The Stagnant Air

Caitlin decided that if the Earl of Harrow did not have a map of the local wind currents, she would steal his library. It was a bold threat, mostly because she had no intention of stealing anything, only of finding the right angle to lift her basket.

She stood in the center of a manicured lawn, the silk of her balloon’s envelope rippling in the stagnant air. The heat was heavy, pressing down on the linen of her riding habit, but her mind was already three miles up, calculating the thermal draft off the lake. This was the last leg of her coast-to-coast attempt, the one the papers had dismissed as a woman’s fancy. She would prove them wrong, and she would do it on her schedule.

The house loomed to her left, a gray stone monstrosity that looked like it held its breath. A man stood on the terrace. He was tall, wearing a waistcoat that strained against his chest, and he was staring at the balloon with the dull expression of a man watching a leak develop in his roof.