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.”
Violet stared at him in fear. “You are completely mad, do you know that?”
“Get over here, lass. Or we’ll tip.”
Violet made her fingers loosen from the basket’s side, and she half climbed, half scrambled to where Daniel stood. With her weight and his on one side, the basket righted itself and glided smoothly again, now heading a bit north as well as east.
Daniel’s arm came around her waist. “We have sandbags to counterweight as well,” he said. “But this is much more enjoyable.”
Violet sucked in a breath, torn between exhilaration and terror. “You are the most bloody incorrigible madman I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet!”
“I have no doubt.” Daniel held her close against him, his grin infectious. “Do ye know, when you’re this angry, you speak in your own accent. London, is it? A bit south?”
“Now you are a dialectician as well as a horseman, inventor, and balloonist?”
“No, I’m friends with a bloke from Southwark. You’re not French at all. You’re one of the bloody English, aren’t you?”
“My father’s family is French,” Violet said. “Came to England from a village outside Paris. My father was . . .” She trailed off, not sure what to say. She had no idea what her father had been, and only a vague idea
“I like that you have difficulty lying to me,” Daniel said, his hand warm on her back. “Ye do it so easily to others.”
“I don’t lie.”
“Not outright, but you deceive. Amounts to the same thing in the end. Me, now, I’m never anything but honest.”
“You are, are you?”
“Look around.” Daniel gestured with a broad hand. “Did I not promise you a day out to remember?”
Violet looked, and the last of her fear loosened and flew away. They were higher now, higher than the tallest building she’d ever seen, higher than any hill she’d climbed. The French countryside spread out before them, sharp hills studded with dark evergreens marching northward, snow on the highest peaks.
Behind them was the Mediterranean, vast and dappled blue gray under the sunshine, white gray cliffs of the coast tumbling to the sea. Waves of white foam formed neat lines as they marched toward the cliffs and narrow strips of shingle.
“It’s breathtaking. I’ve never seen . . .”
“Only fools of aeronauts get to see the world like this.” Daniel’s arm tightened around Violet’s waist, his breath in her ear. “I wanted to show it to you.”
“Why?” The wind dragged Violet’s question away.
“Why would I want to show you this? Because it’s breathtaking, like you said.”
“No, I mean . . . why me?”
“You mean because you hit me over the head with a vase?” Daniel’s smile was as warm as his body. He should be freezing without his coat, but his shirt was damp with sweat, and the heat of him cut the wind. “It’s because I’ve never met a woman with such beautiful eyes as yours.”
His gaze, so close, trapped her. Daniel’s eyes were the color of dark whiskey, with sparkles of gold in them like the depths of a fire. He had a hard face for so young a man, and a haunted look he kept buried under many layers. A woman would only see it if she recognized pain, and only if she bothered to look closely enough.
But no woman in Daniel’s arms would be studying him to discover his pain. She’d be trembling, her heart thudding, her legs weakening as she wondered whether he’d kiss her, and if she’d be lost if he did.
Violet felt the hard of the spanner still in Daniel’s hand against her lower back as he pressed her up to him and removed the space between them. He took his time, his gaze flicking to her mouth, before he gently touched
