A Flight of Fancy Read Online Free PDF

Hall,” she protested aloud. “Lady Whittaker expects me to embroider and knit or do something useful and boring like that.”
    “Or read to her with that lovely voice of yours.” Honore set the coffee before Cassandra, then remained beside her chair, one hand on her elder sister’s shoulder. “But I think you can work on your silly Greeks or balloons or whatever you like. I’ve been thinking about it.”
    Cassandra glanced up sharply. “You have?”
    “I do think of things besides ball gowns and new parasols, you know.” Honore’s lower lip puffed out. “Especially when there are not any balls to attend or sunshine to keep away.”
    They both glanced out at the bright September day and laughed.
    “All right, no one to go out walking with,” Honore amended.
    “You do not have any gentlemen callers? I cannot believe that.” Cassandra picked up her coffee cup but looked at her sister rather than drinking.
    Honore shook her head, a strand of her hair narrowly missing Cassandra’s coffee. “No gentlemen. I’ve gone off gentlemen for now. After thinking I was in love with a scoundrel. I mean, I did not think he was a scoundrel. I thought I was in love. But it was just his looks, and he was not like the country lads I’d met before and thus fascinating.”
    “So you want to go to Lancashire to find a country lad after all?”
    Honore grimaced. “I want to go to Lancashire to avoidScotland, where it is truly cold this time of year, and . . . well, I am going to write a novel.”
    Cassandra stifled her laugh of disbelief behind a too large gulp of coffee, followed by a coughing fit.
    Honore flounced away. “I know you are laughing at me, but I mean it quite seriously. I am going to write something far better than—than Miss Burney or—or Mrs. Radcliffe.”
    “Or Henry Fielding?” Cassandra asked dryly.
    Honore frowned. “Who is Henry Fielding?”
    “Never you mind. How do you propose to avoid Lady Whittaker to write?”
    “The same way you will avoid her—I confided to Lady Whittaker that you will need a ground-floor room because steps are just too much for you, so she is converting the parlor right off of the orangery for your exclusive use.”
    “Indeed?” A flicker of excitement surged through Cassandra’s veins.
    Orangeries had doors to the outside. She could slip outside whenever she liked, walk with others not knowing. And perhaps even find a way to get her balloon up to Lancashire.
    That would be difficult without funds. Of course, Cassandra had spent nothing of her quarterly pin money, and Father being Father, he would ensure they were given extra so as not to shame him with the impression that he was either too poor or too miserly to be generous with his daughters while they visited at the home of one daughter’s fiancé.
    Former fiancé. She had called off the wedding permanently, even if no one else acknowledged the fact. Whittaker knew it or he would not have made himself least in sight. So she could write to her ballooning friends and ask if they could manageto get the machine to Lancashire. She was part owner, after all, and hadn’t yet been able to fly in it . . .
    “You can pretend to rest all you like and have easy access to the library,” Honore prattled on. “And I will keep you company and write my book. And I’ll never tell Lady Whittaker that you are slipping out at night.”
    “You do not know if I will.”
    Honore sniffed most delicately.
    “All right, Honore, I’ll go without a struggle, but if you do not help me, I’ll—I’ll—”
    “Yes?” Honore shot Cassandra a mischievous grin from across the room.
    “I’ll get her to matchmake you with Whittaker.”
    Honore shrieked, threw her hands over her head, and fled from the room.
    Cassandra turned to her balloon plans. She must get them to Mr. Kent and Mr. Sorrells at once so they could begin the work needed for modifications to the current design they had worked on all summer. As gentlemen of independent