by Peggy Gaddis
She looked up over her shoulder at Carl, who was serving her more coffee.
“Carl, she told me earlier that she was hungry,” she confided in him. “Do you suppose you could find her something to eat and let me take it to her?”
“Well, of course, miss. I’ll take it to her cabin,” Carl offered eagerly.
“You’d better let me, Carl. She’s feeling as if she’d like to crawl into a hole and pull the hole in after her. So we’d better let her alone as much as we can. She’s become accustomed to me,” Claire told him.
“Well, yes, miss. You’re right, I’m sure,” Carl agreed. “I’ll see to it right away, miss.”
When he had gone, Claire turned to Curt apologetically.
“I’m told service aboard ships like the Queen doesn’t run to room service of meals. I hope I’m not upsetting the established routine.”
Curt chuckled, his eyes warm upon her.
“After what you’ve done, Claire, my dear, the Queen is yours to command, and everybody aboard her — including the Captain and me, as well.”
“Careful, friend!” Claire mocked him lightly. “Somebody will take you seriously one of these days.”
“It is my fondest wish that you will,” Curt told her quite simply, and for a startled moment, Claire’s eyes widened beneath the impact of what she saw in his. “I mean that, Claire, with all my heart.”
Color burned high in Claire’s face and she glanced uneasily along the table and saw the others had gone. And Curt, reading the swift, uneasy glance, said quietly, “Don’t be frightened, Claire.”
She turned her head swiftly and managed to meet his eyes and hated herself because her face was still hot.
Her hands shook a little despite her efforts to hold the tray steady. Halfway down the corridor, Major Lesley, loitering, obviously waiting for her, came to meet her.
“Is that for the little girl?” He indicated the tray and, at her nod, smiled. “She’s not in her cabin. She’s on deck, with that young MacEwen Russell.”
Claire laughed. “Then maybe I shouldn’t bother trying to feed her, though she told me she was getting hungry quite a while ago.”
“I’ll show you where she is,” Major Lesley offered, and reached for the tray. “May I?”
“Thanks, but I’d better carry it, don’t you think? I’ve had a great deal of experience carrying trays!”
He guided her along the deck and to the spot where she had had her own deck chair set up and where she and Nora had talked before. As she rounded the corner, she stopped short and looked down.
Nora sat in Claire’s deck chair, MacEwen in the one beside her. He was holding both her hands very gently, and their voices were low-pitched and intimate.
Claire stood for a moment, hesitant, unnoticed; and then briskly she made her presence known and deposited the tray firmly on Nora’s lap and said as firmly, “You have to keep your strength up, you know.”
MacEwen scrambled to his feet, obviously annoyed at the interruption. But Nora, steadying the tray across her knees, looked up at Claire, beaming eagerly above a small tissue-wrapped package that had been held between her two palms, as MacEwen held her hands together.
“Oh, Claire, look at the lovely thing Mac gave me.” She glowed, unwrapped the tissue and revealed a necklace and a matching bracelet made of the tiniest possible sea shells, no larger than grains of wheat, intricately woven into tiny, colored flowers. “Aren’t they lovely?”
Claire lifted the package and examined the necklace, and echoed Nora’s delighted praise.
“Where in the world, Mac, did you find anything so exquisite?” Claire asked. “It’s beautiful.”
MacEwen looked pleased and happy.
“Oh, it’s nothing much,” he said cheerfully. “I picked it up in a little shop in Port-au-Prince. The natives make them, I understand. It looked like flowers and — well, I liked it. So when I wanted to give Nora some flowers, such as you always send somebody you like when they’ve been sick, I thought of this.”
He looked down at Nora, who was ignoring the tray across her lap and crooning like a happy child over the gift.
“Well, for Pete’s sake,” he pretended to scold her, “it’s not the Russian crown jewels, nor yet the Hope diamond. It’s just a silly little trinket I picked up and thought you might like to have.”
“Oh, I’d much rather have it than either of those, Mac! It’s so different from anything I’ve ever had. Fasten it around my neck, will you, Mac?” She bowed her head and held the necklace in place while his fingers fastened the small catch.
Chapter Fourteen
A day or two later at dinner, Captain Rodolfson smiled about the table and said cheerfully, “I have good news for all of you. We’ve been ordered to put in at Honduras to pick up some cargo. You will have several hours ashore, and I’m sure you will enjoy it. Belize is a city little known to tourists, and yet it is a fascinating place.”
Major Lesley beamed in happy eagerness.
“Oh, yes, Captain, I’ve read about it. We are very lucky to get a chance to go ashore there,” he said, and turned to the others with what Claire recognized, with affectionate amusement, as his “walking guide-book” expression. Belize was founded in 1578 as a mining settlement, and then in 1880 became the capital of Honduras. I’m sure it must be a fascinating place. It’s a banana republic, isn’t it, Captain?”
“It’s a British possession,” Captain Rodolfson agreed. “And it has a one-crop economy, which is bananas. They call them the ‘yellow gold of Honduras.’ ”
For some reason she could never afterwards understand, Claire found herself looking at Vera, whose expression was that of one who had had a terrific shock. For a moment she sat quite still, her face white beneath her careful make-up, her eyes on her plate. Beneath the edge of the table her hands were gripped tightly together, and Claire could see the rigidity of her shoulders as her hands clenched.
Nora, beside her mother, looked almost as shocked, and after a moment Nora touched her tongue to suddenly dry lips and faced the captain.
“Do we have to stop there, Captain?” she asked huskily.
Captain Rodolfson looked at her swiftly, smiling faintly.
“I’m afraid we do, Miss Barclay,” he answered politely. “Why? Are you getting bored with our leisurely pace?”
“Oh no, it’s not that,” Nora stammered, and glanced across the table at MacEwen who was watching her curiously. “It’s just that — well, if we keep putting in at every small port along the coast, we just won’t ever get anywhere, will we?”
Captain Rodolfson smiled at her.
“That’s freighter travel, Miss Barclay,” he admitted lightly. “We have a vague idea of where we are going, but we have no idea whatever about how long it’s going to take us to get there, and most of our passengers don’t seem to mind. They claim it’s one of the reasons they like freighter travel.”
“Well, of course — ” Nora stammered, and added, “You did say Honduras was British, didn’t you?”
The others were listening curiously. Nora was flushed and stammering, but it seemed that she must have an answer to her question.
“Well, yes, but it’s nothing like the Bahamas or the more sophisticated tourist spots of the British colonies in the Caribbean,” the captain explained. “It’s far more Spanish than British, and very interesting. I’m sure you will enjoy going ashore there for a few hours.”
Vera spoke for the first time, her voice taut and thin.
“How soon will we be there, Captain?”
“Well, we hope to make port there within the next twenty-four hours,” he answered with a friendly smile. “But of course the Queen makes her own rules. So far, we’ve been making good time, but these waters can be a bit tricky. However, the motto of the freighter lines is, ‘What’s the rush?’ ”
Vera’s brows drew together in a savage scowl and she got to her feet.
“If I’d had the slightest idea that we were just going to potter around in
these waters, I’d never have come aboard,” she snapped, and her tone was so ugly that they all stared at her, a trifle shocked. “I thought even a freighter had some sort of schedule that was followed with a reasonable amount of attention. This — this is ridiculous!”
The captain’s expression was much less genial than usual, though he spoke as politely as before.
“I’m very sorry you are so dissatisfied with us, Mrs. Barclay, but surely the agent through whom you bought your ticket warned you that we stopped wherever ordered, by radio, to pick up cargo?”
Vera tried hard to control herself but her anger burst the frail bonds of that attempt, and she cried harshly, “Nobody told me that we’d just poke around, like an old woman hunting her thimble.”
She turned then and went out of the salon, moving so swiftly that she left behind her a small, resentful murmur. After a moment, Nora, her face scarlet, muttered a breathless, “Excuse me,” and followed her mother.
MacEwen started to rise, met Claire’s eyes, saw the tiny negative gesture Claire made and sank back into his seat, scowling.
Claire was relieved, a little later, to be able to make her escape from the table and to get out on deck where, as had become usual, Major Lesley was waiting for her.
He smiled a greeting, but she could see that he was troubled. And when a few minutes later Curt came up to where they were standing, she turned to him quickly.
“Captain’s compliments, Miss Frazier,” said Curt formally, “and he would appreciate it if you would come to his quarters for a few minutes.”
“Of course.” Claire’s tone was quite as formal as she smiled an apology and walked away with Curt.
At the door of the captain’s quarters, Curt threw open the door and stood aside, smiling, so Claire could precede him into the room. And then, to her complete astonishment, he followed her in, closed the door and ostentatiously turned the key in the lock.
Claire stared at him and then glanced about the room.
“But where is the captain?” she asked.
Curt gave her a small boy grin.
“On the bridge, where he will be for the next hour or so,” he assured her. “I borrowed his quarters, since it has become of vital importance that I have an uninterrupted conversation with you. And this seems to be my only chance. You’re always running away from me, or somebody is always intruding.”
Claire said sharply, “If this is your idea of a joke, I don’t find it at all funny.”
Curt studied her as though he found the sight of her very rewarding.
“It’s far from a joke and it’s not intended to be funny, darling,” he told her, his tone so matter of fact that the endearment seemed to leap out at her as something so incredible that she could only gasp.
He indicated a chair and asked politely, “Won’t you sit down?”
“Thanks, I prefer to stand.”
“I think you’d better sit down,” he insisted, and because it would have been absurdly undignified to argue, Claire obeyed him.
For a moment he seemed somewhat at a loss as to how to begin, and paced the brief length of the cabin and back again, one hand sunk in his pocket, the other rumpling his hair, his brows drawn together in a scowl of concentration.
“I’ve tried to get a chance to talk to you, Claire, but you’re always slipping away,” he said at last. “And then you drew a gun on me.”
Claire stared at him in utter astonishment.
“I did no such thing!” she gasped.
He grinned wryly.
“Oh, yes, you did,” he insisted. “You threw me a remark so loaded that there was no possible answer to it, and then you stalked out in a rage. And I’ve never been quite able to understand just why you felt you had to do that. Walk out on me, I mean. Especially when you’d hurled that loaded remark at me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Claire hated herself because she could not keep her voice steady.
“Sure you do,” he insisted firmly. “It was something to the effect that I was much too — I believe the phrase you used was ‘devastatingly good-looking’ — for your taste. Now if that isn’t a loaded remark, I’ve never heard one.”
“You’re not trying to tell me you aren’t perfectly aware of your good looks and your well-practiced charm?” Claire mocked spitefully.
He studied her a moment longer and then said very quietly, “That hurt.”
“I’m sorry — ”
His eyes held hers, steady, measuring, yet with something in their depths that was much warmer and that had the ability to make her heart beat uncomfortably fast.
“You’re not a bit sorry,” he countered grimly. “If only I knew what it was that I do — or that I am — that irritates you so, darling, I’d try to change it. I promise with all my heart — ”
“This is utterly absurd,” Claire said wildly. She tried to get to her feet and was unpleasantly startled to discover that her knees wouldn’t support her. “I know it’s a part of your job to charm feminine passengers — ”
“That,” Curt stated dispassionately, “is a lie.”
Claire blinked and caught her breath as she studied him.
His brown jaw was hard-set, a little ridge of muscle leaping along it, his eyes cold and bleak. Now he was looking at her as though he didn’t like her at all, and she saw that he was coldly angry.
“I’m the captain’s second-in-command,” he stated coldly. “As such it’s my job to take as many of the worrisome details of his job as I can on my own shoulders. ‘Charming the feminine passengers’ is certainly not a part of my job, as you so charmingly put it. Just why you should be so busy trying to cut me down to size, I have no idea. But before you leave this room, you’re going to tell me — if it takes us until the end of the cruise! Is that clear?”
“It’s nothing personal,” Claire managed huskily. “It’s just that I’m — well, a bit wary of good-looking men.”
Curt studied her for a moment, and then he nodded.
“He must have been one gosh-awful fool,” he said quietly.
Claire felt as though she had taken a step in the dark and stubbed her toe violently.
“He?” she stammered wildly, knowing it was inane but unable in her present state of mind to find anything better to say.
Curt nodded as though he, too, felt it was inane but answered it nonetheless.
“The man who hurt you so much that you’re a bit soured on the whole sex,” he said.
Claire looked away from him and felt her face flush with shame.
“She had a lot of money,” she managed feebly.
“I still say he was a fool, if you were in love with him.”
“I was very much — ”
“Then I’m sorry, darling. Very sorry.”
There was a brief moment of silence between them that warned her of the growing tension. Once more she tried to stand, and this time, by resting her hand on the chair arm, she managed it.
“May I go now?” she asked faintly.
He looked up at her from the chair where he had sat down, and his brows were knotted in a scowl.
“Of course not,” he told her sternly. “We aren’t nearly through.”
Claire blinked, but sat down again and managed to meet his eyes.
“If I’ve been offensive,” she stammered against that growing tension, “I apologize. I’m sorry — ”
“Offensive is scarcely the word I’d have used,” Curt told her. “But I suppose it will have to do. It’s much milder than I’d have used. Still, now that we have reached some sort of understanding — ” He broke off and his scowl deepened. “We have, haven’t we?”
Claire gave a small, startled laugh that was faintly edged with hysteria.
“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know about that,” she confessed.
“Well, at least I know now why you have been treating me like the lowest living form of animal life,” he told her with a sudden briskness. “And you know that I’m in love with you and wa
nt to marry you — ”
“What?”
He looked at her in puzzled surprise.
“Well, don’t you?” he demanded.
Claire’s eyes were round with astonishment, and her heart was beating so hard she felt certain he must hear it.
“How could I?” she asked faintly. “You never said so — ”
“And what chance have I had to say anything to you that couldn’t be said in the presence of the entire passenger list and most of the crew?” he demanded sharply. “Why else do you suppose I lured you here tonight, except to settle the details?”
Claire asked faintly, “What details?”
“Why, the details of just when and where we will be married, of course.” He seemed to think her question was too absurd to deserve an answer. “It can be at sea, with Captain Rodolfson performing the ceremony and the passengers and crew as witnesses; or it can be ashore, provided you don’t make me wait too long. I really am very much in love with you, Claire. I’m thirty-two, and this is the first time I’ve ever said that to a woman.”
Claire put her hands to her throbbing forehead and stared at him in helpless amazement.
“But — oh, for goodness sake!” she stammered faintly. “I haven’t said I’d marry you, anywhere or at any time.”
The eager light went out of his eyes and his face fell. His big, lean, powerful-looking fingers were twisted together, and his eyes were on them as though he could no longer endure to look at her.
“I know,” he said huskily. “I thought maybe if I talked very fast, took an awful lot for granted and hurried you, I might bludgeon you into saying yes. I see I was wrong.”
“You wouldn’t really want a wife you’d have to bludgeon into marrying you, would you?” she asked.
Curt looked up at her, and their eyes tangled. And a warm, wild sweetness unlike anything she had ever known before slipped into her heart. She had a sudden desire to lean forward, frame his face between her two palms and kiss him! And the force, the unexpectedness of that desire shocked her so that for a moment her face revealed her emotion.