out crisply. ‘So why would I want to drop you down a cliff, especially with a television camera trained on me? Or hadn’t you noticed they’re filming you right now?’
‘Of course I’ve noticed! Why do you think I’m whispering?’
Tilly’s arms were aching with the effort of holding on to him. Her feet were braced just over the lip of the cliff, but she could feel gravity pulling her weight backwards.
And, let’s face it, it was a substantial weight to be pulled. Why, oh, why hadn’t she stuck to any of her diets? Tilly wondered wildly. This was a punishment to her for not subsisting on lettuce leaves for the past thirty years.
Campbell glanced at the distant cameras in disbelief. ‘They’re miles away! Of course they can’t hear you, but they can see you. They’ve got a socking great zoom on that camera and it’s pointed straight at you so, for God’s sake, pull yourself together!’ he told her sharply. ‘You’re making yourself look ridiculous.’
And him by association.
‘Better to be ridiculous than splattered all over the bottom of this cliff!’
A muscle was jumping in his cheek and his jaw looked suspiciously set. ‘For a start, this is not a cliff,’ he said with the kind of restraint that suggested that he was only hanging on to his temper with extreme difficulty. ‘It’s barely twenty feet to the bottom there and, as I keep telling you, you’re not going to fall. You’re on a secure rope, and you can let yourself down slowly. Even if you did lose control, I’ve got hold of the rope and I’d stop you dropping.’
‘You might not be able to,’ said Tilly, not at all convinced. ‘That rope’s awfully fine. I can’t believe it’ll hold my weight.’
‘Of course it will,’ he said impatiently. ‘This rope could hold a hippopotamus.’
‘Now, I wonder what made you think of a hippo,’ Tilly said bitterly.
She wished Campbell hadn’t mentioned the zoom on that camera. It was probably trained on hills’ involved Unsure of quite what ‘a day in the hills’ involved, but fairly sure it would mean getting cold, she had squeezed herself into her old skiing salopettes, bought in a burst of enthusiasm soon after she had met Olivier and was at least two sizes smaller. Now her big red bottom would be filling the screen down there, and the television crew would all be having a good laugh.
Tilly had a dark suspicion that had been the idea all along.
‘Who thought up this show in the first place?’ she demanded, fear and humiliation giving her voice a treacherous wobble, but at least talking took her mind off the void beneath her.
‘God knows,’ said Campbell, thinking that a deep longing to be elsewhere was probably all that he and Tilly had in common.
‘I bet they were sitting around in some bar or wherever television types congregate, and someone said, “Hey, I know, let’s make a programme where we make fat people look absolutely ridiculous!”’
‘If that were the case, all the contestants would be fat and, in fact, none of us are,’ he pointed out impatiently.
‘I am.’
‘Not noticeably,’ said Campbell, although now she came to mention it, the figure clutching him was definitely on the voluptuous side.
He had been too focused on the task in hand to notice at first, which was perhaps just as well. Under other circumstances, he would have enjoyed the situation. He was only human, after all, and he certainly wasn’t going to object if a lush-bodied woman chose to press herself against him. Sadly, however many points Matilda Jenkins might score on the physical front, she was losing a lot more with all this carry-on about a simple abseil.
‘Your theory is nonsense, in fact,’ he told her. ‘None of the other novices are the slightest bit overweight.’
Tilly thought back to the meeting that morning, where they had met their three rival pairs who had also made it through from the first round. Much as it might go against the grain, she had to admit that Campbell was right.
Leanne had a perfect figure, for instance. Tilly had noticed her straight away as a possible kindred spirit. She was the only other contestant wearing make-up and looked about as happy to be there as Tilly was. It turned out that Leanne was a beautician, blonde and very pretty, and, almost as much as her figure, Tilly had envied her partner, a gregarious outdoor sports instructor called Roger who had all the latest equipment and was friendly and reassuring. The opposite of Campbell, in fact.
Leanne definitely wasn’t fat, and nor were the other two girls. Defying the usual stereotypes, one of them was a capable-looking outdoorsy type who had been teamed with a medieval art historian raising money for the restoration of some cathedral’s stained glass, and even he was downright skinny.
‘Well, perhaps they thought it was funny to make us all look ridiculous,’ Tilly conceded grudgingly, reluctant to let go of her theory completely. She managed a mirthless laugh, no small achievement when you were teetering on the edge of a sheer drop—and she didn’t care what Campbell said about twenty feet, it felt like the side of the Grand Canyon to her. ‘Ha, ha.’
‘More than likely,’ said Campbell tersely, ‘but, since we’ve all agreed to take part, we’re not in a position to complain about it now.’
Further along the rock face, he could see his three competitors preparing their partners for the abseil. There were three other beginners in Tilly’s position, chosen for their complete lack of experience with anything remotely connected with outdoor activities, but they seemed to be getting on with what they had to do without any of the drama Matilda Jenkins seemed determined to wring from the situation.
He blew out a breath. There were better things to be doing on a bright, cold Saturday in the Highlands. A brisk wind was pushing the clouds past the sun, sending shadows scudding over the hills around them, and the air smelt of peat and heather. It would be a great day for a climb, or just to walk off the restlessness that had plagued him so often recently.
Instead of which, he had a hysterical woman on his hands. Campbell didn’t care how lush her body was, how appealing her perfume. He would rather be behind enemy lines again than cope with a scene of the kind Matilda Jenkins was evidently all too capable of creating.
Why had he ever let Keith talk him into this? Good PR, indeed! How the hell could it be good PR for Manning’s Chief Executive to be seen being strangled by a panicky woman at the top of a drop so short you could practically step down to the bottom?
And this was only the beginning, Campbell reminded himself darkly. He had to get the bloody woman down this rock face, across the hill, into the valley and across the river at the bottom before the others, or they wouldn’t get through to the next round, and if they didn’t do that, they wouldn’t win the competition.
And Campbell Sanderson didn’t do not winning.
Tempting as it was to just push her over the edge and lower her to the bottom, Campbell reluctantly discarded that option. He was prepared to bet that Jenkins had a scream that would be heard across the border in England. The noise would be appalling, and she had a surprisingly strong grip, too. He wouldn’t put it past her to try and drag him back with her, and they would end up wrestling and making themselves look even more ridiculous than they did already.
No,
