Amanda Scott - [Dangerous 02] Read Online Free

about.”
    “It … it is very far down to the beach, is it not?”
    “Very far,” Charley agreed, “but if we keep our wits about us, we won’t fall.” She hoped she sounded more confident than she felt. To the best of her knowledge they were some twenty or thirty feet below the road, not far from where the slope of the headland met the side of the cliff, and perilously near the edge of that slope. It was, after all, little more than the point at which two cliff faces came together at slightly more than a right angle. In daylight a man in buckskins and wearing gloves might be able to climb back to the road easily. At night, with an unknown enemy nearby, two females in long skirts and heavy cloaks would not have an easy time, even though one of them wore stout half boots.
    “Were you injured, darling?”
    “I don’t think so,” Letty said. “I hit my head on the carriage door, but it was only a bump, and then I fell on you. Oh, and my hand is scraped, I think, where I first grabbed the rock. What about you?”
    “I don’t want to think about it,” Charley said. “I don’t think I broke any bones, but I am beginning to feel a few aches and pains, and I am quite sure I bounced against a few rather pointed rocks. My cloak protected me from the worst, although I did bang the back of my head when we landed, hard enough to make me see more stars than are showing above us tonight. I think your head must have hit my chin at the same time.”
    “The moon is—Listen!”
    A rattle of loose stones and pebbles startled both of them, but a moment later a chirping sound made Letty stiffen, then call out in a low, excited voice, “Jeremiah!”
    More chattering accompanied another rattle of stones. Then four small paws touched Charley’s shoulder before the little monkey dove under Letty’s cloak.
    “Oh, Jeremiah, I was so worried about you! I thought you must have been killed. Oh, Cousin Charley, do you think Uncle Charles and Aunt Davina might have been thrown clear, too?”
    Tempted though she was to say that anything was possible, Charley was a firm believer in honesty. She had loathed being lied to as a child, especially by grown-ups who insisted later that they had done so for her own good. Her Aunt Daintry had always been honest with her. She owed that same honesty to Daintry’s daughter. “No,” she said with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach and a shiver of horror as she remembered her mother’s screams, “I do not think they were thrown clear. They were still in the coach when it went over the edge.”
    Letty was silent. Then she said, “Those men on the road are gone. I think we had better see what we can do about finding a safer place for ourselves. I do not think we should try to climb back to the road till we can see what we are doing, do you?”
    “No, and you make a sensible suggestion. I confess, I am afraid to shift my position. The rocks under me are very loose and I fear the slightest movement might start us sliding again.”
    “Well, I think I can get behind this boulder I’ve been clinging to,” Letty said. “If I can, then I can brace my feet against it, and if you hold my hand, I think you can inch up behind it, too.”
    Charley’s first, terrified impulse was to tell the child not to move a muscle, but she was getting cold, and knew that eventually one of them would have to try. Better to do so, she decided, while they both still had some control over their limbs, and better that Letty try. The child would have no chance of holding her if she slipped, but she might hold the child.
    Letty said, “I can get between you and the boulder, I think, but my cloak and skirt are dreadfully in my way, and these slippers I’m wearing do nothing to protect my feet or give me traction.”
    Charley felt her wriggle some more and did not speak, focusing all her attention on keeping her own body flat and perfectly still against the loose scree. She heard Jeremiah protest when Letty removed him