Augusta pressed her knuckles against her mouth and looked away.
The wind gusted, and the basket swung, tilting the horizon sideways.
Augusta’s stomach dropped. The ground, which had been a distant abstraction, was suddenlybelow,a hundred feet of empty air. The world began to spin, the edges of her vision darkening, vertigo seizing her with the swift authority of a fist closing.
Hudson’s hand was on her waist before she’d finished drawing breath.
“Look at the horizon.” His voice was low and steady, an anchor thrown into churning waters. “Not the ground. The line where the sky meets the city.”
His arm tightened, drawing her back against his chest. She could feel his steady heartbeat through the wool. His other hand covered hers on the railing, his fingers lacing through hers, and the warmth cut through the dizziness like a blade.
She fixed her eyes on the horizon and breathed. The world steadied.
“Better?” His breath stirred the curl at her temple.
“Yes. I’m perfectly?—”
“Stay still.” Not a command, but something closer to a request. “Just for a moment.”
She stayed still, with his arm around her waist, his hand over hers, the wind pressing her against his chest.
“Cassie’s waving at someone,” Lord Ridgewell observed from across the basket, his tone carefully light. “I believe it’s the Archbishop of Canterbury. Or possibly a pigeon.”
Augusta pulled her hand free.
Hudson’s arm relaxed slowly, and the cold rushed in.
After the balloon exhibition, Augusta found herself walking through the market and thoroughly enjoying the sights and sounds around her.
The confectioner’s cart stood in the lee of a great oak, its striped awning snapping in the wind. Cassie had claimed the center of a bench before the adults finished crossing the grass.
“Three lemon ices,” she informed the round-faced woman behind the cart. “A dish of cream cakes. And whatever they want.” A regal wave toward the approaching party.
Lord Ridgewell settled at one end. Augusta took the spot beside Cassie. Hudson remained standing, shoulder against the oak, arms folded. His posture was casual, but his gaze kept returning to Augusta like a compass needle that couldn’t settle.
“It’s like eating winter,” Cassie declared, cupping her dish. “Only sweeter.”
“My cousin’s son once attempted to eat his weight in lemon ice at Vauxhall. He was seven. He made it halfway before the consequences became apparent, and his mother carried him home in a tablecloth,” Lord Ridgewell said.
“Why a tablecloth?”
“His coat was beyond salvaging.”
Cassie giggled. She licked her spoon clean and turned to Hudson, who had accepted an ice but made no move to eat it, the dish balanced on his palm as though he’d forgotten it existed.
“Hudson, did you ever do anything foolish when you were my age?”
His eyes moved from Augusta to his sister. “Frequently.”
“Such as?”
“I once attempted to fly from the stable roof using a bedsheet and an umbrella.”
“Did it work?”
“I broke my arm. And Grandfather’s favorite umbrella.”
“You never told me that!” Cassie exclaimed.
