AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Such was life, and he wanted it to stay that way.
The morning was perfect. Benedict tugged the brim of his top hat down in such a way that the sun wouldn’t strike his eyes quite so brilliantly. Temperatures hadn’t become overly hot yet. Sun drenched the countryside, gilding everything it touched. Puffy clouds dotted the cerulean sky. His horse—Jupiter—went through his paces without complaint. The new saddle fit Benedict’s bum like perfection. With each lungful of air he breathed in, he smelled growing things—the expected scents of summer.
Everything was going according to plan, like it did every morning. As he’d told his mother before he’d left, there was little risk with riding.
A large, disconcerting shadow passed overhead that sent chills of foreboding down his spine. “What the devil is that?” He looked directly upward, but there wasn’t anything there. Jupiter tossed his head, no doubt from nerves. A whinny emanated from the animal. “Easy, boy. Don’t panic yet.” Benedict took the leather reins tightly in hand in an attempt to quiet his anxious steed. The last thing he needed was to lose his seat due to Jupiter bucking.
A cry of either warning or dismay rent the air. In a flash, the oddest thing he’d ever witnessed came into his line of sight. A hot air balloon hung low in the sky, deflating rapidly, which lowered the basket and its whole contraption until it set down in the middle of the road with enough acceleration and force that it made a terrific thud. Curls of dust poofed around the wreckage. The basket tipped to its side and out tumbled a lone occupant who sprawled on the road without ceremony.
“Bloody hell.” Benedict didn’t have time to inquire or berate the fellow on his stupidity, for Jupiter reared. Fear echoed in his frantic whinny. No amount of handling the reins could calm the equine. Again and again, the horse danced on his hind legs. “Shit!” All too soon Benedict was unseated. The horse bucked and tossed him tip over tail off the back. He landed on the dusty road in an ignoble heat with his backside smarting and a shoulder that would no doubt feature a bruise on the morrow. With another terrified whinny, the horse ran for all he was worth. Hopefully, he’d return to the manor.
With any dignity he had left, along with annoyance growing beneath his ribs, Benedict picked himself off the ground, dusted himself off, retrieved a slightly battered top hat, and then marched toward the person gaining its feet. As he went, he put his spectacles back into their correct position on the bridge of his nose. Perhaps the man’s lethargic movements were a sign of concussion from the impact. It mattered not. He meant to give the man a dressing down he wouldn’t soon forget.
“What the devil is the meaning of this?” Every step he took sent shooting pain into his arse. “Do you know how irresponsible such a stunt was?”
The deflated rose silk of the balloon had collapsed the netting about it. The whole mess resembled a sad, slain monster as it gently covered the tipsy basket with a wisp of a sigh.
“Irresponsible? I rather think it was an exceptional showing.”
Bloody hell. The voice wasn’t male, and when the man raised his leather goggles and eased off a matching leather cap, it was obvious the person wasn’t a man at all. Blonde hair caught in a tight braid pinned in a coronet about her head gleamed in the sun. Her petite form was clothed in scandalous fashion: a hip-length leather jacket which she removed and tossed into the basket along with the hat, leather boots that came to her knee, ivory breeches, a fine lawn shirt that had billowing sleeves with a leather vest over it, all of which fit her lush body precisely and left nothing to the imagination.
Oh, dear God! His imagination certainly provided a few scenarios that featured him exploring those voluptuous curves hidden beneath the extremely scandalous outfit.
The woman glanced at the balloon and then at him. “I’ll have to have it measured, but depending on where I set down, it might even be my longest trip yet.” She lifted an eyebrow as she approached, dusting her gloved hands together. “Where am I, anyway? I’m rather rubbish with identifying landmarks.”
“Cranleigh. Direct on the border, actually.” He gave the direction grudgingly, for he didn’t yet know what to make of this sprite who’d appeared from the air.
“Fantastic!” She bounced up and down, and the grin curving her pink-hued lips lit her eyes. “I came from Reigate, and if I hadn’t somehow miscalculated the amount of hydrogen, I would have made it to Guilford.”
He frowned. None of those words made sense. “Yet, you’re off course, for you landed—crashed—in Cranleigh.” Those were the facts.
“Oh, that doesn’t matter.” She waved a hand as if it truly didn’t.
“How can it not? You plotted a course and didn’t make it. That’s a failure.”
“That’s one way to look at it, but I’m choosing to accept the fact I’m unharmed—mostly—and have gone farther than ever on my own.” The pleasure in her eyes kept his focus glued to her face. “Plus, the balloon and basket haven’t been damaged. I hope.” She again glanced at the equipment. “I’ll need to inspect everything, of course.”
The dulcet tones washed over him inducing calm, but the longer she spoke, the more confused and annoyed her grew. Yet, for whatever reason, she intrigued him. “What do you plan on doing now?” Despite himself, he was curious, for he’d never met such an unorthodox woman before. It had certainly put spice into his morning ride.
She shrugged. “Wait for Matthew to arrive with the wagon so we can go home. So I can tell my father that I’m not the hopeless cause he thinks I am.”
How… awkward and fascinating at the same time. But the throbbing pain in his rear end recalled him to the fact she could have killed him. “You could have killed me with your irresponsible actions.” It bore repeating.
“Yet, somehow, you remain alive if dusty.” She tapped a finger to her chin while regarding him with eyes so blue in the sunlight they resembled English cornflowers. “A miracle that, don’t you think?”
Or happy accident if one takes my mother’s approach to life. He shook his head to clear the thought. Which I most certainly do not. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“That I was free while airborne, that nature is exquisitely beautiful, that I need to attend better to measurements while filling the balloon.” When she shrugged, her leather vest pulled taut over her generous bosom. “My mind is quite capable of thinking many different things simultaneously. You?” She chattered away as if they were in a drawing room.
He didn’t know quite what to say to that, but she required an answer. “That I want to discover who had the audacity to try such a stunt, and to give that person the requisite dressing down they so deserve.” Something about this woman, past the first and second blushes of youth, both filled him with dread and exhilarated him at the same time.
Was there risk associated with this individual? Oh, most certainly, but he couldn’t calculate it correctly at this time.
Promptly, she stuck out a hand as if she were a bloody American instead of an Englishwoman. “Lady Anne Lewis. Daughter to the Earl of Doverton. I’d like to say it’s a pleasure, but you’re as prickly as a hedgehog and not nearly as cute.”
His bottom jaw dropped. His mind blanked. Between her tart mouth and her outlandish clothing, she slightly intimidated him, but in a good way. And a member of the aristocracy to boot, yet she was decidedly… odd. Beyond that, somewhere in his memories, he’d heard rumors and gossip about her the last time he was in London. Doverton’s daughter, the one everyone said was insane. That further titillated him. With nothing else to do, Benedict shook her proffered appendage. Her grip was firm and sure. “Lord Worthington.” Because he needed something else to impress her—God only knew why— “I was a captain by the time I left the war. Good for not much more than assessing risks before battles and where to strike at the enemy’s lines that would cripple them the most, so I suppose you could call me Captain Urquhart, but I’d prefer you did not.”
Dear God, I’m babbling. Like a bacon-brained idiot. How the devil did this happen?
