George Bramley was on a raised dais, strutting backwards and forwards as if addressing a rapt audience. Every now and again he’d stop, run his hands down his sides, flex his muscles, then throw his head back and laugh.
“He’s quite mad, you know.” Lady Quamby rolled her eyes. “And to think he imagined he might succeed in making Thea his wife.”
The idea was so preposterous, Sylvester felt his stomach lurch. The moment he had th
e Oriental Pavilion all to himself he was going to ensure Miss Brightwell received the offer for which she was waiting so patiently. In fact, he could barely contain himself from blurting out his marriage proposal right now, just to ensure it was official.
“What is he doing?” Lady Fenton cried, squinting with greater concentration into the gloom. “Good God, who is that?”
The horrified squeals of the young ladies echoed in his ears and instinctively he gripped his true love’s hand.
“Aunt Minerva has been made a prisoner to his antics!” cried Lady Fenton. “But…Heavens! I believe he cannot know it’s Aunt Minerva.”
A huddle of something large and trembling in the far dim corner, covered by a large black cloak, was settled across a tumble of cushions; human, and to Sylvester’s discerning eye, most likely Miss Minerva Brightwell.
George Bramley continued to strut in front of her, conducting a monologue, it would appear, stopping every so often to contour his body as if to illustrate something. Something very unattractive, to Sylvester’s mind. Something suggesting the manliness of his manly appendage. And this man sought to marry his Thea?
His Thea. Every sense revolted against such an idea and, surreptitiously, he tightened his grip on her hand in the dark. Her answering squeeze warmed his heart. True, he’d forsaken her only two days since with the heat of their kiss still burning his lips, grateful for her meek acceptance that she was not a suitable wife for him if he needed greater funds to wed.
Yet she’d entirely forgiven him.
It was her ability to forgive that had made him realize the madness of giving up the only true and pure love he’d experienced. Thinking of that was even more powerful than making sense of the prurient scene before them in which, clearly, an innocent woman was being held hostage to the rantings of a madman.
They must act, of course, but the crunch of footsteps on gravel made them all stiffen. Approaching from the trees on the other side of the building, a barrel-shaped man dressed as a gentleman but with the bearing of a peasant marched through the door of the Oriental Pavilion and before their very eyes, whisked up the black-cloaked figure that was assuredly Minerva Brightwell and tossed her quivering body over his shoulder. George Bramley looked like an excited monkey as he hurried alongside them, out of the front doors.
“We must do something!” cried Miss Thea.
The balloon was on the far side of the building, across the lawn, and together the they dashed around the side of the Pavilion to see what was happening and arrest George Bramley’s villainy.
“That’s right! Put her into the basket!” they heard Bramley call, clapping his hands before leaping in as the balloon tugged on its moorings.
“Stop!” Lady Fenton cried, rushing forward, as the rest of the party joined in unison. But their voices were drowned out by the sudden arrival of seemingly dozens, and then hundreds, of onlookers who were suddenly streaming down the hill.
“Cut the rope!” Bramley yelled at the top of his voice just as Sylvester rushed forward and snatched the covering cloak from the prisoner…
Revealing Miss Minerva Brightwell, bound and gagged—and George Bramley’s red, shocked face.
The crowd roared at the spectacle but Sylvester had had enough. Amidst the general hilarity, catcalls and equivalent mockery, he turned and clasped Thea’s hands in his. “The Oriental Pavilion is quite deserted with all the action centred here. Will you come with me?”
“Alone?”
“Unless you’d prefer to have witnesses to what I have to ask you.”
“No witnesses, thank you. Not for that, and not for when you show me…” Her delicious lips turned up in a wicked smile.
All the tension drained out of him and he laughed, bringing up her hands to kiss her knuckles.
“Maybe, in that department, it’s best we should wait—”
She affected such a look of disappointment he wanted to hug and kiss her right there and then before indeed showing her exactly what it was she wanted him to show her.
Making a great show of pandering to her, he nodded. “Indeed, how else is Mr Bramley to win his wager?”
When she frowned slightly, he refreshed her memory. “I believe Miss Brightwell was to give birth to a bonny baby nine months after ascending in a hot air balloon.” With a gentle tug of her hand he drew her a little away, setting his footsteps for the Pavilion. “You said you wanted lots of little ones, didn’t you?”
“But you’ve not yet spoken to your man of business.”
“Whatever he says is of no account when it comes to what you want in a family, my darling.”