by Flora Kidd
'Why the sudden display of virtue?' he jeered. 'You were going to do it with Blair, and he's a married man.'
'I've told you already that I wasn't going to—' she began to retort, turning on him angrily, her eyes blazing with tawny fire through the tears, and breaking off when she saw the cynical twist of his lips, the expression of disbelief in his eyes. He had changed again. The tender, passionate lover had become a world-weary, disillusioned man.
'If you weren't going to make love with Blair, and share his bed, why the hell were you going away with him?' he demanded, rising to his feet and going over to the small table beside the armchair. Picking up the decanter, he took out the stopper and poured more whisky into the glass.
'To… to have a quiet holiday, a few days together where no one would know us, where we wouldn't be watched all the time and reported upon.'
'You really believe that was all it was going to be—a few quiet days, taking long country walks, perhaps, admiring the scenery and then going to your separate rooms at night?' he remarked scornfully. He flopped down in the armchair again, drank some of the whisky. 'Well, you can be sure that wasn't the sort of holiday Blair would have in mind at all,' he added, his glance drifting over her from head to foot. 'If he'd wanted that sort of holiday he would never have invited someone like you, Eilidh, you can be sure of that,' he added softly.
'Oh, I can see you've made up your mind about me and nothing I say is going to change it,' she retorted, bounding to her feet. 'Just because I've been friendly with Blair you've assumed I'm… I'm promiscuous and that I sleep with any man who invites me to sleep with him. Well, I'm not! I've never wanted to make love with any man…' Realising she was about to say 'until now', she broke off confusedly and swung away from him, turning her back on him again in case he saw the rush of colour to her face. 'Never. Never,' she insisted, and turned towards him again, standing straight and proud, her hands in the pockets of her tweed jacket, her glance slanting down at him disdainfully. 'Do you hear?' 'I hear you all right, but that doesn't mean to say I believe you,' he drawled. 'You wanted to make love with me just now on that sofa.'
'I… I…you took advantage,' she accused in a whisper.
'Maybe I did, but you didn't have to respond,' he retorted, then finished off the whisky and set the glass down. 'Oh, go away, Eilidh,' he added wearily, pouring more whisky. 'Go away and hide somewhere. The castle is big enough for us both to stay here without seeing each other, if that's the way you want it to be. And you don't have to lock your bedroom door. I won't be "taking advantage of you", as you call it, again tonight.'
Helen hesitated, watching him pick up the glass and drink from it.
'I hope you're not going to drink all that whisky tonight,' she said stiffly.
'What's it to you if I do?' he retorted. 'Are you a would-be reformer as well as a virgin?' he added nastily.
'I hate you!' she hissed at him, and turning on her heel marched from the room.
She went right upstairs to her bedroom, entered it and slammed the door shut behind her, hoping Magnus would hear the slam and know that she was angry. Across the dark room she stepped to the window and leaned her forehead against the pane to cool it. She could see nothing but rain-streaked blackness, could hear nothing but the roar and hiss of the unseen sea flinging itself against the reef of rocks in the small bay and the flute-like song of the wind.
She was trapped in a remote castle with a madman. Mad. Magnus was mad—he must be mad! Only a madman would entice a woman he didn't know to an isolated castle and then proceed to make love to her. And madness would account for his changeability, wouldn't it, for the way he had seemed like several different persons during the space of the few hours she had been with him?
Mad, bad and dangerous to know. She had read that somewhere. Frowning, she tried to remember. A poet had written it. But which poet? Ah, it was coming to her now, a memory of studying the Romantic poets in English Literature at school and reading about the infamous Lord Byron and his affair with Lady Caroline Lamb. It hadn't been a poet—it had been Lady Caroline herself, frantic and bitter after Byron had ended the affair. And then she had revenged herself on him by using him as the model for the hero-villain of her book Glenarvon, discrediting him in the eyes of the reading public.
Well, Magnus was mad, he must be to behave the way he had, impersonating Blair and making her come to this island. He was bad because he told lies and drank too much whisky. And he was dangerous to know—at least it was dangerous for her to know him, because he had the ability to change her from a cool collected person in charge of her emotions and knowing where she was going into a woman who could be overcome by her emotions; because he could make love so tenderly and expertly, arousing in her sensations she had read about but had always believed were beyond her experience. In an hour filled with purely sensual pleasure he had taught her what it was like to want a man and to want him in particular.
She groaned and pressed her head harder against the window pane as if by doing so she could obliterate the memory of his kisses. Just remembering how he had touched her made her breasts harden and the ache of longing begin, low down. Why? Why had he made love to her? Had he really wanted her as he had said he did? Was he really attracted to her? How? How could he be attracted to her so quickly? Love, even physical love, needed time to grow, didn't it?
Magnus. Magnus who? Magnus what? She hadn't found out. She had been going to ask him what his last name was, thinking that if she knew it she would recognise who he was. But he had taken control of the conversation. Yes, that was what had happened. When she had asked him if she could have seen or met him before today he had started to make love to her with words at first, not giving her a chance to question him further.
She straightened up and stared at the rainswept window. Had he made love to her deliberately to distract her? Had he wanted to stop her from finding out who he really was? Probably. Her hands clenched at her sides and she gritted her teeth as she realised how easily he had been able to distract her from her purpose, and she wished she could think up some way to get even with him.
Anger not just with Magnus but also with herself for haying been so weak and having responded to his lovemaking pulsed through her, and turning away from the window she switched on the bedside lamp and began to undress. She would go to bed, even though it was only ten o'clock. She would get a good night's rest, get up early in the morning and find some way of escaping from the island. Finding her nightdress and dressing gown, she put them on and then visited the bathroom next door As she returned to the bathroom she noticed how quiet the castle was except for the battering of the wind against walls and windows. Where did Magnus sleep? she wondered. I don't want to know. I don't want to know, she answered herself fiercely, and hurrying into the bedroom she closed the door firmly and finding a key in the lock turned it. Although Magnus had said she didn't need to lock it to keep him out she didn't trust him.
Once she was in bed she tried very hard to make her mind a blank, to blot him from her thoughts, but she couldn't. It seemed that he had taken over, blotting out her memories of Blair even.
Who was he? A friend of Wanda Murray, who was Blair's wife. What sort of friend would Wanda have? Other singing stars? Members of the rock groups who accompanied her? Was that what Magnus did? Was he a guitarist or a drummer, or even another singer? Was that why he seemed familiar to her?
She tried to remember which groups had accompanied Wanda on her records and to fit them to the groups she had seen herself over the past few years while she had been emerging from adolescence into womanhood. She had seen them either on television or in photographs in magazines, or a few times in person when she had gone to rock concerts. But none of the members of the groups had been tall and graceful, with brilliant blue eyes.
She fell asleep while she was still struggling to solve the problem of Magnus's identity, and when she wakened the room was full of light, the pearl-grey light of early morning, and the wind seemed to have abated. She l
ooked at her watch. It was six-thirty. Perhaps now would be a- good time to leave before Magnus was up and about. Getting out of bed, she padded over to the window and stood for a moment transfixed by the beauty of the view.
The sea was calm, stretching like silvery grey silk to a distant clearly defined horizon. Scattered islands loomed, some high and mountainous, some low and flat, merely shelves of rock just showing above the surface of the water. Below, in the small bay in front of the castle, reefs of red rocks glowed against pale sand where big white and grey gulls stalked about seeking for food in pools.
The storm was over, the sea was calm. She would go to the jetty again and hope to find some way of signalling to the Macleishes' cottage. Perhaps she might see a fishing boat going by and be able to attract the fisherman's attention. Anyway, she was going to leave the castle. She couldn't possibly spend all day in it, knowing that Magnus was somewhere in it too.
Quickly she dressed in the clothes she had worn the previous day, packed her suitcase and left the bedroom. She tiptoed along the landing and down the stairs and entered the kitchen warily. It was just as she had left it the previous evening. She picked up her raincoat and put it on, then left by the back door. In a few minutes she was walking across the moorland, stepping carefully to avoid the boggy patches. The air was soft and damp, singing with the sound of many small streams, and by the time she reached the pinewood the sun had broken through the thin grey gauze clouds and was flushing, everything with rosy light.
When she reached the jetty she was short of breath and her suitcase felt as if it weighed a ton. The little bay was smooth and unruffled, reflecting pale clouds and patches of blue sky perfectly. Across the swirling water of the narrow strait the sunlit walls of the Macleishes' cottage twinkled. Helen walked right to the end of the jetty and dropped her suitcase. If only she had something to wave that would attract attention! But they would only see her if they were looking, she thought dejectedly.
She turned and looked back at the land curving behind the bay, hoping to see the motorboat washed up on the crescent of yellow sand. Her glance followed the beach right round to the cliffs which protected the bay from the north. Tucked under the shelter of the jumble of red rocks was the grey shape of a boathouse. Her eyes narrowed. Was that a boat, painted white, lying beside the nearest wall of the shed?
Suddenly she was off and running back along the jetty, turning right along a path which wound through reeds and clumps of sea-pinks. Terns, small white birds, disturbed by her approach, soared up into the air before her, squealing angrily.
At last the walls of the boathouse loomed before her. They were green with moss and half hidden by overgrown bushes. In the long grass lay a small white-painted dinghy, its flat bottom upwards. It was the sort Helen recognised from her days of sailing with her father on the Solway Firth, often pulled by bigger yachts as tenders for getting ashore.
Triumph surged through her. She had found a way of escape! If there were oars and rowlocks she would be able to row across the strait, to her car. In little more than an hour she would be on her way, speeding south.
CHAPTER THREE
Taking hold of the rail of the dinghy, Helen lifted it and pushed the boat over on to its bottom. Where it had been covered by the boat the grass was white and yellow. Two oars lay there, the varnished wood from which they were made gleaming gold in the sunlight. She examined the inside of the dinghy. It had three thwarts, one on the bow, one across the centre and another in the stern. Tied to the centre thwart were two rowlocks.
Since the dinghy was made apparently from marine plywood it wasn't as heavy as it would have been if it had been a more traditional boat and made from heavy planks of wood, and she was able to drag it off the grass and on to the beach, close to the water. When she had done that she returned to the jetty to fetch her suitcase. By the time she was back at the dinghy she was hot and breathless, so she took off her raincoat, folded it up and put it in the bow thwart, then leaned for a while against the little boat, resting, watching the water lapping at the sand and occasionally looking over to the jetty in case Magnus appeared suddenly.
Putting the oars in the dinghy and her suitcase on the floor of it, she pushed the little boat bow first into the clear water and stepped into it. She sat in the middle of the centre thwart, and taking hold of the oars pushed against the beach with them, thrusting the dinghy farther out until it was afloat. Then she slid the oars into the rowlocks which she had fitted into the galvanised iron rings attached to the wooden rail of the boat and began to row, glad that she had learned how at an early age.
She was about twelve yards away from the shore and was almost out into the strait when she realised that her feet were wet. Glancing down, she saw that about two inches of water was slopping about in the bottom of the dinghy. Deciding that some of it had slopped over the bow when it had hit one of the small waves that were rippling into the bay, she rowed on, pulling less strongly on the oars. She judged that the distance to the mainland was about a mile and a half to two miles, and if the little boat was going to take water over its bow she would have to row more carefully, more gently, so it would take her longer than the hour she had expected.
A few minutes later water slithered over the tops of her shoes and into them, completely submerging her feet, and yet she was sure no water had come over the bow. Lifting her feet out of the water, she rested them on the stern thwart. The position wasn't comfortable and it made rowing more difficult, so she lowered them again into the water.
She was out of the bay and the jetty was growing smaller and the dark pines and the rock-scattered tawny moorland behind them seemed to be growing higher and higher when she heard the shout. A figure was running along the jetty, a man dressed in a bright yellow jacket. Magnus. Stopping at the end of the jetty, he waved his arms at her above his head, then cupping his hands about his mouth he shouted again.
'The dinghy has a hole in it,' she heard quite clearly. 'Come back, Eilidh! Come back at once!'
So that was why the boat was filling with water. Helen stopped rowing and looked down. The water was halfway up the sides of the boat now and her suitcase was almost covered. Pulling hard on the right oar, she tried to turn the dinghy, but it was too water-logged for her to make it turn, added to which she was out in a strong tidal current and the boat was being swept slowly but surely along, not towards the mainland or towards Carroch, but towards the wider expanse of the Sound of Jura.
Tempted to stand up, take off her jacket and dive into the water, Helen seemed to hear her father's instructions about what to do when a boat was in danger of sinking or capsizing repeating in her mind. Stay with the boat, always stay with the boat. Hold on to it, because it will float. So will an oar or part of a mast. Hang on to any piece of wood that you can.
Suddenly she realised that she would have to get out of the boat if she wanted it to keep floating. Moving to one side of it, she tipped the rail under and fell into the water with a splash. At once the current caught at her, trying to whirl her away from the boat which, as she had hoped, had turned over and was now floating upside down. As she passed it she flung herself forward and managed to throw herself on top of its flat bottom. Breathless, half-choked by the salt water she had swallowed when she had fallen in the water, she lay there, only just above the surface of the deadly swirling water, but at least not in it.
How much time passed before she heard the distinctive roar of the motorboat's engine she couldn't be sure, but she heard it with a feeling of incredulity and looked round to see its black bow forging towards her, wings of white spray flying up on either side of it. Behind the windshield was a man in a yellow jacket.
When the motorboat was alongside the dinghy Magnus put the engine in neutral and leaned over the side, stretching out a hand to her.
'Give me your hand and I'll pull you in closer so that I can lift you aboard,' he ordered.
Helen did as he told her and was glad to feel his hand, warm and strong, close around hers. When th
e dinghy was close to the motorboat she knelt up and he lifted her, holding her under the armpits, and with a little push against the bottom of the dinghy she was up and over the side of the motorboat.
Magnus pushed her into the passenger seat, put the engine in gear, swung the steering wheel, opened the throttle and headed back towards the jetty in the bay. Sweeping back her wet hair and feeling uncomfortably clammy, Helen looked around the boat. It was the same one in which he had taken her to Carroch the previous day, the one she had believed had been washed away during the storm.
'Where did you find the boat?' she demanded, turning to him. 'Was it washed ashore somewhere?'
He slanted her a bright glance over his shoulder. His face was very pale, she noticed, and his mouth was set in a grim tight line.
'You could have been drowned,' he said, his voice grating. 'You bloody little fool! Why didn't you check the dinghy to make sure it was seaworthy before you launched it?'
Why hadn't she? Because she had been too excited by her find, too pleased to have discovered a way of escaping, to take the time to check the dinghy for holes. She glanced over the sun-shimmering water to the mainland which was going farther and farther away again as they approached the island jetty. The whitewashed walls of the Macleish cottage glimmered yellow with reflected sunlight, seeming to mock her, and the water of the strait swirled by relentlessly, blue and silver. Magnus was right, she could have drowned, and if he hadn't followed her she would have been swept right past Carroch by now, would be in the wide expanse of the Sound of Jura. She owed him her life.
The motorboat swung in behind the sheltering wall of the jetty and nudged up to the steps. Magnus put the engine in neutral.
'Get out,' he ordered. 'And take the rope with you.'