The Fletcher Family Legacy

Chapter 4

"Not in comparison to the other candidates for the position."

"We have no other candidates."

"Precisely." She went to Luarel's valise in the corner, and picked up the bonnet poised atop it. "May I borrow this? Mine still hasn't been repaired."

"Of course, but... you're going right now?"

"I won't be long. I'll cover the territory quickly."

"Would you like me to go with you?"

"Thank you, dear, but no. Dress yourself and have some breakfast—and keep a close watch on Lily. She's in Dahlia's care at the moment."

"Oh." Luarel's eyes widened. "I'll hurry."

It was a pleasantly cool, nearly cloudless day, the southern climate far milder than London. Charlotte walked briskly through a fruit orchard beyond the garden. The tree branches were weighted with large green apples. Fallen fruit had been half eaten by deer and other animals, and left to ferment and spoil.

Pausing to tug an apple from a low-hanging branch, Charlotte polished it on her sleeve and took a bite. The flavor was intensely acidic.

A honeybee buzzed close by, and Charlotte jerked back in alarm. She had always been terrified of bees. Although she had tried to reason herself out of her fear, she couldn't seem to control the panic that overcame her whenever one of the dratted beasts was in the vicinity.

Hurrying from the orchard, Charlotte followed a sunken lane that led past a wet meadow. Despite the lateness of the season, heavy beds of watercress flourished everywhere. Known as "poor man's bread," the delicate pepper-flavored leaves were eaten in bunches by local villagers, and made into everything from soup to goose stuffing. She would gather some on her way back, she decided.

The shortest route to the village crossed through a corner of Lord Ashford 's estate. As Charlotte passed the invisible boundary between the Ramsay estate and Stony Cross Park, she could almost feel a change in the atmosphere. She walked on the outskirts of a rustling forest, too dense for daylight to penetrate the canopy. The land was luxurious, secretive, the ancient trees anchored deeply into dark and fertile ground. Removing her bonnet, Charlotte held it by the brim and enjoyed the breeze against her face.

This had been Ashford's land for generations. She wondered what kind of people the earl and his family were. Terribly proper and traditional, she guessed. It would not be welcome news that Ramsay House was now occupied by an ill-mannered, red-blooded lot like the Fletchers.

Finding a well-worn footpath that cut through the forest, she disrupted a pair of wheatears, who flapped away with indignant chirps. Life abounded everywhere, including butterflies of almost unnatural color and beetles as bright as sparks. Taking care to stay on the footpath, Charlotte picked up her skirts to keep them from dragging through the leaf litter of the forest floor.

She emerged from a copse of hazel and oak into a broad dry field. It was empty. And ominously quiet. No voices, no cheep of finches, no drone of bees or rattle of grasshoppers. Something about it filled her with the instinctive tension that warned of an unknown threat. Cautiously she proceeded up the gentle rise of the meadow.

Reaching the brow of a stunted hill, Charlotte paused in bewilderment at the sight of a towering contraption made of metal. It appeared to be a chute propped up on legs, tilted at a steep angle.

Her attention was caught by a minor commotion farther afield... two men emerging from behind a small wooden shelter... they were shouting and waving their arms at her.

Charlotte instantly realized she had stumbled into danger, even before she saw the smoldering trail of sparks move, snakelike, along the ground toward the metal chute.

A fuse1?

Although she didn't know much about explosive devices, she was aware that once a fuse had been lit, nothing could be done to stop it. Dropping to the sun-warmed grass, Charlotte covered her head with her arms, having every expectation of being blown to bits. A few heartbeats passed, and she let out a startled cry as she felt a large, heavy body fall on hers... no, not fall, pounce. He covered her completely, his knees digging into the ground on either side of her as he made a shelter of his body.

At the same moment, a deafening explosion pierced the air, and there was a violent whoosh over their heads, and a shock went through the ground beneath them. Too stunned to move, Charlotte tried to gather her wits. Her ears were filled with a high-pitched buzz.

Her companion remained motionless over her, breathing heavily in her hair. The air was sharp with smoke, but even so, Charlotte was aware of a pleasant masculine scent, skin-salt and soap and an intimate spice she couldn't quite identify. The noise in her ears faded. Raising up on her elbows, feeling the solid wall of his chest against her back, she saw shirtsleeves rolled up over forearms cabled with muscle... and there was something else...

-

Her eyes widened at the sight of a small, stylized design inked on his arm. A tattoo of a black winged horse with eyes the color of brimstone. It was an Irish design, of a nightmare horse called a pooka: a malevolent mythical creature that spoke in a human voice and carried people away at midnight.

Her heart stopped as she saw the heavy rounded band of a thumb ring.

Wriggling beneath him, Charlotte tried to turn over.

The strong hand curved around her shoulder, helping her. His voice was low and familiar. "Are you hurt? I'm sorry. You were in the way of?

He stopped as Charlotte rolled to her back. The front of her hair had come loose, pulled free of a strategically anchored pin. The lock fanned over her face, obscuring her vision. Before she could reach up to push it away, he did it for her, and the brush of his fingertips sent ripples of liquid fire along intimate pathways of her body.

"You," he said softly.

Marcus Sinclair.

It can't be, she thought dazedly. Here, in Hampshire? But there were the unmistakable eyes, gold and hazel and heavy lashed, the midnight hair, the wicked mouth. And the pagan glitter of a diamond at his ear.

His expression was perturbed, as if he'd been reminded of something he had wanted to forget. But as his gaze slid over her bewildered face, his mouth curved a little, and he settled into the cradle of her body with an insolent familiarity that temporarily robbed her of breath.

"Mr. Sinclair?how?why?what are you doing here?"

He replied without moving, as if he were planning to lie there and converse all day. His infinitely polite tone was an unsettling contrast to the intimacy of their position. "Miss Fletcher. What a pleasant surprise. As it happens, I'm visiting friends. And you?"

"I live here."

"I don't think so. This is Lord Ashford 's estate."

Her heart thundered in her breast as her body absorbed the details of him. "I didn't mean precisely here, I meant over there, on the other side of the woods. The Ramsay estate. We've just taken up residence." She couldn't seem to stop herself from chattering in the aftermath of nerves and fright. "What was that noise? What were you doing? Why do you have that tattoo on your arm? It's a pooka—an Irish creature—isn't it?"

That last question earned her an arrested stare. Before Sinclair could reply, the other two men approached. From her prone position, Charlotte had an upside-down view of them. Like Sinclair, they were in their shirtsleeves, with waistcoats left unbuttoned.

One of them was a portly old gentleman with a shock of silver hair. He held a small wood-and-metal sextant, which had been strung around his neck on a lanyard. The other, black-haired man looked to be in his late thirties. He wasn't as tall as Sinclair, but he had an air of authority tempered with aristocratic arrogance.

Charlotte made a helpless movement, and Sinclair lifted away from her with fluid ease. He helped her stand, his arm steadying her. "How far did it go?" he asked the men.

"Devil take the rocket," came a gravelly reply. "What is the woman's condition?"

"Unharmed."

The silver-haired gentleman remarked, "Impressive, Sinclair. You covered a distance of fifty yards in no more than five or six seconds."

"I would hardly miss a chance to leap on a beautiful woman," Sinclair said, causing the older man to chuckle.

Sinclair's hand remained at the small of Charlotte's back, the light pressure causing her blood to simmer.

Easing away from his distracting touch, Charlotte raised her hands to the dangling front locks of her hair, tucking them behind her ears. "Why are you shooting rockets? And more to the point, why are you shooting them at my property?"

The stranger nearby gave her a sharp, assessing glance. "Your property?"

Sinclair interceded. "Lord Ashford, this is Miss Charlotte Fletcher. Lord Ramsay's sister."

Frowning, Ashford executed a precise bow. "Miss Fletcher. I was not informed about your arrival. Had I been aware of your presence, I would have notified you about our rocketry experiments, as I have everyone else in the vicinity."

It was clear that Ashford was a man who expected to be informed about everything. He looked annoyed that the new neighbors had dared to move into their own residence without telling him first.

"We arrived only yesterday, my lord," Charlotte replied. "I had intended to call on you after we settled in." Under ordinary circumstances, she would have left it at that. But she was still off balance, and there was no stopping the flow of comments from her own mouth. "Well. I must say the guidebook didn't warn adequately about the occurrence of rocket fire amid the peaceful Hampshire scenery." She reached down and whacked at the dust and bits of leaf that clung to her skirts. "I'm sure you don't know the Fletchers well enough to shoot at us. Yet. When we become better acquainted, however, I have no doubt you'll find ample reason to bring out the artillery."

Over her head, she heard Sinclair laugh. "Considering our issues with aim and accuracy, you have nothing to fear, Miss Fletcher."

The silver-haired gentleman spoke then. "Sinclair, if you wouldn't mind finding out where that rocket landed?

"Of course." Sinclair took off at an easy lope.

"Agile fellow," the older man said approvingly. "Fast as a Lucaspard. Not to mention steady of hands and nerves. What a sapper he'd make."

Introducing himself as Captain Swansea, formerly of the Royal Engineers, the elderly gentleman explained to Charlotte that he was a rocketry enthusiast who was continuing his scientific work in a civil capacity. As a friend of Lord Ashford, who shared his interest in engineering science, Swansea had come to experiment with a new rocket design in the country, where there was sufficient land to do so. Lord Ashford had enlisted Marcus Sinclair to help with the flight equations and other mathematical calculations necessary to evaluate the performances of the rockets. "Quite extraordinary, really, his facility with numbers," Swansea said. "You'd never expect it to look at him."