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.
It would stop, Violet reasoned. The balloon would deflate, the basket would tip over with a thump, and she and Daniel would spill out into the mud. Comical but not deadly.
The basket reached the edge of the field, the balloon still pulling it. They went up over gorse and rocks that lined the field, and suddenly the world plummeted out from under them.
The half-deflated balloon sailed out over a river gorge, the river itself sparkling merrily at the bottom. The sides of the cliffs, pockmarked with snow, reached up to them.
Daniel’s curses changed to one long yell, Violet’s joining his. The balloon swept them across the narrow gulf and up the other side of the gorge, straight toward a line of evergreens. Daniel shoved Violet to the bottom of the basket and landed on top of her, curving his body over hers.
The basket broke through the saplings at the edge of the gorge, smacked into the boles of slightly thicker trees, and spun around once. A noise like a great wind shook the branches as the silk of the balloon caught, ripped, and snagged fast. The basket rocked, banged once more into the smooth side of a tree, and stopped.
Chapter 11
Daniel lifted his head. Violet lay very still beneath him. Her eyes were closed, and she had a bruise on her face.
The world had stopped spinning, and now wind moved them gently, the only sounds rustling branches and flapping silk. Daniel’s engine was dead, silent, and so was the wind machine.
“Are ye all right, love?” Daniel brushed tangled hair from Violet’s face, heart beating swiftly in alarm.
If he’d hurt her . . . If his arrogance had led to broken bones or worse, he’d never forgive himself. He could have left Violet alone, borrowed the wind machine and not insisted she come with him, but no. Daniel had wanted to show off to this breathtaking woman. He’d wanted Violet to throw her arms around him and exclaim how wonderful he was to be able to pilot a balloon.
“Violet. Lass, wake up.”
Violet blinked her beautiful blue eyes open. “Are we down?”
Daniel let out a breath of relief. “We’ve stopped. Are ye hurt?”
“I don’t think so.”
Violet sat up, resting her back against the basket, and shakily pushed her hair from her face. Daniel ran his hands up her arms, squeezing a little, checking for broken bones. She let him, understanding what he was doing, though she watched him warily from behind thick lashes.