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Ryan had to admit that it didn’t seem a particularly safe thing for her to do in her condition. Should she faint while she was being lifted, she would go limp against the rope and would become uncontrollable by the men up on the top.
“Can you give me more rope?” he called.
The rope was dutifully loosened. “That’s all there is, or we can’t haul you back up,” the groomsman replied.
Ryan swiftly tied the rope around Sian, leaving enough to tie himself to her. Once they were secured, he shouted up to the men who began to haul them off the ledge and back up to safety.
“Ryan?” Sian cried, clinging to him with desperate hands.
“Just hold on to me,” Ryan ordered.
Sian had no intention of doing anything else. In fact, she didn’t just hold on, she clung to him with desperate fingers and buried her face in his neck when she happened to glance down at the ground far, far, below, and felt a wave of dizziness sweep through her that made her cry out.
“We won’t be long,” he soothed, holding her so tightly his arms began to ache.
It only took a few moments for them to reach the top whereupon the men grabbed the ropes around them and hauled them both to safety. Sian lay and stared blankly up at the sky while she contemplated how she had managed to get onto the ledge in the first place. Before she could recall the hazy memory, which hovered teasingly in the darkest recesses of her mind, Ryan’s face appeared before her, mere inches away.
“Are you all right?” he murmured gently.
“I think so,” she mused, but really couldn’t be sure.
Ryan saw the cloudy confusion in her eyes and knew she was far from it. “We need to get her out of here,” he told the men gathered around them. “And quickly.”
Norman had already led his horse closer. Despite Sian’s protests, Ryan gathered her into his arms. Within minutes, they were racing toward Terrell House. Sian barely looked up when he kicked the front door to the huge mansion wide open and stomped into the hallway. She was sound asleep by the time he lowered her gently onto a huge four-poster bed in the middle of a large bed chamber minutes later.
Ryan eased her gently onto the covers and stood back while he contemplated what to do next. He had no experience in dealing with young women who were struck down. Was he to undress her? Should he leave her as she was? If she had been any of his friends then he would have had no hesitation leaving her as she was, but Sian was a young woman who was drenched. She was apt to catch influenza if she remained in wet clothing. But he couldn’t bring himself to risk making her angry if she woke up to find him in the process of removing her dress.
“Sian?” He prompted gently when she moaned and tried to turn over.
Sian heard the voice of the man she so longed to hear. She listened intently but then wondered if she had imagined it. When sleep lulled her back into the darkness, she felt the soft touch of something brush her cheek and whatever she lay upon dip alarmingly. Her eyes immediately sprang open. A gasp of delight escaped her when she saw Ryan, who immediately smiled at her.
“Thank God you are awake,” he breathed. “The doctor is on his way.”
“The doctor? Whatever for?”
“You need to have him look at your head.”
“My head is fine,” she replied. But it wasn’t. It was far from fine. Even lying perfectly still, it pounded wildly and made her vision blurry. She winced when she tried to lift her head only for a white-hot lance of pain to slide from h
er crown, down the length of her neck and settle somewhere in between her shoulder blades. It was so sharp that she felt sick, and the world began to swim once more, but she willed herself not to cave into the encroaching darkness.
“What happened?” Ryan’s voice was barely above a whisper.
“I don’t remember,” she moaned. “I don’t. I wish I did. I think I was standing on the bluff but cannot remember anything after that.”
Ryan nodded. “Your mind may have blanked it out. Whatever happened, you have fallen a long way and hit your head. It is imperative that you remain where you are for now. But you need to get out of those clothes. You are soaked.”
Sian tried to look around the room, but without moving anything except for her eyes. What she could see she didn’t recognise but knew from the lavishness of the furniture next to the bed that it wasn’t her rather humble bed chamber back at home.
“You have brought me to your house?”
“It was closer,” he lied.
“Where is everyone?”
“I expect they will be on their way once they know you have been found,” Ryan reasoned. Right now, he didn’t care where they were. They were not going to come near Sian again until he knew she would be safe. “We have to talk.”
Sian turned a reluctant gaze to his. “About?”
