She tried to shake her head, but she dared not. “No,” she managed thickly. “Still the north side!”
“Miss Elizabeth, we will find another way. I will not have you so distressed. Here, now, can you take a deep breath without difficulty?”
She clenched her eyes tightly closed and tried, but a gentle gust of evening air unsettled the basket. The breath she had tried to draw slowly came as an inward shriek and then was expelled just as rapidly in a cry of helpless alarm.
“Set us down at once!” William demanded again of the balloon pilot. “Can you not see, man? The lady is unwell!”
“I’m trying to, sir, but there’s a decent wind about just now. It will take some doing—ten minutes to the ground, at least. It will go faster if you help me to wind the rope.”
“Then allow me,” she heard him retort.
At once a stalwart strength left her, and she began to quake. She had not even realised that she had been leaning against his arm, and now bereft of that support, a new panic rose in her breast. No longer was she afraid of physical illness, but a mortal terror overtook her. She trembled from head to foot, and a series of frantic moans, wails, and sobs shook her.
“Miss Elizabeth!” William cried from half the world away, “You are only rocking the basket more. You make it far worse than it must be!”
She could not attend, however much she wished to. The music rising from the ground, so many fathoms below, told off the great measure of her fall, and nothing else could enter her mind. She knew she was shaking, desperately jerking herself about with her helpless spasms, but no force save the grounding security of firm earth could recall her.
“Miss Elizabeth!” William’s voice was near now, just at her ear, and she felt him pulling her hands from the railing. “Please, you must hear me. Can you listen? Squeeze my hand if you can.”
She could not. His presence was comforting—at least she would have someone else’s hand to hold as she plummeted to her death over the side, if it came to that—but she was no more in command of herself than she had been a moment earlier. She clung more tightly to the rail.
“Elizabeth,” his voice pleaded, low and earnest “release that. Hold my hands.” He did not permit her to ignore his request this time. He was stronger than she, and with horror-stricken clarity, she felt him pry each of her fingers from the smooth wood, then substitute his own hands for the abuse of her digging fingernails. He tightened his arms, and she felt him pulling her back, her own arms crossing her chest, but still, she trembled.
Somehow, she would never know how, she felt him twisting her body, forcing her to turn to him rather than the deathly ground below. Her eyes were still sealed tightly, but she worked her hands free of his to knot them at his chest and buried her face between them. “William!” she gasped, “Oh, help me, please, take me down!”
“Be easy,” he crooned, permitting only a faint hitch of concern to crack his voice. “We are going down. I will not let you go, you are safe.”
But she was shaking her head, irrational fear still twisting her inner parts and clouding her mind. “We are going to die, I know it! The basket will fall. Oh, why does it rock so much? Please, I cannot breathe!”
He was trying to lift her head now, but she stubbornly held firm. “Elizabeth, will you trust me?”
A tremor passed through her. She shivered, then released a sobbing breath. She allowed him to lift her head, and very cautiously, squinted open each eye in its turn until she could make out his face.
“Lord help me, I am undone,” he whispered.
He bent, and a searing peace claimed her mouth. She stilled. Dread was forgotten. Her panicked breaths were now an impossibility, for she found she must breathe in his rhythm, or not at all.
Over and again, his mouth soothed and caressed; urging gently, offering more than comfort, more than security—offering the forbidden, the one thing he could never give her, and she hungrily accepted. His arms were twined behind her back now, his hands fisted into pylons of succour against the terrors that lay behind her. Slowly, her trembles ceased, and her thoughts turned more sharply to the texture of his unshaven cheek, the tenderness of his lips upon hers, the delicious intimacy of being held by him than the certain death below her.
If Elizabeth was now calmed, it was because some of her agitation had passed to him. His chest had begun to heave deeply, a new disquiet shaking him. He drew back, his breath still warm upon her lips, and seemed unable to trust his voice. He simply stared down into her eyes, a tremulous quiver passing through him for a long moment.
Her body softened, and her vision filled with sheets of brilliant satin, sheer waves of heated air, andhim. His expression, so gentle and broken, so full of the one feeling they could never share, shattered her heart. Never before had she desired anything so much, and only her lingering sense of unbalance kept her from standing on her toes to ask for just one more moment of heaven.
At last, he risked a hoarse, “Turn around, Elizabeth. Please.”
She tried to comply, but his arms were still locked securely behind her back. She squared her shoulders against them and offered an apologetic smile. She would much prefer that he left his arms where they were, and he seemed equally unwilling to drop them, but slowly, he did so. She inched her feet about, and as she turned, she felt his hands capture hers from behind and clasp them at her sides.
“Hold on to me,” he urged, his tones still rough. “Breathe, Miss Elizabeth.”
Unsteady or not, his was the only voice in the world she could have trusted just then. She gripped his hands for her very life, and she forced herself to a long, shivering draught of fresh air.
The world exploded before her then, in violent and invigorating colours. The sky, she could now see, was beginning to streak with orange clouds to the west, and gradually darkening in each direction as she cast her gaze over the span of the horizon.
And she heard singing. Somewhere below, the Duke of York’s band had struck up the Orchestra, and a thunderously approving audience had already gathered to hear. She stretched her body so she could look just over the edge of the basket, but her weight was firmly rooted, her balance anchored with William’s. Safe, but daring.
It was glorious. She could see the tops of trees, spy little people walking about below her, and she felt sublimely aware and over all. The perspective of looking down upon the world, making all her reality smaller and seeing clearly that which she could usually only view through the thicket, caused her pulse to quicken.
“William, can we stay a moment longer?” she pleaded. Even now, the balloon master was still winding them down to the ground. Back down to reality, down to the dirty world with all its troubles and rules which dictated choices she never wished to make. No, she could not bear it! Not yet.
