“Look at me, Lucy.”
She kept her eyes crunched shut and shook her head.
The voice swore in a familiar Henry-manner. “I can’t go down there, Lucy. The only way to get you out is if you open your eyes and do exactly as I say.”
“Henry?”
“Yes. Can you open your eyes and look up? I’m right above you. I don’t like looking down. By Jove. I will end up down the ditch next to you if I keep looking down.”
Lucy opened her eyes wide. “Are you afraid of heights?”
There was a pause. Then a muffled reply.
“I didn’t understand.”
“I said: yes. Blast it.” An irritated oath followed. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be back soon.”
“As if I could,” Lucy muttered. She wrapped her arms around her and waited.
After ten minutes, he returned. “Careful now.”
A rope dangled right next to her.
“Take the rope in both hands. Do you have it?”
“Yes.”
“Now stem both your feet against the mud wall.”
“It doesn’t work. The earth is too soft.”
“Try again.”
Lucy planted both feet against the mud wall, but it kept crumbling.
“You can do this. I know you can. A girl who can jump from a bridge straight into a brook to save a three-legged puppy can also climb up a blasted mud wall. Don’t disappoint me.”
Lucy choked back a laugh. Then her foot found a tighter patch of packed mud towards the right. She tested it with her foot, pressed against it. It held.
“Good girl. Now the other foot and heave yourself up.” She gingerly placed the second foot above it and pulled herself up on the rope.
She climbed up, step by step, until she reached him. His face peered cautiously over the edge as he pulled on the rope.
“You’re almost there.”
A hand gripped her arm and lifted her.
“Hold on tight.” She felt herself lifted,and she clung to the shoulders and arms that held her. Then she was out of the hellish ditch.
“Does anything hurt?”
Lucy shook her head. “I’m only muddy.” Her teeth clattered. “And cold.”
He pulled off his gardener’s jacket and put it around her shoulders. Then he lifted her onto his horse, which was tethered to a tree nearby. He climbed up behind her and rode back to the house.
Lucy curled against his jacket and inhaled the scent of tobacco and leather. She felt his warmth, his heartbeat.
“How did you find me?”
