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“Get on with it, Ian,” the stranger said in a deep, impatient voice. He sat down and crossed his long legs.
“Dear me, Max.” Mr. Keith shook his head as if he found the other man beyond his comprehension, and then he called out to his helpers. The balloon was cast off without fuss, ballast was thrown out, and they began to rise, quite quickly, into the London sky.
“Oh!” Marietta gasped.
The ground was rapidly slipping away from her. The crowd—their faces lifted—was growing smaller and smaller. There was a strange silence, almost like a dream, as they rose higher. Below her lay Vauxhall Gardens, and then the Thames, and beyond that the bustle of London, with its pall of smoke, stretching away as far as she could see. The Houses of Parliament and St. Paul’s dome were visible, looking awfully small, and the green squares and parks stood out among the lines of streets and the boxes that were houses.
“You haven’t been introduced.” Mr. Keith spoke above the soft underlying roar of the city below them.
Reluctantly Marietta lifted her eyes from the Thames as the breeze tugged the balloon along.
Mr. Keith smiled at her as if he understood her sense of dislocation. “Miss Greentree, this is my friend, Max. Max, this is Miss Greentree.”
“How do you do,” Max said in a disinterested voice. He gave her a brief glance that was more indifferent than unfriendly, before turning once more to gaze down over the city spread beneath them.
Marietta shrugged off his behavior, and returned to her own perusal of the Thames, a glittering silver snake broken up by bands of bridges, with ships at anchor and steamboats like wind-up toys. Soon they were moving towards Richmond, sailing over fields and hills, leaving behind the smoke of London and its pointed spires.
“Are you enjoying yourself, Miss Greentree?”
Marietta beamed at Mr. Keith. “It is even more wonderful than I imagined, sir.”
“Not anxious about heights then?”
“Oh no, not at all!”
He grinned at her, the lines about his eyes deepening. “I am glad. My friend here didn’t want to come. I insisted—when I knew you were the only one making the ascent today I thought he would be company for us. Now I wish I’d told him to stay home. He’s like a rain cloud in the corner there, threatening to spoil our fun.”
Marietta giggled, and then bit her lip when Max shot her a hard look from narrowed dark eyes.
“Perhaps I am not in the mood to enjoy myself,” he said in a low voice. “Perhaps circumstances won’t allow me to.”
Marietta gave him one of her unflinching stares. “But can’t you forget your troubles for now?” she demanded, not pretending she didn’t understand him. “Look down there. How can you not feel amazed by such a sight? How can your own concerns not seem insignificant, Mr…. eh…?”
“Max,” he said shortly. “And I am amazed. I’m just not in the mood to show it.”
Marietta laughed at him because he was so absurd.
She noticed a gleam in his dark eyes. He did look like a rain cloud, just as Mr. Keith had said. Or maybe he was more like a thunder cloud—a rather dangerous one. Perhaps it was not such a good idea to tease him, and yet Marietta suddenly and unexpectedly yearned to turn that frown into a smile.
“Haven’t you heard of Max?” Mr. Keith said, lowering his voice. “He’s the scandal of the moment. He has been turned out of his boyhood home by his cousin. Perhaps now you can sympathize a little with his unhappy mood, Miss Greentree, even if you can’t condone it.”
“Turned out of his home? No, I have not heard of him. I am only lately arrived in London. How could his cousin do that, Mr. Keith?”
“Well,” he considered his words. “This cousin has produced proof that Max is not his father’s legal heir. In short, that Max’s father is not his father after all.”
Marietta’s shocked gaze slid to Max.
“Now,” Mr. Keith continued on, “we could say ‘Poor Max,’ and feel very sorry for him, or we could look at the situation from a different angle. We could say that Max has been a prisoner of his upbringing, and now he has a chance to begin again. Start afresh.”
“I know what you’re doing, Ian,” Max said, giving his friend a narrowed look.
“Put aside your woes, Max. Life goes on.”
“You do not have as much to lose as I.”
“Think of your past as a shackle to be thrown off, Max. Just imagine how much lighter and freer you will be without it.”
“Lighter and freer to do what?”
