Page 65 of The Lady’s Sweet Revenge

Chapter Twenty-Three

Harlow heard her name again and shouted with all her might to answer. Unfortunately, she’d lost her voice earlier in the day when she’d been calling for help in vain. And now when she needed it the most, she could barely rasp a response.

And then she saw the light from a lantern. Turned as she was, she could barely make out Reese in the glow. He’d come home.

As the sun had retreated with the approaching evening, Harlow began to worry she’d have to spend the night out there on her small perch. And now he was there, but he couldn’t see her and she couldn’t call out to him with any volume.

She picked up a piece of stone from her hidden crevice and while clutching the wall, she hurled a rock about the size of a peach pit toward the man.

She heard it clunk against the step, but couldn’t be sure if he’d seen it. She quickly picked up another and another. Fortunately this ledge was filled with shards of rock. She could keep throwing them at him.

“Harlow? Might you stop hurling rocks at me so we might rescue you?” Reese asked. Harlow slumped against the wall and broke into tears. She’d not cried the whole day despite having no idea how long she might be there before someone found her, but now with a rescue imminent, she couldn’t stop shaking and crying.

“Go get all the rope from the stables,” Reese ordered someone and she saw one of the lights went off up the stairs. “Are you injured?” he asked.

“No,” she croaked as loud as she could, but he must not have heard over the roar of the ocean below.

“Harlow? Can you answer?”

She closed her eyes in frustration and more tears fell. She cast them aside with a brush of her hand and picked up a rock. Instead of throwing it at him, she tapped it against the sides of her enclosure.

Three loud smacks of the stone.

“I hear you, but you must not be able to speak.”

She again knocked along the wall three steady beats.

“Three means yes, and one means no. Are you injured?”

She responded with one.

“Good. That’s good. We’re going to get you. Don’t move.”

As if she had the option of moving. Since darkness had fallen, she didn’t even want to shuffle about in her safe area for she could no longer see the edge.

She heard a number of people descending the steps, the murmuring of voices.

“Finch said you’ve found her,” Mrs. Garrison asked.

“Aye. It seems she fell through the rail and is on a cliff ledge. Please go have blankets and a hot meal prepared, Mrs. Garrison. Are you hungry, Harlow?” he called to her.

She tapped the rock three times, though she wished should could have responded verbally. She would have told him she was famished.

“Why can she not answer?” Mrs. Garrison asked.

“I’m not sure, but she’s able to communicate. Let’s get her off the rocks and we’ll go from there. The rest of you stay back. And watch the railing. It needs to be repaired.”

A few minutes longer and she heard more shuffling, then Reese’s voice came to her in the darkness.

“Harlow, we’ll be tossing over a rope with a stick tied to it. I can’t see where you are in the dark, but if you can cover your face so I don’t hit you. Don’t reach for the rope; let it come to you. I don’t want to risk your falling.”

She didn’t want that either for she knew if she fell from this place there was nothing to catch her fall.

She knocked her rock three times to indicate that yes, she understood.

She heard a stick clatter along the rock, but it didn’t reach the opening.

“Did that reach you?” he yelled.