The truth was that he had no idea why Mrs.Salisbury had insisted upon him accompanying this girl.He could only think it was an ill-considered attempt to integrate him more with the others.
After a few minutes of excruciating, airborne silence, Malcolm asked Miss Marburry if she was ready to descend, and she agreed with such rapidity that the nodding of her head sent the basket swaying again.
He let out the vent, taking care to do so gently, and they slowly descended back to earth.
When his feet hit solid ground, he wanted to kiss it.
He helped Miss Marburry down and bid her adieu, resolving to find Sally and melt into the crowd.Hopefully, Mrs.Salisbury could content herself with Severn or Philip or George or Mr.Jones as escorts for the rest of this damned misadventure.
But then he saw that Scarlett was standing by Mrs.Salisbury.
“Severn,” Mrs.Salisbury said.“Would you accompany Miss Perkins—”
“I’ll do it,” Malcolm said, without even thinking about it.“It is no trouble.”
Mrs.Salisbury blinked up at him in surprise.“Oh, yes, of course.If you would like.”
Scarlett blushed and nodded.
Severn, that devil, winked at him from over Mrs.Salisbury’s shoulder.
Scarlett came toward him, and he tried to school his features into some reasonable pattern—except he had forgotten what that might even look like.Instead, he was pretty sure that he was staring at her in open hunger.
It was hard not to, under the circumstances.Even before her blushing, her cheeks were pink in the warm, bright afternoon, and her figure, shown to advantage in a light-blue dress, filled his head with thoughts completely unacceptable for this summer party of matrons and maidens.
Strange, that the first time since the closet that he would be alone with her would be in a basket two hundred feet in the air.It was rather like the closet in one way—and completely unlike it in another.
“Miss Perkins,” he managed.
She extended her gloved hand, and he handed her up into the basket, his fingers tingling from where they made contact with her own.
He followed her and soon they were rising.
When he had been in the basket with Miss Marburry, the most terrifying thing had been the space that opened up between them and the ground as they rose.
Now, however, here with Scarlett, the most terrifying thing was imagining what she must think of him.
He couldn’t manage a single syllable, even though he desperately wanted to speak to her.
When the balloon reached its furthest height, he opened his mouth—to say what, he wasn’t even sure—but found himself cut off.
“Mr.Brown, you needn’t have offered to escort me,” she said, her voice rushed.“It was not necessary.”
Of course it wasn’t, he thought.But he had been unable to stop himself.As seemed to be the case when it came to her in general.In fact, the idea of her up here with another gentleman, even one of his brothers, made him sick with jealousy.
“I am happy to do it.And you seemed so eager to get into this contraption.”
“I was.But anyone can see you are miserable in this balloon—”
“I am not,” he objected.
“When Mrs.Salisbury asked you to escort Miss Marburry, you nearly turned green.”
He coughed.“I do not care for heights.”
“Then all the more reason you should have stayed on the ground.”
“It seemed the least service I could render you after—”
