Dark Pirate
Angela Devine
When all is not what it seems…Rose had come to Cornwall full of hope and excitement and instead had found herself confronted with the greatest dilemma of her life! His name was Greg Trelawney.She thought he was a simple fisherman - in fact he was one of the wealthiest men in the country. She thought he was only helping her - but did Greg have an agenda of his own?
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#udffbad2c-932a-55f2-b7e7-003651235d20)
Excerpt (#u7057477a-3479-583f-b42c-daf76cf3e33c)
About the Author (#ue02226b5-3598-5671-b98e-5c1d28f4a87b)
Title Page (#u973d9eed-9888-5ae6-b766-191552030d9c)
CHAPTER ONE (#u35da6c5c-8a90-5285-8c23-c5c583b68307)
CHAPTER TWO (#ud813671c-2a0b-5f31-9a61-727e978381d8)
CHAPTER THREE (#u2d985b99-2996-5246-adbf-445b2e528a9d)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“Are you going to look for a more suitable lover?”
Rose snorted. “What’s a more suitable lover?” she demanded tartly.
“Someone like me.”
The audacity of it took her breath away.
“You’re not serious?” She faltered.
“On the contrary, I’m intensely serious. I want you, Rose Ashley. And I always get what I want.”
ANGELA DEVINE grew up in Tasmania, Australia, surrounded by forests, mountains and wild seas, so she dislikes big cities. Before taking up writing, she worked as a teacher, librarian and university lecturer. As a young mother and Ph.D. student, she read romance fiction for fun and later decided it would be even more fun to write it. She is married, with four children, loves chocolate and Twinings teas and hates ironing. Her current hobbies are gardening, bushwalking, traveling and classical music.
Dark Pirate
Angela Devine
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_bd33babb-2f2e-5530-bf62-f2ea5a44153f)
ROSE had never seen a man who looked quite so dangerous as the fisherman lounging at the table opposite her. At least, she presumed he was a fisherman because the snatches of conversation that drifted to her above the hubbub of the bar were all concerned with fishing. Yet he might just as well have been a Cornish smuggler right out of the past with that thick, glossy black hair, chocolate-brown eyes and brooding features. He must have been in his mid-thirties and he had the tough, lawless look of a smuggler. In this village where time stood still it was easy to imagine a man like that striding ashore by the fitful light of the moon with a brandy barrel slung carelessly over one powerful shoulder. Or leading a lusty brawl against the Excise men, striking out with his clenched fists and revelling in the danger and the excitement. It was also easy to imagine him in a darkened doorway, hauling a village girl into a fierce embrace and kissing her until she was dizzy with longing. There was something about the feral glint in his eyes and the lurking sensuality about the comers of his mouth that told Rose he knew a lot about women. Even his old clothes could not diminish his air of power and sensuality. He wore faded blue jeans and a red checked flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing muscular arms covered in coarse, dark hair. Not de-signer elegance by any stretch of the imagination, yet the aura of confidence and vibrant animal magnetism that radiated out from him was almost indecent in its intensity.
I wonder if he’s married, thought Rose. Suddenly she became aware that his chocolate-brown eyes were fixed on her and that the sardonic smile on his lips was growing a little wider. Horrified at being caught staring so rudely, Rose dropped her gaze, but she could not restrain the tide of colour that flushed hotly into her cheeks. There was the scraping sound of a chair being pushed back, light, prowling footsteps approached and then he was standing beside her. So close that she could feel the warmth emanating from his body in waves, smell the clean, masculine scent of him, compounded of salt air and a soap that reminded her of leather, could see the thrust of his hard, muscular thighs against the fabric of his jeans.
‘Can I get you a drink, my love?’ he murmured and the voice was as devastating as the rest of him—a deep, soft, Cornish burr with that alarming intimacy that all Cornish speech seemed to hold, a slow, confiding cadence that made her feel as if even total strangers were welcoming her as their closest friend. ‘I’m just getting another beer for Charlie and me, so it’ll be no trouble if you’d like something.’
Was it an attempt to pick her up or merely a sociable gesture, natural in such a small village? Rose darted a swift glance of alarm at him, wishing the floor would open up and swallow her. Close up, he was even more disturbing with his even white teeth and those tiny pale lines around his eyes contrasting with his tan. She had seen men like that in Australia, men who spent long hours outdoors, screwing up their eyes in bright sunlight and gazing keenly through immense distances. He looked down at her with a mocking, unhurried manner as if he could read every thought in her head and was vastly amused by them. Then he transferred the second beer mug into his left hand and held out his other hand for her glass. Rose, who had been staring at him in a frozen way, suddenly came to life and clapped both her hands protectively over it.
‘No! Really. It’s all right. Thank you very much, it’s awfully kind of you, but I must be going soon. I’ll just finish this and then…’ Her voice trailed away.
‘Just as you like,’ he agreed amiably and turned away towards the bar.
Rose gazed after his broad back with the feeling that she had just made an appalling fool of herself. A small, unsteady sigh escaped her and she poured the last inch or so of sparkling apple cider into her glass and sipped it slowly in an attempt to calm her nerves. What was wrong with her? After all, she was twenty-seven years old, not some giggling teenager. And with several years’ experience as a highly paid and respected computer programmer, she was used to dealing with tough male executives, men who didn’t respect any woman unless she proved she could hold her own. And Rose could. Not only was she good at her job, but she had also learnt all the social skills that went with it: the cool, poised manner, the power dressing, the hairstyles that confined her long, unruly chestnut curls in a neat chignon or a smooth braid. Above all, she had learnt to feel as if she was in control of her life.
So how could this flamboyant Cornish fisherman simply offer to buy her a drink and give her palpitations as if she were a silly schoolgirl? It must be because she was still upset about Martin’s betrayal and therefore acting totally out of character. Or perhaps it was just the atmosphere of Polperro itself—so quaint, so serene, so olde-worlde that it woke an impulsive, romantic part of her nature that had lain buried most of her life. After all, how else could she explain her decision only this morning to buy a wildly expensive cream knitted sweater hand-embroidered with tiny flowers and a swirling muslin skirt to match? A fairly amazing departure from her usual tailored suits like the one she was wearing now! But somehow the outfit had felt exactly right when she had tried it on. The pale blue forget-me-nots had matched the colour of her eyes and, moved by an odd instinct, she had unclipped the gold slide which had pinned her hair severely at the nape of her neck and let it spring free in wavy brown profusion around her shoulders. The unfamiliar image of herself as soft, wistful, feminine had been irresistible. She had put down a small deposit and asked the shopkeeper to hold the clothes until she could go to the bank and cash some traveller’s cheques to pay for them…That thought gave her a jolt. Oh, help! What time did the banks close? Rose forgot all about Cornish fishermen and glanced down at her watch in alarm. She would have to hurry!
Unzipping her bag, she reached into the compartment where she kept her red vinyl pocketbook containing her traveller’s cheques. Her fingers groped in vain. The first uneasy stirring began inside her and she glanced sharply down. There was no sign of her pocketbook, but it must be here, it must! Everything of importance was in it—her passport, her traveller’s cheques, her return airline ticket to Australia. Frantically she began to unzip the other navy leather compartments. A map of Cornwall, a roll of Polo mints, a neatly pressed white handkerchief, a pocket diary and pen, a comb, lipstick, the keys to Aunt Em’s cottage. But no pocketbook. Rose felt a sudden chill lurch of panic and dismay in the pit of her stomach as if she had stepped off the edge of a cliff. Her normally pink cheeks were suddenly drained of colour and she let out an involuntary gasp. The fisherman was looming beside her in an instant.
‘What’s the matter, my dear? You’ve gone quite pale. Are you ill?’
‘N-no,’ stammered Rose. ‘But I’ve lost my pocketbook. It’s got everything in it. My passport, my traveller’s cheques, my airline ticket…Oh, what am I going to do? I’ve lost everything except my little money purse and that’s only got fifty pence in it!’
‘Now don’t take on,’ said the man mildly. ‘Polperro’s a small village and folks here are very honest, unless one of those tourists has got their hands on it. Still, like as not, what’s happened is this: you’ve taken it out of your bag somewhere to pay for something and not fastened the bag properly, then it’s fallen out. It’s happened to me before today. Now you just try and think, my dear. When did you have it last?’
Rose tried to control the churning sensation in her stomach long enough to allow her to concentrate. She had arrived by bus from Looe at about eleven o’clock, then she had taken a horse-drawn carriage from the head of the gorge to the centre of the village. After that she had spent a couple of hours exploring all the quaint little alleyways with their tea-shops and art galleries and souvenirs. And there had been a small clothing shop near the harbour…It was there that she had fallen hope-lessly in love with the sweater and skirt and paid a deposit on them. The woman at the shop had not wanted to take traveller’s cheques, but had directed her to a bank where she could cash them. Not wanting too many parcels to carry, Rose had decided to postpone her visit to the bank until the afternoon. Several hours had been spent happily ambling around the old cottages and shops, some with whorls in their glass windows, others with patterns of shells set into their limewashed walls, spending most of her cash on postcards and souvenirs. She had also taken a walk up the cliff path and she seemed to remember seeing the red vinyl cover of the pocketbook poking up in her bag when she had put a handkerchief away…
‘On the cliff-top, I think,’ she said, frowning thoughtfully. ‘But I’ve walked all over the place since then. It could be anywhere.’
She explained haltingly about the clothes at the shop by the harbour, her intended visit to the bank, the way she had wandered about. Impatiently her companion cut her off.
‘Well, let’s begin by seeing if you’ve dropped it here,’ he suggested practically. ‘Come on, I’ll help you.’
Rose was too preoccupied to disagree, but she did find it rather surprising that the stranger had taken charge with such firmness and efficiency, even if his manner was a trifle curt. Why was he doing this? Was it simple kindness or some other motive? Oh, what did it matter? The important thing was to find her pocketbook.
They both fell to their knees and searched the floor under the table, but it was quite clear that there was nothing there. As she got to her feet Rose felt a humiliating rush of tears sting her eyes. After all the trauma of resigning from her job, leaving Martin, her mother’s sudden need for a hysterectomy as they were due to leave Australia and then the gruelling flight to England, this was the last thing that she needed! Swallowing hard, she made a blind movement as if to turn away.
‘Thank you for looking,’ she said unsteadily. ‘I suppose I’ll just have to report it to the police as missing and phone American Express. Oh, I wish this hadn’t happened!’ Her voice broke on the last words and the stranger gave an exasperated sigh, put his warm, muscular hands on her shoulders and steered her into a chair. The kindness of the action surprised her. He didn’t look like a man who would be kind. There was something too ruthless about the set of his chin, the narrowed eyes, the tough mouth. Yet here he was, calming her down, with only the slightest hint of impatience in his manner— a faint curl of his lips that made her feel she was making far too much fuss about a very trivial event…
‘Now, don’t you worry,’ he ordered sternly. ‘We’ll soon have this sorted out. Sit down there and I’ll get you another drink, and then we’ll decide what we’re going to do. What would you like?’
‘I haven’t got any money—’ began Rose, but found herself silenced by three strong brown fingers placed over her lips.
‘I don’t suppose I’ll go broke on the price of one drink,’ the man said sardonically. ‘Now, what will you have?’
Rose made a small, choking sound that was closer to a giggle than a sob, then blew her nose and straightened her shoulders.
‘A non-alcoholic cider, please,’ she said.
Her eyes followed him as he moved away to the bar. There was a negligent, animal grace about his movements that made him look totally appropriate in this setting. A wild, lawless Cornishman if ever there was one! And how different from Martin, whose aggression so often dwindled to mere bluster…Yet somehow there was a savage aura of controlled power about this Cornishman that made Martin seem boastful and florid in comparison. He must draw women to him as relentlessly as moths to a naked flame. Well, she wasn’t fool enough to be burnt a second time. All the same, an uneasy tingle of excitement sparked through Rose’s body as she watched the stranger striding back from the bar with her drink. He set it down in front of her and then stretched out his hand.
‘I’m Greg Trelawney,’ he announced. ‘One of the locals. And who are you?’
‘I’m Rose. Rose Ashley,’ she replied, feeling slightly unnerved by the warm, firm clasp of those fingers. It was as if a powerful electric current had surged through her at his touch. ‘I’m from Australia.’
‘Welcome to Polperro,’ he said, raising his glass. ‘Although I’m sorry your welcome has been such a poor one. Well, we’ll see what we can do to sort that out in a minute. Now have a drink and catch your breath. Cheers!’
‘Cheers!’ agreed Rose.
The sweet, sparkling cider with its strong taste of apples did help to revive Rose, but, even more than that, the presence of the man opposite her had the effect of distracting her from her immediate problems. How could she concentrate on a lost pocketbook when Greg Trelawney was gazing at her with that intent, brooding expression?
‘Now, tell me about this pocketbook of yours,’ he urged when at last she had emptied her glass. ‘You say you had it last on the cliff-top?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Rose.
He pushed away his empty glass and rose to his feet.
‘Well, we’d better go up on the cliffs and look for it,’ he announced briskly. ‘Chances are you’ve dropped it somewhere and it’ll soon be found. Folks here are very honest, you know. I reckon we’ll turn it up in the next hour or so.’
‘Oh, but you don’t have to help me,’ protested Rose. ‘I can’t possibly take up so much of your time.’
He gave a low growl of laughter at that. A laugh that reverberated in his chest and made his dark eyes glint.
‘I’m not busy. I’ve finished for the day and I’d be better off helping you than wasting my time and money in a pub. Eh, Jimmy?’
‘That’s right, Greg,’ agreed the barman. ‘You give the lass a hand and don’t you worry, my dear. If so be as you don’t find ‘un, you come back here and we’ll sort something out.’
Rose darted a stricken look from one man to the other. Of course she wanted to find the pocketbook and the sooner the better. But she wasn’t at all sure that she wanted to tramp around cliff paths with a man who made her feel like a lovelorn teenager. Still, what else could she do?
‘Thank you,’ she said at last in a strained voice. ‘I’ll do that.’
The Smuggler’s Rest was only a few steps away from the precipitous path which led up over the rocks to the cliff-top. Greg bounded up the steep slope like a mountain goat, so that Rose had to hurry to keep him in sight. It was a stiff climb, with jagged brown rocks jutting out into the path and pink erigeron daisies spilling out from cottage gardens. As they neared the top of the path, the dry-stone walls which marked the boundaries of neatly tended gardens gave way to a wild landscape of breathtaking beauty. Only the distant line of the horizon marked out the division between the vivid dark blue of the sea and the paler blue of the sky. Overhead the sun shone with an almost Mediterranean heat, gilding the wings of an occasional gliding seagull and warming the rocks that flanked the path. Down below waves smashed noisily against the cliff face and fell back in a seething white turbulence of foam.
Shading her eyes against the brilliance of the sun, Rose gazed down at the Net Loft—a dry-stone building on the cliff at the west side of the harbour entrance, its walls fashioned from mellow grey stone smudged with yellow-green lichen. For a moment she stood still, hot and breathless from the climb and momentarily distracted from her worries by the beauty of the scene. Seagulls wheeled and shrieked overhead and the air was charged with enticing scents—brown earth as rich as chocolate fudge and with the same sweet, heavy smell, gorse bushes in full flower and the bracing salt tang of the sea. What an amazing place this was! But Greg seemed oblivious to the setting and was clearly impatient of her delay.
‘Right, where did you go when you were up here?’ he demanded.
‘I sat on the bench over there for a while,’ she said, wrinkling her forehead thoughtfully. ‘And then I went for a walk further up the cliff.’
A search of the tussocky green grass beaded with raindrops in the area around the bench revealed nothing, so Greg set off further up the cliff path. Here the manicured cottage gardens gave way to wire netting tangled with blackberries, ivy, dock and thick stands of stinging nettles. As they reached the gorse bushes on the headland a cloud of orange and brown butterflies rose at their approach, but there was no sign of a pocketbook on the ground where Rose had stood earlier to admire the view. Greg searched thoroughly, but at last came back to her, shaking his head.
‘Well, that’s it, then,’ she said heavily. ‘I don’t suppose I’ll ever see it again.’
In spite of her good intentions she could not keep a faint tremor out of her voice. What was wrong with her? After all, she wasn’t dead or injured. The events of the last two months must have been more of a strain than she realised. To her surprise, Greg suddenly caught one of her tendrils of long brown hair that was fluttering in the breeze and wound it round the end of his finger. Rose stiffened at his touch, although it was undoubtedly friendly rather than threatening. All the same, she darted him a swift, nervous glance as he tidied the errant strand back over her shoulder.
‘Well, it’s not the end of the world,’ he said with a touch of his earlier impatience. ‘Just come back to the pub with me and we’ll report it missing. After that we can see about getting you back to your hotel.’
‘Hotel!’ wailed Rose, as the realisation of a fresh disaster suddenly struck her. ‘What’s the time?’
‘Four thirty-five.’
‘Oh, no! I’ve missed’the bus!’
‘Bus?’ queried Greg. ‘Where were you going to?’
‘Pisky Bay,’ replied Rose.
‘Pisky Bay?’ he demanded, his brows meeting in a thoughtful frown. ‘Are you sure? There’s nothing there but three or four cottages.’
‘I know,’ agreed Rose. ‘Actually, I’m the new owner of one of them. My great-aunt Em died recently and left it to me.’
A look of dawning comprehension spread over his craggy features.
‘Oh, then you’ll be Emily Pendennis’s great-niece,’ he said. ‘Yes, I heard she’d left her cottage to a lass from foreign parts. But wasn’t there talk of your mother coming here as well?’
Rose gave a wry smile at the efficiency with which the bush telegraph seemed to be operating. After the vast, impersonal sprawl of Brisbane, she found it strangely warming to find a community so intimate that everyone knew each other’s business. Far from being annoyed by it, she was oddly moved.
‘That’s right,’ she admitted. ‘My mother was supposed to come with me, but unfortunately she was taken ill just before we were due to leave Brisbane. Nothing really serious, but she had to have an operation and my insurance policy wouldn’t allow me to cancel my airline ticket. In any case, my mother urged me to come and she’ll be joining me in a few weeks, as soon as she’s well enough to travel. We’re hoping to open a bed-and-breakfast place in Aunt Em’s old cottage.’
‘You’ll be staying on here, then?’ asked Greg, and for an instant something disturbingly sensual lurked in his eyes.
Rose might be alarmed by that momentary spark of warmth but she couldn’t help feeling flattered by it. In all the three years she had spent with Martin, he had only seemed to make her aware of her deficiencies, that her nose was too snub, her hips too rounded, her legs too short, her skin too pale. Now, with this rugged fisherman darting her a swift sideways glance from under half-closed lids, Rose suddenly felt that she was a de-sirable woman. The thought sent a flood of colour rushing into her cheeks and made her step back a pace from him.
‘Yes,’ she muttered. ‘At least for a while.’
‘Well, that’s good news,’ he said mildly. ‘If there’s anything I can do to help you out, just say the word. This is only a simple fishing community and we’re all good neighbours hereabouts.’
If he had asked her to go out with him, Rose would have retreated in alarm and refused immediately. As it was, his manner was so casual that she began to think that she had imagined that brief flare of attraction between them. What an idiot she was! Obviously Greg was only trying to be kind…
‘Oh, I’m sure you are,’ she agreed with a rush of enthusiasm. ‘This village seems absolutely enchanting and I’m thrilled to think that my roots here go back for centuries. You see, I’ve always hated big cities and wished I could live somewhere small and quaint. Well, I’d say Polperro is the kind of place that time has passed by, where people still enjoy old-fashioned pleasures. Going fishing, gardening, spending time with their friends, having a quiet drink in the pub. I can almost imagine that I’m still in the eighteenth century here. Actually, when I first saw you I thought you looked exactly like—’ She broke off and flushed with embarrassment, aware that his eyes were on her with a frankly amazed expression.
‘Like what?’ he prompted in his husky Cornish voice.
‘Like a smuggler,’ she admitted.
Suddenly he threw back his head and laughed, an incredulous, pitying laugh that made her feel a complete fool.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said in confusion. ‘I suppose it sounds silly really.’
An expression mid-way between contempt and amusement flitted across his face.
‘You’re not far out, in a way,’ he replied. ‘Just between you and me, in my youth there was the odd bottle of brandy I brought back on my fishing boat from France that never paid duty in any Customs office.’
‘You’re a fisherman, then!’ she exclaimed with interest. ‘I thought you must be. You looked like one, somehow. Exactly the way I imagined a Cornish fisherman.’
‘Ah, well, my dear,’ he said. ‘It’s clear you’re a ro-mantic at heart and I’ve always liked the romantic, myself.’ Was it her imagination or did his Cornish accent suddenly seem stronger than it had before? ‘But tell me, now, how are you going to get home to your aunt Em’s cottage, seeing you’ve missed the bus?’
Rose hesitated and then took the plunge.
‘W-well,’ she stammered. ‘I hate to ask you this when you’ve already done so much for me, but could you possibly loan me some money for a taxi? I’ll pay you back tom——’
But Greg was sorrowfully shaking his head.
‘I’m sorry, my love,’ he muttered. ‘I don’t think I can do that. A simple fisherman like me doesn’t carry much money on him.’ He reached into his back pocket, drew out a shabby wallet and looked at the three one-pound coins that lay forlornly in it. ‘I’ll tell you what, though. I could sail you home. How about that, now? I’ll drop you off all right and tight in the cove at Pisky Bay.’
Rose hesitated, torn between delight and apprehension. To sail home through the sunset and catch her first glimpse of her cottage from out in those dazzling, sapphire seas! It would be perfect, absolutely perfect…And yet was it wise to trust herself to Greg Trelawney? Not that he was likely to abduct her, but there were other kinds of danger that could be more subtly threatening. Like the danger of contracting an absurd, adolescent crush on a man who was quite likely to see her day in and day out in such a small community. She didn’t want the pain or the humiliation of that. Really, it would be more sensible to refuse. Sensible! something inside her shrieked in outrage. Where has being sensible ever got you? You were being sensible waiting for Martin to propose, weren’t you? Well? In that instant Rose flung caution to the winds and decided to live dangerously.
‘Thank you,’ she said firmly before she could change her mind. ‘That would be wonderful. But are you sure it’s not too much trouble?’
‘No trouble at all, my dear. There be my boat just down there, see? Lying at anchor on the mooring.’
Rose followed his pointing finger down to the spot where a stately old ketch, with a black hull and red sails furled along its boom, lay tranquilly bobbing next to a pink buoy. By now the tide was turning and the water rippled as green as glass around the graceful vessel, making it shift and move as if it longed to be off.
‘Come on,’ ordered Greg. ‘We’ll just go down to the phone at the pub and report your belongings missing. Then we’ll be off.’
Ten minutes later their mission was accomplished and they stood outside on the whitewashed steps in front of the Smuggler’s Rest.
‘What about your luggage?’ asked Greg, struck by a sudden difficulty.
‘I sent it on ahead on this morning’s bus,’ replied Rose. ‘One of Aunt Em’s old neighbours has been keeping an eye on the cottage and she promised to take delivery of it for me. Oh, there’s one other thing, though. I must call into the clothes shop and tell the woman I can’t take that sweater and skirt after all.’
‘Don’t you worry about that,’ said Greg. ‘I’ll take care of it. I have to go round to the far side of the stream in any case to get my dinghy. Now, you walk down to the stone pier over there and wait for me. I’ll bring the ketch to the foot of that iron ladder and pick you up. Can’t say fairer than that!’
Rose firmly dismissed her last lingering doubts. ‘All right, thank you,’ she agreed.
Twenty minutes later they were heading out to sea with the sails flaring bright red in the slanting gold light of the sun. There was no sound but the slap of water against the hull, the singing of the wind in the rigging and the occasional noisy squabbling of a flock of seagulls. Rose found the slow dip and rise of the vessel immensely soothing and she heaved a deep sigh of pleasure. A brief smile flickered over Greg’s face but he said nothing, apparently content to enjoy the scene around them without any need for words. He was standing at the yacht’s wheel, his long, muscular legs braced apart and his sensitive fingers handling its blunt wooden spokes as tenderly as if they were alive. With his eyes narrowed against the blaze of the sinking sun and his hair blown into wild disorder by the wind, he looked like some primitive, timeless sailor, totally in harmony with the rugged coastline that had produced him. An aching, primeval need stabbed through Rose’s entire body at the sight of him standing there so virile, so confident, so untamed. I could really fall for him in a big way, she thought and then gave a soft gasp of dismay at her own unruly in- stincts. Living dangerously was one thing; going right off her trolley was quite another.
‘Everything all right?’ he asked, looking over his shoulder at her.
‘Yes, fine, thank you,’ she agreed, grateful that he could not read her thoughts. Yet perhaps he could, for his eyes narrowed even further and he looked at her with that strange, assessing warmth that she had found so disconcerting on the cliff-top. Once again a tingling current of raw physical attraction seemed to pass be-tween them.
‘Why don’t you come and take a turn at the wheel?’ invited Greg, and his baritone voice was so husky, so caressing that the invitation seemed vaguely indecent.
Rose opened her mouth to refuse and then paused. She was being foolish, incredibly foolish. All this belief in nameless, animal passions lurking just below the surface might be only a product of her own fevered imagination. Greg would probably think she was crazy if she started acting like some skittish, wild creature and refusing a perfectly harmless invitation.
‘All right, thanks,’ she agreed, forcing herself to rise and clamber nervously across the sloping deck to join him. ‘What do I do?’
‘Just put your hands here on the wheel at ten to two. Then take a look straight down the centre of the ship and line up the prow with that headland over there. If she begins to fall away, turn the wheel a little to bring her back on course. Yes, that’s fine.’
As he had spoken he had positioned himself behind her, putting his arms around her and gripping her hands so that he could guide them. Harmless invitation! thought Rose despairingly. I didn’t know he was going to do that! Her senses reeled at his overpowering nearness and her heart begun to beat in a frantic, suffocating rhythm. She was intensely conscious of his towering height, the power of the whipcord muscles in those strong tanned arms that were wrapped around her, the salty masculine smell that came off in waves from his warm body. For one insane moment she wondered what he would do if she suddenly leaned back against him. The mere thought made her go rigid with panic.
‘I think you can let go now,’ she said in a stifled voice.
Greg released her, but he continued to stand just behind her so that she found it difficult to keep her attention on handling the boat. Almost before she realised it, the bow began to stray out towards the open sea and Greg had to move forward to correct their course.
‘I’ll just help you out as we go down the channel between this rocky island up ahead and the mainland,’ he explained. ‘It looks as though there’s plenty of space, but in fact there are some sharp reefs below the surface here. No, there’s no need for you to move. All you have to do is let yourself go and trust me.’
But Rose had already wriggled free of his grip and was retreating to the safety of her seat in the stern. ‘You’d better do it,’ she said shakily. ‘I’m afraid of running into disaster.’
A soft chuckle escaped him, but he did not argue with her. Rose looked out at the island looming ahead of them and tried to distract herself from Greg by examining every feature of it. It was nothing but a craggy outcrop of rock covered with bright emerald grass at the top and plummeting to wicked-looking rocky shores below. Sea-gulls whirled and shrieked above it and a mass of scudding clouds like shredded lace sent shadows chasing over its vivid green grass. Greg shaded his eyes and looked out at the restlessly heaving sea ablaze with light from the sinking sun.
‘Not far to go now,’ he announced in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘Come by here and look. You see over there to starboard? That’s Pisky Bay, just around the headland.’
The land began to come closer and closer and soon Rose could see a half-moon of sandy beach framed at each end by jagged cliffs. Emerald-green water rushed past her, then suddenly they were in the bay itself with the details of the land growing larger and sharper with every passing minute. Rose could not suppress a little cry of excitement as she saw a dusty road winding between hawthorn hedges, cows grazing placidly in a green field and three or four widely scattered cottages barely visible among the trees that surrounded them.
‘Oh, I can hardly wait!’ she exclaimed. ‘Somehow I feel exactly as if I’m coming home!’
‘Well, it won’t be long now,’ said Greg. ‘I’ll just take down the sails, drop anchor and I’ll have you ashore in no time.’
He was as good as his word. A moment later the huge red mainsail came flapping down and was lashed securely around the boom, to be followed at once by the other two smaller sails. Then Greg hurried up to the bow of the yacht and there was a loud, grinding rattle as he let out the anchor chain. Then he came back along the narrow, polished deck of the yacht with the lithe tread of a hunting cat. Pausing with one hand on the entrance to the hatchway, he glanced back at Rose, his eyes narrowing in a way that made her heart beat faster.
‘Are you planning to offer me a cup of tea when we get ashore?’ he asked.
That was more than Rose had bargained for. Her whole body tensed in a useless impulse to retreat. ‘I very much doubt it, I’m afraid. I have no idea of what I’m going to find once I get inside the cottage. And I haven’t any tea.’
‘In that case, I think I’ll bring my own,’ announced Greg, calmly disposing of her objections. ‘And a few basic supplies to see you through the night.’
Before she could protest, he swung himself down into the cabin and reappeared a couple of minutes later with a knobbly looking old khaki rucksack slung over one shoulder. ‘Now, let’s get you into the dinghy and we’ll go ashore,’ he said.
It was rather unnerving to scramble down into a heaving dinghy in a straight skirt, but with Greg’s as-sistance Rose managed it somehow. Instructing her to sit down in the stern, he fitted the rowlocks into their holes and shipped the oars. Then he untied the painter and, crouching low, took his place in the centre seat facing her. With a deft movement he unshipped the oars and began to row. His powerful arms sent the tiny craft skimming effortlessly across the water, but as they neared the band of white foam where the waves were breaking on the beach, a fresh difficulty presented itself to Rose.
‘How do we get ashore?’ she asked, glancing uneasily down at her best navy leather shoes. ‘Do we just jump into the waves and walk?’
‘I do,’ agreed Greg with an unholy glint in his eyes. ‘You jump into my arms and let me carry you. And no arguments, my dear.’
Rose opened her mouth to protest and then closed it again. Obviously it was the only sensible thing to do. All the same, she wasn’t looking forward to it one bit, or, if she was, she didn’t intend to admit it even to herself. There was a sudden, exhilarating surge and they found themselves carried forward on the crest of a wave to ground on the soft sand amid a seething rush of foam. Greg jumped out, wearing his knee-high rubber fisherman’s boots, reached into the bow of the dinghy for a small anchor which he dug into the sand, then turned to Rose with a look of sly anticipation on his face.
‘Come on, then,’ he ordered as he held out his arms to her. ‘What are you waiting for?’ With as much dignity as she could muster, Rose crept gingerly towards him, then suddenly felt herself swept off her feet and into his arms. In spite of her resolution to remain calm, her body stiffened at his touch and she looked up at him with a flash of alarm. There was still amusement and warmth in his eyes, but there was also something else, a look of hungry, primitive desire that made her blood pause and then throb hotly and violently through her veins. For a moment their eyes met in wordless understanding and she could feel the tumultuous thudding of his heart be-neath the thin fabric of his shirt, then he muttered something unintelligible under his breath and began to stride fiercely towards the beach.
A moment later Rose was on her feet on the white sand, although she felt oddly unsteady on her legs. Glancing back, she saw that Greg had returned to the water’s edge and was hauling the dinghy up on the sand, out of the reach of waves. She could see the lines of strain in his body as he half carried, half dragged it across the sand, and could not suppress a twinge of admiration at his strength. Then she gritted her teeth in annoyance. She must stop behaving like some ridiculous teenager! It was absurd, undignified. Deliberately turning her back on Greg, she swung round to face the emerald-green landscape that rose in front of her, so much more vividly green than anything she had ever seen in Australia. She was still gazing at it, drinking in its unfamiliar beauty, when Greg appeared beside her and put one arm casually around her shoulders.
‘That’s your aunt Em’s cottage up there on the right,’ he said, pointing to a gabled roof barely visible above a hawthorn hedge about two hundred yards away. ‘Your new home, Rose.’
A shiver went through her as much at the pressure of his fingers on her shoulder as at the words he had spoken. Her new home, yes. But would she find happiness here?
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_990eae3c-f62e-5f9d-aaf7-7f35c95d7b28)
FIVE minutes later Rose stood outside the front gate of the cottage and took a long breath of pure delight.
‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ she demanded.
Greg’s eyebrows rose sceptically as he took a long, hard look at the gabled roof, which was encrusted with yellow lichen and had several of its slate tiles missing, at the peeling pink paint on the walls, at a broken pane of glass in one of the front windows, at the weathered grey wooden outhouses that leaned drunkenly away from the sea breezes.
‘I don’t know,’ he said in a troubled voice. ‘It looks as if it needs a fair bit of work done on it to me.’
‘Oh, men!’ retorted Rose scathingly, and pushed open the gate, which promptly broke loose from one of its hinges and dangled askew.
Greg gave an explosive chuckle which he hastily turned into a cough when she glared at him. Rose tossed her head defiantly. All right, maybe the cottage did need a bit of work, but she wasn’t afraid of getting busy with a scrubbing brush and some paint. And nothing could spoil the perfection of the garden even if it did look wild and unkempt. On the sunny side of the garden a variety of shrub roses rioted in colourful profusion, filling the air with their sweet perfume, while in a shady nook between the house and the hawthorn hedge a sea of vivid blue hydrangeas tossed in the breeze. A candy-pink clematis had run riot over the outhouses and was now trying vigorously to climb the drainpipe at the side of the house, while purple buddleia bushes near the front gate provided a haven for swarms of butterflies. Every other available nook and cranny was filled with summer annuals, poppies and columbines and striped petunias. What did it matter if the lawn was now knee-high and rank with weeds, or if the paving on the path was chipped and overgrown with dandelions? These things could all be fixed by someone with plenty of energy and a good set of gardening tools. Yet even Rose’s optimistic spirit sank a little when she saw how the guttering was sagging over the front porch and the steps were broken and leaning to one side. Wouldn’t repairs like that be expensive?
‘Look, the cottage is named after you,’ joked Greg, pointing to the sign over the door. ‘Rose Cottage, 1742.’
‘Actually, it’s the other way round,’ Rose corrected him. ‘I’m named after the cottage. But don’t let’s hang about. I can’t wait to see inside.’
Unfortunately, when she inserted her key into the front door, she found that it would not budge. She looked helplessly at Greg.
‘The wood is probably swollen from the rain,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Or else your aunt Em didn’t use the front door much. I could force it open for you, but why don’t we try the back door first?’
The back door was more co-operative but the results were hardly encouraging. When it finally creaked open they found themselves in a dim back porch with a strong smell of rising damp and the sound of a tap dripping persistently somewhere near by. As Rose’s eyes became accustomed to the gloom, she saw that the wallpaper was stained and discoloured and that some of the floor-boards were rotting beneath their feet. The first, faint misgivings began to stir inside her. All the same, she wasn’t prepared to give up without a fight.
‘Let’s take a look at the rest of the house,’ she said bracingly. ‘I’m sure it’ll be much better.’
It wasn’t. If anything, it was worse. The discovery of her suitcases in the front bedroom and a few basic food items with a friendly note from her neighbour cheered her up briefly, but her enthusiasm was soon quenched as she explored further. All the four downstairs rooms were spacious and charmingly old-fashioned with carved wooden fireplaces and small paned windows, but there were patches of damp on the walls and the only floor covering was a faded pink carpet square in the front bedroom. Most of the furniture was old and shabby without being antique, and the only indoor plumbing appeared to be a tap in the kitchen sink and a claw-footed bath with rusty legs. The upstairs rooms were no better. The stairs themselves had handsome barley-twist newels, but the treads were narrow and worn almost paper-thin in the centre and, judging by the thick layer of dust that covered everything on the first floor, it was probably years since Aunt Em had ever climbed up them. The attics were in the saddest condition of all, crammed full of boxes of old junk and with a couple of big holes in the plaster where rain had come in through missing tiles on the roof. By now, Rose’s initial euphoria had completely vanished and she could not help heaving a deep sigh as she followed Greg back down the precarious staircase. As they reached the bottom he turned back and raised his eyebrows at the sight of her woebegone face.
‘I think it’s time we had that cup of tea,’ he said.
Trying to prepare the cup of tea was the final straw for Rose, since the kitchen seemed to be circa 1742 just like the rest of the house. The only cooking equipment was a malevolent-looking rusty black wood stove set into the fireplace and an array of smoke-blackened old teapots and frying-pans. All very well if you wanted to be picturesque, but not much use if you were hungry and thirsty! And the cold tap that was still trickling dis- mally had left a trail of rusty stains on the enamel sink. Rose sat down at the scrubbed pine table, buried her head in her hands and groaned.
‘It’s hopeless,’ she said despairingly. ‘I’ll never be able to get it all repaired.’
‘Don’t talk so foolish,’ urged Greg. He grabbed one of the old kitchen chairs and sat astride it, facing the wrong way with his chin resting on his folded arms and a stern look in his eyes. ‘You’re not going to give up at the first minor difficulty, are you? You don’t have the look of a coward, my dear.’
A hot surge of rage flooded through Rose’s entire body at this criticism. A moment before she had felt like bursting into tears. Now she felt like hitting Greg, which was a definite improvement, but still rather startling. She had always thought she was a peace-loving person.
‘Minor difficulty?’ she snorted, gesturing at the chaos around them. ‘I wouldn’t call this mess exactly minor.’
Greg shrugged dismissively and his jaw set in an obstinate line. ‘It all looks structurally sound to me and there b’ain’t much wrong with it that fifteen thousand pounds or so wouldn’t fix.’
Rose gave a gasp of bitter laughter. ‘Fifteen thousand pounds! You just don’t understand! I haven’t got nearly that much money to spare. There was a small legacy that came with the house, but nothing like that amount. Oh, Greg! I’ve come all this way just for an impractical dream. There’s no way I’ll ever be able to afford to stay here.’
Greg’s dark eyes took on a keen, brooding expression as if he was giving the problem his full attention.
‘You could take out a bank loan,’ he suggested. ‘All you have to do is decide you want this cottage badly enough and you’ll find a way of keeping it.’
‘No bank manager in his right mind would lend money to me now,’ retorted Rose coldly. ‘I’m officially unemployed.’
‘Well, don’t give up too soon. Let’s make a cup of tea.’
‘How?’ demanded Rose. ‘There isn’t even any way of boiling water, as far as I can see, unless we fire up that wood stove.’
‘Yes, there is,’ said Greg. ‘There’s a gas ring over in that far corner.’
Rose was too disheartened to do anything at first, but when Greg produced coffee, teabags, tinned milk and a box of matches from his knapsack, she roused herself sufficiently to go and find some cups in the old wooden dresser against the wall. Once she had a steaming mug of hot, sweet tea and a digestive biscuit inside her, she found that she felt much better, but all their discussion produced no useful solutions. When they had washed the cups under the dripping tap, Greg moved purpose-fully towards the door.
‘Are you leaving now?’ asked Rose, her heart sinking. Greg’s glib certainty that she could find a way of restoring the cottage infuriated her. And yet she knew with a sudden twinge of dismay that she did not want him to go.
‘Not unless you want me to. I thought I’d try and find some gardening tools out in the shed and cut back a bit of that creeper over the sitting-room window. This place would look much more cheerful with a bit of sunlight in it.’
‘There’s no need—’ began Rose, but he had already gone.
She caught him up in one of the dilapidated old sheds, busily engaged in dusting cobwebs off some rusty garden tools. He handed her a pair of threadbare gloves and an old set of clippers.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get to work.’
Rose looked at her watch and was surprised to find that it was now after nine o’clock, but although the sun had set, a pure apple-green twilight still lingered around the hills so that it was perfectly possible to go on working. Back home in tropical Brisbane it would have been dark by six o’clock even in the summer. As they worked it began to grow cooler. An occasional quite strong gust of wind came in from the sea. Rose took out her disappointment about the cottage and her antagonism towards Greg on the Virginia creeper and hacked viciously at the encroaching strands. At last, when the sitting-room window was quite clear and there was a large pile of green creeper clippings underneath it, Greg called a halt. Another sharp gust of wind blew in from the sea and Rose shivered involuntarily.
‘Are you cold?’ he asked. ‘I can light a fire, if you like.’
Rose gave him a shamefaced smile.
‘It’s just my thin, tropical blood,’ she explained. ‘I’m not used to a place where it gets cool in the evenings.’
‘Well, I’ll just get the fire going for you before I go,’ he offered.
She followed him back towards the woodpile that was stacked neatly at the rear of the house. A sudden unwelcome thought flashed through her mind.
‘Don’t you have a wife or a girlfriend you have to get back to?’ she asked.
He picked up an axe and began to split some kindling, producing half a dozen neat, dry sticks before he answered. Then he wiped the sweat off the back of his forehead with his hand.
‘No,’ he replied in a mocking voice. ‘I’m a completely unloved man.’
I find that hard to believe, thought Rose as she followed him inside. With those devastating good looks, the sensual, throaty voice and his aura of lazy, animal magnetism, Greg must have women swarming around him all the time. With a sudden miserable sense of self-doubt, she wondered why he was wasting time on her when she was so unmistakably ordinary. She was startled when he suddenly stretched out his hand to her.
‘Matches,’ he ordered.
She blushed in sudden comprehension as she saw the neat pile of kindling and crumpled newspaper which he had arranged in the fireplace. Hurrying into the kitchen, she retrieved the box of matches and Greg soon had a bright orange blaze crackling in the fireplace.
‘Are you hungry?’ he asked abruptly. ‘I’m starving.’
‘There were some tins in the kitchen cupboard—’ she began, but he overrode her.
‘I can do better than that. I brought a few supplies ashore from the boat. Do you fancy some fried lemon sole?’
He did not wait for the fire to burn down but cooked the fish in an old frying-pan over the gas ring. Half an hour later, replete with delicious fish and a butterscotch pudding from one of the tins in the kitchen followed by a fresh pot of tea, they were both sitting on the lumpy sofa in front of a roaring blaze in the sitting-room. Rose’s feelings were in turmoil about Greg’s willingness to linger. She had grave suspicions about his motives and she was still smarting from his earlier comments on her cowardice, yet she was sneakingly grateful for his company. At eleven o’clock, when Greg still showed no signs of heading for home, she was just beginning to wonder whether she should raise the subject delicately when a sudden spatter of raindrops hit the window outside.
‘Looks as though we’re in for some dirty weather,’ said Greg, his brows drawing together. ‘It’ll be a chancy business sailing home in this.’
Rose got to her feet and walked across to the window. Outside it was almost dark and a strong wind was be-ginning to moan through the trees in the garden. Another spatter of raindrops hit the glass, bringing with them a rush of cool, scented air. It would certainly be a difficult task to get into the dinghy and row out to the yacht in total darkness. But if Greg was a fisherman, surely he was used to that sort of thing?
‘These be very dangerous coasts,’ he said gravely, as if he had read her thoughts. ‘I don’t mind going now if you want me to, but I reckon there’ll be some powerful bad weather tonight and there’s rocks out there that would tear the bottom out of the boat in the darkness.’ Rose shivered and looked at him uneasily. How would she feel if he really was shipwrecked all because she had sent him out into the darkness after doing a favour for her?
‘I suppose you could stay here,’ she said uncertainly.
‘That’s very kind of you, my love,’ said Greg, a shade too quickly. ‘Very neighbourly. Thanks very much, I’ll be glad to.’
Rose shot him a suspicious look. ‘I hope you don’t think…’ she began. ‘What I mean is…I don’t…’
Greg looked shocked. ‘Of course not,’ he replied in a voice full of injured innocence. ‘I never thought of such a thing.’
Rose retreated to the sitting-room door. ‘Would you like some coffee or something?’ she asked to cover her embarrassment.
‘That’d be nice,’ he agreed. ‘And there’s a packet of chocolate fudge in my knapsack.’
The evening was taking on a decidedly domestic quality, Rose decided a few minutes later as they sat drinking coffee and chewing delicious chocolate fudge. The sofa had proved too uncomfortable to endure any longer and Greg had suggested that they should sit on the sheepskin rug which he had found bundled in one of the cupboards under the stairs and brought into the sitting-room. Lounging back in its tickly warmth with the flames crackling in the fireplace and the rain drumming at the uncurtained window felt remarkably cosy, so why did she have this sense of mounting tension? She darted a swift sideways look at Greg, but he simply smiled blandly at her and took another gulp of his coffee.
‘You said earlier that you were named after the cottage,’ he reminded her. ‘What did you mean?’
‘Exactly that,’ she replied. ‘My mother grew up here, you see, and she was always terribly fond of the place. Her parents died in the bombing of Plymouth when she was only two years old during World War Two, and Aunt Em, who was her mother’s older sister, brought her up. Mum always used to talk about Rose Cottage as if it were heaven and I think calling me Rose was the highest compliment she could possibly pay me.’
Greg nodded thoughtfully. ‘You say she loved this place and yet she went to Australia. Why was that?’ he asked.
Rose sighed. ‘Well, my father was an Australian who was over here on a working holiday. She met him when she was only twenty, fell in love, ran off and married him.’
‘And the marriage wasn’t happy?’ guessed Greg shrewdly.
‘How did you know?’ demanded Rose. ‘Are you clairvoyant or something?’
Greg shook his head, but in the firelight his dark eyes seemed so piercing that she had the uncanny feeling that they could look right into her soul.
‘No,’ he said. ‘But you have a very expressive face and the way you sighed told me a lot. So what happened?’
Rose shrugged. ‘Other women. A drinking problem. She divorced him when I was eight years old.’
‘But she didn’t ever think of coming back to Britain?’
‘No. It was sad really. I think she would have given her eye-teeth to come back, but she’d quarrelled with Aunt Em about it in the first place because Em didn’t approve of my father and Mum didn’t want to admit that she’d been in the wrong. The other thing was that she didn’t want to be a burden to Aunt Em. After all, she had three kids and no real training for a job. Be-sides, Daniel was in high school and didn’t want to move and Jane was eleven and perfectly happy in Australia.’
‘So what did your mother do? How did she support you? Or did your father do that?’
‘No, he didn’t,’ said Rose bitterly. ‘He paid maintenance irregularly for about two years and then vanished. Later we heard that he was working in a mining camp in Western Australia, but I haven’t seen him since I was ten years old and I don’t want to. Mum went out to work as a cleaning lady for other people. So there you are, then, the story of my life.’
‘Not quite,’ replied Greg, rising to his feet to put another log on the fire. It went in with a crash, sending a hissing cloud of orange sparks up the chimney. ‘You haven’t told me much about yourself. What sort of job you had before you came here, what things you enjoy, who you first fell in love with and why.’
‘I’d rather not remember who I first fell in love with and why,’ said Rose in a hard voice. ‘But the rest is easy. My hobbies are reading, gardening and cooking and I have a degree in computer programming. That was my mother’s influence, I suppose. She thought it would be a steady, well-paid job, which it was. But I didn’t realise that it would also be pretty soul-destroying or that I’d come into contact with some quite nasty people.’
There was no mistaking the vehemence in her tone. All the same, Rose was startled when Greg squatted down beside her, took her hands and pulled her to her feet.
‘Who was he, Rose?’ he asked bluntly.
‘Who was who?’ faltered Rose.
‘Don’t play games with me. The man who hurt you.’
A convulsive spasm passed over her face. ‘How did you know?’ she asked hoarsely.
His warm hands gripped her shoulders, moving, caressing, stroking away the pain. ‘People don’t get as upset as that just because they hate jobs,’ he said. ‘They only look that way if they’ve been in love and been betrayed. Who was he?’
‘My boss,’ muttered Rose. ‘Martin Inglis.’
‘Were you lovers?’
Rose hesitated. ‘Yes,’ she admitted at last.
‘What was he like?’ asked Greg with a frown. ‘What kind of person?’
She let out her breath in a long sigh. ‘I hardly know how to describe him. I was only twenty-two when I first met him and didn’t like him much at first. Oh, he was certainly good-looking, in an outdoor sort of way. Big, blond, muscular, rather brash. And very masculine, but the kind of man who doesn’t really think much of women except in bed or in the kitchen. He liked horse-racing and flashy sports cars and all-night parties.’
‘Doesn’t sound much like your type,’ observed Greg.
‘No, that’s right,’ agreed Rose unhappily. ‘And he always used to tease me about being prim and proper and joke about how I was probably dynamite underneath. Then, after I’d been with the company for a couple of years, we happened to be at a conference at Magnetic Island. I bumped into him on the beach in the moonlight one night and he came straight out and told me that he’d always thought I was gorgeous. I was stunned, but I began to think I’d misjudged him. He didn’t kiss me or anything, just looked at me…After we got back to Brisbane, he asked me to have dinner with him. We went out together for a year or so, then he told me he loved me and we…started sleeping together. I always thought marriage would follow but we went on like that for over two years. Then a couple of months ago he suddenly announced his engagement to someone else. I didn’t even know about it until I saw it in the newspaper.’
If she had hoped for some sign of outrage or sympathy from Greg, Rose was disappointed. His face was an inscrutable mask, as impartial as that of a judge interested only in the facts.
‘Did you have a quarrel or something?’
‘No.’ Rose’s throat hurt as she answered. ‘It came completely out of the blue. Of course, I went to his office and demanded an explanation. He said…he said…that he thought I’d understand his position. He was wealthy and successful and people like that couldn’t afford to marry beneath them. His fiancée, Delia, came from an important family, but he said I shouldn’t be hurt because he wasn’t in love with her and there was no need for anything to change in our relationship.’
‘So what did you say to that?’ demanded Greg.
Rose gave a brief, bitter laugh. ‘I told him to drop dead, then I handed in my resignation. As it happened, Aunt Em had just died and left this cottage with a life interest to my mother and the remainder to me. I could see my mother couldn’t wait to return to England, but she tried hard to persuade me to get another job in Australia. Except that for once I was fed up with being sensible, so I decided to burn my bridges and come with her. And here I am.’
‘Good for you,’ said Greg. ‘You did the right thing.’ ‘Did I?’ demanded Rose, gesturing at the shabby room that surrounded them. ‘Now I’m not so sure. I almost wish I’d stayed in Brisbane.’
‘You’re not still in love with him, are you?’ demanded Greg in a hard voice.
‘I don’t know!’ Rose burst out. ‘Love isn’t reasonable, is it? Sometimes I think I am, but other times I hate him. Mostly I just feel humiliated and angry to think what a credulous fool I was. How could I have been so easily deceived? And it makes me feel a lot of pain and anxiety too. I don’t feel as if I can ever trust another man again. Especially a rich one.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’ said Greg sharply. ‘Just because one man disappointed you, that’s no reason to think you can never get involved with another one.’
To her astonishment, he suddenly hauled her hard against him, tilted her chin and planted a long, thrilling kiss on her lips. Rose felt shaken and exhilarated and for one crazy, impetuous moment she kissed him back with equal fervour. The firelight flared orange through her closed eyelids, yet its heat seemed to blaze not only on her skin, but also in the innermost depths of her body. As Greg’s powerful arms tightened about her, she felt an urgent, pulsating need that made her sway dizzily against him. Her lips parted, trembling, and she offered herself to him with a wanton intensity that both thrilled and shocked her. She heard him utter a low groan deep in his throat and that brought her back to her senses. Aghast at what she had done, she broke away and retreated to the door.
‘Look, let’s forget that that ever happened,’ she said in a strained voice. ‘I’m going to bed. Goodnight.’
And in case there should be any misunderstandings, once she had gained the sanctuary of her bedroom, she turned the lock firmly in the door.
* * *
Rose woke early the following morning, roused by the flood of sunlight spilling in through the uncurtained window. For a moment she lay baffled, trying to work out where she was. Then comprehension came jolting back and with it the memory of the previous night. Uttering a low groan, Rose burrowed into the feather pillows and pulled the quilt over her head. Her cheeks went hot with embarrassment as she wondered how she could have been such a fool. She hardly even knew Greg Trelawney, so how could she possibly have kissed him with such abandon? The whole incident was completely unlike her! She had always been calm, sensible, reserved, so how on earth had it happened? She felt angry with herself and angry with Greg too, but here there was a strange confusion in her feelings. He shouldn’t have kissed her and yet…if she was honest with herself, she had to admit that she had enjoyed it. And, even if he hadn’t condemned Martin’s behaviour, she couldn’t believe that Greg himself would ever do anything so cruel. He was too direct, too primitive, too natural for the sort of calculation and subterfuge that came so readily to men like Martin. And was it really so dreadful if Greg had felt powerfully attracted to Rose and simply seized her and kissed her? It wasn’t as though he had a wife or girlfriend; he had told her that himself. Deep down she felt certain he was the kind of man she could trust completely. Of course, it mustn’t happen again, she must make that quite clear to him, but perhaps there was no need to end their budding friendship…
Five minutes later, dressed in furry slippers and a full-length towelling dressing-gown that covered her cotton nightdress, Rose padded warily into the kitchen. Greg was already dressed and busy boiling the kettle on the gas ring, but he turned to smile at her.
Although he was wearing the same faded jeans and checked red flannel shirt as on the previous day, there was something subtly different about his appearance. Something that nagged at the back of Rose’s mind that she could not quite identify…His dark eyes glinted at the sight of her and he seemed completely unperturbed by what had happened the previous night. In spite of his rather mocking smile, he made no attempt to touch her, so why did she feel as uneasy as if she had just stepped into a cage with a drowsing panther?
‘Good morning,’ said Rose coolly, retreating a pace or two.
‘Good morning,’ replied Greg with an undertone of amusement in his voice. ‘I’ve got the water-heater going, so once you’ve been out the back you can have a bath, if you like.’
‘Thanks,’ said Rose.
After braving the outside loo, which was dark, full of spiders and definitely leaned to one side, Rose was relieved to find the old claw-footed bath brimming with hot water.
‘Take your time,’ advised Greg. ‘I’ll make some coffee and toast when you’ve finished. Pity we haven’t got any eggs and bacon.’
But that was a deficiency which was soon to be remedied. Rose had just finished dressing in her severest office suit, which was navy blue with a white pinstripe and made her feel more in control of the situation, when she heard the unmistakable sound of voices from the kitchen. Surprised and curious, she hurried out and found herself warmly embraced by a grey-haired woman of about sixty.
‘You must be Rose Ashley,’ said the newcomer. ‘I’m your neighbour, Joan Penwithick. I was expecting you on the bus yesterday afternoon but you didn’t arrive, so when I saw the smoke from the chimney this morning I thought I’d pop down and investigate.’
Joan’s brown eyes darted piercingly sideways at Greg as she said this. Rose flushed and launched into a hasty explanation about her lost pocketbook, the missed bus and the sailing trip back from Polperro.
‘And, of course, the weather was so bad last night that Greg didn’t think it was safe to sail back home, so he stayed here,’ she finished lamely.
Joan snorted. ‘Didn’t seem that bad to me,’ she pronounced. ‘I’ve seen you out in far worse gales than that, Greg Trelawney. Anyway, why couldn’t you just sleep aboard your yacht in the bay?’
For once Greg looked completely disconcerted, but instead of answering, he strode forward and grabbed the string bag that was dangling from Joan’s right hand.
‘Well, what have you got here?’ he asked. ‘Bacon and eggs? Oh, you’re a fine woman, Joan, my love. Why don’t you sit down and ask Rose all about her mother while I fry these up?’
Successfully diverted, Joan took her place at the kitchen table opposite Rose and fired an eager volley of questions about Fay Ashley, who was only five years her junior and whom she had known in their schooldays. A complicated recital of the Ashley family history ensued, followed by an equally complicated account of the Penwithick saga, complete with the news that Joan’s second grandchild was due any day now. When she paused for breath, Greg set sizzling plates of bacon and eggs and mugs of hot coffee in front of both of them. Then he sat down to tackle his own hearty breakfast, but he had scarcely swallowed his first forkful of bacon when Joan went on the attack again.
‘Why aren’t you at the shipyard in Plymouth, Greg?’ she demanded. ‘Surely things are too busy for you to have a holiday on a Tuesday?’
Greg hastily swallowed a mouthful of bacon and scowled at Joan. ‘I reckon they can do without me once in a while,’ he replied, his Cornish accent suddenly stronger than ever.
‘Shipyard?’ echoed Rose. ‘What shipyard? Oh, Greg, you haven’t missed a day’s work just so that you could help me? What if you get fired?’
It was Joan’s turn to choke on a mouthful of bacon, and Greg slapped her vigorously on the back.
‘Well, I don’t want to rush you, Joan,’ he said. ‘But if you’ve finished your breakfast, I think you’ll have to excuse Rose and me. We’ve got an appointment with the bank manager in Looe this morning.’
‘Have we?’ asked Rose incredulously, after Greg had seen Joan off the premises.
‘We soon will have,’ promised Greg. ‘Hugh’s an old friend of mine and I know he’ll help us out. I’ll just go up to the phone box at the corner and give him a ring.’
Feeling as helpless as if she were being swept along by some roaring river in full flood, Rose soon found herself shepherded out of the door and on to a bus for Looe.
‘What about your boat?’ she objected as they bowled away between the leafy hawthorn hedges.
‘I’ll come back and fetch it later,’ said Greg. ‘First we’ve got to get you a loan to fix up the cottage.’
‘This is ridiculous,’ protested Rose. ‘Look, Greg, I’m unemployed, except for a bit of freelance programming which I’m finishing off for Inglis’s—I was part-way through it when I left and the systems manager begged me to complete it on a contract basis. He’d always been helpful to me, so I agreed. But once that’s finished, I’ll have no income at all. I’ll never get a loan for the cottage. Never, never!’
But she was wrong. Greg might be only a simple fisherman, but he seemed to have remarkably good contacts. When they entered the bank building in East Looe, there was an unmistakable deference in the manner of the staff as they spoke to him. What was more, the manager Hugh Thomas, a short, grey-haired man of about sixty with a cautious expression, treated both of them as if they were royalty.
‘I’ll come back for you in half an hour,’ promised Greg. ‘You should have everything arranged by then, shouldn’t you?’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ agreed Hugh, glancing down at Rose and sighing. ‘Now, Miss Ashley, if you could just step into my office and give me a few details…’
Rose had a dreamlike sense of unreality throughout the interview that followed. After all, she didn’t even have a passport as proof of her identity, let alone a proper job or any sign of financial stability apart from the title deeds of Aunt Em’s cottage, which were lodged with a local solicitor. And yet Hugh Thomas seemed extraordinarily unfazed by all of this and very soon produced a document for her to sign with terms of interest that seemed to her inexperienced eye remarkably favourable. When Greg arrived after the prescribed half-hour she stumbled out, looking dazed.
‘Well?’ he demanded. ‘How did it go?’
‘He’s agreed,’ she said in disbelief. ‘A fifteen-thousand-pound personal loan and another five-thousand-pound overdraft facility. And he’s supplied me with some cash for immediate expenses. I can’t believe it!’
‘Oh, Hugh’s a pretty shrewd man,’ said Greg. ‘He knows a good business proposition when he sees one. And a trustworthy client. Come on, let’s go and have a cream tea to celebrate.’
He took her to an unpretentious tea-shop down by the waterfront and they sat outside on a balcony gay with red geraniums and striped blue and white umbrellas.
‘It’s going to be quite a long time before that cottage is fit to take in paying guests,’ worried Rose aloud. ‘I’ll have to buy a PC with an eighty-megabyte hard disk so I can finish this stock-control program. Oh, dear! How am I going to cope?’
‘That’s easily organised,’ said Greg, reaching into his pocket for a battered notebook and Biro. ‘Tell me what kind you need and I’ll try and get you a suitable ma-chine in Plymouth. Now, the next thing is to organise your renovations. I can put you on to some good tradesmen who’ll save you a packet, but there’s another suggestion I’d like to make to you.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Rose warily.
‘You know what it’s like when you’re renovating a house. There’s always a terrible mess, no electric power, no proper plumbing, dust everywhere. Well, my suggestion is this: while they’re fixing up your house, why don’t you move into my cottage?’
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_8333fb35-cef1-564e-997a-48992df0725d)
‘WHAT do you mean?’ demanded Rose in an outraged voice. ‘Move into your cottage?’ Greg tried hard to look like an innocent lamb and failed dismally. Nothing could conceal the disturbing glint in his dark eyes as they moved lingeringly down over her body.
‘You’re too hard on me, Rose,’ he protested. ‘You’re not afraid I’m going to seduce you, are you?’
‘No, I’m not afraid you’re going to seduce me!’ exclaimed Rose hotly and then hurriedly lowered her voice as she saw several people glance over their shoulders in an interested fashion. ‘I wouldn’t put it past you to try, but I’m not afraid of it because I wouldn’t let it happen!’
‘Then what’s the problem?’ asked Greg.
‘The problem is that you lure me into doing things that I don’t intend to do and that I regret afterwards, like going to see the bank manager—not that I regretted that afterwards because it all turned out so well,’ said Rose, getting rather tangled up. ‘Oh, you know perfectly well what I mean, Greg. I don’t want to be alone with you!’
‘But you wouldn’t be,’ said Greg. ‘I wouldn’t be there.’
Rose was conscious of an unexpected stab of disappointment. ‘What do you mean, you wouldn’t be there?’ she demanded, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.
Greg spread a scone with jam and cream, took an appreciative bite and then sipped some tea before he answered. ‘I’m based in Plymouth right through the week,’ he said. ‘I’m only ever here on weekends.’
‘Then what were you doing here yesterday and today?’ challenged Rose. ‘On a Monday and Tuesday?’
Greg sighed and stroked his chin. ‘You’re very unsportsmanlike to point that out,’ he complained. ‘Anyway, that was an exception. Most weeks I’m busy at the shipyard Monday to Friday and I only come home on the weekends. You’d have my cottage to yourself nearly all of the time and you’d actually be doing me a favour if you stayed there.’
‘Doing you a favour? What do you mean?’
‘It would discourage housebreakers if you were staying in the house.’
‘Housebreakers? In Polperro?’
‘There are purse snatchers,’ Greg reminded her.
Rose was silent for a moment, drumming her fingers on the red and white checked tablecloth and then fiddling restlessly with a geranium in a glass vase. She felt an unwelcome stir of interest in Greg’s proposition, but events were moving far too fast for her. In the past she had always thought of herself as cautious, sensible, slow to take risks or tackle new relationships. It had been several months before she had even let Martin kiss her, much less talk her into sleeping with him. And she had never really enjoyed it, which only confirmed her dismal certainty that she was more aloof than most women. Yet Greg Trelawney seemed to crash through her reserve without any effort at all. In fact, his brooding dark eyes and crooked smile were beginning to hold an almost hypnotic fascination for her. With a tremulous leap of the heart, she realised exactly what she feared if she went to stay with him. Not Greg. Herself. A fiery, aching sweetness throbbed through her as she remembered how he had kissed her in the firelight. What would she do if he did that again? Order him to stop or…? A shudder thrilled through her body and her eyes flashed up to his in a swift, tormented glance. It was madness even to think of such things! Madness. No. She liked Greg and trusted him, but she wasn’t going to invite heartbreak a second time.
‘It’s impossible—’ she began urgently.
‘It’s sensible,’ he cut in. ‘Look, Rose, your great-aunt’s house is going to be uninhabitable and you know it. You haven’t got any money to spend on a hotel and my cottage is standing empty. Why not take advantage of it? Are you going to let your stupid pride stand in the way?’
Rose’s tempestuous feelings found vent in anger. ‘That’s a very sneakily worded question,’ she snapped. ‘If I say yes, it’s like admitting that I’m proud and stupid, and if I say no, I’ve played right into your hands.’
‘Touché,’ murmured Greg admiringly. ‘You’re no fool, are you, Rose?’
‘No, I’m not,’ she retorted. ‘And I’m not going to be sweet-talked into this. I’m sorry, Greg, I’m genuinely grateful for all you’ve done for me, but enough is enough. I don’t want to be so much in your debt. And anyway, what about the weekends? What would we do then?’
‘We slept together last night,’ pointed out Greg.
Several newspapers rustled and there was a discreet turning of heads on other parts of the balcony. ,
‘No, we did not!’ hissed Rose, wishing passionately that she could manage to shout and whisper at the same time. ‘You slept in the spare room and nothing happened between us!’
‘Nothing?’ taunted Greg.
Rose’s face flamed at the reminder of that kiss in the firelight. She tossed her head angrily and her blue eyes shot sparks.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said in a tense, rapid voice. ‘But I am not going to come and live in your cottage.’
Greg sighed and shook his head. ‘That’s a pity,’ he said soberly, looking straight into her eyes. ‘I didn’t think you really cared about convention. When I first saw you, I thought to myself, Now there’s a woman who looks conventional, but isn’t. She’s just on the brink of dis-covering who she is and she’s got the courage to find out. Well, it seems I was wrong.’
Rose flinched at the unmistakable sarcasm in his voice, then she glanced around the balcony and noticed how the other customers’ eyes shifted hastily away from her. Her eyes came back to Greg’s with a proud, defiant ex-pression. In that instant she reached a hard decision. She knew he was intentionally goading her, but there was enough truth in his words to touch her on the raw. Was she always going to hang back from challenges or was she going to find out what she really wanted from life?
‘You’re not going to give up at the first sign of difficulty, are you?’ she demanded in a deliberate echo of his words the previous day. ‘You don’t have the look of a coward, my dear.’
A gleam of admiration illuminated Greg’s face. He reached across and gripped her hand so hard that it hurt
‘Let’s go home,’ he urged hoarsely.
Greg’s cottage was as spacious as Aunt Em’s, but in far better condition. It stood high on the cliff-top just to the west of Polperro, with a dry-stone wall around it, a ship’s wheel set in its sparkling teal-blue gate, a garden full of lavender and roses in the front and a paved terrace and dazzling view of the ocean in the rear. He led her round to the back of the house and opened an unlocked glass door which led into a Victorian-style conservatory.
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