Violet strove to follow his speech without looking too bewildered. “And you brought your engine with you?”
“No, but Dupuis let me tinker with one of his to make a similar one, and now I’m going to enhance it with your machine. My idea is to make hot air balloons dirigible—steerable—but smaller and lighter than the airships people are working on now. I’m thinking of making single-man crafts anyone can afford. You want to go across the downs and visit your friend in the next town? Hop aboard your own little dirigible and float there in comfort.”
“In good weather,” Violet said, looking up at the relatively clear sky.
Daniel shrugged. “Well, if it’s pouring down rain, you want to stay home by the fire anyway.”
Violet, who rarely had the luxury of staying home by the fire, gave him a skeptical look. “Won’t the machinery be too heavy for the balloon?”
“That’s what I mean to find out. Don’t worry—I’ve done a few test runs at my dad’s in Berkshire, and I’ve figured the ratio of weight to balloon size. That’s why I came to Dupuis. He’s a dedicated balloonist, experiments with several different kinds of them. He’s interested to see whether I can take a machine-driven balloon aloft.”
Violet followed as Daniel walked eagerly toward the waiting balloon, which was generally upright now. She watched his kilt move with his long stride, his broad back strong as he went swiftly up the hill.
He baffled her. Daniel Mackenzie, from one of the wealthiest families in Britain, rubbed down old horses, tinkered with machines, and said offhand that he traveled around Europe in second-class train compartments with the hoi polloi. He was equally comfortable speaking jumbled French dialects to French villagers or discussing the Queen of England’s private household. Every time Violet thought she had the measure of him, Daniel turned into something else.
They reached the basket. It was a large one, with room for several people. Mr. Simon and the man who must be Monsieur Dupuis had attached a net of ropes from the balloon to the now tethered basket. As the balloon rose from its reclining position, the bulbous top full now, the basket strained to rise with it. The tied lines kept it down. A platform had been fastened above the basket, suspended up inside the balloon’s envelope, and a large metal box with coils rising from it rested on the platform.
“Nice day for it,” Dupuis said to Daniel in French. “Is this it?”
Daniel climbed into the basket and lifted Violet’s wind machine out of its box. “We’ll give this a try.” He looked down at Violet. “Well, come on up, lass. I’ll need your help. And a spanner.”
Daniel was not the sort of man to shut a woman out of male activity, it seemed, especially when things turned interesting. Simon boosted her into the basket, and not long after, Violet was working with Daniel, her gloves off, helping him integrate her wind machine with his engine.
“It’s useless without a generator,” Violet pointed out as Daniel started connecting wires and tubes from her wind machine to his engine on the platform. “It won’t run.”
“But I have fuel, which will both keep the burner alight and turn the wind machine’s fan—for as long as the fuel lasts, of course.”
Daniel finished whatever he was doing, then fitted a crankshaft into a slot on the side of the engine. He advised Violet to step to the other side of the basket, then he gave the crankshaft a sharp heave.
The engine coughed once and died into silence. Daniel cranked again, and again, grunting with the effort. He stopped to drop his coat to the bottom of the basket, rolling up his shirtsleeves, then went back to the machine, his shirt stretching over muscled shoulders as he worked. Violet saw that a black design of an oriental-looking dragon had been inked over his right forearm at some time in his life. Her gaze went to the tattoo and stayed there.
Daniel kept cranking. Finally, sparks went off, a grinding like gears sounded, and the basket vibrated.
“Cast it off!” Daniel shouted to the men below.
Violet grabbed the basket’s lip. “I believe it’s time for me to disembark.”
Daniel laughed. “Too late.”
Violet’s eyes rounded. She looked down at Simon and the men, who’d started releasing the ropes tethering the basket. “I’m not going up in this thing! Let me off.”
The basket shuddered again and rose straight into the air. “No choice now,” Daniel said, his grin in place. “You’re coming with me.”
Violet protested, but the men dropped the last of the lines, and the balloon climbed into the sky, taking Violet right along with it.
Chapter 10
Violet grabbed the nearest rope, her heart in her throat as Daniel gave the engine one last crank.
“Don’t worry,” he said over the motor’s splutter. “I’ve done this before.”
The balloon gave a hard jerk and rose higher. Violet yelped and dared to look down. Simon, Dupuis, the rest of the men, the house, and the spread of the old farm had already receded. Violet calculated they must be about fifty feet from the ground when a gust of wind caught them and shoved them rapidly east.
Daniel cupped his hands around his mouth and called behind them. “Looks like we’re heading to the valley. Meet us!”
Violet clamped her hands around the ropes, her hat tugging against its pins, her coat and skirts billowing. She caught her breath, then amazement struck her.
“We’re flying!” she shouted.
“I hope so, love. Better than the opposite.”
The land grew smaller, the heavens, wider. The silence of it, except for the gurgle of Daniel’s engine, opened up and swallowed them.
Violet had lived in cities so long she’d grown used to constant noise—the rumble of carriages and wagons, the clopping of horses, shouts of men, high-pitched yells of boys, vendors calling on every market street, steam engines and train whistles in the railroad yards.
The balloon lifted Violet above it all. She saw a train, miles away, on the line that had brought her and Daniel to the village, chugging noiselessly into the station. From up here, it made no noise at all.
Daniel was still working. Gazing up inside the balloon, he gave the engine a few twists with a spanner and pulled down on a cord. The balloon kept climbing, but their sideways thrust became smoother.
That is, until another gust nearly tipped the basket on its side. Violet gave a little scream and shifted her grip from ropes to the basket itself.
“Come over here with me,” Daniel called. “We need to balance against the drift.”