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Chapter One
July 10, 1819
Reigate, Surrey
England
Lady Anne Eliza Lewis, only daughter of the Earl and Countess of Doverton, lifted a hand to her face and fanned the air to encourage a modicum of relief from the heat. At yet another society function, the only difference being this one was being held at her father’s country manor—Doverton Grange—instead of in their townhouse in London, but the boredom spawned by such an event was the same. To say nothing of the heat generated by the crush in the drawing room. Even with the terrace doors wide and windows thrown open, the sultry summer air didn’t have a hint of a breeze.
Terrible weather for piloting her balloon, which is where she’d rather be at any time.
Oh, I’m going to faint right here in front of these people.
People she didn’t know. People her parents had decided she needed to meet in the hopes she’d find someone—anyone—who might pull her from the “miasma of magic and misinformation” her mother insisted was currently rotting her brain. Her mother meant well, but the emergence of science was hardly magic, and as more facts were discovered, the farther women could go if they so wished. Men, too, but women had to work twice as hard to gain notice. And it was Anne’s sworn purpose to encourage women to advance themselves into the bastions long held by men.
Still, even in this more or less enlightened age, science wasn’t trusted and knowledge only slightly more. Too many people lived in superstitions and archaic ways of looking at the world, and until that changed, science could only advance at a snail’s pace.
Why does everyone want to remain in ignorance? Why does no one wish to discover what is hiding in secrets? There is more to life than marriage, and playing at being a hostess, and bearing children.
The loud guffaw from across the drawing room yanked Anne from her thoughts, and she waved her hand with more vigor before her face. God only knew where her fan had gotten off to; she was forever misplacing her accessories due to their lack of multi-tasking use, yet in her reticule she always carried a tiny pair of pliers—or pinchers—that helped in tinkering with the burner on her hot-air balloon, an equally tiny pair of scissors, a hammer with a collapsible handle—of her own design—a ball of twine, and several hair pins, because one never knew when any of those things would come in handy.
What the deuce had she been thinking about before other thoughts intruded? She skimmed her gaze over the gathering. Ah, yes, men in general. Returning to the problem at hand, she allowed herself to frown. Many of these guests had come over from London, since the trip wasn’t that long. Male people her mother hoped would take pity on her and ask for her hand despite her reputation of being the laughingstock of Surrey.
She already held the unflattering moniker of laughingstock in London, though the gossips had tacked on adjectives like weird and insane for the last few years. It’s better than being called a witch, and at least flying a balloon is ever more elegant than riding a broom. A witch was something she’d been harkened to twice over the years whenever she’d managed to fly her balloon through the countryside. With a snort of derision, Anne narrowed her eyes. None of it mattered, for she knew who she was and what her capabilities were. The dream of flying was worth a thousand rumors.
Soon she would succeed and show everyone that she was someone worthy of knowing.
From beside her, Anne’s mother huffed. “You could at least attend to my words when I’m speaking to you.”
“I apologize.” She glanced at the other woman with a tight smile. Her mother’s hair was still a glorious blonde, only now it glimmered with threads of silver. Tiny lines framed the delicate corners of her eyes and mouth, and there were always shadows of grief deep in her blue eyes, so like Anne’s own. Forever would she grieve the passing of her son—and Anne’s older brother—Aaron. “What were you saying?”
“Do any of the men here stand out to you as a candidate for a possible match?”
“Mother, you already know my answer to that question.” She paused in her quest to find cooler air as she gave the whole of her attention to her parent. “The process of finding a man, being courted by a man, marrying a man, and then subsequently needing to bear a man’s children all take time away from my first love. Quite frankly, I’ve spent too much time finding purchase in my field to lose it as well as my identity by needing to marry.”
“But…” The shock on her mother’s face was almost comical, except she was entirely serious. “I raised you with that goal in mind. It’s what a woman must do in our society.” She waved a hand about ineffectually. “I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want that for your life.”
“And I don’t understand why you can’t understand why my dreams are different than the usual ton society lady. Marriage doesn’t factor into my plans at the moment.” Again, she fanned her face with her hand.
“Will you at least try to show interest in some of these men? I’ve spent copious hours curating this list.”
A list designed with matrimony as the goal. If Anne could have her way, she’d happen upon the ideal man by accident, and he wouldn’t be one of those stuffy peers too carried away with their importance. The point of having a partner for life was to share his interests and he with hers, and if she could wrangle a man who’d give his unwavering support to her without complaint or censure, all the better.
It was the only way she’d accept the idea of marriage, for she refused to wed and then find herself in a gilded cage, much like the songbirds she kept as pets. Poor things. Never allowed to use their wings to fly high… just as she dreamed she did each time she went up in her hot air balloon.
“Anne!” Her mother’s whole demeanor changed. Instead of the annoyance that had sat heavy in her voice, the lines of concern cleared from her brow. “Ah, look there!” She put a palm against Anne’s cheek and turned her head. “It’s Mr. Davies. He’s the third son of Baron Emsworth.”
Anne didn’t need to see the man, for her skin crawled as if beset with a million tiny ants at the mention of that man’s name. “I know who he is, Mother.”
She narrowed her eyes on the short man with the golden hair and the green eyes that were deep set enough to make him a tad less unattractive than other men. Unfortunately, his looks didn’t go beneath the skin, for his heart was a black and shriveled organ, and beyond that he was her greatest nemesis, for he was a reporter for The Sun, which was one of the more popular evening newspapers in London. And he regularly took great pleasure in ripping apart her reputation as well as her skill in piloting a hot-air balloon.
“Please tell me you didn’t invite him. You know how I feel about that little beetle.”
“Such bad manners. He’s an upstanding personage in the ton.” Her mother rapped her wrist with her folded fan. “But no, I didn’t invite him. Perhaps your father did. He’s been in the card room for the better part of an hour.”
“Does Papa think by having such a man here it will humiliate me into proper behavior?” A hot stab of annoyance went through her chest. “Because that will propel me to quite the opposite.”
Her mother sighed. “Would you please stop being… you and act like the woman I raised for half an hour?” Exasperation rang in her tones. “At least circulate through the room. For thirty minutes. It’s all I’m asking.”
