Angel's Flight by Juliet Waldron Page B

insisted upon keeping.”
    “Insisted?”
    “Well, that’s how Mama put it. I remember the horse. He was very, very beautiful, but absolutely crazy.”
    Angelica felt the sudden pricking of tears. “It’s odd the things one remembers,” she said, trying to maintain her composure. “I remember everyone at the funeral saying Papa knew so much about horses that he was absolutely the last man on earth they ever imagined would end that way.”
    “That was on Schoharie?”
    “Yes, but right after, we—that is Mama and I—came back to live with Uncle Jacob on Esopus creek.” The move back to the tame farmlands on the Hudson had been a sad time for Angelica.
    “Mama was raised on the Hudson,” she explained. “And she had never liked living way out at Schoharie. The Indians and all the rest made her nervous. Mama never got over losing Papa. It was only two winters later, she went into a decline and died.”
    “It must’ve been a very bad time for you.”
    Angelica nodded. “Yes, but Uncle TenBroeck and his housekeeper, and my cousin Arent and his wife, too, were all so very kind. They are all generous people.” Tears flooded her eyes, but she kept talking, hoping they’d go away.
    Jack noticed the extra shine in her eyes. “I didn’t mean to make you sad,” he said, gently slipping his fingers beneath her hand.
    Angelica cleared her throat. Much more than that cursory tale and she would cry. This morning she felt weak to the point of wobbly.
    “Now,” she countered, hoping to shift the focus away from herself, “you must tell me a little more about your family.”
    “Of course,” he replied, stroking her fingers softly. “Ask away.” “Tell me about the Church family,” she said. “And about what England is like.”
    As she asked, she withdrew her hand. To her great relief, Jack simply let it go, like a kinsman who’d been offering comfort instead of a would-be lover.
    “Certainly. Which first?”
    “Tell me about England. About what your home place is like.”
    “What it’s like? Do you mean a description like a travel journal?”
    “Yes, please.”
    “All right, description first. Oxfordshire, where I was born, is like a well-kept garden.” Jack began easily. “There are slow streams filled with meanders, with willows and cattails. The country rolls from low hills to valleys and every inch is cultivated, except for the tops of hills which are crowned with what we call forests, although to you they’d seem mere wood lots. Very tame compared to this.”
    Jack gestured at the dark cliff-fall riverbank. Above were massive stands of chestnut, lifting hazy, new budded crowns to the sky.
    “Are there many in your family?”
    “Not really. As I’ve said I am the third son, although, actually, owing to my eldest brother’s death—unfounded confidence in his horse, rather like your father—I am now second. I have four sisters, three of them well married and gratifying my mother with grandchildren, as is my scholarly brother Frederick. He was meant for the clergy, but, alas, has now to deal with
an
estate and a title, which worries him more than I think it ought to.”
    “And your mother is alive?”
    “Yes. A handsome and pious lady.”
    “Just the little you said before makes me recognize a proud Livingston lady.”
    Jack chuckled. “Indeed? Papa always swore it was the high German doctor—her maternal grandfather—with whom he engaged whenever they quarreled. Are there any Herr Doktor Professors in your family?” he asked. “I believe I recognize a similar talent for debate.”
    Angelica ignored the jest. “Your eyes are your mother’s,” she said. “Of that, I’m certain.”
    The eyes in question regarded her levelly. “Yes. As a matter of fact, they are.”
    “And exactly how old are you, sir?”
    “Upon the first of June I shall be thirty-one. I can’t believe,” he said, almost to himself, “that I’ve lived to be such an old man and am still a bachelor.”
    But you