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 her lips with a gentle kiss.
Slow, satin smooth, warm. The light kiss held nothing of the swift desire Daniel had shown in the dining room in London. Nor was it like the sensual kiss he’d given her when they’d shared the cigarette in the room above.
This kiss was careful, tender. Daniel eased his lips across hers, brushing, touching, the tiny contact sending more fire through Violet than his burner sent upward to keep them aloft.
He closed his mouth over her lower lip, suckling a little. The pain was tiny, erotic.
Time slowed and stopped. Nothing existed but Daniel holding Violet, his lips playing with hers, the flicker of his tongue into her mouth. Then came the taste of him, wild and heady, like the best young wine.
Wind sliced across the basket, bringing with it the chill of winter, but in Daniel’s arms there was nothing but warmth. Violet was flying high above the world, joined to Daniel in the quiet but fierce kiss, safe in his embrace. As in the upstairs room when he’d tasted the smoke on her tongue, Violet experienced a jolt of heat, sweet excitement, and no panic.
Daniel’s gloveless hands were strong on her back, the spanner stiff against her spine. Violet’s breasts tightened in a pleasant way behind her corset, and the heat between her legs was a new sensation. Desire had always been closed off from her—something only the lucky felt.
Daniel eased his lips from hers, but he didn’t step away. Still holding her against the length of him, he glanced to either side of her, taking his time.
“What are you doing?” she asked shakily.
“Looking for something you might hit me with. Wait a moment.” Daniel had her right arm pinned to her by the way he held her, and he now laced his free hand through her left, binding it fast. “There.”
“I don’t want to hit you.” Violet sounded choked.
“You certainly did then.”
“You frightened me. Sometimes I go into . . . I don’t always know what I’m doing or why. Just a flash, and then it’s gone.”
With his eyes so close to hers, she knew Daniel saw the lie—that Violet knew exactly why she’d panicked but didn’t want to explain.
“Someone made you afraid, didn’t they?” Daniel asked, his look too shrewd. “Someone not me.”
Violet couldn’t answer. At times—when she heard a particular timbre in a man’s voice, or when someone caught hold of her with a certain pressure—the images came to her and swept away all reason. When Daniel had pinned her to the wall, Violet had struck out as she had all those years ago. Only at sixteen, she’d not been strong enough to fight.
“You never have to be afraid of me,” Daniel said. The teasing note in his voice, the smiles, had gone.
Violet shook her head and tried to laugh. “I’d never be afraid of you, Daniel Mackenzie.”
“I’m serious, lass.” His deep baritone rumbled. “I never will hurt you. I want you—I wager you can’t mistake that. But I’m not one to take what isn’t freely given.”
I want you. Violet felt his hardness through the wool of his kilt, a man aroused. Gone were the bustles and crinolines of previous decades—free and easy skirts let a woman feel a man’s wanting against her, even through layers of clothing.
They were in a balloon, a hundred and more feet above the earth, winter wind knifing past them, and Daniel wanted her. He had to be mad.
And yet . . . if it could be only Daniel and herself, floating forever, the troubles of the world left on the rocky slopes below them, Violet could find happiness. The basket pushed at her feet as the balloon lifted her away from the petty worries of her life.
Up here, she could enter a world of true sweetness, if only for a little while. This was her magical barge, and Daniel was the magician who could banish all the monsters.
For answer, Violet rose on her tiptoes and kissed his lips.
The spanner fell with a clatter to the bottom of the basket, Daniel’s strong hand splaying across her buttocks to lift her to him. His kiss turned harder, masterful. His mouth opened hers, tongue sweeping in to take. Violet met him halfway, her heart beating wildly.
His arms were hard, his shirt a thin layer over solid muscle. Violet let her hands play over him as he kissed her, running her touch up his arms and down the firm length of his back.
Daniel’s strength took her breath away, and yet at the same time, he poured strength into her. Her magician was working his magic, taking away all pain, all sorrows.
When Daniel pulled back from the kiss, cold slapped at her. “Oh, you tempt me, Vi,” Daniel said, a warm glow in his eyes. “You tempt me much. I’m sorry I told Dupuis and Simon to chase us.”
Violet glanced down, the ground so far away it was heart-stopping. A man on a large horse—the draft horse she’d seen in the barn—trotted along a road that cut through the valley below them. Much farther behind was a man driving a cart. The horseman looked up and waved, and Daniel waved back.
“It is only a kiss,” Violet said. Her voice still didn’t work right. She who could master five languages and various accents in each one now could barely pronounce scratchy words in English.
“Only a kiss?” Daniel’s arms tightened around her. “Grind me to powder beneath your heel, why don’t you?” His hand on her buttocks lifted her again, the touch intimate and yet freeing. “Let me—”
He broke off and looked up. Let me . . . Let me what? Have my wicked way with you? Violet leaned closer to him, caring for nothing but the words on his lips, his lips themselves, the radiant heat of his body. I need you, Daniel. And I’m scared.
Daniel released her suddenly as the balloon swayed hard. The basket shoved upward, a strong gust sending it rocking. Violet shouted, her yell carried away on the wind, as Daniel grabbed ropes, pulling hard until the basket stopped its sickening spin.
He thrust the ropes at her. “Hang on to these. Now we see if my hot-air personal dirigible is truly dirigible.”
“Now we see?” Violet stared at him as she grasped the lines. “You said you’d done this before.”
“Flown a balloon before, yes. Never tried to steer one with this system. Now, when I tell you right, you pull the rope in your right hand, left, the one in your left. Can you do that?”
“I think I can remember right from left,” Violet answered shakily and started to wrap the ropes around her hands.
Danie
l grabbed her. “No. You hold them. If one jerks wild, I don’t need it pulling you out of the basket at worst, tearing off your fingers at best.”
Violet’s eyes widened, and she unwrapped the ropes. Daniel retrieved the crankshaft, stuck it into his engine, and wound it again. A larger flame jumped from the top of the open box, the basket tipped, and Violet let out another yelp.
Daniel laughed. “I like that you like to scream. Left, now. Left!”
Violet yanked the rope as Daniel continued to crank, the flame spurting. The basket righted from its horrible listing, and the balloon rose higher still.
Wind buffeted them. Violet watched Daniel’s body move as he worked, and wondered why he wanted to go so high. It was freezing now, the wind dry but icy.
Violet glanced ahead of them, and suddenly understood why he wanted the height. Rocks and cliffs rushed at them, the trees on them looking so close she might be able to reach out and touch them. She sucked in a breath.
“Higher!” she shouted. “We need to go higher!”
“What the bloody hell do ye think I’m doing? Pull the right rope! Right!”
“I’m pulling it!” Violet yanked on it with all her strength.
Daniel kept pumping the fire. The rocks rushed at them. At any moment they’d hit, the basket would splinter, and she and Daniel would tumble down. Would they land on rocks, arms around each other, hurting but surviving? Or be plunged to their deaths?
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.
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 a
round 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.
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.”
The Wicked Deeds of Daniel Mackenzie hp-6 Page 11