might perhaps climb down. Or someone might come soon, with a ladder. The streets seem to be deserted but it is still early.” She stopped. “You should look, you know.” Her voice had changed. “I have never seen anything quite like it. So many broken walls and beer stretching away in the streets like a lake! We are cut off as though we are on an island. It is extraordinary.”
She shuffled up so that she was sitting beside him on the ridge of the roof. Garrick felt his stomach heave again and tried to persuade himself that he had imagined the slight movement of the beams beneath them. This was not safe. They had to move soon—as soon as he had sufficient breath and courage.
“You did very well,” Merryn added, sounding, Garrick thought, like a governess trying to encourage a dull pupil.
“Thank you.” He smiled at her. The wind was teasing strands of her hair, picking out the gold beneath the dirt. “You were splendid,” he said. “Is there much call for climbing chimneys in your work for Bradshaw?”
She laughed. “None whatsoever. But I did enjoy climbing trees as a girl. It provided me with somewhere quiet to read.” She shivered suddenly. “It is cold out here, though. Oh, no—” She put out a hand to protest as he slid his jacket about her shoulders. “You must not! You need it yourself.”
“I doubt it will give either of us much warmth,” Garrick said. “It is ripped to shreds. Keep it, for what it is worth.” He watched her slip her arms into the sleeves. She was a little clumsy with the cold. The coat was far too big and after a moment he turned up the sleeves for her so that her hands at least were free rather than lost inside.
“We have to find a way down,” he said abruptly. “It’s not safe to stay here.”
Merryn scrambled up. “Look—” She was pointing to a corner of the roof some twenty feet away. “I do believe that there is a staircase.”
Garrick looked and saw that she was right. Part of the roof of the next building had collapsed, leaving the top of a stair poking at the sky like a pointing finger. The house itself looked sound, still standing. Merryn started to clamber across the roof toward it.
“Wait!” Garrick called. “It may be unsafe—”
She paused, waiting for him to catch up with her, and then she grabbed his hand again. They took the vertiginous slope, easing down from the roof, sliding over slates, scrambling over stone. Garrick wondered if his future nightmares would involve endless long dark corridors full of rubble and the smell of beer seeping even into his dreams. And then they were climbing down the broken stairs. The house was silent, deserted. The staircase had sheered off at the bottom of the flight leaving a gap of perhaps ten feet to the ground below. Or it should have been the ground. Peering over the edge, Garrick saw that the floorboards were gone, snapped like driftwood, and the cellar yawned black and deep beneath them. Away to their left were the broken spars of what had once been the floor.
Merryn stopped. “We’re trapped!” The disappointment was clear in her voice. She looked up the way they had come. “We’ll have to go back up.”
“No,” Garrick said. “It’s too dangerous. The staircase may come down.” He looked across the gap of about ten feet to where the floor still stood. “I’ll jump across,” he said.
Merryn caught his arm. Her face was pale. He could feel the tension and the anxiety radiating from her. “You cannot! It is too far, too dangerous!”
There was a cracking sound beneath Garrick’s feet. The wood of the staircase was buckling under their weight, too much, Garrick realized, for the damaged structure to bear. He covered Merryn’s hands with his own.
“It’s the only chance we have,” he said. “I’ll jump down and then I will catch you.”
Another splintering sound from beneath them; the fragile steps seemed to shiver. Garrick saw Merryn nod.
This time she did not cling to him as she had done in the cellar but stepped back very deliberately. She raised her chin. There was a challenge in her blue eyes. He knew, and she knew, that there was only the smallest chance he could get down without breaking his neck. The floor might smash or the stair break or he could miss his footing and plunge twenty feet into the basement beneath.
“Do it, then,” she said. “I’ll wager you cannot and you’ll be swimming about in the cellar before the end.”
“Such touching faith,” Garrick mocked. He eased himself over the edge of the wooden staircase. It creaked alarmingly, shards of wood breaking off and falling into the void below. Merryn gave a little gasp as it lurched to one side like a drunk.
There was no time for hesitation. Garrick gathered all his strength and took a huge leap across the chasm to the floor below. He felt the wooden boards give beneath his feet but they held firm. He spun round to see Merryn’s face, a terrified blur, as she clung to the last, cracking timber of the staircase.
“Jump!” he shouted.
She did not falter. With absolute trust she threw herself into space. The seconds seemed to spin out as she tumbled toward him and then he caught her and held her, the breath knocked from his body by the force of her fall. The whole stair splintered and disintegrated into darkness in the void of the cellar below. There was a huge splash as the wood plunged into the flood of beer, an echo of destruction that shook the entire house.
Merryn was pressed against his heart, her head sheltered beneath the curve of his arm, her hands gripping him so tight it felt as though she would never let go. Garrick kept his arms about her and looked down into her face and her smile lit him to his soul. He could feel her trembling so hard that her entire body shook. She felt hot and feverish beneath his hands, burning up with shock, excitement racking her at the same time as reaction set her shaking.
She reached up and kissed him, all heated passion and intense relief, and Garrick thought his heart would explode. He pulled her away from the yawning chasm of the floor through the doorway into the first solid room he could find. He slammed the door behind them. It was the last coherent thing that he remembered before Merryn kissed him again and his world narrowed to her, and nothing but her, the need to protect and possess, the desire that finally could not be restrained.
“GARRICK …” Merryn breathed Garrick’s name against his lips. Her hands were resting against his chest and she could feel his heart thundering against her palm. He was blazing with the same sense of victory and release that she was. She stood on tiptoe and kissed him again, winding her arms about his neck, drawing his head down to hers so that she could reach him properly. For a second she felt the hesitation in him and then his mouth came down on hers with ruthless intent, plundering, rough in his hunger for her. Her heart leaped. Garrick had saved her life twice and had stood between her and the dark when she was fearful and alone. She had turned to him to blot out all fear, to deny the past and defy the future, and now she ached for him with so powerful a need that it stole her breath and made her feel as though she would die if she could not have him. She needed this force to consume her now and wash away the darkness once and for all. She opened her lips to his and gave him back kiss for kiss, matching the fierceness of his demand.
She pulled Garrick down to the floor beside her. Here, instead of the roughness of stone and the stinking pools of beer, she could feel the softness of carpet beneath her. It was like the most luxurious feather bed. She cupped Garrick’s face in her hands and brought it to hers again. His stubble was rough against her sore palms. Her mouth was eager and open on his; she wanted to drink deep and savor the renewal of life, grasp after every sensation in her celebration of their escape. She slid her hands over the
