Violet didn’t want to plunge to her death just yet. She wanted to be pulled back into Daniel’s embrace, to feel his desire for her and taste it on his lips.
At one time in her life, Violet would have welcomed death. But not today. Not when she’d finally found this aliveness.
Daniel kept cranking. Violet’s wind machine blew the hot air up into the balloon’s silken envelope. The basket soared upward, over the cliffs. The crags at the top of the little peak seemed to reach up to grab for them, but then the balloon was clear. After a minute of soaring inches above trees on the other side of the ridge, the land fell away to the next valley, and the balloon floated gently above it.
Daniel stopped the crankshaft and straightened up, stretching his arms high. He whooped. “Well done, lass!”
Laughing, he caught Violet in his arms, lifting her from her feet and kissing her. His face was cold now, cheeks ruddy, hair mussed by the wind. Violet, still holding the ropes, kissed him back.
Daniel’s gaze was all for her as he lowered her to her feet and gently took the ropes from her. “Thank ye, love. We make a good team.”
“Yes.” The word came out a croak, Violet unable to think of anything else to say.
Daniel turned around to look at the world, and spread his arms, the ropes moving with him. “Never been this high before.” He whooped again, and Violet laughed.
The land opened out before them, a long river valley dotted with farms and small villages. Patches of snow clung to the shadows of trees and rocks on the slopes of the ridge they’d just crossed. Far below, smoke rose from the scattered farmhouses, and one or two people moved about on the remote roads.
No one in the wide world knew where Violet was at this moment. Though she’d told Mary she was accompanying Mr. Mackenzie to a village outside Marseille, Violet had not known Daniel would take her aboard this wonderful machine and off into spaces unknown. No one but Daniel knew where she was now—they’d even left Monsieur Dupuis and Simon behind in the last valley.
Violet was truly alone, floating on air, with only a man who was nearly a stranger to keep her aloft. Daniel had isolated her from everyone she knew, taken her far from the help of anyone. Violet should be terrified, brought to her knees in one of her attacks of panicked hysteria.
But she could feel no fear. She watched Daniel as he dropped the ropes, held the side of the basket, and looked around, enraptured. The world was beautiful, Violet was alone with the man who’d shown her its beauty, and her heart was light. This must be what happiness felt like.
When Daniel turned and looked at her, Violet wished the moment could be suspended in time. She never wanted to forget how he was looking at her. Not in lechery, not demanding anything from her. He studied her as though he liked looking at Violet, for herself, as though nothing in the world mattered to him but her and this moment.
I could love you, Daniel Mackenzie.
In this place of contentedness and freedom, the warmth of the words took form, and wouldn’t leave her.
Daniel turned away, scanning the horizon again. “We should find a place to set down.”
“I don’t want to.” Violet spoke before she could stop herself.
Daniel glanced at her again, his smile returning. “I don’t either. But those clouds are thickening, and a balloon is not a good place to be in a rainstorm. Or possibly a snowstorm, this far from the coast.”
True, now that the Mediterranean’s breezes had been left behind, the wind had a wintry bite.
“Over there, I’m thinking.” Daniel pointed to a flat space of land covered with bare black fields, plowed furrows making dark crisscrosses in the ground.
“How do we land?” Violet looked up at the balloon, which was stretched full. “Do you know where we are?”
Daniel shrugged. “Somewhere in France. When we bring this thing down, I plan to ask.”
How wonderful to go where the wind blew, to not worry about where you were or where you were going. Daniel moved through life expecting it to get out of his way, while Violet frantically scrambled to survive.
Daniel started working with ropes again, and turned knobs on his engine. The fire in the machine died down, and the balloon slowly, regretfully, began to descend.
“Hmm,” Daniel said.
“What?” Violet was at his side again. “What do you mean, hmm?”
Daniel gave her a dark look. “Better hold on to something.”
Violet clutched the side of the basket, her heart hammering. “Why?”
A gust of wind caught them. The balloon rocketed sideways, at the same time the basket rapidly slid toward the earth.
Daniel pulled down hard on a rope, and high above them, a hole opened in the silk to let out the air. He yanked on the steering ropes some more, then finally let go of everything and slammed his arms around Violet from behind, grabbing the basket on either side of her. He shielded her with his body as the plowed field rushed at them, the balloon deflating.
A corner of the basket scraped the ground. The balloon bounced upward, wind grabbing it again. Violet squealed in alarm but hung on. Daniel around her, strong and solid, gave her the false illusion that she was safe.
The basket scraped the ground again, then it tipped halfway over, the bulb of balloon still upright on the wind. Daniel’s hands around Violet whitened with his grip. He was cursing, and she heard screams coming from her own throat, both in elation and absolute terror.
The balloon dragged the basket across the field, pulling up stubble of last autumn’s late harvest. Birds exploded from the furrows, rabbits dove away from them. A fox lifted its head and stared as they skittered by.