Airborne - The Hanover Restoration Read Online Free

at a time, then run toward us, nimbly dodging clanking machinery. “Fire in the stables, m’lord. Fire!”
    My guardian wasted no words. “Matt, take Miss Galsworthy to the Mono, send her to Mrs. Biddle, then join me.” The last words were tossed over his shoulder as he ran for the door.
    I was already off the table, standing on feet that were no longer wobbly. I wanted to run after him, see what was happening, but Matt Black took me firmly by the arm and walked me toward the odd device called the Mono. I had no right to protest. This was not yet my home, but I vowed not to be shut out again. For I was beginning to suspect Stonegrave Abbey might actually welcome a female who had inherited more than a surname from her father.
    Matt made no secret of being in hurry, his thoughts clearly on whatever was happening in the stables. Before I had time to adjust my voluminous skirts, he punched the “1” button, and I was off, gliding away in what must be a circular route, as I was moving forward into space I had not traveled before. If I dared look back, I was certain Matt would be gone, running to catch up to Baron Rochefort. My guardian. My highly eccentric guardian. My much-too-young guardian. Whatever was Papa thinking?
    Papa, you devil!
    No, no, he couldn’t have planned . . .
    There must be a Lady Rochefort. Had to be. My up-bringing might have been a trifle unusual, but in addition to learning about mechanical marvels, I’d been given the education of a young lady of good family. I knew quite well I could not reside in a single gentleman’s home without the chaperonage of a female of equal, or better, standing in society.
    Another one of those heart-stopping swinging doors jogged my thoughts back to the here and now. I was creeping through the stone cellars of an ancient abbey on something called a Mono, on my way—hopefully—to a housekeeper named Mrs. Biddle. Who would presumably take me to my room, which would be above ground, perhaps with a view of the Abbey’s well-scythed lawns and, if I were lucky, the woods the little train had traversed.
    I would be able to unpack my trunk, surround myself with familiar things, have time to remind myself I was Araminta Galsworthy of London, daughter of Josiah Galsworthy, master inventor. Heiress to a comfortable fortune. Budding inventor—though that last was a tight-kept secret. Ladies simply did not do things like that.
    But Lord Rochefort knew.
    And didn’t seem to mind.
    I smiled.
    A delicious scent wafted down the long, dark corridor stretching out in front of me. Food. Cooking food. Dear God, thank you! I’d begun to think I was destined to forever wander the underground corridors of the Abbey.
    As the kitchen smells grew stronger, the corridor brightened with gaslights every twenty feet instead of forty. Civilization. People. I pictured a housekeeper like our Mrs. Jenkins in London—graying hair surrounding a face as round as her body, lips always ripe for a cheery smile, even when she was supervising the clean-up of one of Papa’s less successful experiments.
    The Mono ground to a halt outside the open door of a brightly lit room. The kitchen at last! I dismounted, straightened my bonnet and skirts, tilted up my chin—
    “You’ll roast in Hell. Mark my words, Evangeline Biddle, you’ll roast in Hell!”
    “And you’ll dry up and blow away like the prudish old spinster you are, Hannah Biddle, loving your Bible more than people!”
    “And why should I not?” the first voice roared, “when people are born in sin, live in sin, die in sin? And my own sister worse than most. It’s a witch you are, Evangeline Biddle, and naught but Hell awaits.”
    Biddle. There must be two Biddles. Neither of a jolly, comforting nature. I closed my eyes for a moment, wondering what more the day could bring. But I had run our household in London since I was twelve. The Biddles were staff. This I could handle.
    Squaring my shoulders, I swept into the room as if I’d entered