Vintage Love

by Clarissa Ross

  She said, “You could, of course, be right. But up to now it has been so uneventful.”

  “It can always change,” he said earnestly. “I don’t think you understand yet what you have let yourself in for.”

  “I know it will be risky after we get to Marseilles.”

  “It can be risky at any time,” he said. “I’m worried for you, Betsy.” He took her by surprise by grasping her by the arms and drawing her close to him. “I’m also in love with you.”

  “No, please!” she protested.

  “I can’t help it,” he said unhappily, “I can’t play games any longer. I love you, and I have from the moment of our first meeting.”

  “Eric!” she pleaded with him to let her go.

  He brought her protests to an end by pressing his lips to hers. He kissed her passionately, and she found herself responding despite her determination not to be swayed. It was a reckless, dizzying moment of ecstasy as he held her close and their lips caressed.

  “Betsy, my dearest!” he whispered in her ear.

  Still in his embrace she said with a tiny moan, “Eric, you know this is wrong!”

  “Wrong? How can it be?” His handsome face showed anguish as he gazed at her.

  She looked up at him imploringly. “I hadn’t planned it this way!”

  “Does one plan love?”

  “It’s being here on the ship together!”

  “No!” he said. “Not true. I have been in love with you since that first night in London. Don’t you care for me at all?”

  He was still holding her, and she leaned against him, tears filling her eyes, her heart pounding so wildly she was sure he must be ware of it. “I didn’t want us to fall in love!”

  “Because of a fantasy on your part!”

  “Call it what you will! It has been real to me!”

  “You hated the man you thought caused your brother’s death. And when you found that I had been his superior officer, you hated me!”

  “I couldn’t help it!” she said piteously.

  “You know different now,” he said. “I was fond of Richard. I was wounded in the same advance in which he was killed. I was a victim as much as he!”

  She listened to his tense words and knew that he was right. For too long she had built up this hatred inside her, fueled by the words of someone who had not known the truth about her brother’s death. And she had made Eric the target of her desire for revenge.

  In a whisper she said, “I understand now. But give me time. Let me work it out my own way.”

  “You may have all the time you like,” he said gently. “Just tell me that you no longer hate me.”

  She looked up at him. “I no longer hate you, Eric.”

  “Thank you, my darling,” he said. And he kissed her again tenderly.

  She remained in his arms for a long, silent period. She somehow felt a great relief. She had known for long enough that she’d fallen in love with the handsome young major and he with her. She had tried to keep a barrier between them, though she was making herself unhappy. Now she had let the barrier down. Their love would have a chance to grow.

  He saw her back to the door of her cabin, and they kissed each other good night. She prepared for bed in a happier state of mind than she’d known for a very long while. As a result she almost instantly fell into a deep sleep.

  She wakened to darkness and the sound of her cabin door slowly creaking open. A shudder of fear raced through her, and she gazed at the door wide-eyed, not knowing what to do. Very slowly the door inched open, and then she saw a clawlike hand appear!

  She screamed, and as she did so, the door was closed and the hand vanished. After a moment Eric and Kingston were knocking at her door.

  Eric asked, “Betsy, are you all right?”

  “Yes,” she said faintly, rising and finding slippers and her robe.

  “We heard your screams!” he went on.

  “I know.” She tied the robe around her and went to the door and opened it.

  Eric and Kingston were standing out there in hastily donned trousers and tucked-in nightshirts. She saw there was a businesslike gun in Eric’s hand.

  He said, “What made you cry out?”

  “Someone opened my cabin door. I saw a hand like a claw!” she said in a voice which had a tremor in it.

  Kingston said, “Where did this intruder go?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “When I screamed, he slammed the door and ran off.”

  Eric looked grim. “That Indian, I’ll wager!”

  “I can’t say!” she told him.

  “We’ll take a look around,” Eric said.

  “Be careful!” she cautioned him.

  Eric told Kingston, “You stay close to her while I move around a little.”

  “Don’t worry!” the actor said. “I’ll be at her side every moment!”

  Eric nodded and vanished.

  Betsy stood there unhappily and then said, “I’m frightened for him going up there alone!”

  “He’ll be all right!” Kingston tried to placate her.

  “I think we ought to go up there also,” she said. “There may be more than one to deal with.”

  “Eric can defend himself,” Kingston said worriedly.

  “Please!” she said. “Let us go up!”

  He looked unhappy, then shrugged. “If you like. I haven’t any weapon!”

  “Mine is locked in the bag,” she said. “But there isn’t time to get it. We can at least scream for help if we see him in trouble! Be there to watch out for him!”

  “As you like!” the actor said.

  She left the cabin and hurried along the passage to the steps leading to the deck. In a moment she was out in the open with Kingston behind her. She glanced around to see where Eric might be, but he was nowhere in sight.

  “No sign of him,” she whispered.

  Behind her Kingston said, “He may be at the other end of the ship.”

  “We’ll look thoroughly here first,” she suggested.

  “He may have even gone back down below.”

  “I doubt that,” she said, keeping close to the shadows of the cabin wall and edging along slowly.

  All at once she heard a thudding sound behind her. She quickly whirled around and to her consternation saw Kingston collapsed on the floor. Standing over him and smiling at her in a maniacal manner was the old curé! And he had a knife in his hand!

  Chapter Eight

  BETSY TRIED to scream, but terror had robbed her of the ability to cry out! Just a frustrated, choking sound escaped her lips. The old priest showed a wicked look of satisfaction on his broad lined face, and with the hand with the knife upraised, he straddled the prostrate body of Kingston and came after her!

  She automatically turned and fled, racing for a gangway which led to the upper deck. She could hear him behind her, his scudding footsteps and his labored breathing! She kept on and climbed up a ladder to the level above her pursuer. As he came forward to climb up the ladder after her, she saw a strand of heavy rope swinging from the foremast. She grasped the rope and curled it about her and took a few rapid steps back! Then she swung ahead on the rope just as he came up over the edge of the cabin top!

  Her slippered feet caught him full in the face, and he let out a cry, threw his hands up in the air, lost the knife, and fell back! He fell all the way to the deck below. And as he lay there, Eric appeared. He stood over the fallen priest, gun in hand.

  “Up here!” she cried.

  He glanced up. And then she saw she had done him a great disservice. For at the moment of his glancing up to look at her, the priest bounded up from the deck and wrested the gun from his hand. Eric, now aware of his danger, took a step back. The priest was pointing the gun at him, ready to fire!

  She screamed again, certain that Eric would be killed. But at that very moment still another figure appeared. The turbaned Indian. He loomed up behind the crouching priest and seized him so suddenly that the gun went off wildly in the ai
r! For a moment the Indian held the squirming priest in the air, and then with great contempt he hurled him over the side!

  The shot and her screams had now attracted members of the crew, the captain, and some of the passengers. It was Eric who had to take the captain aside and quickly explain what had happened. While he was doing this, the crew was making efforts to locate the man in the water and rescue him.

  The captain was stunned. “You are saying monsieur le curé was a criminal?”

  “He was no priest at all,” Eric explained. “Just a criminal in disguise.”

  “But this is most unusual,” the captain protested. “I shall have to explain to our owners. Account for this man!”

  Eric said disgustedly. “You will get no complaints from any religious order. This man was in the employ of an evil group.”

  Betsy was at his side. “Kingston is hurt,” she said. And she led him to the actor.

  Kingston was sitting up now with a dazed expression on his face. “Blighter hit me over the head with something!”

  “Are you badly hurt?” Eric asked, helping him up.

  “No,” Kingston said, rubbing his head gingerly. “Sorry I let you down, Betsy.”

  “It was no fault of yours,” she said.

  Eric told her, “You did a lovely job of protecting yourself by kicking him. Then I almost let him kill us both!”

  “My fault! I screamed at you!” she reminded him.

  “The Indian saved us!” Eric said. And then suddenly realizing, he asked, “Where is the Indian?”

  “Back on the other side of the deck,” she said.

  “Let’s find him,” Eric said, taking her arm. The three went back to the other side of the ship. The captain was busy directing the crew in their rescue efforts while the passengers still on deck watched with awe.

  Seeing Eric, the captain spread his hands and said, “It is no use! We cannot locate him!”

  “Too many sharks in these waters,” Eric said grimly. “You may as well give up.”

  The captain nodded and then leaned over the side and shouted to the men in the longboat in Italian. They slowly headed the longboat back to the vessel. It was then that the Indian appeared and silently handed Eric back his gun.

  Eric took the gun and stared at the tall Indian. “You saved my life! I’m sure I know you from somewhere.”

  In a deep voice the Indian intoned, “Raj Singh. I was a member of the secret service at the time of your enlisting.”

  “Of course!” Eric gasped. “I only met you a couple of times. That’s why I couldn’t remember clearly where I’d seen you.”

  “You were extremely careless,” the Indian reprimanded him.

  “I was,” Eric admitted forlornly. “This young lady and I owe you our lives.”

  “You would do better to thank Mr. Black,” Raj Singh said.

  “Black!” Betsy gasped. “Did he place you on board to watch over us?”

  The Indian nodded.

  Kingston said, “And we thought you might be after us!”

  “My fault again!” Eric apologized. “I should have known you.”

  “It was perhaps better that you did not,” the Indian said. “I regret I had to act violently. But it was too late to have any choice.”

  Eric said, “You may be sure the captain will lay no charges against you. That fellow had a gun pointed ready to kill me and then this lady.”

  “If you will excuse me,” the Indian bowed. And he walked away from them.

  Betsy watched after his retreating figure. “It seems that Felix Black had some doubts about our safety on board.”

  “He was right,” Kingston said.

  “And I surely needed some protection,” Eric said. He turned to her. “We’d both have been dead if Raj Singh hadn’t appeared. And no doubt he’d have gotten back to Kingston and finished him after that. Our curé was going to be a busy priest, finishing off three of us in one night.”

  Betsy shuddered. “I wonder what he thought as he went over the side.”

  “No time to be morbid,” Eric told her. “Let’s go back to our cabins and try and get some rest.”

  Of course it was a vain struggle. She wasn’t able to sleep. The unbelievable events of the night kept repeating themselves to her. And soon it was dawn, and the others were getting up. She rose and washed and dressed.

  The dining salon was buzzing with gossip of what had taken place the night before and anticipation at reaching the port of Gibraltar within the hour. The excited matrons repeated many different versions of what had happened, most of them far wrong. It was known that Eric and Betsy had been mixed up in the melee, for they were greeted with curious stares.

  Samuel Jessup was in his usual place at the table beside her. The old man popped a pill in his mouth and said, “Too bad I took my sleeping tablets last night, or I might have enjoyed the excitement.”

  “I’d say you were better out of it,” she told him.

  “From what I’ve heard, that priest was no priest at all,” he said.

  “No. He was an impostor,” she said.

  Jessup nodded. “I tried to talk to him about medicine used in the monasteries, and he turned his back on me. No wonder; he couldn’t have known anything about it.”

  She finished breakfast and went out on deck in time to enjoy the Maria’s graceful entrance into the sheltered harbor of the fortress town with its great towering cliffs.

  The Maria was scheduled to remain in harbor overnight, unloading and loading. The harbor was a forest of masts, with the flags of many nations hanging from them. Gibraltar was a free port and attracted shipping from all over the world. The calm blue water of the harbor and its protected location made it a regular stop for many ships.

  It had been agreed among them that they would remain on board the ship. There was little to see in Gibraltar, and it might expose them to additional danger if they disembarked. The three stood in conference by the railing as the first of the passengers to leave moved along the gangway from the ship to the docks.

  Betsy said, “I see Mrs. Gaylin and Patricia leaving.”

  Eric smiled. “They haven’t even spoken to me since last night. They’re convinced I’m some kind of criminal.”

  “Better for you,” Kingston said, grinning broadly.

  “Yes. At least I’m no longer regarded as suitable husband material.”

  “We’re all lucky to be alive this morning,” Betsy said with a sigh.

  “Indeed, that is true,” Kingston agreed.

  “What I’d like to know is whether he intended leaving the ship here? Or if he had any confederates coming on board to meet him.”

  She gave a tiny shudder. “That thought doesn’t appeal to me.”

  “We must try to consider everything,” was Eric’s warning.

  The discussion continued, and then Raj Singh came to join them. He strode up to them in his solemn, deliberate way. He said, “You are remaining on the ship?”

  Eric nodded. “Yes. We thought it might be wise.”

  “I’m sure Mr. Black would agree,” the Indian said.

  Betsy spoke up. “We were wondering about the curé. Was he booked to leave the ship here or at Marseilles?”

  “Marseilles,” the Indian said. “I have already had that information from the ship’s purser.”

  “So it is unlikely that he has confederates here,” Eric said.

  Raj Singh studied him with a certain arrogance. “I am surprised that you still do not understand that Valmy has his spies everywhere.”

  “It’s time I should realize it,” Eric said unhappily. “I should never underestimate him.”

  “It does not matter,” the Indian said impassively. “I shall be leaving the ship here. My work is done. You will need me no more.”

  Eric said, “We shan’t feel safe after what happened.”

  “I see no need for your concern,” the Indian said in his deep voice.

  Betsy assured him, “We shall feel lost without you. And at first
we didn’t understand. We’d decided you were against us.”

  The Indian revealed one of his rare smiles. “I hope I may have proven myself.”

  Betsy said, “You are a brave man and a strong one.”

  “Thank you,” Raj Singh bowed. “If you have any mail you wish to send back to England, I shall be happy to look after it for you.”

  “I have some reports for Black,” Eric said. “To which I must add what happened last night.”

  “I can wait until until you have finished the report,” the Indian said.

  “Why are you leaving us at Gibraltar?” Betsy asked.

  “Mr. Black’s orders are to leave the ship here,” the Indian said.

  Eric asked, “Are you working solely for Felix Black now?”

  Raj Singh nodded. “I belong to Mr. Black’s private police force.”

  “And a good thing you do,” Eric praised him. “And now I’d better go and get that report in order for you to take.”

  The Maria sailed from Gibraltar the following morning at dawn. The number of passengers was greatly reduced, and the relatively short sail to Marseilles now took on the appearance of being an uneventful one.

  The night before they docked in Marseilles, Kingston arranged another short concert. It was devoted mostly to his readings from Shakespeare. And he induced Betsy to join him in a scene from The Taming of the Shrew. She enjoyed memorizing a few lines of the wanton Kate’s role so that Kingston could offer a stirring performance of Petruchio. Eric applauded them from the audience

  After the concert ended, Kingston remained in the dining salon to receive the plaudits of the passengers. He enjoyed being the hero of the occasion and also welcomed the food which was served. She and Eric preferred to go out on deck for a stroll.

  As they walked arm in arm along the deserted deck, she said, “What a gorgeous night!”

  “I know,” he said. “Such a magnificent show of stars overhead.”

  She gave him a grim smile. “Not much like the other night — with death threatening us at every turn.”

  “I could sense that danger developing,” the young man at her side told her. “But I entirely missed where it was going to come from.”