The Vital Spark

by Carson, Angela

  `Well !' She let out an angry breath, but before she could think of a suitable retort her brother butted in.

  `Are you still interested in photography, Haydn? You were pretty keen on it when we were at college, I remember.'

  `I use it professionally now,' the other answered. 'I've taken over the advertising side of the business.' He removed his eyes from her face at last, and Lee breathed an un-

  conscious sigh of relief. 'It needed bringing up to date, with a bit of public relations stuff thrown in, and it seems to have paid off.'

  Lee did not doubt that he had taken over whatever side of his firm he worked for. Wherever Haydn Scott happened to be, he would take over, and dominate, she thought resentfully. And the fact that his tactics paid off was evident, not only in his cabin cruiser, and the cut and quality of his clothes, but in his whole self-assured bearing. Watching him covertly as she poured coffee afterwards, while he discussed photography with her brother, she was aware of a slight tremor that felt disturbingly like fear.

  `I just don't like him, that's all,' she dismissed the tremor robustly. She did not like self-assured men with spectacular good looks, who strolled across other people's boats as if the whole world belonged to them, spanked the first child they came across when they got ashore, and then came to supper and sat surveying their hostess with self-possessed, impersonal detachment, because she happened to be in a dress that might show up well in some advertising campaign they were interested in working on.

  Except that the look in Haydn Scott's eyes, she remembered with a return of the tremor, had been neither detached nor impersonal.

  CHAPTER TWO

  SHE sorted out a suit of Jon's pyjamas, and put them aside while she closed the airing cupboard door.

  `I hope they're too small, and stop him from sleeping,' she thought maliciously, then knew with horrid certainty that if they were in the slightest bit uncomfortable he would jettison them without a thought. Her cheeks warmed, and she grabbed the offending nightwear and made her way to the spare room.

  `He shan't have Jon's new pair, anyway,' she determined. Not the blue silk pair she had recklessly bought her brother for Christmas, and she knew he had not worn yet. She regarded the pair over her arm with satisfaction. They were well worn, and faded, and she noticed there was a button missing from off the jacket. She had meant to sew it on, but somehow there had not been time since Nell did the ironing on Monday, and she had no intention of doing it now.

  Taking a resolute grasp of her manners, she forced herself to do her duty towards their guest, and turned down the covers on the spare bed and laid her burden on top. She hesitated for a moment. The window had swung itself shut in the slight breeze off the sea, and the room felt hot.

  `If he wants fresh air, he can open it for himself,' she thought rebelliously, and shut the door with a bang loud enough to drown her conscience. If Haydn was made too comfortable, he might want to stay for another night, and the thought was not to be borne.

  She made her way downstairs on feet that dragged. There was no further excuse for her to stay away from the living room any longer. She had helped Nell with the clearing away and washing up after supper, despite the housekeeper's protest that she could manage for tonight on her own, and there was nothing further to do in the spare room.

  `An attractively laid out catalogue makes a lot of difference,' Haydn was holding forth to an interested Jon when

  Lee joined the two men. He gave a polite inclination of his head to acknowledge her presence as she entered the room, then carried on talking, and perversely Lee felt a flash of annoyance. She did not go along with the idea of silent, submissive womanhood in the presence of the all-important male, and she took the easy chair nearest to Jon with tightened lips. No sooner had she sat down than she realised that by sitting opposite Haydn she was right in the path of every glance he sent towards her brother as they talked, but it was either that or sit right by him. She gave an impatient wriggle and settled herself as .far back in the cushions as she could. The dogs wandered over, and Bandy dropped his head on to, her lap with a sigh, his pink tongue protruding in protest at the warm evening, and she rubbed his shaggy head sympathetically. The air was becoming oppressive, and it was not only Haydn's fault, she acknowledged with a slight inward grin. There was a storm brewing, and the atmosphere felt sticky. It would be even worse in Tarmouth, at least Polrewin was situated high on the cliffs, in a cleft that sheltered it from the worst of the winds, as well as kept it reasonably cool in the summer.

  `I take photographs of anything that looks interesting during the year,' Haydn went on, and Lee wondered if that was why he had wanted to photograph her, then she remembered it was merely the contrast of her dress with her hair and eyes that had taken his attention. 'Then I use half a dozen of the best in the annual catalogue. One superb photograph splashed across the centre pages can turn an ordinary catalogue into a work of art,' he enthused, and Lee slanted a glance of dislike across at him. It was typical of the man, she thought sarcastically, that he would believe the photographs he took to be both superb, and works of art.

  `People started sending for the catalogues for themselves,' Haydn continued. 'The Board didn't think much of it at the time, but when we had to have a second reprint they began to sit up and take notice. After that, they let me have my own way, and just awaited events.'

  Oh yes, Haydn would have his own way, Lee thought. She did not doubt he would do so in whatever circumstance he happened to find himself, and she found her ears did not

  want to listen to him boasting to her brother about how much of a success his brilliant ideas had been. She and Jon had worked hard to bring Polrewin up to what it was now, and thanks to their efforts it was still afloat, but no doubt it looked a homespun sort of enterprise in comparison to whatever sophisticated business Haydn Scott was engaged in.

  `What was the outcome?' Jon sounded enthralled, and Lee could have smacked him. For a moment of unease she hoped her brother would not become too interested, be perhaps dazzled by the picture of success that this man was painting in front of him, and maybe become drawn into the maw along with Haydn Scott, no doubt to do the jobs that the great man himself could not be bothered with, she thought worriedly. There was still a long way to go before Polrewin could be called successful, but Jon was a man who liked an open-air existence, and she doubted if he would be happy in a high-powered commercial atmosphere that probably Haydn revelled in.

  `The outcome is a growing mail order business,' their guest continued. 'I'd seen the possibilities for years, but I bided my time until I'd learned the business, and then got my photography up to a sufficient level to use it commercially, before I broached my plans. Now I'm thinking of expanding that side of it. We aren't really geared up to deal with it on the scale I'm thinking of, and we shall need new premises.'

  So he was capable of waiting, too, staying quietly on the sidelines until the right opportunity should present itself. Again she was reminded irresistibly of a mountain lion, crouching patiently,' watching its prey. She wondered idly what sort of business he was engaged in. The rag trade, probably. He looked the sort who would have an eye for expensive clothes and furs.

  `No doubt your pictures come in useful, for pin-ups,' she commented, and the bite in her voice made him look across at her directly, with a clear, level stare.

  `I don't use models,' he told her coolly, immediately aware of her implication, 'the perfectly groomed, sophisticated types wouldn't be right for our work.'

  So it could not be the rag trade, Lee silently eliminated one possibility.

  `The fresh, outdoor girl, with a hint of naïveté—the serene type—would be more the line I'd go for if I ever needed a girl for my work.'

  But not if he needed a girl for himself. The thought came unbidden, and she felt a tide of pink flood across her cheeks as a sudden flare of laughter lit his eyes, and told her he guessed what was going through her mind. She bit her lip and dropped her eyes away from his, then felt furious w
ith herself for having done so. She was behaving naively. She should have held his stare, as no doubt a sophisticated woman of the world would have done, and sent a cool retort back. Only she could not think of one, only of the angry, impatient words that surged through her mind and could not be spoken to a guest under their roof. Was that how he saw her? she wondered crossly. As a fresh, outdoor, country lass, rather simple.... A picture of Betty's vacuous stare flashed across her mind and she got up from her chair abruptly. At least he could not accuse her of being serene, she thought with satisfaction; she had only known him a few hours, and their meetings had been anything but.

  `It's time I fed the dogs.' That was the truth, anyway. Enquiring noises were already beginning to come from Bandy and Jet, and she realised with compunction that it was half an hour later than they were normally fed. 'I thought you two were hungry,' she complained as she set two bowls of food on the scullery floor, only to have her efforts deserted in favour of chasing a cat that wailed suddenly from outside. 'Come on, you'll have made yourself twice as hot by now,' she scolded the hairy Bandy affectionately, as the errant pair rushed back with laughing tongues, having seen their adversary safely off the premises. `As soon as you two have had your usual wander round, I can go to bed myself.'

  She whiled away the time making a drink for herself. There was no need to make one for the men, they were quietly enjoying a glass of whisky each when she left them, and beyond a brief goodnight, which they equally briefly disturbed their conversation to answer, she thought with

  illogical pique, she turned towards her own bedroom with a feeling of relief that the evening was over.

  She could not sleep. From downstairs came the murmur of voices. It seemed to go on and on. She glanced at her bedroom clock as footsteps sounded on the stairs at last, and discovered the illuminated hands had long since passed midnight. She thought guiltily of how hot Haydn's bedroom must be, and on the qualms of conscience eventually drifted into an uneasy doze, only to be awakened some time afterwards by a yapping clamour from the scullery. She roused herself to dazed wakefulness, and realised the caterwauling outside her window was the cause of the noise from inside the house.

  Psst ! Shoo!' She leaned out of her bedroom window, but the cat was either deaf or uncaring, for the jungle singing continued, to a rising tide of indignation from the two dogs.

  `Pests!' She referred impartially to feline and canine alike, and slid out of bed. There would be no sleep for anybody, herself included, unless the three were quietened, and she hurried downstairs without bothering to slip on either dressing gown or slippers. The storm was still hovering, and the air was oppressively hot. She dealt with the cause of the noise first. With a quick slip of the catch she opened the front door, grabbed up a handful of gravel from the path, and flung it in the general direction of the caterwauling. An abrupt cessation of feline song, and a startled scampering, told her her aim was not far out, and she turned into the scullery and subdued the two dogs, who slunk guiltily back into their baskets at her irate scolding.

  Now go to sleep, and let everybody else do the same,' she bade them sternly, and clicked off the light. She really had no need to switch it on in. the first place, it was moonlight outside, even though the storm clouds blotted it out with increasing regularity; there was still enough illumination to see quite well. It told her she had not bolted the front door, and she stooped down to remedy the omission. The full skirt of her sprigged pink and white cotton nightdress ballooned out from the ruched waistline and got in her way, and she pulled it to one side with her other hand.

  A stair creaked—the bottom stair, it always did—and she looked round sharply, suspecting that the dogs had disturbed Nell too. She gave a sigh of relief as she caught sight of faded striped pyjama legs above bare brown feet.

  `It's you, Jon,' she exclaimed thankfully, 'I thought the dogs had awakened Nell. I—oh !' She dropped her nightdress skirt and stood upright, her dismayed glance rising above the faded stripes to a bare, teak-coloured chest and rippling shoulder muscles under a tousled tawny head that definitely did not belong to her brother.

  `It isn't Jon, it's me,' Haydn said unnecessarily.

  `I—I can see that.' A warm tide of colour rose from the base of her throat and flooded across her cheeks in a deep flush of rose. Confusedly she wished the moon would go behind another cloud. A shaft of clear white light glowed perversely through the top glass panel of the front door, and too late she regretted not stopping for the few seconds it would have taken to slip on her dressing gown. Thank goodness the heat of the night had made her abandon the filmy, transparent folds of coffee-coloured lace and nylon she had been wearing, in favour of a cooler cotton nightdress. Even so, she was uncomfortably conscious that the deep broderie anglaise neckline left a generous area of softly tanned shoulders for the moonlight to play with, and Haydn's appreciative look told her he was fully aware of the fact, and of her embarrassment, and she asked him sharply,

  Did the dogs disturb you too? I'm sorry,' she apologised stiffly.

  `No.' He smiled slowly, not attempting to move from his stance on the bottom stair, and effectively blocking her only avenue of escape unless she went back through the scullery to the kitchen flight. Her temper rose as he continued to loll negligently against the newel post. 'I came down for a drink of water.' The tawny eyes gleamed in sudden laughter as he presented the age-old child's excuse for deserting his bed. 'My room was hot, the window had blown shut.' He continued to watch her, and Lee's colour deepened further still. It was her fault his room was hot. Her fault that he was leaning against the bottom of the

  stair now, watching her. Instinct told her that he was fully aware she knew about the closed window, maybe he thought she had closed it deliberately. That, at least, was not on her conscience.

  `I'll get you a drink.' She spun away from him and opened the kitchen door, thankful to turn her back to him. She reached into the cupboard for a beaker and filled it from the tap, then promptly spilled half of it into the stone sink when he spoke from just behind her.

  `I could have done it myself,' he told her mildly. She had not heard him follow her. Too late she remembered his feet, too, were bare, and moved as silently as her own across the quarry floor. The stone struck cold on to her soles, and she curled her toes and lifted one foot to ease it. Water dripped down the side of the beaker, and automatically she wiped it with a cloth and put it down on the table while she hung the towel back on the rail, using mundane things to hide her confusion.

  `Is there anything else you want?' She regretted her question the second it was spoken, but it was too late to retract. A light of unholy amusement lit his face, and he stepped towards her, hemming her in between himself and the draining board of the sink. Without haste, he reached out and took her by her bare shoulders. She gave a startled gasp and strained backwards, her eyes wide and furious on his face, but the stainless steel sink behind her pressed like a knife into her back, and her strength was as nothing against the sheer male muscle power of his arms.

  `Since you've asked,' he drawled softly, 'there is one thing....' He laughed down into her face as he pinioned her against him. 'I'd like a goodnight kiss.'

  He took it.

  He ignored her protest, and pressed hard lips against her own, effectively punishing her for leaving his window closed and allowing his room to resemble an oven. Punishing her for her rudeness after he had spanked the boy in the harbour, when common sense told her he had been in the right to do so. And then, with narrowed eyes watching her, he let her go and stepped back, with his catlike, silent tread,

  and picked up the beaker of water where she left it on the table.

  `That's all I need—for tonight,' he said with soft emphasis. 'Thanks for the drink.' And he went out and closed the kitchen door behind him. Lee leaned back against the hardness of the draining board, fighting for composure. Her fingers went up to her bruised lips, and discovered she was trembling. Despite the storm-charged heat of the atmosphere, the steel behind
her felt cold, and she shivered, and became conscious again of the chill of the quarry floor under her feet. They felt like blocks of ice, but they were as nothing to the ice-cold fury that possessed her at Haydn Scott's high-handed action.

  The memory of Betty's starry-eyed stare crossed her mental vision, and she snorted scornfully. Betty could have him, she decided, furiously. She had no use for cavemen tactics herself. But hadn't she found Dennis too predictable? She pushed the thought aside impatiently. There had to be a happy medium somewhere. And besides, the last thing she wanted at the moment was another entanglement. She wanted to see Polrewin on its feet first. That would have to be enough, for the next couple of years. She, pushed herself away from the draining board and stepped towards the door on legs that felt curiously unsteady, then she stopped. There was no guarantee that Haydn was not still sitting on the stairs drinking his water. After a moment's pause she turned back and walked quietly through the kitchen into the scullery. She was being a coward, but she could not face him again tonight. The dogs stirred when she passed them, but they settled again when she spoke to them, and she ascended the back stairs and gained her own room in safety.

  If he's waiting for me to come out of the kitchen and up the front stairs, he'll wait all night, she thought with malicious satisfaction, that brought some comfort back to her frozen toes as she curled up into a ball and dropped off to sleep almost immediately.

  The storm broke just before daylight. It was brief, and fierce, as were most of the storms in that area, but after listening to it for a while Lee turned over and dozed off

  again, relaxed in the knowledge that the wind direction would miss the two big greenhouses, which were sheltered on that side by a particularly steep rise of the cliff. She spared a thought for the people in the harbour as she drifted back into unconsciousness. It would hit them full on, and give the boats moored there a rocky ride. Wistfully she was reminded that if their guest had not stayed overnight at Polrewin, he too would have had a rough time on his cabin cruiser, but unfortunately he was safely in bed in their spare room, and she was denied the satisfaction of thinking of him being storm-tossed in the harbour. He was the type who would enjoy the challenge of the elements in any case.