Page 79 of A Stolen Heart

“I don’t know,” he replied grimly, looking at the ropes going up to a sort of ring above them and from there up to the balloon. “How do you steer this thing?”

“I don’t think you can,” Alexandra replied. “I believe that we must be more or less at the mercy of the wind. Obviously those other balloons must have gotten caught on a different current of wind because they were higher.”

“I am sure that we can control the going up and coming down, though, at least to some extent,” Sebastian said. “Look, they are hot air balloons, right? They fill the balloons with heated air, and that is what made them rise.”

Alexandra nodded.

“It would stand to reason, then, that if the air cooled, they would start to come down.” Sebastian looked pleased with his reasoning.

“I suppose. You know, I think that there is a valve that you can use to let off air, with a cord that comes down.”

Sebastian looked skeptically at the multitude of ropes hanging from the balloon on all sides. Most of them connected the net over the balloon to the gondola. “I don’t know that I’d want to risk pulling on cords to see what would happen.”

“You’re probably right.”

Sebastian went to the brazier suspended above their heads in the center of the basket. “I don’t see any way to put out this fire, but if we don’t feed it coal, eventually it will burn down, the gas will cool, and we will come down.”

“Hopefully not into a house.”

“Yes. Or a hillside.” He looked at the scenery beneath them. “I would say that we are heading southwest from London.”

“It won’t carry us as far as the ocean, will it?” Alexandra asked worriedly.

“Let us hope that the fire will go out long before then.”

“It’s getting colder.”

“Yes. I think it’s because we are still rising.”

Sebastian shrugged out of his coat and wrapped it around Alexandra. She smiled a thank-you at him, and they turned to look at the scenery. Despite the uncertainty of their situation, there was a certain peace and serenity to their trip. It was as if they were alone in the world, free-floating, the majestic beauty of the sky and land above and below them. Unconsciously Sebastian’s arm stole around Alexandra’s waist, and she leaned against him.

They began to talk, not about this latest adventure or about the mystery of Alexandra’s birth and the attacks upon her, but about all sorts of other things—their philosophies, their childhoods, the value of good friends, the land that lay beneath them—moving desultorily from topic to topic as ideas popped into their heads. It was like a moment torn from time, too special and important to dwell on momentary problems. Later, Alexandra would look back on it as one of the best days she spent in London.

Slowly they became aware that the balloon was dropping. The earth seemed nearer than before. Figures working in the field or walking down a road were much clearer.

“Are we going to land soon?” Alexandra asked.

“I hope so. Look at the horizon. It won’t be long before the sun sets. We would be in a bad way if we are still in the air when it turns dark.”

Alexandra nodded. “Perhaps we ought to consider trying the ropes to see if one’s connected to the valve.”

“All right—if it doesn’t land before dark. I don’t want to be coming down at night with no idea what’s below us.” He looked over the side of the basket. “Of course, I have no desire to come down into those trees, either.”

“Do you know where we are?”

Sebastian frowned. “We’ve been traveling southwest. My guess is the North Wessex Downs—although, God knows, we may have traveled so far that it’s Dartmoor. I have never seen the land from this angle before. What I hope is that we aren’t farther south and those trees below us are the New Forest.”

The balloon dipped. It seemed to Alexandra that they had fallen from the current of air on which they had been riding. They were moving more slowly. Before long, they heard the thunk of treetops against the bottom of the basket. Alexandra and Sebastian cast a worried look at each other.

“I don’t see any sign of these trees ending,” he said. “I don’t relish the idea of the basket crashing into the tops of these trees and us tumbling out.”

“Nor do I,” Alexandra agreed wholeheartedly. “Shall we cut loose some more of the weights?”

“I think we’d better.”

They got rid of the other sandbags one by one, and the balloon rose, but not nearly as much as it had before. Finally they were rid of sandbags, and the trees were looming closer and closer. Once again, they bumped and skipped across the tops, once almost tipping over as a particularly high branch hit the side of the gondola.

Then, abruptly, they were past the trees, with a wide expanse of green pastures below them. White sheep grazed on the grass, undisturbed by the passage of the vehicle over their heads.