Chapter 10

Harry's heart nearly stopped beating. In one blindingly quick second Louisa bent at the precipice, the wind blowing her flaxen locks, a flower clutched in her hand. The next second she was gone, a whirl of tumbling skirts, then nothing.

He raced to the cliff's edge, not really wanting to look down, but knowing that he must. He was prepared to see no sign of the lovely Louisa who had surely been swallowed by the raging sea a hundred feet below.

At first he didn't see her. Then the distant echo of her wails reached his ears among the sounds of the roaring seas and the ever-present winds off the Atlantic.

And he saw her hand on a ledge not ten feet below. It was grasping the edge with a life-saving grip that could not possibly last much longer. Though he could not see the rest of her, he knew her body dangled beneath the ledge, the clutch of her slim hand the only bridge between life and death.

He had no time to think, only to react. He threw off his coat to allow himself greater flexibility, then squatted at land's edge, lowering first one leg, then the other downward. He had known he could not jump to the ledge below. Not because it was a distance of ten feet, but because the impact of his considerable bulk could disturb her tenuous grip.

As fast as he could, he shimmied down the rugged face of the cliff, oblivious to the scraping of its jagged surface removing the flesh from his arms. His only thought was of getting to Louisa before she fell to her death.

With relief, his boots hit solid ground, and he quickly turned to see where Louisa was. He lunged toward the ledge's edge and dove to grab her wrist with a lock as permanent as a welded chain.

From his vantage point he looked down at her and was rewarded with a view of her smiling face looking up at him, hope shining in her eyes.

From then on, the rest was easy, and his erratic breathing returned to normal. In a moment he had pulled her up, and she sat beside him on the ledge, which was no larger than his carriage.

She looked up at him with eyes full of gratitude. Then she saw his bloody arms and gasped. "You've hurt yourself!"

He looked down at the maze of bloody scrapes on his arms. "I assure you, I feel nothing — save relief that you're alive."

To his surprise, she reached up and lovingly stroked his face. No words of gratitude could have spoken as eloquently or been as appreciated.

"Thank you," she said softly, then looked away.

"What's wrong?" he asked, touching his knuckle to her chin and turning her face toward him.

"I've just realized how much I wanted to live," she said, laughing bitterly.

A fierce wave of emotions washed over him. He wanted nothing so much as to take her in his arms, but his restraint won out in the end. After the damned Godwin Phillips, she would likely have an aversion to physical contact with men. What she needed now were kindly delivered words of assurance of her worth. "My dear Mrs. Phillips, think of how much work you have yet to do on behalf of mankind, of how many people you can help."

She merely looked at him with a dazed expression.

Then, he thought of one last advantage to her living. "What would happen to Ellie if something happened to you?"

A slow smile spread over her smudged face. "I do have a lot to live for, do I not?"

He reached to wipe the dirt from her forehead. "Indeed you do."

She surveyed their little plot of firm ground. "May I ask how we are to get off this spot, my lord?"

He chuckled though he felt far removed from levity. "A good question, Mrs. Phillips." With no rope and no one to help them from above, going upward was completely out. Then he gazed at the shoreline below. Going down would mean certain death. "It is hoped my coachman will come looking for us if we do not return at dark."

"But it's far too dangerous to ride a horse so near the cliffs at dark," she said.

He frowned. "You do have a point there."

"What are we to do?"

"I shall have to think on it," he said, his voice upbeat, a smile on his face.

The wind grew stronger now, whipping her hair away from Louisa's head in horizontal sheets. It was wretchedly unpleasant here with no coat. And damned if his arms hadn't begun to hurt like the devil. Of course, he would never tell her. As he sat there on the cold limestone, he thought and thought. There had to be a way to get them off the deuced ledge. It was a certainty no one would ever find them here. Their slip of rock was, after all, not visible to anyone traveling the high road.

He got up and carefully inched his way to the edge. A series of ledges climbed up the cliff. He believed he could leap from one to another. It was no different than jumping from deck to deck, his sword at the ready. He had done it any number of times. Of course, Mrs. Phillips could not be expected to follow him.

He looked up at her. "Do you remember those steps we saw a couple of miles back?"

"The ones that led to the sea?"

"The very ones," he said. "I believe I'll scurry down those rocks." He pointed to his left. "And when I reach the beach, I'll walk back to the steps and come back to fetch you in no time."

"You'll be killed," she protested.

"Nonsense. I'm said to be rather acrobatic."

"Dying here of the elements and of hunger would be preferable to watching you plunge to your death."

"I am flattered, madam." He rose. "Nevertheless, I believe I shall begin our rescue."

With those words, he squatted at the precipice, and in but a second had disappeared from her sight.

* * *

Along with his presence, her breath seemed to have vanished. She tried to scream, but no sound came forth. With her pulse fluttering madly, she scraped up the courage to move to the precipice and watch Lord Wycliff as he bravely jumped from one ledge to another. He was like a hero from one of the novels she had read when she was young. Before she married Godwin and lost all dreams of love and happy endings.

Finally, she could no longer see him clearly. All she saw was the white of his shirt. Then he did reach the beach. And she could breathe again.

The fear that had gripped her for the past hour vanished like her perception of the cold. She knew she would be rescued. And all because a noble man had risked his very life to save her. She forgot that the wind pierced her. She forgot that she had, literally, come within an inch of life. All she thought of was the warmth that spread through her.

Because of him.

She could not have said how long she sat there on the scant ledge waiting for Lord Wycliff to rescue her. All she knew was that the sun was low in the sky when she heard the crunch of rocks above her and looked up to see him smiling down at her.

"Did you find help?" she yelled up at him.

"We don't need help," he shouted, taking his greatcoat and tying its sleeve to the sleeve of his jacket, careful to use trusty sailor knots. Then he lay on his belly to where his arms hung over the cliff's edge, the coats dangling down to just above Louisa's fair head.

She had almost fallen when she stood up. Her knee must have been injured in the fall. She could only barely put weight on it. She reached and tentatively took hold of the sleeve that hung nearest to her. Surprised that it held her weight, she held tightly as she began to rise. She looked up into Lord Wycliff's face, strained as he hoisted her to the top of the upper ledge.

 As she reached his hands, he firmly grabbed her wrists and lifted her to where she was even with him. The man possessed incredible strength.

"Be careful," he cautioned as he backed up, causing her upper arms to be bruised on the jagged rocks.

Then they were on firm ground, three feet from the precipice.

"Promise me you won't pick any more flowers," he said with levity as he pulled her up to stand next to him.

When he saw that she was unable to put weight on her knee, a look of worry flashed across his face. "You're hurt."

She looked up at him and nodded solemnly.

"Bloody hell!" he said, giving her a mock scowl. "Now I've got to carry you four miles to Boscastle."

"I most certainly can limp."

"The hell if you will!" He picked her up.

"Put me down at once!" she commanded. "I can wait here until your man comes back for me."

He looked up at the darkening skies and at the setting sun in the west. "I'll not allow my carriage or my horses here at night."

Her lower lip stuck out. "If you don't put me down right now, I'll never speak to you again, Lord Wycliff!"

"A severe punishment, indeed."

"You, my lord, are making fun of me." Her stiffened arms remained at her sides.

"You wrong me, Mrs. Phillips."

She burst out laughing then, and hooked her arms about his neck. "Really, my lord, you have certainly been through enough today without having to carry me for four miles."

"You weigh no more than a sack of grain, and I assure you I have carried many of those in my day."

It seemed quite odd that a peer of the realm had actually toted sacks of grain. But, then, Harold Blassingame, the Earl of Wycliff was not just any peer. She was beginning to feel a great deal of remorse for all the wicked things she'd said about him and about the worthlessness of his lot.

He had been right the day they met to ask her not to judge him as she judged others who were born to a title. "My lord?"

"Yes?" he answered in a much winded voice.

"Perhaps we should stop to rest for a spell."

He obliged her, spreading out his coat for them to sit upon.

She waited for him to catch his breath. "My lord?"

He looked at her with eyes full of warmth. "Yes?"

"I am very sorry for the wicked things I have said about you and your class."

"Then I am sorry for the wicked things I said about bluestocking ladies — in the past."

They both laughed.

"Perhaps we could begin again," she proposed. "Maybe we could be, simply---"

"Harry and Louisa?"

She smiled. "I'd like that."

He took an apple from the pocket of his coat and offered her a bite. "Hungry?"

She took a bite. "There's another thing I need to tell you, my---"

"Harry," he said firmly.

"Harry," she said, smiling. "It's. . .it's that you have made me realize that not all men are selfish, horrible creatures like my father and husband. How many men could have spent three nights in the bed of a woman possessed of some beauty and not have tried to take their own pleasure with her? And how many men would have risked their lives to save a highly opinionated bluestocking who purported to hate men?"

His voice was soft when he spoke. "I sincerely hope I can continue to earn your trust, Mrs.---"

"Louisa," she urged.

"Louisa."

Brown eyes locked with blue.

"Nothing you could have said," he continued, "could have meant more to me. I wager you say the same thing to all men who rescue you."

They both laughed. She was grateful that an easy camaraderie had developed between them. Then she saw that his arms were still bleeding.

He followed the path of her gaze.

"Are you in pain?" she asked, compassion in her voice.

"Probably not nearly as much as you — from your knee."

"But I don't have to carry another person."

He got to his feet, and she thought he looked like a dark god. She forced herself to look away.

He lifted her, and without thinking, she wrapped her arms around his neck, which was still warm from the waning sun.

As they trod over the moorland, she rested her face against his chest and could never remember feeling such contentment in her entire life. It brought to mind the reassurance she had felt as a small child when her mother, rest her soul, had read her nursery rhymes and Bible stories in her soft, loving voice as Louisa lay tucked beneath her blankets.

She could hear the steady beat of Harry's heart and his labored breath, and she was intensely sorry she was such a burden. In so many ways.

She vowed to do everything in her power to aid him in his quest to regain Wycliff House.

She was almost sorry when they reached the inn in Boscastle, for he would have to put her down. She fleetingly wondered if she would ever again feel such warmth in her life.

She rather doubted it.