A Surprise Christmas Proposal. Liz Fielding

I paused to do anything I’d lose my nerve. Instead I clung with my knees, reached up with my hands, pushed with my feet. The cast iron was cold, damp and slippery—and a lot harder to climb than I’d anticipated.

      I hadn’t got very far when the muscles in my upper arms began to burn, reminding me that I hadn’t been to the gym in a while. Actually, I really should make the most of it before my membership expired, I thought, and slipped, banging my chin and biting my lip in the process.

      Concentrate, you silly cow…

      Quite. I gritted my teeth and, telling myself not to be such a wimp, hauled myself up. Things didn’t improve when I finally got level with the window, which was rather further from the pipe than it had looked from the ground. Just a bit more of a stretch. Excellent from a security point of view, but an unnervingly sickening distance to span from mine.

      It was perhaps fortunate that the biggest spider I’d ever seen decided to investigate the bipedal blundering that had disturbed whatever it was that spiders do when they lurk behind downpipes—and frankly I’d rather not know—thus confirming the fact that I would rather risk the fall into a stone basement area than endure a face-to-face encounter with eight horribly long though undoubtedly harmless legs.

      Idiotic, no doubt, but as a force for overcoming inertia arachnophobia takes some beating.

      Have you ever wished you hadn’t started something? Just wished you’d never got out of bed that morning?

      It was my birthday. I was twenty-five years old and everyone was telling me that it was time to grow up. As if I hadn’t done that the day I’d realised that love was no competition for money.

      But, clinging to Gabriel York’s windowsill by my fingernails, I had a moment of truth. Reality. Let me live through this, I promised whatever unfortunate deity had been given the task of looking after total idiots, and I will embrace maturity. I’ll even get to grips with my dislike of technology and sign up for a computer course.

      In the meantime I dug in and hauled myself up, trying not to think about my expensive manicure—probably the last one I’d ever be able to afford—as my nails grated against stone and, with my knee on the sill, I managed to grab hold of the window and push it upwards.

      Someone must have been listening to my plea for help because, unlike the sash cord windows of my family home, which stuck like glue in damp weather, Mr York kept his well oiled and perfectly balanced. In response to a shove with the full force of my bodyweight behind it the window shot up and I fell in, landing in a painful heap on a polished oak floor, closely followed by a spindly table and something fragile that shattered noisily very close to my ear.

      Make that half listening. Bumped chin, bitten lip, wrecked nails, and now I had a throbbing shoulder to add to the tally. And my knees hurt. This job definitely came under the heading ‘life-changing’. Whether I’d survive it was yet to be proved.

      I opened my eyes and was confronted by the ruin of what might have been a Dresden shepherdess. And something told me that this wasn’t a replica. It was the real thing.

      I blamed its total destruction on the latest craze for ripping up carpets and polishing original wooden floors. If there had been a draught-stopping fitted carpet, with a thick cushion underlay, the shepherdess would have still been in one piece and I wouldn’t have bruised my knees. And, of the two, it was my knees I was more bothered about. The shepherdess would undoubtedly be insured for replacement value. My knees were unique.

      Not that I had any time to lie there and feel sorry for myself. Somewhere in the distance I could hear the sound of a siren—hopefully that of the ambulance I’d summoned. I had to get to the front door and let in the paramedics…

      I got up and pulled down the window, leaving grubby fingermarks. I rubbed my hands down the front of my jeans before I left them on anything else, and headed for the door. Not before noting that the room, like the Dresden shepherdess, did not quite fit the glimpse I’d got of Gabriel York. It was a thoroughly feminine room. Presumably the territory of Mrs York. I blamed her for the bay trees while I was at it.

      And where was she when her husband needed her to walk his dogs? Pick him up off the floor? Call an ambulance…?

      The nearest dog—clearly an adolescent—leapt on me in his excitement as I ran down the stairs, nearly knocking me off my feet again.

      ‘Get off, you stupid hound,’ I said, pushing him away, trying not to look too closely at my employer as I stepped over him—if he’d fallen downstairs and broken his neck I’d rather not know—and went to open the door.

      I looked out. No ambulance… Well, it was building up to the rush hour, so it would undoubtedly have to battle its way through the traffic, like the rest of London.

      It was down to me, then. I left the door ajar, so that they could get in when they arrived, and turned back to face the man who lay supine and unmoving, taking up most of the floor.

      And I got a reprise of the ‘do something’ look from the dog lying protectively at his side.

      Deep breath, Sophie. You can do this…

      ‘Mr York…’ I knelt down beside him and it didn’t take a genius to see that even when he was on his feet Gabriel York wasn’t going to look terribly well. His skin had a yellowish pallor and his face was drawn-out and haggard with the sharply attenuated features of someone who’s lost a great deal of weight without any of the tiresome bother of going on a diet. He was wearing a black dressing gown over a pair of cotton pyjama pants—which, considering it was late afternoon, suggested that it wasn’t simply idleness that had stopped him from walking his dogs.

      He might, of course, have slipped on the stairs—his feet were bare—as he’d come down to answer the door. Or one of the dogs might have got underfoot in its excitement and unbalanced him.

      But, looking at him, I would have gambled that he’d just passed out. At least I hoped that was all he’d done; I gingerly touched his throat, seeking a pulse.

      I couldn’t find one.

      The hound who’d been guarding him, but who had shifted slightly to let me get closer, licked my hand encouragingly. I patted him absently, swallowing as I attempted to dislodge a great big rock that suddenly seemed to be stuck in my throat.

      How long had he been lying there? Was it too late for the kiss of life?

      How long had it been since I’d rung the bell and heard that distant thump that I was now certain had been Gabriel York hitting the floor? He was still warm to the touch, but then my own hands were freezing. I rubbed them together, trying to get the feeling back into them.

      I’d never actually given anyone the kiss the life, but I’d seen a demonstration once, years ago in the village hall, at a first aid course organised by my mother. You covered the victim’s mouth and blew. No, there was more to it than that. Think, think… I put my hand beneath his neck and tilted it back to clear the airway. I remembered that much.

      As I looked down into his face, forcing myself to take steady, even breaths—I hadn’t realised until then that my heart was beating rather too fast for comfort—it occurred to me that even in extremis Gabriel York had an austere beauty, that his wide, sensual mouth was the kind a girl might enjoy kissing under less trying circumstances. At least she would if she was into kissing and all the messy stuff that inevitably followed.

      Heartbreak, pain…

      I forced myself to concentrate, cupping his chin in my hand and placing my lips over his to seal off the air.

      His unshaven chin was bristly against my palm, my fingers. His mouth was cool, but not cold…

      I forced myself to concentrate and blew steadily into his mouth.

      At this point I nearly passed out myself from lack of oxygen. I’d been concentrating so hard on remembering what to do that I’d missed out the vital step of taking a breath first. Okay. I’d got it now. Breath in, mouth to mouth, blow. And again.

      How long was