The Earl's Bargain (Historical Regency Romance) (12 page)

"Needed?"

"I must see the poverty first hand if I am
to do something to relieve it."

"And you think you can singlehandedly change
it?"

"I am not naive, my lord. But with your help
in Parliament, we can move forward."

God, but he felt as slimy as Godwin Phillips
right now. Like all the other men in her life, he was using
her.

She stooped to pick more wild crocus, then
she leaned over the precipice of the cliff to tug at a huge flower
that bloomed there. When she pulled the flower, the dirt around it
came away, and the ground beneath her crumbled.

Harry watched in horror as she plunged over
the cliff.

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 of Cornwall.

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 dickens. 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 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 the trusty sailor knots. Then he laid 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 had 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.

As they sat across from one another over
dinner at the tidy little inn, the fire to Harry's back, Louisa
thought she had never before felt so comfortable with another
person. That was not to say she and Ellie did not enjoy an easy
camaraderie, but with Harry she not only felt completely warm
inside, she seemed to glow on the outside. Something about being
with him set her to sparkling like sun glancing off a bed of
crystal. She found herself hoping it would be many days before they
found their mysterious lord.