A Flight of Fancy Read Online Free PDF Page B

means, surely they would help. Otherwise, she must start from the beginning, and that would take too long. She would never manage to fly across the Irish Sea or travel from the Dale to York by air if she did not have her balloon built to her specifications. If she could make one or the other journey work, others might wish to travel that way, soaring through the heavens . . .
    When Barbara and two housemaids entered an hour later, Cassandra ignored their presence, Barbara barking out orders, the maids mutely obeying, armoire doors and drawers slamming, trunk lids snapping down. Cassandra calculated and drew and pretended none of them were there. She had gotten good at pretending no one was there during the worst of her illness. Ifshe so much as opened her eyes, people asked about her pain, which immediately brought her focus to it. She kept it at bay by thinking of balloon dimensions and a way to keep the silk of the inflatable from leaking air, finding something that would not catch fire.
    She was going to have the best balloon in England, win a race, and prove that females could be more than wives—they could be scholars and inventors too. She could avoid Lady Whittaker’s machinations to maintain the engagement. Renew it, rather. Yes, renew. Cassandra had made it clear to Whittaker that this time was permanent. He could not stride into her life and take her into his arms, declaring undying devotion as he had in June, and have her melt like gold in a crucible. If she managed things well enough, she might persuade Father to give her dowry into her care eventually, or at least give her an allowance. As a male, he would surely understand why no man would want her now. She wasn’t a beauty, terribly charming, or an heiress.
    If only her insides did not feel so hollow—hollow yet not desirous of food. Like the pain, like her love for Geoffrey Giles, Earl of Whittaker, like the annoying interruptions of packing and preparing for the trip north, the hollowness would pass.
    So would the seemingly endless journey in an entourage of carriages and outriders and taken in slow stages for Mama’s sake. Wearing the spectacles Mama despised, Cassandra stuck her nose in a book no one would want her to read aloud to them along the way, and avoided conversation as much as possible. When they reached the Carlisle Inn, where Cassandra and Honore’s roads would diverge from the rest of the family the next morning, their brother Beau joined them from where he had been visiting friends. A year younger than Cassandra, he bore the same golden good looks as Honore, but in a wellset-up, manly way even at twenty. He was wearing the sober garb of a blue coat and fawn buckskin breeches, not something fanciful and dandyish as too many young men sported even in the country. He swept Honore into an enthusiastic embrace but touched the ends of his fingertips to Cassandra’s proffered hands.
    “Your face is still as pretty as ever, Sis,” he greeted her.
    “You are too kind to say so.” Cassandra wrinkled her nose at him. “And I am not contagious like the chicken pox, you know.”
    “Well . . . uh . . . no.” Beau reddened. “I did not want to . . . uh . . . hurt you or anything.”
    “You’re such a ninnyhammer,” Honore cried. “You’ll hurt her feelings if you do not hug her too.”
    “No, he will not.” Cassandra retreated to the inn bedchamber she would share with Honore and Barbara for the night.
    But of course he had hurt her feelings. Beau had been her childhood friend. Close to her in age, he had been happy to catch frogs and caterpillars with her to examine them under a magnifying lens. Bugs and other creeping and crawling insects never frightened Cassandra off as they did Lydia or Honore. If Beau would come to Whittaker Hall instead of fishing with Father in Scotland, they could have a grand time of it. He would go up in a balloon with her without a fuss.
    At least, she might be able to persuade him to after a