Mr Impossible by Loretta Chase Page A

this, to become disoriented and wander the few
simple passageways endlessly. Or tumble into a shaft.”

    “ If you don’t
want to become disoriented, I recommend you keep close to me,”
Mr. Carsington said.

    “ I ought to
remind you as well,” she went on testily, “that even if
none of these mishaps befall us, it is possible for villainous
persons to close the single way out. They’ve only a small space
to block, after all: four feet high, three and a half feet wide. They
might roll a few large stones down the passageway without great
difficulty.”

    “ I should
think the guides would notice if anybody started hauling large stones
up to the pyramid entrance,” he said. “And I expect
they’d strongly object to anyone’s trying to block the
passage. Taking people into and out of the pyramid is their
livelihood, recollect.”

    Yes, yes, of
course. Why hadn’t she thought of that?

    Because she was
living one of her worst nightmares, trapped in a closed space in
utter darkness. Panic had suffocated logic and reason.

    She was lost,
following blindly, clinging to his large hand as they proceeded
slowly but unhindered through the taller horizontal passageway and
thence into the inclined smaller one. There she had to let go of his
hand and grope along behind.

    She knew she could
not continue holding his hand while traversing the small tunnel. One
part of her mind—the small part still functioning—understood
the necessity. But the rest was too chaotic to understand anything,
and when she let go, she felt wretched and lost and alone.

    Telling herself to
stop being so childish, she followed as closely behind as possible,
listening to his footsteps while she slid her hands along the passage
walls. What seemed a very long time later, though she knew they could
not have traveled many feet, he put his hand back, touching the front
of her turban.

    “ We’re
at the shaft, I think,” he said softly. “There’s
room for you to stand upright, at any rate. But stay a moment while I
find the ladder.”

    Another long wait.
Daphne heard rustling, then his familiar rumble, too low to
understand. Then a degree more audibly he said, “You’d
better let me carry you.”

    “ Have the
villains broken the ladder?” she said.

    “ No. Where
the devil are you?” His voice was clipped and distant. One
large hand found her forearm, the other her hip. “Where’s
your waist, confound it?”

    Though the
pyramid’s interior was far from cool, she was acutely aware of
a very different warmth where he touched her, and of a strength that
the childish part of her wanted to lean into.

    She retreated. “I
can climb up the ladder without aid,” she said. “I
climbed down it, did I not?”

    “ As you wish,
madam. Try not to step on the bodies.”

    “ Bodies,”
she repeated.

    “ They’re
human, they haven’t been dead for very long, and they’ve
fallen or been flung onto the pile of stones near the ladder,”
he said.

    “ Good grief,”
she said.

    “ Don’t
faint,” he said. “I’ve pushed them out of the way
as much I could, but space is limited. If I can get you onto the
third rung, you should be clear of them.”

    She quelled a
shudder. If she gave way, she’d soon be trembling
uncontrollably.

    “ Very well,”
she said. She groped in the darkness, about where she reckoned his
shoulder must be. She found it, rock hard and warm. Only the thin
linen of his shirt lay between her palm and his skin. Within her a
welter of unnamable feelings stirred, a hurrying and a prickling and
a piercing recollection of her youth and its not-quite-forgotten
longings.

    She beat them down
and quickly worked her way from his shoulder to his hand. She grasped
his hand and brought it to her waist. “Here I am,” she
said breathlessly.

    Two big hands
circled her waist. “What in blazes is that?” he said.

    “ My waist,”
she said.

    “ I mean the
sash thing you’ve wound about it. Have you rocks in it?”
He patted a