Free Scandal's Daughter by Carola Dunn

the protest of her own muscles at each new effort.
    She was taken completely by surprise when he stopped, turned, and said quite casually, “Well, here we are.”
    Gaping up at him, she saw he was silhouetted against a brassy sky. The breeze had risen again, ruffling his short, unnaturally black hair. She could not stir, simply could not take the last step.
    He dropped the bundle, reached down to take her hands, and pulled her up beside him. Her legs promptly gave way. She sank to the ground.
    Preston sat down beside her. “Water? And I think we deserve a little something to munch on.” He handed her the water-bottle and delved into the bundle. She tried not to think of the intimate garments therein. “Here, nuts and raisins and a bit of cheese should keep you going.”
    “Going! I shall never move again.”
    “Yes, you will, and we must not sit here too long or you’ll stiffen up.”
    Cordelia groaned. “Is it much farther?”
    “I haven’t really had a chance to spy out the land,” he said cautiously.
    “At least it must be downhill from here!”
    “You’re full of pluck, Miss Courtenay. I’ll admit I wasn’t sure you would make it.”
    “That climb must be ten times worse than your Cornish cliffs.”
    “Oh no. A bit higher than most, but easier in some ways. In Cornwall the rock is often slick with spray or rain, and some of it is brittle shale, tends to break off in your hands. What’s more, your hands are usually cold.”
    “Then if that was so easy,” she said waspishly, “why did you think I couldn’t make it?”
    “I didn’t say ‘couldn’t,’ I said ‘wouldn’t.’“ His dark blue eyes met hers in a steady look. “I was afraid you might decide it was impossible, which tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. I beg your pardon for misjudging you.” He paused, as if waiting for a similar apology from her, then sighed. “Time to go.”
    Standing up, he reached down to offer his hand, but Cordelia struggled to her feet without it. She didn’t misjudge him, she assured herself. He was the one who had told her he was fleeing the law.
    The ground sloped gently upward from where they stood, a mixture of bare rock and pebbles. Here and there pockets of soil supported stunted grey-green shrubs, prickly weeds, and tussocks of dry grass. A flock of twittering goldfinches with scarlet faces and flashes of yellow on their wings flitted from thistle to thistle, tearing the silvery puffs apart to eat the seeds. As Cordelia and Preston started up the slope, a small goat with long, shaggy, dark-brown hair came over the crest. It stared at them, amber-eyed, before it returned to cropping the unrewarding herbage.
    “We must be near people!” Cordelia exclaimed.
    From the top, they looked down on a village of whitewashed, flat-roofed houses, built around a small harbour sheltered on the far side by another rocky headland. The nearer end of the village was hidden by a slope like that they had just walked up. Less than a quarter mile ahead, the ground ended in an abrupt edge with nothing but air beyond.
    “Meh-eh-eh,” said a second goat mockingly and turned its matted back.
    As one, Cordelia and Preston swung round to look inland.
    “It never rains but it pours,” said Preston philosophically.
    Their headland was joined to the rugged, mountainous mainland by a neck of land no wider than the goat track which ran along its top. On one side, the cliff they had climbed fell sheer to the deserted cove. On the other, a low, equally precipitous cliff ended in a steep slope of scree, which petered out in terraced fields and olive groves, dotted with a dozen or so houses, outposts of the village.
    The loose mass of earth, pebbles, stones, and boulders looked as if a touch would start a landslide. Half way down lay a dead goat.
    Cordelia shuddered. If the sure-footed beast had fallen, what hope had they?
     

Chapter 8
     
    “Shall we try that cliff over there?” Cordelia gestured hopefully. The terrors of