Eleanor nodded. “If you don’t mind, I’ll stay here.”
Worry overflowed in him. She would be fine sitting here, he knew that. But the idea that something dire could happen to her, it flattened him. “Right. I’ll be back soon.”
*
Eleanor kept asmile on her face until Tristan was disappearing down the narrow gully. Then she sagged against the rock, picking up her right foot. The hot, shooting pains didn’t subside, but at least it didn’t make it worse. It had been agony to get as far as here after the fall. Her whole body was sweating with the effort it had required.
A rock big enough to let her perch on it was nearby. She hobbled over and began unlacing her boot. Did she even want to know what was wrong with it? Or should she just keep it as it was and hope for the best? The boot was tight around herankle, tighter than it should have been. That must have been the swelling from whatever was wrong. She laced the boot back up. Best not to worry until they had a permanent place to rest. A flat place where she could lay down and put her foot up.
It was dark and cold, and she was wet from being tumbled in the snow. It didn’t smell like an animal was using this as a burrow, and she didn’t see any evidence of an animal visiting recently, either.
She didn’t know much about the animals that roamed Ben Nevis, but one thing she did know: they were lucky not to be dead. They should be dead. She was still trying to wrap her mind around what happened. The only thing she could come up with was that in walking side by side, one of them strayed onto a snow cornice. She’d read about them in one of the alpine journals Ophelia had foisted upon her in the beginning. A snow cornice was where the snow built up on the edge of land, but had no support underneath. So one could fall right through the snow, off a cliff. Which was what they’d essentially done. It must not have been that far of a fall, but it had certainly hurt like it had been.
Eleanor wondered if Tristan had any injuries he was hiding from her. He had a face that looked open and honest, but she knew from experience that he could keep a secret with the best of them. How else to explain his desire to kick her off the expedition? He could have given her the choice—told her that to accept his courtship meant that she would no longer be able to be a part of the Ladies’ Alpine Society.
And, well, she would have answered accordingly. That was to say, she would have declined.
She shivered. The smell of wet wool was starting to surround her. She winced. How were they supposed to keep warm and stay alive when the temperatures were going to plummet, andthey were both soaking wet? They had no food, no blankets, and she wasn’t sure she would be able to walk much more.
“Eleanor!”
She started at her name, called from deep in the gully. “Tristan?”
“Come down here! You won’t believe what I’ve found!”
If it weren’t a steaming hot bath, she didn’t care. But she got to her feet, using the walls to support her weight so she could hobble down to meet Tristan. When she could make him out in the low light, she shifted to only using one hand on the walls and attempted to walk normally.
His blonde hair was unruly now that he’d taken his woolly cap off. She wondered if this was how he looked when he first woke up. His blue eyes were bright, trying so hard to give her hope. Honestly, she wanted to just fall into a heap and cry. She couldn’t walk. She was cold.
“Good news,” he said.
She winced. Unless that news was a horse that could take her back to the hotel, no thank you. It wasn’t good news.
Tristan pulled up a gray-brown tarp that for all the world had blended into the ground. “We’ve found a love nest.”
Eleanor stared at him in shock, then let her eyes drift to the ground, where indeed, in a deeper natural crag sat a thick folded blanket, a cask of some kind of liquor—knowing the Highlands, that was whisky—and some wax paper folded around what might be food. Actual food.
“And this?” Tristan shook the tarp that had hidden the stash. “Is oilskin. We can secure it above us to keep us dry.”
Eleanor felt the wave of so many fears and emotions and physical exhaustion and pain overwhelm her. Tears sprang from her eyes without any semblance of control.
Tristan dropped the tarp and ran towards her. “Eleanor, no, this is good news. We can survive the night, get help in the morning, try to help whatever you’ve done to your leg.”
“What do you know about my leg?” Eleanor was quite good at being invisible, keeping all her pain hidden.
“You’re not a terribly good actress,” Tristan said with a wince, as if he were telling her she her feet were too big, or her hands were too rough.
“I am so,” she insisted, but allowed him to guide her to a shelf of rock to sit down.
“Then I am preternaturally perceptive,” Tristan said, ducking his head to meet her eyes. “Rest here, and I will set up our own nest.”
Eleanor couldn’t help but let out a wet, hollow laugh. Their very own love nest. Here on delightful Ben Nevis, in a craggy volcanic gully, in high winds, that which she couldn’t leave if she wanted to because she had likely broken something.
The pain was still hot and sharp, but there was nothing to be done. So all she could do was accept Tristan’s help and comfort.
“Well, I wouldn’t overstep and say love nest,” Tristan said. “I mean, I would love to say that, but I haven’t been properly introduced to any of the sheep we’ve passed.”
Eleanor laughed in spite of herself, wiping her eyes with the back of her mittens.
