Dark Pirate

by Devine, Angela

  'Greg, please.'

  'Greg,' Rose corrected herself, glaring at him over her mother's shoulder.

  'Tell me, how would you like your tea?'

  'Black, please, no sugar.'

  Fay made herself comfortable in one of the newly re- upholstered armchairs and pushed the tea-tray invitingly towards Greg.

  'You will try some of Rose's scones, won't you? She's an excellent cook.'

  'Really?' asked Greg with polite interest. "Then I look forward to sampling some of her other offerings. Perhaps you'll make me a Cornish speciality for lunch, Miss Ashley?'

  'Oh, call her Rose,' urged her mother. 'We're all friends here, aren't we? And my name's Fay.'

  While Rose sat seething over her tea and scones, Greg drew her mother into conversation about her recent journey and her life in Australia. If she hadn't been so furious with him, Rose would have admired his pleasant manners.

  At last her mother gathered up the empty cups and plates and smiled at Greg.

  'Now, make yourself at home,' she urged. 'We generally eat lunch about one o'clock, if that suits you, and you can either eat alone or with us, whichever you prefer. And just do as you please for the rest of the morning. There's a very nice walk along the beach, or you might prefer to go for a drive.'

  'Yes, I might,' agreed Greg thoughtfully. 'Perhaps I could persuade you to come with me... Rose?' I don't think so...Greg. I'll be too busy whipping up something special for your lunch.'

  Later, when Rose was in the kitchen making pastry, her mother came in and leaned against one of the counters with a second cup of tea.

  'He's very nice, isn't he?' she demanded enthusiastically. 'So handsome and so charming. But there seems to be something rather melancholy just below the surface. I wonder if he really has had a broken marriage? I can't help feeling that some woman has treated him very badly, poor man.'

  'Not badly enough,' muttered Rose beneath the whirr of the food processor.

  'What did you say, my love?'

  'Nothing, nothing.'

  'Well, if you've got everything under control here, Rose, I might just pop out into the garden for a while.'

  Once Fay had disappeared into the garden, Rose was left to fume in peace.

  Try as she might, she could think of no satisfactory way of getting rid of Greg. She certainly had no intention of telling her mother the truth and, without doing so, there was no way of revealing him as anything other than an impeccable paying guest. Yet the prospect of spending an entire weekend or even longer having to dance attendance on him filled her with silent rage.

  How dared he gatecrash her home like this and sit there with that gloating smile, revelling in every moment of her humiliation as she poured his tea and passed his scones? She'd like to slap his smirking face! She could almost feel the stinging impact of her palm against his cheek, see the stormy narrowing of his eyes and the way he would catch her hand. Then he'd glare down at her with an expression that made her breath come faster...and she would laugh in his face. That would infuriate him! He'd probably turn her hand over and drop a lingering kiss on her flesh, then back her into a corner and... With a muffled groan, Rose slammed a large wad of pastry down on the board and attacked it viciously with a rolling pin.

  Fay had set the table in the dining-room with a lace tablecloth and a bunch of daisies in a blue and white jug. With the sunlight streaming in the window through the new blue and white floral chintz curtains, it all looked fresh and charming and Rose felt a pang of regret that this could not be a genuinely friendly lunch. All the same, a sense of unholy amusement gripped her at the expression on Greg's face when she carried in the pie, golden brown and crisp from the oven. A magnificent pie, except for the half-dozen fishes'

  heads which poked mournfully up through the centre of the crust.

  'What's this?' asked Greg apprehensively.

  Rose smiled with gentle malice. 'Star-gazy pie,' she purred. 'It's a great favourite in Cornwall, so I'm told, especially among the old-fashioned fishermen.'

  'Yes, but Rose,' protested her mother, 'you've never left the fish heads on in the past when you've made it. They've always been decently covered before.

  I'm afraid you'll put Greg off his food.'

  'Oh, I don't think so,' murmured Rose. 'It takes a lot to put Greg off anything he wants. Anyway, as I understand it, he's very fond of living like an old-fashioned, traditional fisherman.'

  Fay cast a puzzled glance from one to the other as if she was not quite certain what was going on. Then, to Rose's alarm, Greg suddenly carried the war into her camp. His lean brown fingers closed gently over her hand and he smiled suavely.

  'I think it's time we let your mother in on our little secret, don't you, Rose?

  Fay, I'm sure you must have guessed by now that Rose and I aren't meeting for the first time. We've actually become very close friends since she's been here at Pisky Bay. Perhaps you'd like me to tell your mother how close, Rose?'

  Rose's blue eyes danced with rage and she gave Greg a sharp warning kick under the table.

  His smile wavered fractionally and his grip on her hand tightened.

  'Well, perhaps not,' he continued smoothly. 'But if you don't feel like sitting here reminiscing over the fun we've had together in the last month, would you like to come for a drive with me this afternoon instead?'

  Rose held her breath and counted to ten. It was all she could do to stop herself leaping to her feet and dumping the pie, fish heads and all, on top of Greg's glossy black hair. The hide of the man! It was barefaced blackmail! If she didn't agree, he was obviously going to start releasing titbits of information to her mother until he finally had Rose writhing and squirming and begging for mercy. The brute!

  'That would be nice, Greg,' she cooed. 'I can hardly wait. After all, even though we've already had several interesting little chats, there's still a lot I'd like to say to you.'

  'I thought there might be,' muttered Greg with a glint in his eye. Tranquilly he released his grip on her hand. 'Well, if you'll excuse us after lunch, Fay, I think Rose and I might take a little jaunt to Fowey for the afternoon. Now I must try some of this... delicious-looking pie.'

  In spite of its intimidating appearance, the pie was actually very good, filled with filleted fish, chopped onion, eggs and herbs. With minted new potatoes and runner beans from Joan Penwithick's garden it made an excellent meal.

  Greg and Fay followed it up with raspberries and fresh cream, but Rose had unaccountably lost her appetite.

  Her feelings were in turmoil as the Rolls-Royce glided smoothly .through the leafy green countryside an hour later. She sat stiffly upright, casting Greg occasional wary, hostile glances and feeling far too apprehensive to relax in the cushioned softness of the leather upholstery. What did he want from her now? Was he planning to renew his pursuit of her? Or did his pride simply insist on having the last word in their exchange of fire? Yet although she would have hotly denied it, Rose's feelings were not entirely negative.

  She could not help being intrigued and somewhat flattered by Greg's relentless pursuit of her. Added to that, there was no doubt that he still exuded the same dangerous animal magnetism. She would have to be very careful to keep her wits about her in this encounter! At last Greg turned off into a hedge-lined lane which came out into an open space on top of a cliff.

  'Would you like to get out and stretch your legs?' he invited.

  Rose glared at him suspiciously. 'I thought we were going to Fowey?'

  'We are, but we have a few things to say to each other first and I thought they were better said in private.'

  Flashing him a stormy look, Rose climbed out of the car, folded her arms aggressively and leaned back against the bonnet to try to control the faint tremor in her legs.

  'Well, go on,' she urged.

  Greg looked amused. He too had left the car and was now standing facing her with his hands negligently on his hips and the dazzling blue backdrop of the ocean behind him.

  'Your turn
first,' he invited.

  'I have nothing to say,' snapped Rose frostily. 'Except perhaps this. Why did you come and stay in our cottage and then blackmail me into coming out here with you?'

  Greg shrugged. 'All's fair in love and war.'

  'And which is this?' she demanded tartly.

  'Both,' he said with a steely undertone in his voice.

  Rose gave a mirthless gasp of laughter. 'And you hold all the cards, don't you? You think you can bully me into doing whatever you like just with the unspoken threat of embarrassing me in front of my mother.'

  Greg's face suddenly looked stem. 'I would never do that,' he vowed. 'And you can believe what you like, Rose, but I'm telling you the truth now. All I want is to talk to you, really talk, and if you don't want to see me after today, I swear I won't trouble you again.'

  'What do you want to talk about?' demanded Rose in a voice that was fractionally less hostile.

  'I just want to hear the truth about your feelings towards me.'

  'You won't like it!'

  Greg winced. 'I suppose I deserve that. All right, now that you've had time to cool off, what do you feel about me?'

  'I despise you.'

  'So you're still smoldering with resentment,' said Greg, nodding shrewdly.

  'Can you tell me why?'

  'Because you made a fool of me!' flared Rose. 'You let me think you were genuinely attracted to me and all the time it was just a game to you. You treated me without the slightest scrap of respect.'

  Greg shook his head and sighed. 'I'm sorry. I can only repeat what I've already said to you. I didn't intend to make a fool of you and I was genuinely attracted to you. All the same, I admit that I went too far and I obviously offended you deeply.'

  'Then why did you do it?' burst out Rose.

  'Because I couldn't resist you. When I saw you sitting there in my boat in that awful policewoman's skirt and white blouse with your face glowing and your hair flowing in the wind, you seemed like a complete mass of contradictions. You were determined to come across as brisk and efficient and hard as nails, yet you had those amazing little dimples when you smiled and there was something stormy and passionate at the backs of your eyes. It intrigued me. Besides, you were so desperately proper, so tense and suspicious when I tried to show you how to take the wheel that I couldn't help suspecting that you'd recently been hurt by a man and hurt badly. I wanted to know who he was and whether you were now a free woman.

  There were all kinds of things I wanted to know about you! That's why I came ashore at Pisky Bay intending to stay overnight. It didn't seem wrong

  to me at the time. I thought I'd see you safely settled in the cottage and I certainly didn't intend to do you any harm.'

  'But you kissed me!' protested Rose.

  Greg gave a wry smile. 'That wasn't part of my plan. It just happened.'

  'Oh, yes?'

  'Well, I won't pretend I'm sorry for that,' retorted Greg defiantly. 'Are you?'

  A fleeting range of expressions chased across Rose's face at the memory of that kiss. She felt again the warmth, the excitement, the feeling of drowning in delicious sensual abandon as Greg hauled her into that savage embrace.

  Then she remembered the lies he had told her and the light in her eyes was suddenly quenched.

  'Yes!' she blazed. 'I am sorry.'

  'Tell me the truth,' insisted Greg.

  'It is the truth! I wish I'd never met you.'

  'Yet that first night you liked me, didn't you?' he demanded. 'You were attracted to me. The truth, mind.'

  Rose's face flushed. 'I suppose so,' she muttered ungraciously.

  'Then why is it so different now?'

  'Because you lied to me!' she shouted. 'You spoiled everything between us.'

  'But supposing I had told you the truth right then, that I was a rich man with millions of pounds' worth of assets, what would you have done?'

  Rose's eyes flickered away over the heaving blue sea as she wrestled with that question. What would she have done if Greg had told her he was rich?

  Run a mile probably. The thought evidently showed in her face, for Greg's lips twisted in a triumphant smile.

  'Exactly,' he said drily.

  'I didn't say anything.'

  'You didn't need to. It was written in your face. In any case, you told me pretty plainly that night that you didn't think you could ever trust another man again, especially a rich one. What was I supposed to do?'

  'You should have given up and gone away. You should have avoided causing me any more pain.' Yet even as she said it Rose felt an obscure pang because she knew that wasn't what she wanted. If Greg had left her that night and never come back, she would have felt a perverse sense of disappointment. So what did she want?

  'Given up?' echoed Greg in disgust. 'I would never have been so gutless!'

  'Don't twist things to make it seem as if you're right!' exclaimed Rose. 'If you wanted to get to know me you could have done it decently, gone through the proper channels. You should have told me who you really were and let me choose for myself whether I wanted anything more to do with you.'

  'Perhaps,' retorted Greg doubtfully. 'But I've come to realise over the last ten years or so that having money is a two-edged sword. A lot of women are intimidated by it, others are attracted for all the wrong reasons. If my money was going to be a barrier between us, I didn't want you to know about it.

  What I wanted was for you to react to me simply as a woman to a man. On that level I think you and I were pure dynamite together.'

  'No, we weren't!' protested Rose, averting her gaze from his dark, compelling eyes. All the old antagonism and attraction seemed to be back in full measure.

  'Who are you trying to convince?' he demanded contemptuously. 'Yourself or me?'

  Rose darted a swift, tormented look at him. She thought of Joan and her description of the 'goings on' at Greg's cottage, of Hugh and his accusations about the mysterious Ingrid, and an acute pain lanced through her. For a moment she was tempted to demand an explanation from him, but pride restrained her. It would be too humiliating if she let him see how deeply he had the power to hurt her. And, in any case, he might just come out with another glib lie. Better to deny everything.

  'There's no question of convincing anyone,' she replied as coolly as if she were giving a lecture on computer science. 'I simply think you're exaggerating. I don't recall any "dynamite" between us.'

  Greg looked at her with an expression of intense scorn. Then suddenly he hauled her into his arms and kissed her so brutally and hungrily that the landscape swirled dizzily around her and her heart hammered unevenly in her breast.

  'Does that refresh your memory?' he demanded at last, when they both came up for air.

  'I hate you!' she breathed.

  An odd, forced smile touched his lips. 'That's better than pretending you're indifferent to me. When can I see you again, Rose?'

  'Never,' she replied unsteadily.

  'Are you really too much of a coward even to spend time with me?'

  'I'm not a coward!' she retorted, stung by the insult.

  'Then have lunch with me tomorrow. Live adventurously. Find out if you want me as a lover and to hell with whether I'm rich and dangerous or poor and safe.'

  'No!' cried Rose in a tormented voice. 'It's crazy. I don't want to risk it.'

  Greg glared at her for a moment, his face alight with scorn and a vibrant, hungry longing that sent thrills of panic and excitement chasing down her spine. Then he turned contemptuously away and strode towards the car.

  'In that case, there's nothing else to be said, is there?' he demanded. 'Get in and I'll drive you home. There's no need for you ever to see me again.'

  Could he really be intending to walk out of her life as simply as that with all this unresolved conflict and need seething between them? Rose stared after him in dismay and suddenly realised that she couldn't bear to let him go. It might be insanity, but...

  'Greg, wait!' she cried impetuously, runni
ng after him and seizing his arm.

  'What is it?' he growled.

  'You don't don't have to walk right out of my life!' she gabbled. 'Polperro's a small place; we're bound to keep seeing each other. Can't we be... friends?'

  'Friends?' He tried the word on his tongue as if it had a bitter taste. Then he looked down at her with an intensity that alarmed her. 'I don't want to be your friend, Rose, but it will do as a beginning. Why don't we start by having lunch at my boatyard in Plymouth tomorrow?'

  They set out for Plymouth shortly after ten the following morning. At nine-thirty, Rose was still lingering indecisively in front of her mirror, with half her clothes discarded on the bed. Then she heard a light tap at the door.

  Was it Greg? Did she look all right? She cast a hasty, dissatisfied glance at her pale blue suit and white blouse.

  'Come in.'

  But it wasn't Greg, it was her mother.

  'I've ironed your best striped blouse, Rose. I thought you might need it.'

  "Thanks, Mum. You're a genius.'

  She put the fresh blouse on and turned sideways to inspect herself. In the mirror she saw her mother hovering behind her with an expression of barely suppressed curiosity and concern on her face. Rose felt a rush of exasperation. Couldn't she have any kind of private life at all?

  'I suppose you want to know why I'm running off with our first paying guest,' she demanded in a resigned voice.

  'Oh, Rose, I didn't say a word! But I can't help feeling rather worried. Joan Penwithick said--'

  'I might have known Joan would have something to say. The two of you were crouched over your teacups like a pair of fortune-tellers when we came in last night. Anyway, what did she say?'

  Fay sat on the bed and her voice took on a hushed and rather melodramatic tone. 'I know Greg is very handsome in a surly sort of way and he can be extremely charming. But there's something so...so lawless about him. I'm not sure that I altogether trust him to treat you with respect, dear. And then there's his reputation. Joan says he's been involved with any number of women and there was one Danish girl who '

  'Thaf s all just gossip!' broke in Rose impatiently. 'If I don't care about it, I don't see why you should.' She fought down the uneasy feeling that she did care and began brushing her hair with long, vicious strokes. 'Don't make such a fuss, Mum. I'm old enough to take care of myself.'