Highland Pleasures [6] The Wicked Deeds of Daniel Mackenzie Page 11

  What kind of a man, with all the trappings of wealth, who could live the softest possible life, took the time to comfort a working cart horse?

  Daniel seemed to think nothing of it. He emerged from the stall, took Violet’s box from the cart as he passed it, then led her out to follow Simon.

  At the top of a hill was a flat, fallow field, which had been hidden from view by the wide house. In the middle of this field bobbed a giant bubble of red and yellow, half on its side, a buoy in a sea of dark earth. The bubble was being held down by four men, straining against ropes. Mr. Simon and the other man carried the basket toward it.

  Violet stopped in her tracks. “Mr. Mackenzie, what on earth . . . ?”

  “Monsieur Dupuis is lending us his balloon,” Daniel said. “For my experiments with your wind machine.”

  Violet stared at the balloon, which was coming to life, men holding the ropes as though they fought to contain a wild stallion. “You’re going up in that? Now? With my machine?”

  “Aye. Ye see, it’s my theory that hot air is a much safer and more useful method of keeping a balloon afloat than hydrogen gas. At the present time, though, if you want to use hot air, you fill up your balloon on the ground, and that’s all you have. You either have to tether the balloon for your ascent, or go wherever the wind blows you. But, I’m thinking that if I have an efficient heat source I can take on board, I can manipulate the balloon, not just float where it wants me to go. Understand?”

  Violet blinked. “Not really.”

  “If I can fix a good engine above the basket after the balloon is inflated, I can replace the hot air while I’m flying, and give the balloon a boost when I need it. I came up with the engine design, but never had a good way to shoot the heated air into the envelope while aloft—I don’t want it to burn up the blasted silk when I’m two hundred feet off the ground. When I saw your machine, with its efficiency of pumping out a great blast of air, I thought, bloody marvelous.”

  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, mil
es 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 who he’d been.

  “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 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.

  U
p 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.