Wedded in a Whirlwind

CHAPTER SEVEN

MANDA bit back a yelp as her hand slipped, scraping her knuckles against sharp stone.

It had seemed easy enough at first. The back of the eagle had formed a slope, a fairly steep one, and there were plenty of hand-holds-fissures, small ledges just big enough for her feet, where it had cracked as it had fallen.

But then they reached the wall itself and the climb became harder. Her muscles began to burn with the effort of pulling herself up, her arms to shake and it soon became obvious that all the hand-holds in the world wouldn’t get her to the top if she didn’t have the strength to hold on.

Breathing was becoming a problem too, her chest aching with the strain. Only by concentrating on the calm, steady voice of Jago, guiding her onwards and upwards, was she able to block out the worst of it. Keep moving.

She didn’t manage to completely stifle her difficulty in breathing, however, and finally he paused above her and said, ‘Are you okay?’

‘Peachy,’ she managed, going for sarcasm in an attempt to disguise her pain.

‘There’s a good ledge here. We’ll take a rest…’

‘Right.’ Excellent. Except that her fingers were numb and she didn’t have the strength to move. Instead, she leaned her face against the cold, damp rock wall.

‘A couple of feet,’ he prompted.

Forget the comfort of the ancient leather sofa in the Belgravia mansion that she had, until recently, called home, his rock ledge sounded like heaven right now.

And about as close…

Above her, small stones were dislodged from the wall and for a moment she thought that he was moving on without her.

‘Jago…’

Even as the word was involuntarily torn from her he was at her side, his arm, then his body at her back, holding her tight against the wall. Taking the strain.

‘Let go,’ He said, his mouth so close to her ear that his neck was tight against her head, his breath, no more than a gasp, warm against her cheek. ‘I’ve got you.’

‘I can’t…’

‘Trust me.’

How many times had she heard those words? How many times had they been hollow lies?

‘I’m okay,’ she told him, hating this. ‘Just catching my breath.’ She hated being weak, hated needing a prop. Just once she yearned to be the strong one, but she did as she was told, flexing her fingers, so that the blood flowed, painfully, back into them.

‘Where did you put your mints?’

‘What’s the matter? Have you eaten all yours?’

Jago shifted, crushing her against the temple wall as he struggled to reach his own, slipping the wrapper with his thumb, praying that they weren’t sugar free-how likely was that?-as he found her lips.

‘Take it!’ He said, but instead of just doing as she was told, she bit it in two, leaving half behind for him. Always having to have the last word…‘Miranda!’

‘Shares…’ she gasped, and Jago didn’t have the breath to argue, but palmed it into his mouth before grabbing for a small crevice in the wall, his muscles screaming as he bore her weight as well as his own for what seemed like hours.

In reality it was only seconds before she said, ‘Okay. I’ve got it now.’

‘Sure? If you can just make the next move…’

‘Go!’

Tough. Foolhardy. Determined not to slow him down. Miranda Grenville might be the most irritating woman he’d ever met, but she still earned his grudging respect as he edged carefully back to his original position on the ledge.

He reached out instinctively to grab her as he heard her foot slip, her grunt as some part of her anatomy collided painfully with stone, afraid that her mouth had finally out-reached her strength.

All he got was a handful of air and then, somehow, she was there, alongside him.

‘Shall we go mad and have another mint?’ he asked.

‘My treat,’ she managed, biting one of her own in half and sharing it with him.

They both sat there for a while, side by side, their backs against the temple wall, chewing slowly while their breathing recovered and the feeling began to flow back into tortured limbs.

From above them a few small stones rattled down the face and Manda stopped breathing as Jago threw his arm across her, pinning her back against the wall, waiting for another aftershock.

Waited. And waited.

Finally she shuddered as she let out the breath she was holding and Jago slumped against her. ‘A bird,’ he said. ‘It must have been a bird. Good news. If a bird can get in, we can get out.’

‘Sure,’ Manda agreed.

She wasn’t entirely convinced. The bird could have been trapped like them. Or it could be a bat. One of those big, hairy, fruit-eating bats…

‘Why don’t you talk to your family?’ she asked, into his neck, not wanting to think about bats, or what else might be tucked up with them. Lurking in the crevices into which she was blindly poking her fingers. Not wanting him to move. Wanting to stay exactly where they were.

His only response was to remove the arm he’d thrown protectively across her and say, ‘We’d better get on.’ But even as he made a move she caught at his sleeve.

‘Tell me!’ Then, shocked at herself, knowing that she could never talk about her own miserable childhood, she apologised. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s okay. I’ll tell you when we get out of here. Over a cold beer.’

‘Another date?’

‘It sounds like it.’

The climb was both mentally and physically exhausting. Feeling in the dark for each hold, convinced that every dislodged stone was a new tremor, Jago’s worst fear was that he’d reach up in the darkness and find only chiselled-smooth rock.

He’d done some rock climbing as a young man and field archaeology was for the fit, but he understood why Miranda wouldn’t wait for him to make the climb, find help and come back for her.

He didn’t think he could have remained at the bottom in the darkness either, but with every move he was waiting for the slip behind him, tensed for her cry. He was unable to do anything but keep going and guide her to his own footholds. Praying that he wasn’t just leading her into a dead end.

At least she was listening, didn’t panic when she couldn’t immediately locate the next hand-or foot-hold.

‘How’re you doing?’ he asked.

If it had been physically possible, Manda would have laughed.

Doing? Doing? Was he kidding?

A muttered, ‘Fine…’ stretched her ability to speak to the limit.

It was a lie. She wasn’t ‘fine’. Not by any definition of the word.

The muscles in her shoulders, arms, back were quivering with exhaustion. Forget the ‘burn’. Her calves and thighs were on fire and she couldn’t feel her feet. She was just moving on automatic.

Then, as her fingers, wet with sweat-or blood-slipped, her forehead came into sharp contact with smooth stone and for a moment everything spun in the dark. As she sucked air into her lungs, hanging on with what felt like the ends of her fingernails, she managed to gasp, ‘If I fall you’re not to climb down.’

He’d stopped moving. ‘You’re not going to fall.’

‘Promise me,’ she demanded. ‘You have to get out. I want my family to know what happened to me.’

‘Like I could look them in the eye and tell them I’d left you lying on the floor of the temple, not knowing if you were dead or alive.’ His breath was coming hard too. ‘Stop gassing and move. You’re nearly there.’

‘Of course I am,’ she muttered. Did he think she was totally stupid?

‘Reach out with your left foot and you’ll find a good ledge. Carefully!’ he warned, as she felt for the ledge, thought she had it, only for it to crumble away, leaving her scrabbling for purchase. What was left of her nails scraped across chiselled-smooth stone as she fought to hang on, suspended by one toe and raw fingertips over a blackness that seemed to be sucking her down.

She’d been there so many times in her head but this was real. This time she really was going down and never coming up again. All she had to do was let go…

‘Stop pussy-footing about and move, woman!’ Jago’s harsh voice echoed around the ruined temple, jerking her back. How dared he?

Ivo had never shouted at her. He’d been gentle. Coaxing her back from the brink…

‘Any time in the next ten seconds will do!’

But anger was good, too…

‘You pig!’ she cried, as her toe finally connected with something solid, but her leg was trembling so much that she couldn’t make the move.

‘Come up here and tell me that!’

‘What’s the matter, Jago? Are you in a hurry for another kick?’

‘Looking forward to it, sweetheart!’

‘I’m on my way!’

‘Promises, promises. Are you ready for another kiss?’

The adrenalin rush got her across and she didn’t wait for him to guide her, but reached up, seeking the next move without waiting for guidance. She’d survived her moment of panic. The black moment when falling would have been a relief.

She’d come through…

He’d brought her through.

Jago.

‘The next bit is a bit of a stretch,’ he said as she groped in the darkness for a hold in the darkness. ‘Reach up and I’ll pull you over the edge.’

Edge? She’d been that close?

And now she was out here alone?

Without warning, the blackness sucked at her and she made a desperate lunge upwards, seeking his hand. For a moment his fingers brushed tantalisingly against hers.

She was alone. Out of reach…

‘It’s too far…’

‘Hold on.’ She was showered with a fine film of dust as he moved closer to the edge above her. ‘Okay. Try again.’

His palm touched hers. Slipped.

He grunted as he grabbed for her wrist, his fingers biting hard as he held her.

‘Give me your other hand,’ he gasped.

Let go?

Put her life entirely in his hands?

In the millisecond she hesitated, another aftershock ripped through the wall and the ledge on which she was standing gave way beneath her, tearing her hand away from the wall so that she was left hanging over the empty temple.

Somehow, Jago managed to hang on, his arm practically torn from its socket as he stretched out over the chasm, taking her full weight with one hand as Miranda struggled to find some kind of footing. Slipping closer and closer towards the tipping point when they’d both fall.

Stone was crashing around them, filling the air with dust. Something-someone-was screaming. Then, mercifully, the shaking stopped, Miranda’s feet connected with something solid and, bracing her feet against the wall, between them they managed to get her over the edge.

He caught her, rolling away with her from the precipice, holding her, even as the pain exploded in his shoulder, his head. As her voice exploded in his ear.

‘Idiot!’

‘Without a doubt,’ he managed as she sucked in a breath, presumably to continue berating him. The dust caught in her throat and she began to cough. Not that she let a little thing like that stop her.

‘Don’t you ever do that again!’

‘I promise.’ He might have laughed if it didn’t hurt so much. Maybe it was hurting so much because he was laughing, he couldn’t tell.

‘I mean it! I’m not worth dying for, do you hear me?’

He heard her, heard a raw pain as the words were wrenched from her. It wasn’t just reaction, he realised. Or shock.

She truly meant what she’d said and, despite his own physical pain, he wrapped his arms around her and held her close even though she fought him like a tiger. Held her safe until she stopped telling him over and over, ‘I’m not worth it…’

Until she let go, subsided against his chest and only the slightest movement of her shoulders betrayed that she was weeping.

It was her struggle to conceal the hot tears soaking into his shirt as they lay huddled together on the earth that finally got to him.

She had every right to howl, stamp, scream her head off after what she’d been through. She certainly hadn’t shown any reticence when it came to expressing her feelings until now. In truth, he would have welcomed the promised kick, or at least a mouthful of abuse. Anything that would stop him from asking her why she wasn’t worth dying for.

He didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to get that involved.

But, even as he fought it, he recognised, somewhere, deep down, that it was a forlorn hope. Her life belonged to him, as his belonged to her.

From the moment he’d reached out in the dark and his hand had connected with this woman, their survival had been inextricably linked. Whatever happened in the future, this day, these few hours would, forever, bind them together.

And they were not home free yet. Not by a long way.

‘Hey, come on. No need for that,’ He said, tugging out the tail of his shirt and using it to wipe her face, as she’d used hers to wipe the dust from his in what now seemed like a lifetime ago.

Kissing her cheek. Kissing her better.

‘Don’t!’

His kiss was almost more than she could bear. The gentle innocence of it. Almost as if she were a child. It nearly undid all his good work in putting her back together. It took what little remained of Manda’s self-control to stop herself from grasping handfuls of Jago’s shirt, holding on to the solid human warmth of his body. Clinging to the safety net that he seemed to offer.

‘Enough,’ she said, scrubbing at her face with her sleeve to eradicate the softness of his shirt against her skin. The softness of his lips.

Wiping out all evidence of her own pitiful weakness.

She hadn’t cried in years. She’d been so sure there were no more tears left in her. But this stranger had risked his own life to save her…

‘You should have let me fall,’ she said. ‘I told you to let-’

‘Next time,’ he cut in, stopping the words.

Damn him, she meant it!

She closed her eyes in an attempt to stop more tears from spilling down her cheeks, took a breath, then, when she could trust herself to speak, said, ‘Is that a promise?’

‘It’s a promise.’

‘Right. Well, okay…Good.’

‘You have my word that the very next time you’re climbing the wall of the inner sanctum of the Temple of Fire you’re on your own.’

‘What? No!’

‘Isn’t that what you meant?’

‘You know it isn’t. We’re not out of here yet and what’s the point of us both dying?’

‘No one is going to die,’ he replied with a sudden fierceness. ‘Not today. Not here. Not in my temple.’

‘I wish I had your confidence.’

‘You’ve got something better, much better than that, Miranda Grenville. You’ve got me.’

It was a totally outrageous thing to say, Jago knew. His shoulder was practically useless and the headache that had never entirely eased was now back with a vengeance. But a spluttering laugh that she couldn’t quite hold in reassured him.

‘So I have. While you, poor sap, are stuck with me. Useless at taking orders and with a trust threshold hovering on zero.’ With that she stilled. ‘I could have got us both killed back there.’

‘Don’t beat yourself up about it. We react in the way we’re programmed to.’

‘And you’re programmed to be the hero.’ She laid her hand against his chest. ‘Thank you for holding on.’ Then, as if embarrassed by her own gratitude, she said, ‘So? What next, fearless leader? We’re not out of the woods yet.’

He caught her hand before she could move and lay back, taking her with him. Closing his eyes. ‘We rest. Try and get some sleep.’

‘Sleep?’

‘What’s up, princess? Missing your silk sheets and goose down pillows?’

‘Silk sheets? Please…’ But she shivered.

‘You’re cold?’

‘Not cold, although it is colder up here. There’s more air, too. Do you think there’s a way out?’

‘Part of the roof has gone. Look, you can see a few stars.’

‘Oh…’ Then, eagerly, ‘Can’t we press on?’

‘We need to recover a little before we attempt another climb,’ he said. He needed to recover. ‘And when the eagle collapsed it took part of the floor at this level with it. It seems solid enough here, but…’

‘We could take more pictures.’

‘If we wait, we’ll have daylight,’ He said. ‘There’s no point in taking any risks.’

‘I’m not sure about that. It’s easier to be brave when you can’t see the danger.’

‘Trust me.’

‘You keep saying that.’ She shrugged. ‘I guess it makes sense,’ she said, but not with any real enthusiasm and who could blame her? ‘It’s just this place. It gives me the creeps.’

‘Afraid of the dark?’ He released her hand. ‘Come on, cooch up,’ he said, holding out his arm so that she could curl up against him, ‘and I’ll tell you a bedtime story.’ She ignored the offered comfort, keeping her distance. He went ahead with the story, anyway. Telling her about the people who’d built the temple. The way they’d lived. What they had worshipped.

He thought she’d be happier if she knew that they didn’t go into for bloody sacrifice. That their ‘fire’ was not a thing to fear. How, when the moon was full, they’d built a fire on the altar at the heart of their temple, then heaped the huge night-scented lilies that bloomed in the forest on to the embers so that the eagle could catch the sweet smoke that was carried up the shaft and fly with it in his wings as a gift to the moon.

‘How can you know all that?’ she asked in wonder.

‘They carved pictures into the walls, drew their ceremonies in pictograms. And laboratories have analysed the ashes we found under centuries of compacted leaf litter.’

‘But that’s really beautiful, Jago. Why didn’t the guide tell us all this?’

‘Because the guide doesn’t know. I haven’t published any of my findings.’

‘But what about-’

‘Enough.’ He didn’t want to think about Fliss. He was angry with her, angry with Felipe, but most of all he was angry with himself. This was his fault. If he hadn’t been so stubborn, so intent to keeping the world he’d uncovered for himself…‘It’s your turn,’ he said. ‘Tell me what you’re running away from.’