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.
Daniel looked up at the basket still dangling from the tree. “Right.” He brought his hands together. “Let’s see what we can take.”
The men who walked Violet to the village were respectful if taciturn. The village was not far—down the hill through the woods and then out past a farmer’s field. The track they followed turned into a muddy road that led between a cluster of farmhouses, a shop or two, a church on a little rise in the middle of the houses, and an inn. Large parts of the old walls that had protected the town in wild medieval times still stood, integrated now into the walls of houses or barns.
The last time Violet had stayed in a village like this—stranded when they’d been traveling in a torrential rain—Celine had begun having visions. The innkeeper’s wife had not liked this, declaring that Violet, her mother, and Mary were Romany witches and not welcome.
The innkeeper’s wife and other villagers had escorted the three of them to the edge of town and shut the gates, letting them suffer the weather. Violet had always been sure they’d been lucky not to have been beaten before being driven out.
I am so sorry, my dear, Celine had said as they’d trudged through the mud and the pouring rain. I could not help what I saw. Terrible things happened in that house. The inhabitants of the house obviously had not wanted to be reminded of those terrible things.
How different to walk into an inn and have the innkeeper’s wife welcome Violet with a smile, telling her she’d make up the best bedroom while Violet waited by the fire in the parlor. The innkeeper brought Violet warm wine, and prepared a cup for Daniel to await his arrival.
Daniel had charmed these people before they’d even met him.
Violet pulled Daniel’s coat closer around her shoulders as she drank the thick wine. The room was not yet warm enough for her to remove the coat, and besides, she didn’t want to. The wool had captured Daniel’s warmth and the scent of him. Violet closed her eyes and breathed it in, the wonder of this marvelous day still with her.
Daniel came in a half hour later. She saw him through the window, approaching the inn surrounded by the farmers and woodcutters. Daniel was swapping jokes with them—a few of them off-color, Violet could hear—all laughing like old friends. They entered the inn together, the men happy to stop for a jug of wine.