Joe looked over at David.
“I never saw her this afternoon, but there are a lot of them. If she had been at the back of the group I might not have noticed her. I went down the zip wire pretty early.”
David would have laughed if he hadn’t been quite so worried.
“You, not notice her? Come off it Joe. If you didn’t see her then she wasn’t there. She must have gone to have a treatment or something. We should go and ask the girls there before they go home for the evening.”
Geraldine shook her head.
“She didn’t have any treatments. I had a meeting with all the beauty room staff. We thought it would be a good time as everyone was out. Naomi and Rebecca had a brilliant idea for a ladies event when our next group comes over. We wanted to run over the details with the other beauticians before we go ahead and suggest anything to Ellen.”
Joe glanced at Geraldine once more. She shook her head and gave him one of her Gaelic shrugs indicating that she knew no more before he moved towards the door.
“I’ll go and check her room. Dave, can you go and quietly ask if any of the other staff saw her leave with the group. Geraldine, stay here and keep cooking. I’m sure there’s just a mix up but I really think we need to find her.” He looked out of the window at the darkening sky and tried not to think of her being outside somewhere.
It was only at dinner time, two hours later, that they were sure that Lucy as not in the chateau. Several of the company remembered her not eating her lunch and looking dreadfully pale. They thought she had returned to her room but couple of them disagreed with this and remembered her being with them as they approached the top of the ravine, but it was only as Freeman entered the dining room with a flushed but simpering Jessica that her whereabouts was confirmed.
Jessica twirled a wisp of bleached blonde hair as she spoke to the men.
“She was too yellow to do the zip wire challenge. It’s so lame but she’s scared of heights so I told her that I’d seen the sign for the steps down to the river and I assumed that she’d gone down them and just come back here.” Jessica didn’t even seem bothered that Lucy was still not around.
David walked up to her.
“And what the hell made you think those steps would be a good idea for someone with a fear of heights? Jesus! She’d have been a million times better off coming down the wire with one of us.”
Joe stood beside David, his heart in his mouth as he glared at Freeman.
“You were at the rear making sure all of your staff were accounted for. What the hell happened? Did you just forget about her?”
Freeman actually managed to look apologetic.
“I just assumed she had made it down and walked back to the chateau. We were down there for over two hours. It wouldn’t have taken her that long to walk back here.”
Joe clenched his fists at his side so that he couldn’t strangle the man in front of him, and spoke to David.
“I’ll go to the ravine now. She could have fallen or anything. She may even be there on those bloody steps still or lost on the path back up here. You stay here Dave and make sure this lot stay put for the evening. I’ll go and see if I can find her. I’ll take a phone and check in every fifteen minutes. If she turns up just let me know.” He jogged out of the dining room door and ran through to the scullery.
He tamped down his rage at Jessica and Freeman and grabbed up a couple of big flashlights, then he checked the phone in his pocket and ran out through the back door into the forest.
It took him ten minutes at a good run before he was at the bottom of the ravine steps and it had darkened considerably by the time he arrived there. He shone the torch upwards and studied the rock face before he set off up the steep and narrow steps.
Ellen had been the first one to see how steep and dangerous the steps were when she had bought the chateau five years previously. It was one of the reasons why she had installed the zip wire and the cable car. He was over a third of the way up before he heard the plaintive whimper. Another dozen steps and he could hear her gentle weeping. It was only a few more seconds before he found her clinging to the rock face, her fingernails broken and bleeding, her arms trembling under the strain of hanging on to the narrow ledge.
He managed to stand on the same step as her and tried to pull her into his arms, but she had locked down everything she had and was now in an almost trancelike state.
“Lucy.” He spoke as softly as he could. “Lucy, it’s me, Joe. You’re safe now sweetheart. I’ll get you down. Just let me take your hands and I’ll hold you as we go down together.” There was no response but he noticed that her weeping had stopped. He tried again. “Lucy, just nod if you know I’m here, okay? I know that you are petrified but I’m here now. You’re safe with me. I won’t let you fall.” He waited for a few seconds more and then was at last rewarded with a nearly imperceptible nod of her head.
He breathed out a sigh of relief and suddenly Lucy spoke through clenched teeth.
“I can’t move. I thought I was going to fall.” He voice was a whisper of fear.
Joe placed his hand over one of hers.
“No, we are not going to fall. We are going to walk very carefully down these steps together. You are going to place both of your hands on my shoulders and you will come down with me on the step behind.”
She shook her head quickly and Joe noticed that her beautiful hair had fallen from its band once again. It glistened like silver in the moonlight and he couldn’t resist. He reached up his free hand and touched the wayward strands. Her hair felt like the softest silk he had ever touched and he couldn’t resist raising it to his nose. It smelled of sunshine and flowers and he took another breath before he tucked it back up behind her ear. It was only then that he noticed that she was staring at him with her deep, doe like eyes.
“Joe?” She asked in a wondering voice.
Joe came to his senses at last and took her other hand into his then he twisted her gently until she was turned around on the rock. He slowly placed her hands on his shoulders as he took a step down. He kept eye contact with her all the way as he stepped backwards and at last they reached the bottom of the ravine. He immediately pulled Lucy into his chest and cradled her there while she wept tears of relief.
He had been ignoring the buzzing of his phone in his pocket for several minutes but now he snatched it out quickly without letting Lucy go. He kept her held tight to his chest with one arm while he murmured into the phone.
“I have her, yes stuck on the steps. She’s been there hours and she’s in shock. I’m going to take her to my cabin. I can give her some tea and check that she’s not injured. I’ll call you back…no, don’t worry about coming down. I’m sure she’ll be fine in a while. She just needs some hot fluids and plenty of sugar. You stay there and entertain the guests. Keep Geraldine and Robbie company. We’ll be fine down here. In fact it’s probably best if we stay here for a while. If I see either that Freeman or that idiot Jessica I will probably strangle them.”
He put the phone back into his pocket and lifted Lucy into his arms. It wasn’t far to his cabin. He shouldered through the door and immediately walked through to the small bedroom at the side. There was just about room for the double bed and he immediately pulled back the covers, tugged off her trainers and slid the trembling Lucy between the sheets. He tried to pull himself away from her so that he could go and make tea, but she clung on to his neck tightly and he ended up lying on the bed with her.
“Don’t go.” She whispered, her lips hot against his neck. “I just want to feel safe.”
Her sweet breath against his skin had his heart pounding inside his ribs. It came to the point where it was almost painful. He nudged her arm and spoke into her soft hair.
“Let me make you some tea Lucy. You’ve been up there hours. You need something to drink. And we need to bathe your hands too.”
She sighed into his neck and her arms slipped from him at last.
“Okay, if you insist. I confess that I
am a little thirsty.”
Joe slipped back out of the warmth of the bed and tucked the big duvet in around her. He walked into his kitchen and ran water into the kettle before he took out a small first aid kit from the cupboard. He walked back to the bedroom and tended to her bleeding fingers. They didn’t look nearly so bad once they had been cleaned up. He cut one or two of the nails where she had scraped them ragged and dabbed some antiseptic ointment over her skinned knuckles, then he walked back out to the kitchen and took a look in the fridge. He was relieved to see that he had some milk. He quickly made mugs of tea and took them through to Lucy who lay in the bed staring up at the wooden ceiling.
She struggled to sit up against the pillows and Joe put the tea down on the bedside cabinet and lifted her against the headboard, plumping the pillows behind her back before he let her go again.
She glanced up at him shyly.
“I am so sorry to cause all this fuss. I thought I was going to be there all night.”
Joe took a big slurp of his own tea as he swung his legs up on the bed and settled in beside her.
“Why didn’t you come to me? I would have helped you. If you had only let me know how you felt I would have worked something out. We wouldn’t have made you do the zip wire if you were truly that scared.” He gazed down at her tear stained face, wanting to kill Freeman and Jessica as Lucy snuggled in beside him.
Lucy gave an involuntary shiver then she shrugged, took a quick gulp of the hot sweet tea and spoke quietly.
“Phobias don’t make people rational Joe. I was simply petrified. I can’t explain it because it’s doesn’t happen in situations you might expect. I can be in an airplane and thirty thousand feet high but that’s fine. I can be on the ferry looking down into the water from behind the rail and that’s fine too. I know because I did it on my way over here. But I can’t walk across the Millennium Bridge in London and I can’t stand on the pier at Southend On Sea. I can see the water moving beneath me through the slats of planking. It maybe only ten feet beneath me, and even knowing that I can swim, I will be in a blind funk about falling off the damn thing. I’m fine on an escalator in the shopping centre but not when I was trying to get to the top of the Eifel Tower or standing six feet above the river on the canal and before you ask about the leaping across the river on the rope swing this morning, that was fine because I felt safe hanging onto the rope. I don’t know what triggers it. It wasn’t the zip wire that made me chicken out this afternoon. It was the drop from the edge over the ravine.”
Joe sat quietly, listening to her reason things out and then he answered as she sipped at her tea.
“Well, it’s not rational to be afraid of spiders either but loads of people are. One of my mates actually called out the fire brigade once. There was a big hairy one sitting on the door frame to his bedroom and he couldn’t walk past the thing. When the fire brigade told him they would fine him for wasting their time he ended up calling me to come and get it out. He said if he left it and it wandered off, he wouldn’t know where it was in the house. Reckoned he’d never sleep again. It never occurred to him that he probably had twenty others in the house already but just hadn’t spotted them.”
Lucy gave a nervous chuckle. The hot tea was making her feel a lot better really quickly.
“The fire brigade? Really?”
Joe nodded and smiled slyly.
“You can imagine what they said. Especially when they asked his name and he answered Major Marcus Tennant. He was so angry when they wouldn’t come out and rescue him. Of course I never told a soul back at barracks. He’s as big as Patrick but his nickname is now Incy!”
Lucy nearly spluttered her tea as she laughed out loud at Joe’s innocent expression.
“You sod! I bet he loves you for that.”
Joe smiled down at her and finished his tea.
“I’m going to look for something for us to eat. There’s a trout I caught early this morning if you fancy that, or I can get something out of the freezer if you would prefer something else.”
Lucy suddenly looked embarrassed.
“I don’t want to put you to any more trouble Joe. I can survive until I get back to the chateau.”
Joe laughed.
“It’s nothing to do with you believe me. Ellen went into labour this afternoon. Geraldine and David are cooking with the help of Vanessa who is actually the chambermaid and not on very good terms with anything in the kitchen except the washing machine. Now Geraldine is an okay cook normally but she’s a bit irrational what with being in the early stages of pregnancy and not liking smells or anything at the moment and David wouldn’t know how to fry an egg. As I am starving and you must be as well, due to not eating any lunch, I am going to cook something. I’ll put the trout on the barbeque. It’ll be delicious.” He pushed himself out of the bed and slipped his boots back on.
Lucy immediately slid to the side of the bed after him.
“What do you mean, Ellen went into labour. It’s too early surely?” She pushed her own feet back into her trainers.
Joe stood and held her arm to make sure she was steady before she stood up.
“I don’t know exactly what happened. Geraldine came and told us as we finished the zip wire runs. After we discovered you were missing and I didn’t bother finding anything else out. We know that Patrick has taken her to the hospital so she’s having the best care available. He’ll call Dave as soon as there’s any news. Right, feel up to sitting outside under the stars while I cook?”
Lucy nodded. She knew she would sit anywhere with this man. Her heart had been pounding in her chest the whole while they talked and it had nothing to do with getting over the shock of being scared witless by the steps.
“Yes, that would be lovely.”
Joe had a glowing fire going in minutes and then he took the trout from the fridge and skewered it on willow twigs. He waited until the flames died and there were just hot coals in the grate and then laid the fish across the metal frame of the barbeque. He brought out plates and cutlery and even a bottle of wine. He warmed a loaf of bread, apologizing for having to serve that morning’s baguette rather than fresh, but it tasted delicious toasted over the fire.
They ate the freshly grilled trout, picking it straight from the bones and dipped the bread in melted garlic butter that Joe had prepared with freshly chopped garlic cloves and a sprinkle of fresh herbs.
Lucy wasn’t sure that she had ever had a more delicious meal in her life. She sat back in the wooden chair and stared up through the trees to the stars above.
“This is just so beautiful Joe. No wonder you love it here so much. It’s the perfect place to live.” She sighed contentedly and sipped at her wine.
Joe nodded his head, but he wasn’t looking at the stars. He was staring at Lucy, drinking in her beauty as he listened to her soft voice, loving her luscious curves as her breasts rose and fell as she breathed inside her t-shirt. He was having difficulty keeping his hands to himself and he wrapped them around his wine glass for safety.
He began telling her about the cottage that he was helping build further up the river. She adored the sound of it and asked him for every single detail.
After a couple of hours of gentle conversation, he picked up their plates and walked through to his kitchen. He ran water over the dishes and stacked them back in the cupboard. When he turned Lucy was standing behind him. Her eyes glowed in the dim lighting of the cabin and her hair shone like strands of gold. He took a deep breath and cleared his throat.
“We should get you back up to the chateau. You must be shattered after hanging onto that blasted cliff face all afternoon. You’ll be missing that fabulous room.”
Lucy took a visible gulp of air and shook her head, sending her hair tumbling around her shoulders.
“No. I actually prefer the simplicity down here. I’m not really that type of girl. It’s okay for a day or two but all that splendor can be a little overwhelming.”
Joe laughed gently.
�
�Well, I never heard anyone complain that the chateau was too fabulous before. Everyone else loves it. Ellen is even thinking of upgrading some of the other rooms to suites. She thinks she can manage it if she uses a few more of the attic rooms for our more mobile guests.”
Lucy smiled up at him.
“I’m sure that would be lovely if you were coming on a holiday, but all the time? I’m not so sure. I know David and Geraldine live there but Ellen and Patrick clearly prefer their little cottage on the estate and you don’t want to live there either so maybe it’s not just me that likes the simple things in life.” She suddenly seemed nervous and she hesitated, her eyes dropping to the floor before she spoke again. “Joe, can we stay here for the night?” Her voice came out in a strangled whisper.
Joe was silent for a moment. He dragged the air into his lungs and tried to keep his heart rate somewhere near normal.
“There’s only the one bed Lucy…though I suppose I could sleep on the floor.”
Lucy gave a small quizzical frown as she looked back up at him and then she breathed out slowly before she spoke.
“I don’t take up that much room Joe. We could keep our clothes on if you’re worried I might attack you in the night or something. I just don’t want to go up to the chateau. Everyone will make a fuss and I will feel so stupid. That flipping Jessica will be gloating at me and Carter will be a nightmare. It’s just one night Joe.” She knew she sounded desperate, but she wanted to stay in the cabin so much she just couldn’t help herself.
Joe hesitated for a second more and then gave up fighting her. This might be the only time he ever had her in his bed. He knew it didn’t mean anything to her, but to have her lying by his side, to smell her scent on his pillow, to hear her breathing next to him throughout the night, it was more than he could have ever hoped for and the temptation was impossible to resist.
He ducked his head in agreement.
“Okay. I’ll just call Dave and tell him we’re staying down here. Don’t want him panicking about anyone else. Why don’t you get yourself comfortable? I’ll be back in five.”
Forever Scarred (Scarred Series Book 3) Page 11
