The River of No Return

big, loopy writing. “A paper airplane. A glider, made of paper.”
    “No. And what is written on that paper?”
    “Nothing important. Here, let me show you.”
    Julia was tucked lusciously up against him, her head resting on one shoulder, and he was able, with his arms around her, to demonstrate folding the piece of paper in half, and then in a series of angles, until it looked like the head of a spear. “That’s a paper glider,” he said. “You hold it like this, by this cluster of folds here underneath. You aim it. . . .” He pointed it at the fire. “Then you give it a little shove. . . .” Nick sent the glider winging into the fire. He made a sound like the wind as it went, and then a crashing sound when it wedged itself between two logs and went up in flames. He immediately began making another. “This one’s for you.” He folded it carefully and put it in her hands. “That’s right. Pinch it there, and then aim it . . . and let go.”
    She watched as her glider floated away from her and into the flames. It sat for a moment on some embers, the undersides of its wings glowing pink. Then all at once it became a miniature inferno. She laughed and grabbed his knee. “Make me another one.”
    They worked their way through the entire sheaf, sending glider after glider into the flames. Soon it became a rule that they must kiss until each glider was finished burning, and they both became adept at sending their gliders into cooler corners of the fire. But when Julia sent one deliberately outside the fireplace altogether, Nick sent her after it. “You won’t trick me into losing my virtue that easily,” he said.
    After she had tossed it onto the fire and turned around, she found him standing and brushing his robes into place. “That’s it,” he said nonchalantly. “That’s my entire maiden speech, burned up. Like the Battle of Britain.”
    “That was your maiden speech?” Julia stared at him.
    “That’s right.”
    “But what will you do? Do you have it memorized?”
    “No.” He straightened the robe on his shoulders, then smoothed his hair with a hand, looking at himself in the mirror that hung over the mantel. “Mahvelous, dahling,” he said to his reflection.
    “Nicholas Falcott! Be serious. What will you say instead?”
    He turned from the mirror, and for just a moment he managed to look dignified. “That I would prefer not to.”
    * * *
    An hour later Blackdown was gone, and the hallway was filled with the bustling return of Arabella and the dowager marchioness from Greenwich. Julia watched as box after box was unloaded from the carriage that waited at the front door, Arabella overseeing the whole operation; her mother had rushed upstairs claiming a headache.
    “All of that for one overnight visit?”
    Bella gestured to a neat pile of three blue bandboxes. “Those are mine. The rest . . . Mother’s.”
    “Perhaps that is a good sign. She is interesting herself in society again.”
    “Yes.” Bella looked doubtful. “Perhaps.”
    When the last box was in, Bella asked one of the footmen to hold the horses and the coachman to come inside. He entered, his hat in his hand, and Bella addressed him and the remaining footman with great warmth. “I want to thank you both,” she said, “for sending that madman on his way just now. I would have been quite anxious without the two of you.” She fished in her reticule, took out two coins, and handed one to each man. “If I were a man, I would stand you both a drink, but you will have to raise your glasses to yourselves.”
    The coachman bowed and left to drive the coach around to the mews, and the footman returned to organizing the luggage. Bella took Julia’s arm. “I’m so glad to be home, I cannot tell you. Greenwich was a bore.”
    “At least you were able to leave the house and see the sunshine. Remember you are talking to a creature who must hide in the dark, wearing black, having miserable feelings for six months before she is allowed to wear the most odious shade of purple.”
    “You are allowed to leave the house. Now and then. If you’re very good.”
    Julia sighed. Sedate walks in the company of servants did not count, in her book, as freedom, and she knew Bella did not count it as freedom, either. “Anyway,” she said, “even if it was boring I want to hear every tiny detail. Come and tell me everything.” They mounted the stairs. “And it sounds as if you had at least one thrill—what was that