She retreated back into the tent long enough to put the finishing touches on her toilette. Only one last thing remained and that was to fasten the pocket watch to the belt of her gown.The gold watch had become her talisman. It had belonged to her father. Briefly she consulted the time. Quarter till four. She snapped the case closed and, for a moment, cradled the watch lovingly in her hand. Engraved on the cover was, appropriately enough, a hot air balloon in full flight.
Rory could not help remembering how her father had consigned the watch to her care that morning last June. She hadn’t wanted him to take the balloon up, his proposed flight enough to daunt even her. But for too long Seamus had dreamed of sailing one of his balloons across the Atlantic, a feat that no aeronaut had ever accomplished. It little mattered to Seamus that all his predecessors had met death making the attempt.
Rory’s fears for her father were only increased by the dream she’d had the night before. It wasn’t the first time she had dreamed such a thing—the white faerie appearing from the mists over New York harbor, the dread specter the Irish called the banshee, the harbinger of death. Rory had had the same nightmare once when she was twelve years old. The next day her mother had succumbed to the effects of a prolonged bout with scarlet fever.
Now the dream had troubled her sleep again, and there was her father about to embark on the most dangerous risk an aeronaut could take. But Seamus Kavanaugh scoffed at all the old superstitions. Rory had known it would do little good telling him to abandon his flight because she had had a nightmare.
Instead she had remonstrated with him about the follies of a flight over the ocean until Da had become quite angry.
“Whist now! I’ll not have me own daughter questioning me judgment. I’ve been flying balloons since before you were born.”
He strode away from her, but he must have noticed the tears glinting in her eyes for he returned at once. He had a smile that would have charmed the little people into surrendering theirgold, but he was not able to coax Rory out of her fears. He finally resorted to an old trick from her childhood.
As a little girl, Rory had often wept and begged to accompany her father on one of his trips. He had always soothed her by giving her the “important” task of keeping his watch safe. That last morning, it was as though he had forgotten she was a woman grown. He had cupped her hand about the watch, saying, “There now. Don’t you be crying, Aurora Rose. You be looking after this for me and you know I’ll be coming back. I always come back to retrieve me treasure.”
He had pinched her chin and smiled into her eyes, and as ever Rory had known it wasn’t the watch he was talking about. There was nothing she could do then but watch helplessly as he mounted into the balloon’s gondola. The ropes were cast off and he drifted into the sky. Her last vision of her father was of him looking down, the wind whipping back his mane of gray hair as he merrily waved his cap.
“Miss Kavanaugh?” An acrobat lady in spangled tights peered into the tent, bringing an abrupt end to Rory’s remembrances. She suddenly realized that the watch she held clutched in her palm had become blurred and out of focus.
Rory dashed the back of her hand across her eyes. “Yes?”
“Are you almost ready?” the woman asked. “Mr. Dutton is getting anxious.”
“I’ll be right there.”
When the woman had gone, Rory tucked the watch away in her belt. It would never have pleased Seamus, this grieving of hers. He would have expected her to give him a fine wake, which she had done. Then he would have told her to get on with her life, with the pursuit of the dreams they had both shared.
“Which, please God, is exactly what I intend to do,” Rory murmured.
Shoving the flap aside, she strode out of the tent. The wind threatened to wreak havoc with her hair, but Rory scooped up her skirts and moved determinedly forward.
The crowd had thickened to such a degree that Rory began to wonder how she would get through. But with the aid of some burly circus roustabouts, a path was cleared for her.
As Rory emerged into the open area where the Katie Moira awaited her, she saw that the barrel-shaped hydrogen generator had already been disconnected. Pete and Thomas were loading it back onto the wagon. Tony was tying more bags of ballast to the side of the balloon’s car as though he were determined one way or another to keep Rory earthbound.
Her entire crew was hard at work except for Tony’s younger brother. A dark, curly-haired, more slender version of Tony, Angelo lounged near the balloon winch, his nose thrust deep into yesterday’s edition of the New York World.
Rory stole up behind him. Crossing her arms, she cleared her throat. Angelo slowly looked up from his newspaper, not in the least abashed to be caught loafing.
“Hey, Rory, look here,” he said, extending the paper toward her. “John Ezekiel Morrison is giving a party today.”
“Who the devil is John Ezekiel Morrison?”
“Only the most eligible bachelor in New York. I hear tell he’s what the Bowery dance hall girls call a real ‘looker’ and rich as Diamond Jim Brady. He lives in what is practically a damned castle. The paper calls him the Mysterious Millionaire of Fifth Avenue.”
At first, Rory could make little sense of Angelo’s excited chatter. Then she glanced at the paper and realized with some disgust that the youth had been reading the society columns again. It was both amusing and exasperating the way Angelo devoured any news about the lives of wealthy and famous people. When he wasn’t collecting cigarette cards of LillianRussell, he was driving everyone mad with accounts of where Mrs. Vanderbilt had dined last night or who J. P. Morgan had entertained at Delmonico’s.
Angelo was completely oblivious to the balloon roaring above them. “It says here the Whitneys will be there and Mrs. Van Hallsburg. But it don’t say nothing about the Vanderbilts.” Angelo frowned. “Do you think Mrs. Vanderbilt knows something about Morrison that the rest don’t?”
“I have no idea. The next time she invites me to tea, I’ll ask her. And now, Angelo, if you don’t mind—” She broke off the rebuke she was about to deliver, stiffening with annoyance as she stared upward at her balloon. Someone had woven garlands all over the ropes that connected the balloon to the basket.
“Who stuck those damn flowers all over my rigging? I never gave permission for such a thing.”
Angelo shrugged. “Mr. Dutton’s idea. After all, it is a wedding, Rory. Now about this Morrison fellow? Do you think it’s true what the paper hints about his unknown background, that there might be something sinister about him? I read that he punches out any reporters caught nosing around his castle, so he must have something to hide. How does a fellow get to be that rich honestly anyhow?”
“I don’t know, but I do know how a fellow gets to be that poor honestly. By losing his job.” Rory snatched the paper from Angelo and whapped him over the head with it. “Now get back to work.”
Angelo grinned. Although he did grab his precious newspaper back from her, he folded the society section, tucking it into his jacket pocket, then turned his attention to checking the balloon’s tether, making sure it was secured to the winch.
