Dark Pirate

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.