Dark Pirate

by Devine, Angela

  'I see you take special precautions against housebreakers,' commented Rose drily.

  'You're a sharp-tongued woman, Rose Ashley,' protested Greg. 'There's nothing really worth stealing here anyway.'

  This wasn't strictly true. Although old, the cottage had been lovingly restored with an emphasis on marine antiques. Rose felt certain that some of the barometers, brass compasses, old-fashioned telescopes and intricately decorated scrimshaw in glass-fronted cabinets must be valuable collectors items. Yet it was true that apart from these objects the cottage was simple to the point of bareness. Oh, there were a few modern comforts. Two well-appointed bathrooms, one upstairs, one downstairs with a lot of dark wood panelling, glass fittings and superb views over the sea, and a kitchen which looked pure eighteenth century but had a modern refrigerator, freezer and electric mixer tucked away behind carved wooden doors. The furniture

  was comfortable too, with brass beds, an old cedar dining suite and carved oak settles discreetly complemented by inner spring mattresses and deep, soft leather couches in the conservatory. All the same, several of the adjuncts normally considered essential to modern living were notably absent. There was no television, no telephone, no dishwasher.

  'You must find it very quiet here,' marvelled Rose when they returned to the conservatory after a complete tour of the house.

  'I do,' agreed Greg. 'That's the whole attraction of the place for me. It's peaceful just the way it was when I was a kid.'

  'You grew up here, then?' asked Rose.

  Greg nodded reminiscently as he gazed out over the brick terrace and the drifts of blue hydrangeas to the hedge that marked the back boundary and, beyond that, the ocean.

  'Yes,' he replied. 'Although I only ever came home to eat and sleep. In the daytime I ran wild with my brother and sister. Fishing from the coves, collecting frog spawn from the ponds inland, damn near breaking our necks on the cliff path half a dozen times a day. It was an ideal life for a kid.'

  'Do your brother and sister still live here?' asked Rose with interest.

  Greg shook his head. 'No, they've gone to foreign parts. Paul's an oil man in Scotland and Helen's a nurse in London.'

  Rose, who had just travelled twelve thousand miles, hastily swallowed a gulp of laughter at this interesting definition of foreign parts.

  'What about your parents?' she asked unsteadily. 'Are they in foreign parts too?'

  Greg frowned at her, as if completely baffled by the reason for her amusement. 'My mother is,' he agreed. 'She said she wanted to see a bit more of the world before she was too old to enjoy it. She left two years ago and

  she spends most of her time on the Atlantic coast. I visit her three or four times a year and she seems happy enough. My father's dead.'

  'Oh, I'm sorry.'

  'Don't be,' said Greg with a shrug. 'He was seventy-two when it happened and he'd had a good innings. Lived here his entire life in a place that he loved, surrounded by friends, had a good marriage and kids he was proud of, worked at sea until his fingers were too stiff to hold a net and then sat at the end of his garden watching the boats until one night he died peacefully in his sleep. What is there to be sorry about in that?'

  'Nothing,' replied Rose, much moved.

  'Of course, he didn't make much money,' admitted Greg. 'But he never thought that was important.'

  'It isn't!' insisted Rose warmly. 'I think having your friends and family about you and living in a place you love is much, much more important than money. Actually, from what I've seen of money, it really destroys people's values. I'd never want to marry a rich man.'

  'Hmm,' said Greg. 'Well, speaking of marriage, take a look at this. It's a photo of my parents on their wedding-day, taken outside the church at Talland. My father's buried there too.'

  'Is he?' asked Rose with interest, examining the silver- framed photo of a tall dark-haired man in his mid-thirties and a woman about ten years his junior, both dressed in the style of the early nineteen-fifties. 'That's a coincidence—so are my grandparents. I'd like to go and visit the church some time, if you'll tell me where it is.'

  'We can go now, if you like,' suggested Greg. 'It's a nice walk along the cliff path.'

  'But don't you have to get back to work?' demanded Rose with a worried frown. 'Aren't you afraid they'll sack you from the shipyard?'

  This suggestion appeared to afford Greg considerable amusement. For some reason he looked as if he was trying hard not to laugh, but at last he managed to assume an expression of gravity.

  'No, not really,' he said. 'But I suppose I'll have to leave tonight or early tomorrow morning.'

  Rose was silent and thoughtful on the walk to Talland. Now that she had made the daring decision to stay with Greg, she was busy trying to justify it to herself. Really, there was no risk, she told herself. Greg might be unusually frank and direct but that didn't necessarily mean that he wanted to have an affair with her. Probably that kiss last night was an impetuous impulse which he regretted as much as she did. If only she could stay cool and pleasant, they might be able to develop a very rewarding friendship based on mutual respect... She wished his hair didn't look quite so thick and glossy about the collar of his shirt. It made her want to run her fingers through it... With a sigh Rose put on a little burst of speed and caught him up.

  Greg's cottage was set on the cliff-top about two miles west of Polperro, so that they had a brisk walk along the track which threaded its way between huge, sweet- smelling yellow gorse bushes, through stands of bracken, over neat wooden stiles, plunging down into valleys and up over headlands until it brought them at last to Polperro itself. Rose would rather have liked to linger in the village, but Greg seemed keen to keep going. Before long they had crossed the stream, made their way through the picturesque back alleys with their precipitous flights of steps and were toiling up yet another stretch of the cliff path on their way to Talland.

  Rose fell instantly in love with the old stone church set high on the cliff-top.

  There was a timeless peace about its hushed interior with the sun streaming in through one of the tall windows, lighting up the polished wooden pews and the uneven flagstones on the floor. Hardly daring to breathe, she tiptoed around, inspecting the carved memorials of women long dead with their quaint Elizabethan ruffs and long dresses and tried to imagine the feelings of more recent worshippers. Her mother, as a child fidgeting beside Aunt Em in the unhurried days after World War Two, Greg's parents getting married

  in front of this very altar, villagers enjoying a few moments' peace at the end of a hectic week...

  'Come outside and look at the view from the cliff,' whispered Greg.

  Almost reluctantly, Rose followed him outside and paused on the vivid green grass that sloped away towards the cliff's edge. Far away on the blue horizon she could see ships so tiny that they appeared almost motionless in the sunlight.

  'I envy your parents,' she said dreamily. 'What a wonderful way to start a marriage—to walk out into all of this. If I was ever going to get married I'd want it to be here.'

  Greg gave her an odd look but did not comment. To her embarrassment Rose realised that she had been guilty of thinking aloud. She couldn't imagine what had come over her. Somehow Greg's habit of speaking his mind quite openly was rather contagious and she had begun to feel as if she could bare her heart to him, just as if he were an old and dear friend.

  Normally she would never have dreamed of discussing her feelings about marriage with a man she hardly knew! Yet obviously Greg was taken aback by her frankness. Did he think, horror of horrors, that she had designs on him as a likely candidate? Rose's cheeks burned with embarrassment and she tried hastily to retrieve her dignity.

  'Not that I ever intend to get married,' she added in a rush.

  'Why not?' demanded Greg.

  Rose had only to think of Martin and one excellent reason presented itself. A spasm of disgust crossed her face.

  'Why bother?' she countered. 'These days you don't have to be marrie
d to have sex, or even children if it comes to that. And I think falling in love is vastly overrated as a reason for getting married.'

  Greg frowned and opened his mouth as if he was about to argue with her.

  Then his expression changed. A tough, cynical smile twisted the edges of his mouth.

  'I couldn't agree with you more,' he said curtly. 'Half the time when people imagine they're in love it's nothing but a violent sexual passion that would very soon burn itself out. And if they were fool enough to marry because of it they'd soon find themselves bored and disillusioned with each other.'

  Rose felt perversely annoyed by Greg's cynical view of marriage, even though he was only agreeing with her own words. A complex tide of emotions surged through her. Disappointment, bitterness, mistrust. In her experience, whenever men proclaimed their opposition to marriage it usually meant that they wanted all the benefits of it without any of the formalities or commitments.

  'So you don't approve of marriage in any shape or form?' she asked coldly.

  Greg shrugged. 'I didn't say that. It's all right for some people, I suppose. But it's all this fuss about love that really infuriates me. I think on the whole I'd prefer a straight-out marriage of convenience to all the drama women seem to thrive on. A marriage where you cemented business alliances by taking a bride with no wild expectations of living happily ever after. Although even that has precious little appeal for me.'

  'Then you don't think you'll ever marry?' asked Rose, wondering why the question sent such a jag of pain through her.

  'I doubt it,' replied Greg with a shrug. 'I suppose I want far too much. My parents had a wonderful marriage, stormy but never anything less than totally passionate and committed, and I'm not prepared to settle for anything less. I'd want a woman who was passionate in bed, but had good sense and stamina in dealing with the problems of life once the first rosy glow had worn off. Someone intelligent, resourceful, adaptable. Not just someone who could set my heart on fire, but a woman who could move between two worlds and be happy and at ease in both. A simple fisherman's wife here and--' He suddenly bit off the words as if he had said more than he had intended.

  'And?' prompted Rose.

  Greg threw her a surly look and dug his hands into the pockets of his faded jeans. 'Nothing,' he said, hunching his shoulders. 'I got carried away. I don't suppose there's any point telling you this, but there are times when I've thought that I could be more than just a simple fisherman.'

  There were undercurrents in his voice that puzzled Rose. Resentment, a black, bitter humour and something else. A hesitant, almost unwilling desire to share something with her. But Rose was not at all sure she wanted to share anything with Greg Trelawney, especially when he looked at her with those dangerously seductive dark eyes. If she let him get close to her she had a disturbing suspicion that they would end up sharing far more than mere confidences. And Rose had no intention of being lured into an affair with Greg, especially when his own admissions had made it clear that it could never lead to anything more. Her voice when she replied was deliberately light and bracing as if she were an agony aunt giving good advice to a man wanting to improve himself.

  'I'm sure you could,' she said. 'You're so dynamic that you could have anything you set your heart on.'

  Greg's lip curled scornfully at this meaningless babble. 'Don't tempt me,' he said softly. 'I might set my heart on having you.'

  Rose was so shaken by the smouldering expression in Greg's eyes that she broke away and walked across to the cliff's edge. Turning back to him, she spoke in a strained voice, making a deliberate attempt to change the subject.

  'How did you become a fisherman? Was it just an inevitable result of geography?'

  'All right, Rose,' said Greg's deep voice at her elbow. 'If you want to make light conversation and take things slowly, I'm prepared to humour you. Yes, I think it was inevitable. Although not only because of geography. As far back as I can remember, I always loved the sea and big ships.'

  'So how did you get started?' asked Rose, deliberately shading her eyes and looking out to sea, so that she would not have to look at the tall, powerful man who stood so disturbingly beside her.

  'I left school when I was fifteen, I was apprenticed to a boat builder and I spent the next four years learning the trade. After that, I set out to make my mark on the world.'

  The words were spoken with such energy and purpose that Rose almost felt scorched by them. For the first time it struck her as rather odd that Greg, who was so obviously intelligent, dynamic and hell-bent on having his own way, should have been content to remain in a relatively humble occupation in a small village.

  'What did you do?' she asked, intrigued.

  'Well, the minute I finished my apprenticeship, I set my first goal, which was to buy my own fishing boat before I was twenty-five.'

  'And did you?'

  'Yes,' he said with pride in his voice. 'You sailed on her yesterday. The

  Merastadu. In fact, I was twenty-two when she came into my hands. She looked a wreck, but she had beautiful, clean lines and I fixed her up and refitted her. Then I leased her out for a while and set off in the North Sea fleet to make some money at fishing.'

  'You never felt inclined to stay away?' asked Rose.

  He shook his head emphatically. 'Why would I want to stay away from the most beautiful place in the world?' he challenged. 'No, I always vowed I'd come home to Cornwall the minute I could afford it, which I did when I was twenty-five. And I've been fishing and boat building ever since, depending on where the money was. I only keep the Merastadu these days as a pleasure craft, but I could never sell her. She was the first boat I fell in love with and I have a faithful heart.' There was something so taunting, so provocative in the sideways glance that he cast her with these words that Rose felt an unwelcome shiver pass through her body. Did Greg have a faithful heart?

  With women as well as with boats? And why should it matter to her in any case? Tossing her head, she moved away from him a second time and strode briskly towards the path that led out of the churchyard.

  'Speaking of the Merastadu, ' she said, 'shouldn't we be getting back to her?

  You can't leave her forever in Pisky Bay, can you?'

  Greg sighed and strode after her. 'No, you're right,' he said impatiently. 'We ought to be getting back. There's your luggage to collect too.'

  'Yes,' agreed Rose. 'And I must speak to Joan Penwithick. I really ought to tell her what my plans are in case my mother phones her.'

  Greg frowned and a thoughtful look came into his eyes. 'Actually, it might be better to avoid that,' he said carelessly. 'If you go into Joan's place, ten to one she'll keep you trapped there, gossiping, and I really am in a bit of a hurry to get away this evening. I'll tell you what, why don't you go to my house and wait for me? I can easily explain to Joan what you're doing, then fetch your suitcases and bring them back on the boat.'

  Rose chewed her lip thoughtfully and darted him a swift, assessing glance.

  Not for the first time in her dealings with Greg, she felt as if she were a particularly stupid and wayward lamb being expertly driven into a pen by an unusually adroit sheepdog. Some deep-seated instinct warned her beyond doubt that Greg was deliberately trying to keep her away from Joan Penwithick. But why should he? The question tingled on her tongue, but she felt sure that if she voiced any doubts he would simply brush them aside with a glib explanation. No, better to wait until he had left and then have a chat to Joan herself. She could always walk to Polperro and find a phone box, and it was only polite to have a few words with Joan herself. In any case, while it might not be strictly ethical, there was a lot more she wanted to know about Greg Trelawney... His eyes met hers, shrewd and piercing, but she smiled innocently back at him.

  'All right,' she agreed.

  A couple of hours later, when Greg had set out for Pisky Bay, leaving Rose alone in his cottage, she put her plan into action. Shutting the door behind

  her, she walked back to Polperr
o and found a public phone box. Joan's telephone rang for so long that Rose almost gave up, but at last it was answered.

  'Hello, Joan Penwithick here.' Something in the older woman's voice sounded oddly flustered. 'Who's speaking, please?'

  'It's Rose. Rose Ashley. Joan, I--'

  'Oh, Rose! What a good thing you phoned when you did! I've got the most wonderful news. My daughter Elizabeth has just had her new baby and I'm simply walking on air. I'm in a dreadful flap because I'm trying to get ready to drive over to Dorset tonight and stay with my older grandchild for a few days. But is there anything I can do for you before I leave?'

  Rose hesitated. 'I don't want to delay you now, Joan,' she said. 'I thought I'd better let you know what my plans are. Aunt Em's cottage is practically uninhabitable, I'm afraid, and Greg Trelawney has very kindly offered to let me stay at his house until the repairs are done. I just wanted to let you know in case you wondered where I was.'

  There was a pause at the other end of the line, a pause that seemed full of suspicion and disapproval.

  'My dear Rose,' said Joan at last. 'I know you're a grown woman and this is really none of my business, but do you think it's wise to stay with Greg? He's a very good-looking man and he has a reputation for getting exactly what he wants, whether it's in business or matters of the heart. He may seem soft-voiced and casual and good-natured, but underneath he's as hard as Cornish granite. I suppose he wouldn't have got on so well in the world, would he, if it were otherwise? But I don't honestly like thinking of an impressionable young woman staying there and that's the truth. You'd be much wiser not to do it.'

  Rose was more shaken than she cared to admit by Joan's words, but there was a stubborn streak in her character and she had never liked having other people tell her what to do. In any case, how was she to explain to Greg if she changed her mind now? And where else could she go?

  'It's very kind of you, Joan,' she said with more poise than she felt. 'But I can assure you that I'm in no danger of losing my head over Greg. I feel certain this arrangement will work out perfectly well.'