Daniel swallowed the need that had been maddening him and concentrated on making sure Violet was whole. She didn’t flinch until he ran his hands up under the warmth of her skirt, his touch skimming from ankles to knees.
“I said I was fine,” she said, jerking away.
Daniel withdrew, difficult when his fingers had brushed the soft heat of her thighs. “Need to check every bone. I broke my tailbone once, falling off a horse.”
“My tailbone appears to be unsevered,” she said primly.
The quiet words, contrasted with their wild ride over the gorge, made Daniel laugh. “I think I’m unsevered too. How about we find out where we are?” He put his hands on the lip of the basket and pulled himself upright. “Oh.”
Violet was up beside him in a hurry. “Oh,” she echoed. “My.”
The basket hung about twenty feet from the ground, nestled in the branches of two close-growing trees. The basket swayed the slightest bit, but it was stuck fast. The silk envelope, deflated, draped over trees, hung from branches, and dripped in tatters to the ground.
“Dupuis will not be happy with me, I think,” Daniel said. “Never mind. I’ll give him the cost of the balloon plus a little extra. He can make a better one.”
“He’ll understand if he’s such a great friend of yours,” Violet said.
Daniel gave her a look of surprise. “Not a great friend. I only met him a few days ago.”
Now she stared. “I thought you came to Marseille to meet him and try out your idea on the balloon.”
“No, I came in search of you, as I said. Meeting Dupuis was of secondary importance—I telegraphed friends here and asked them if they could point me in the direction of a fellow balloonist. Marseille is a good-sized city. I knew someone would know someone, and I’d heard of Dupuis by reputation.”
Violet’s lips were parted as she listened, uncertainty in her eyes. Daniel touched her cheek. When they were finished here—and safely on the ground—he’d explain a few things. He’d convince her he’d come to France for her. He could have stayed in England to try his experiments—he knew plenty of mad aeronauts there. He hadn’t thrown a few belongings into a valise and jumped onto the first train to Dover because he fancied the Mediterranean air. He’d make her see that.
First, though . . .
“I’ll climb down,” Daniel said. “And find a way to extract you. Won’t be long.”
He made sure his gloves were on tightly over his hands before he grasped the nearest branch and started to pull himself out of the basket.
The basket listed alarmingly, his weight and Violet’s together the only thing keeping it level. If Daniel climbed out, the basket would tip over, and Violet would fall.
“We both go at the same time,” Violet said. “I can climb a tree.” She looked at the branches around her and then down through them to the ground.
“We might not have to.” Daniel cupped his hands around his mouth. “Oi! Up here!”
Voices gathered below, answering shouts in French. Then followed a long debate, to which Daniel contributed, about the best way to get the crazy foreigners out of their love nest in the tree.
Daniel ended up untying the counterweights and gathering up ropes, still attached to the harness that held the basket to the balloon.
“I’ll lower you down a bit,” he said to Violet. “They have ladders, but they won’t reach this high.”
Violet looked at him in alarm. “If I go out, everything will unbalance, and you’ll fall.”
Daniel wound a rope around her waist and under her arms. “I’ll be directly behind you, sweetheart. Trust me now.”
“You’re a madman,” she said. But Daniel saw exhilaration in her eyes behind the fear.
“Ready?” Daniel knotted the rope tightly and grabbed hold of it where it fastened to the balloon. He wrapped his other arm around Violet and lifted her to the lip of the basket. “One, two, three . . .”
Violet let out a cry as the basket tipped, but Daniel had climbed into the branches above her, holding fast to the tree and to her rope at the same.
The basket went all the way over, sending down counterweights, the engine, and Violet’s wind machine, as well as extra ropes and Daniel’s coat. Everything crashed down through the branches, extracting a yell from their rescuers. Above them Daniel and Violet clung to the tree.
“Go on, love,” Daniel said. “It’s all right.”
Slowly, slowly Violet picked her way down. A woodsman of burly peasant stock climbed a homemade ladder to meet her, catching Violet around her waist and carrying her down with him. Not until Violet’s feet touched solid earth did Daniel relax in relief.
He climbed quickly down behind her, the branches burning his hands through the gloves, cold wind cutting him. By the time he reached the ground, the men had unwound the rope from Violet, and she was shivering.
Daniel caught up his greatcoat, which had landed on a pile of fallen branches, pushed away the last of the rope, and wrapped the coat around her.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Fine. Perfect.” Violet was breathless, but he read no pain in her eyes.
Daniel turned to the men who’d rescued them. Farmers, woodcutters, hunters with shotguns. “Thank you all,” he said in his mixed-dialect French. “Are we near a village? Is there somewhere my wife can rest?”
He felt Violet start slightly at the word wife, but they were deep in the countryside, and the locals might behave better if they thought Daniel and Violet man and wife and not a man and his fancy lady. In Paris or even Marseille, it might not matter, but villagers could be sticklers for propriety. Violet would never pass as Daniel’s sister, mostly because Daniel would never be able to treat her like one. No, the fiction of man and wife was best.
One of the hunters said he’d lead Violet to the village and his brother’s coaching inn there, where she could rest and eat and stay the night if necessary. Daniel gave Violet a smile and squeezed her hand.
“You go on. I’ll salvage what I can and join you.”
“Yes. Of course.” Violet, bless her, didn’t argue, but turned and walked away with the hunter and another man.
They were deferential to her, Daniel was happy to see, and he knew they had swallowed the story that she and Daniel were married. Or at least were willing to go along with it. They also recognized from Daniel’s clothing and the fact that he’d arrived by balloon, that Daniel was a wealthy man. He doubted they’d have a qualm about taking his money for food and drink and a night’s rest.