunched her shoulders. Her nose was numb as well. Cameron was not the only one who was not fond of the cold. Once again, she wondered at Lucinda’s lists of regrets. Had her great-aunt put no thought into the practicality and the sheer terror of any of them? Someday perhaps there would be means of flying—machines possibly like trains with wings—that did not expose travelers to the cold and a view of the far distant ground through woven wicker, but today was not that day. “I didn’t think it was possible to go up in a balloon in weather like this.”

“Actually, according to Carswell, the aeronaut who mans this balloon—”

Who had wisely remained on the ground with Clara.

“—as long as the winds are calm, winter isn’t a bad time at all to ascend.”

“Except of course for the bitter cold.”

“Oh, it’s not that bad.” Cameron drew a deep breath. “Really rather invigorating, I think.” He turned away from her and braced his hands on the rail of the gondola. “And the view, Lucy. My God, the view is magnificent. You can see all of London from here.”

“I prefer seeing it from the ground, thank you,” she said under her breath. Certainly she’d been a bit uneasy when she’d ridden Hannibal, but she’d attributed that to the sway of the animal and not the height of her seat. Now, she knew better.

Lucinda Wilhelmina Merryweather was deathly afraid of heights.

“Did you say something?” Cameron asked over his shoulder.

“No, nothing, nothing at all.” She absolutely was not about to let him know how truly terrified she was. After all, this was her adventure. Besides, she was an American and they were made of sterner stuff than to let something as minor as sailing far above the rooftops of London turn them into quivering rabbits. Although a rabbit wouldn’t be so stupid as to let his little paws leave the ground. Lucy promised herself to never again leave the solid earth behind. “How did you manage this?”

“The army, the Royal Engineers to be exact, has a balloon division.” He scanned the horizon as if he were a captain at the helm of a grand ship. “And I know someone who knows someone. It really wasn’t all that difficult to arrange.”

“And yet most impressive.” Would they ever stop their ascent? Surely the rope had reached its limit by now. Unless the rope had come loose. Or the aeronaut had forgotten to tie it. Or his heart had failed and he was lying dead on the ground leaving them to continue to shoot ever higher until they lost sight of the earth altogether. Her already uneasy stomach twisted at the thought.

She was being silly, of course. She drew a calming breath.

Nothing of that sort had happened. They simply hadn’t reached the end of the rope yet. Nothing would go wrong. They were in the competent hands of someone who had something to do with the Royal Engineers, which did sound encouraging. Why, they would be back on the ground before they knew it. She would tell Cameron how delightful it had been and thank him for helping her check another regret off her list. In the meantime it might be better to think of something—anything—that did not bring to mind the all too vivid idea of dropping like a stone from the heavens.

Admittedly, if she hadn’t been in fear for her life at the moment, her thoughts would be filled with trying to work out the mystery that was Cameron Fairchild. Indeed, she’d thought of little else but him since he’d left her yesterday. He’d stayed watching Jean-Philippe paint long enough for Clara to return and then had finally taken his leave. But he had given her an address where he could be reached should she need him. Tonight, she would attend the ambassador’s ball with Beryl and Lord Dunwell. Tomorrow, she would do a bit of investigating of her own. It was past time she found out exactly who or perhaps what Mr. Fairchild was. At this point, it was more than simple curiosity on her part. She absolutely refused to give her heart to a man who wasn’t completely honest with her. But oh, dear Lord, how she wanted to.

She hadn’t expected that, certainly hadn’t planned on it, but then she hadn’t planned on a less than competent private investigator or watchdog or bodyguard or whatever he really was. Hadn’t planned on endless brown eyes or the endearing way his jaw clenched with indignation or, for the first time in her life, someone who didn’t see her as a dutiful daughter or a perky, brainless, fair-haired little sister or the future bride of Jackson Channing. Someone who seemed to see her for her. It was as disconcerting as it was wonderful.

“The army came up with the idea in the first place from your civil war.” He glanced back at her. “Did you know that Confederate forces used balloons to safely observe battles and track forces on the ground?”

“I had no idea,” she said faintly. Frankly, she’d rather be shot at.

The last thing she wanted to talk about was the history of balloon flight. Still, it was better than nothing, and anything would serve to take her mind off their imminent demise. “How on earth do you know all of this?”

He chuckled. “I am a repository of useless information.”

As most educated, well-bred young men who had no financial need to seek eventual employment tended to be. Yet another clue as to the truth about Cameron. Still, as confident as she was of his honorable nature—and surely she would know somewhere deep down inside if he were truly a deceitful cad—she did need to have her confidence confirmed. After all, an expected engagement to Jackson and growing up with four brothers did not give her true experience with men and certainly not with deceitful cads. Besides, she suspected a man could be deceitful and not be a cad. There might be all kinds of valid reasons why a man would be less than perfectly honest with a woman. Still, it was extremely annoying. Yesterday she had given Cameron any number of hints about honesty and trust and yet he still hadn’t told her what he was hiding. Of course, it was entirely possible he wasn’t hiding anything, but she doubted it. There were too many tiny clues that indicated the man was not what he appeared.

And with every passing day it was more and more important to learn the truth. Because with every passing day her heart, which seemed to have no understanding of the impracticality of falling for a man one couldn’t trust, was urging her to toss caution aside and fling herself headlong into his arms and his life and, God help her, his bed.

Whatever had possessed her to speak to him of seduction and in a most risqué manner? She had never in her life been that, well, brazen. Worse yet, she had enjoyed it. There was something quite satisfying about seeing a look of shock on a man’s face at a suggestion of impropriety. Especially a man who didn’t expect it. Although she was every bit as surprised as he. Certainly it could in part be attributed to her lack of proper clothing. It was amazing what going without a corset did for a woman’s candor. But one could only blame so much on one’s underpinnings or lack of them.

And then he had spoken of feelings and said he liked her and there was a definite look in his eyes that said he more than merely liked her. She really hadn’t expected that either, although she supposed she had hoped, somewhere in the back of her mind where she was reluctant to admit it. Still, as much as she did seem to be falling into some sort of vast abyss, she wondered now if he was falling as well. That thought too was both wonderful and disconcerting. But mostly wonderful.

“It’s only been in the last ten years that progress has really been made in the field.”

“How fascinating.” She thought for a moment. She’d realized from the beginning he was well educated. What better time than now to find out more. “Is this an interest of yours? Balloon flight, I mean. You seem to know a great deal about the history of it. Was this part of your studies? At a university perhaps?”

“No, just something I picked up here and there.” He glanced back at her. “You really should come here and see the view.”

“I can see it quite well from here, thank you.” She adopted a casual tone. “Where did you study?”

“Oh, I—”

Without warning the balloon jerked, abruptly stopping its upward motion. Lucy uttered a short shriek, sank to the floor of the gondola, and buried her face in her hands.

“Lucy?”

“Good God! We’re going to die! I knew it! I knew it all along!” Sheer terror swept through her. “We’ll plunge to the ground! We’ll be smashed into a thousand pieces!”

“Lucy!” Cameron grabbed her hands, pried them from her face, and pulled her to her feet. “Don’t be absurd. We’ve simply reached the end of our rope.”

“The end of our rope?” Her voice rose. “
The end of our rope?
I don’t want to be at the end of our rope! I don’t want to be at the end of anything! I have a great deal left to do in my life! I’ve scarcely even begun!”

“Lucy,” he said firmly, gripping her shoulders and staring into her eyes. “We’re perfectly all right. Nothing is going to happen.”

“I don’t call falling from the heavens nothing!”

“We’re not going to fall.” He shook her shoulders slightly. “Trust me, I will never let anything hurt you.”

“Really?” Fear sharpened her voice. A tiny, rational part of her mind noted that he was probably right. She ignored it. “Unless you plan to sprout wings and fly us back to the ground, I don’t see that there’s anything you can do to stop it! We’re about to—”

He yanked her into his arms and crushed his lips to hers. She struggled against him and pulled free.

She sucked in a deep breath. “We’re going to hurtle to our deaths! There’s nothing you can do to stop—”

Again, his lips claimed hers. He held her tight against him until she stopped fighting. Until the warmth of his mouth on hers, the heat of his body pressing against her, surrounding her, eased her panic. At last he raised his head from hers. “We are not going to plummet—”

“Plummet?” Terror widened her eyes and she stared up at him. “I never said plummet! Oh God, Cameron, I don’t want to plummet!”

“We are not going to plummet.” His arms tightened around her and his hand pressed her head against his chest. “Nor are we going to plunge or hurtle or fall—”

She moaned.

“And we will certainly not be smashed into a hundred pieces.”

“A thousand pieces.” She shuddered.

“Breathe, my sweet girl, just breathe.”

For a long moment or forever he held her tight and she clung to him and little by little her terror eased.

“This is rather disconcerting.” A smile sounded in his voice.

“Don’t even think of letting me go,” she warned. “I don’t care about propriety or anything else at the moment, but if you let me go, Cameron Fairchild, I swear to you—”

“I promise, I won’t let you go.” He chuckled. “It’s not that. Holding you in my arms is delightful. I’ve simply never seen you as anything other than completely courageous before.”

“I’m not especially brave when it comes to things like imminent death.”

“Few of us are.”

“I don’t think I like adventures that include the actual risking of one’s life.”

“Some people think that’s the only true kind of adventure.” Amusement sounded in his voice.

“Men no doubt.” She huffed. “And utter idiots.”

He laughed.

“This is a dreadful adventure.”

“It’s hard to enjoy if you’re terrified. I had no idea you would find this frightening.”

“Neither did I.”

In spite of her fear, his words and his embrace comforted her. “You’re not scared at all, are you?”

“Not really. I’m finding this quite exciting. But I am truly sorry that you are.”

“It’s most embarrassing,” she murmured against his chest.

“We’re all scared of something,” he said gently, and her heart warmed.

“What are you scared of, Cameron?”

He thought for a long moment. “Failure, I suppose. Not living up to expectations. Being a disappointment to those I care about.”

How very interesting. She looked up at him. “I can’t imagine ever being disappointed in you.”

He smiled. “Thank you.”

“But you’re not a very good private investigator, are you?”

“You do realize a man with lesser confidence than I would be offended at your continued criticism of the way I do my job.” His brow furrowed. “Why do you keep mentioning that?”

“It seems worth mentioning.” She sighed. “I do apologize if I have offended you. But if you cannot be honest with, well, friends, who can you be honest with?”

“You do have a point.” He paused. “And you? What are you afraid of, Lucy? Aside from heights, that is.”