It Happened In Paradise. Nicola Marsh

       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 outreached 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