by Pamela Kent
“I know nothing about crewing, and I’d merely be in the way. Besides, Mr. Vandraaton will need me,” she said, as if that clinched the matter.
He clicked his teeth impatiently. “My father isn’t paying you your salary.”
Her small, shapely head went back.
“I don’t think I shall accept a salary! This is more like a holiday than a job of work, and I don’t expect a holiday with pay.”
And before he could stop her she had slipped away from the shrubbery and disappeared into the house.
CHAPTER NINE
But she did go sailing the following day.
Mr. Vandraaton took one look at her when she presented herself in his study the next morning, and ordered her outside at once.
“Go and get some air, child. You look as if you’ve hardly slept.”
And although she couldn’t tell him that that was absolutely true—that she hadn’t slept because nowadays the nights were a kind of torment, when she lay thinking about Rick and wondering how soon she would make the break and insist upon being sent home—she obeyed without question, and went outside into the brilliance and comparative freshness of the morning, before the heat got into its stride.
Terry Ransome, who continued to attach himself to her whenever she was available to be attached to—Candy had her dark, distinguished-looking doctor staying in the house with the rest of the guests, and Melanie wondered whether her parents had the slightest idea what a menace he was to any plans they might be forming for her themselves—was also taking part in the yacht race, and being short of someone to crew for him he persuaded Melanie to take over the task.
She explained that she knew less than nothing about yachts, but in such calm and brilliant seas he didn’t seem to think it mattered. All she had to do was to hang on to the tiller when he had to attend to something else, and so long as she was a fair sailor she would do splendidly. Melanie’s father had been a naval officer, and she had always been proud of the fact that she was an excellent sailor, and the thought of the reviving breeze on the water decided her.
“All right,” she agreed. “If you really want me.”
He replied, “Atta girl! That’s the stuff!” And added with an audacious smile: “Of course I want you! You’re as pretty as a picture.”
She had some very brief, white shorts amongst her things, and when she climbed aboard the Swallow she could hardly have looked more in keeping with the day, the setting, and the business in hand. Even Diane Fairchild, on the deck of the Comet, Rick’s trim little recently bought craft, was not more eye-catching. It was true that Melanie had none of the rich tan of the others, but her limbs were extremely shapely, and her light blue blouse was like a bit of the sky. Her hair was tied up with a sky-blue ribbon, and she looked young and alert and eager.
She saw Rick glance across at her from the superior Comet, and she thought that his lips were tight. She also thought she knew what he was thinking, that she had declined his invitation the night before and accepted Terry’s.
Which on the face of it was nothing less than a cool snub. Before they all dispersed on the beach and climbed aboard the various yachts he had said to Melanie:
“I thought you told me you knew nothing about crewing. Young Ransome hasn’t done much of this sort of thing up till now, and I’m not at all sure that I ought to let you go with him.”
To which Melanie replied a trifle mockingly: “It isn’t what you will let me do! It’s what I have decided to do!”
And she knew that even if the sea turned sullen and claimed her for ever she would crew for Terry. He could swamp her, and himself, and the boat, and it didn’t matter. It wouldn’t make any difference to her decision to take part in a yacht race. She was filled with the spirit of adventure, and prepared to extract enjoyment from something unusual for the first time for weeks.
“Go and lend your assistance to Miss Fairchild,” she urged smoothly, to Rick. “She looks as if she expects you to hoist her aboard.”
Which was true, for Diane was wearing white jeans which she had no intention of allowing to become either wet or soiled as a result of coming into contact with the less immaculate portions of a boat, and was scowling with vexation because Rick was so tardy in helping her.
Candy, on the other hand, looked thoroughly work-manlike in her butcher-blue jeans and seaman’s sweater—she obviously knew what it was like once the excitement of a race sent caution, at least, vanishing overboard—and with her Mike beside her was prepared to carry off the race with a rather dilapidated little craft.
She called to Melanie before the race began. “I’m glad to see you’ve escaped from your shell at last! You mustn’t let either my father or Rick work you so hard that you never have any fun!” Which made Melanie feel slightly guilty, because Rick at least hadn’t had much opportunity to work her too hard for a week and more, and Lucas only worked her hard in spurts. Mostly she had any amount of leisure.
Aunt Octavia, too, had bestowed upon her a few words of encouragement before she left the house.
“That’s right, my dear! Go and show that pastel-tinted doll of a fellow countrywoman of yours that Englishwomen are not all stuffed with sawdust!” she had cried from the top of the terrace steps, as she waved a furled sunshade. “Go and surprise ’em all and help Terry to win!”
Melanie knew there wasn’t much hope of Terry’s winning—not when the others were all so expert—but she thoroughly enjoyed the early part of the race, and it was exciting to be entering into competition with others. And there was always the element of surprise and chance to be reckoned with, and the element of misfortune. One jaunty white craft had to fall out almost immediately because something had happened to its sails, and the owner of another got into difficulties almost as promptly.
But Terry and Melanie, worked well together, and perhaps because she came of a long line of seafaring ancestors she seemed to take to the business of navigating a boat as naturally as a duck takes to water.
It was delightfully cool on the water, although it was so hot on land. The sea sparkled as if each wave was edged with diamond-points, and there was sufficient breeze once they were well away from the shelter of the shore to send them slipping through the deep green trough of the waves with the maximum of ease, and the incomparable grace of sailing vessels.
They had to round an outlying point and make for the farther bay, and then return by the same route, and it seemed to Melanie that she and Terry would do it with ease and honor. They wouldn’t be first, but they wouldn’t be last.
She sat trailing her hand in the water when Terry took over the tiller, and she was doing precisely that when the wind shifted and the boom swung round and caught her a glancing blow on the side of the head. There was a moment when she heard a warning shout, another when she wondered what had hit her ... And then she was in the water, and the fleeting confusion had ended in unconsciousness.
Her bright head looked peculiarly bright against the greenness of the water, but when she had gone down for the first time it seemed to be bobbing helplessly. The red curls streamed out behind her like seaweed, and her face was as white as Diane Fairchild’s jeans when they started off.
Terry didn’t hesitate. He dived in after her, but the shifting wind had created an unexpectedly rising sea, and it rose in a swelling tide between them before he could prevent her going down for the second time. He struck out determinedly towards her, but a stronger swimmer who also hadn’t hesitated before leaving the sloping deck of the Comet behind him reached her with a good length to spare and grasped firmly at her shoulder. Keeping her unconscious head above water, he returned with her to the Comet, and on deck he worked frantically over her until she showed signs of returning to consciousness. Then, with a set face, a grim mouth, and unreadable eyes, he redoubled his efforts until she opened her eyes and looked up at him.
The unreadable eyes lightened and blazed with relief.
“Good girl,” he said softly, “you’re doing splendidly!”
“I’m quite all right now, you know!”
Rick didn’t remove his eyes from the road ahead, but one of his hands left the wheel and pressed hers where they were hidden by the blanket with the same fierceness with which he was driving.
“No thanks to that young fool Ransome! If only I’d had the sense to prevent you going with him!”
“It wasn’t his fault,” she replied. “We were doing very nicely until the boom hit me.”
She saw him catch savagely at his lower lip, and his black eyebrows met above the arrogant bridge of his nose as he frowned through the wind-screen. He uttered an imprecation she didn’t quite catch, and once more his hand felt for hers, and retained it a little longer this time.
“We’ll get the doctor to you when we get back,” he told her. “I’m afraid you’re going to have rather a painful bump on one side of your head, but it will subside.” A moment later he added: “You’ll be all right. I promise you you’ll be all right!”
For an instant his eyes swung round to hers, and the look in them made her heart lurch.
But she protested that she didn’t need a doctor, and that there was no need to make any sort of a fuss. But when the car came to rest on the gravel sweep in front of the dignified nineteenth century house he lifted her out and carried her up to her room despite her continued protestations, and then left her to the care of his mother’s maid while he went to telephone the doctor.
The doctor, an elderly man with a bluff sense of humor, assured her that she would be as good as new after a reasonable rest, and that the angry bump on one side of her head wouldn’t mar her beauty for long. He left her with something to take in case she developed a bad headache, and then departed from her luxurious room and gave a report of her to Rick while she lay in bed and watched the bright light of the sea reflected on her ceiling, and the way her silken curtains swayed in the slight current of air from the open windows.
Mrs. Vandraaton came to her and was surprisingly affable and ready to commiserate with her, and told her that she was to ring for whatever she wanted, and that her own maid would continue to be on hand to attend to her needs. But by that time the headache the doctor had more or less predicted was beginning to make life a mild torture for Melanie, and she was glad when her hostess withdrew, and Elsie the maid brought her a pot of strong tea, and shook out some of the tablets for her to take.
She was feeling definitely drowsy much later on, and the bright light from the sea had faded, and her room was very shadowy, when without any warning the door opened and Rick came in. He walked in his sinuous, purposeful fashion to the side of the bed, and as she turned her head on her pillow and looked at him his eyes seemed to be extra dark and filled with concern.
“How are you, Melanie?” he asked quietly. He drew a chair up to the side of the bed and sat down beside her. “I didn’t come before because I thought you might want to sleep.”
“You have your guests to think of,” she reminded him. “You mustn’t neglect them for me.”
“My guests are quite capable of entertaining themselves,” he replied rather curtly.
“But I spoiled the race for them. Please do apologize and say how sorry I am.”
“Don’t be such a little idiot, Melanie!” He bent nearer to her, his sleek dark head between her and what little there remained of the light, and he inquired gently: “How’s the head now?”
“It’s aching a bit,” she admitted.
His hand went out and touched her hair, and he smoothed it caressingly back from her brow. “Such lovely, shining, silken hair!” he murmured. And then, as if something caused a constriction in his throat: “If anything had happened to you, Melanie! If neither I nor Ransome had got to you in time! If I hadn’t actually seen you go overboard I mightn’t have got to you in time.”
“But you did,” she whispered contentedly. “And it’s best to forget the whole thing.”
“I can’t forget it.” He lifted one of her hands and carried it up to his lips. She wondered whether it was the effect of the tablets, or the drowsiness that was gaining on her moment by moment, but everything seemed delightfully unreal to her just then. The big room was unreal, the strange, quiet light was unreal, and Rick, seated so close to her that his warm breath fanned her cheek as he bent over her, was definitely unreal—more like wishful thinking than anything else. She was quite certain that if she was one hundred per cent normal, and everything was as it had been the day before, he would not be looking at her with indescribable tenderness, and something that suggested that his whole being was yearning over her, as well as unconcealed anxiety, in his eyes. Those sloe-black eyes that only looked at her like that in her dreams.
Her lips quivered suddenly.
“I’ve spoiled your day for you,” she said unsteadily.
“Don’t talk like that.” He bent nearer still, and kissed her softly—which proved, of course, that she was not very far from being actually lightheaded. “Darling, you’re not to talk like that!” There was reproof in his voice, but his eyes glimmered with a sort of gentle amusement. “Although if you’d accepted my invitation last night, and come along with Diane and myself in the Comet, you’d most certainly have been spared a wetting.”
But at the mention of Diane the dreamy state of happiness in which she seemed to hang suspended was pricked like a bubble, and she turned away her head on the pillow. She felt his fingers moving in her hair as if they loved the feel of it, and the amusement in his eyes became a humorous note in his voice as he observed:
“Funny little sweet aren’t you, Melanie? Last night you were so annoyed with me for some reason that you would have declined any invitation I extended to you, and done so with a sort of concentrated venom. And I’ve rather gathered that you enjoy working for my father much more than you do for me. Is that true?”
“I—I don’t know.” There was a probing quality, as well as the humor, in his voice, and she was too tired to cope with it. “Perhaps it is ... I don’t know! He’s very kind.”
“And I’m not?”
“Yes, you are ... sometimes. It was kind of you to bring me out from England. You said it would be a—a splendid opportunity for me.”
“And today you might have been drowned!” His voice was very sober. “I didn’t intend that for you, Melanie.”
“No—I know!” She smiled at him tremulously—anxious to reassure him—but the waves of sleep were rushing up over her, and her speech became blurred and indistinct. “You didn’t intend me—to ... You didn’t want me to—to fall—fall...”
“Yes?” he breathed, lowering his face closer still to hers, and actually rubbing his lean, dark , cheek against her soft flushed one. “To fall...?”
“Fall in—”
And then she was asleep, and she didn’t know that he gently kissed her brow before he left the side of the bed. When he had tip-toed out into the corridor he saw his Aunt Octavia come tap-tapping with her ebony cane over the thick pile of the carpet, and her eyebrows ascended when she recognized the door from which he had emerged. Anyone but Rick might have looked embarrassed when a strange, harsh twinkle appeared in her eyes.
“So you’ve been sitting with your poor little damaged secretary, have you?” she said. “Well, she’s a nice child, and it would have been a pity if she had lost her life while taking part in such a pointless thing as a yacht race.”
“It would have been much more than a pity,” he replied grimly.
“I know.” She looked hard at him. “Much, much more than a pity! The only thing we’ve got to work out is just how much of a p
ity!”
In the morning Melanie was up before Elise could run her bath for her, and although she looked rather alarmingly pale, with purple smudges under her eyes, when she stepped out on to the terrace, Rick’s expression was so carefully controlled when he looked at her that she could learn nothing at all from it. Certainly she could not identify him with the man with the tender eyes who had sat beside her bed the night before, and played caressingly with her hair.
She had an uneasy half-conviction at the back of her mind that she had said something—or attempted to say something—while he sat beside her bed that she most certainly wouldn’t have dreamed of saying under normal circumstances. But if she had, that remote look in his eyes was not going to relieve her mind for her.
But nevertheless he said quite sharply:
“You oughtn’t to be up, Melanie!” He put her into a chair with a comfortable foot-rest, and robbed other chairs of their cushions in order to ensure her greater ease. “You should have waited until Dr. MacIntyre had seen you again.”
“Dr. MacIntyre is far too busy, I should think, to come and see me today.”
He gazed at her with dark, inscrutable eyes. “Don’t be silly. Whether you like it or not he will see you before the day is out.”
Diane Fairchild made her appearance on the terrace, and she looked at Melanie with the eyes of curiosity, but very little real sympathy.
“Are you better?” she inquired languidly. “You certainly look rather ghastly.” At which Melanie felt her pallor begin to be stained with an uncomfortable red flush. “But if you knew nothing about boats you shouldn’t have gone out with Terry yesterday. Poor Terry, he feels he’s to blame, and it was really your own fault.”
“I admit that,” Melanie said.
Rick glanced strangely across at Diane.