Dark Pirate

by Devine, Angela

  With a faint giggle of protest, she obeyed. The light flared orange through her closed eyelids and all her other senses seemed to waken into heightened consciousness. She heard the window behind her head rattle in a sudden gust of wind, felt a brief rush of cool air then Greg's mouth came down on hers again. He smelled of salt water and wood-shavings, along with the spicy tang of his deodorant and some indefinable essence that was blatantly and unmistakably male. His chin had already began to develop five-o'clock shadow and as the rough skin scraped against her cheek she felt every nerve in her body quiver in response. But it was his kisses that roused her most.

  His mouth was warm, enticing, provocative. His tongue slid between her lips, and as it did so his fingers began to move further down on her body, tantalising her with a sly, suggestive touch that made her gasp and shudder.

  Drawing himself up on his forearms, Greg let his thick, glossy hair brush against her face and then turned to kiss the rest of her body.

  By the time he had come to an end, every inch of her from her shoulders to the tips of her toes was quivering and pulsating with an aching, physical need so intense that she could never have dreamed it was possible. Greg too was aflame with desire, his body hot and hard and his eyes so dark and strange that she hardly recognised him. At last, when she felt she could bear it no longer, he poised himself above her and spoke in a low, harsh voice.

  'Are you ready, my love?'

  'Oh, yes, yes,' she gasped.

  What followed was a revelation for Rose. She and Martin had shared a bed and yet she realised now that her deepest capacity for love and arousal had remained unawakened. Never, never in her life had she imagined that there could be such a blissful sense of union, such an annihilating, pulse-racing ecstasy as this. Their breathing came in fast, shallow gulps, they strained against each other as if they could obliterate all barriers. Their souls were fused as recklessly as their mouths and limbs. An alarming crescendo of

  need and love and indescribable yearning began to build and build deep inside Rose until finally it reached an explosive climax. Every muscle in her body tensed and a low, unearthly cry escaped her hps. Greg gripped her hard against him, enveloping her in his arms and a moment later he too cried out, before collapsing spent and shuddering against her. They lay together for a long time, hot and sweaty and breathing fast as if they had run some extraordinary race, but filled with a happiness too deep for words.

  'I love you,' he said at last, bending forward to kiss her on her eyelids and nose and hps. 'I love you, I love you, I love you.'

  She smiled and nuzzled her face against his. 'I love you, too,' she said contentedly. 'Oh, Greg, this is the happiest moment of my life.'

  It was nearly suppertime when Rose arrived home and the sound of a cheerful soprano voice belting out Gilbert and Sullivan lyrics made it obvious where her mother was. She pushed open the kitchen door and grinned as Fay stopped on a high C. The table was set with a red- checked tablecloth, a terracotta pot of red geraniums, blue and white china and gleaming silver. In the background, saucepans were bubbling merrily on top of the Aga stove and the air was filled with the aromas of chicken soup and apple pie. It all looked cosy and welcoming, but Rose didn't have long to admire it. Fay took one look at her radiant face and gasped.

  'Greg's popped the question, hasn't he?' she demanded eagerly.

  Rose stepped back a pace and a bright scarlet blush flooded through her entire face and neck. 'No,' she cried in outrage.

  'Well, something marvellous has happened to you, hasn't it?'

  Rose hung her head. 'Well, Greg did tell me he loved me,' she admitted.

  Fay collapsed in the chair with an ecstatic sigh and poured herself a glass of scrumpy. 'It won't be long, then,' she announced. 'He's not the kind of man to

  beat about the bush. I think a June wedding would be lovely, myself. I said as much to Joan Penwithick only this afternoon.'

  Rose was speechless for a moment.

  'Mum, you're impossible,' she wailed at last. 'I suppose you and Joan even planned the bridesmaids' dresses!'

  Fay smiled guiltily. 'Well, I did think coral-pink chiffon would be nice,' she said. 'And perhaps satin for you with tiny seed-pearls on the bodice.'

  Rose groaned and rolled her eyes. 'I give up,' she cried. 'You embarrass me to death. Well, don't you dare say a word of this to Greg!'

  'No, dear, I wouldn't dream of it. Not until everything's settled, anyway.'

  Rose shook her head despairingly and stole a couple of carrot sticks from the chopping board. 'I won't let you near him next weekend,' she threatened.

  'I don't trust you.'

  'Well, I won't be here,' retorted Fay. 'At least if you're agreeable, that is.'

  'What do you mean?' asked Rose with interest.

  'You know, we've no bookings for bed and breakfast for the next two weeks—everybody said it would be like that once the schools went back—so Joan's invited me to drive over to Dorset with her to go to little Michael's christening. Then we thought we'd stay on for a week or so and explore the countryside there.'

  'Of course you must go,' urged Rose. 'If anybody does come, I'll manage perfectly well on my own, especially now that I've finished all the computer-programming work.'

  'You're not going to take the job with that dreadful Martin, are you?' asked Fay with a hint of anxiety in her voice.

  'No,' said Rose curtly.

  Fay gave a sigh of relief. 'Well, you won't need to work at all if you marry Greg,' she said. 'Unless you want to, of course.'

  'Mum! Nobody said anything about marriage.'

  'Not yet, perhaps,' replied Fay shrewdly. 'But I saw it in the tea leaves only last night.'

  Rose was inclined to believe the tea leaves were accurate, especially as the week wore on and Greg phoned her every day. Her mother and Joan Penwithick left on Monday, and each morning after that Rose was woken by the shrilling of the telephone and Greg's voice in her ear, deep and hoarse and sexy. 'Hello, Rose. I love you.' What a way to start the day! And then the flowers began arriving—a dozen red roses every morning. Rose was delirious with happiness until Thursday night, when something rather disturbing happened. Greg phoned quite late, just after she had climbed into bed.

  'Rose? Greg here. You know how we agreed to meet at my place about six o'clock tomorrow night?'

  'Yes?'

  'Well, I'm up to my eyes in hassles with the shipyard right now, so I don't know if I can make it. In fact, I don't know if I can come down at all this weekend.'

  'Oh, Greg!'

  'I know, I know. I'll tell you what. Don't come over to my place. If I find I'm free after all, I'll phone you at your house. OK?'

  'OK,' agreed Rose dismally.

  'Good girl. I've got to fly now. Love you.'

  And he rang off. All day Friday, Rose moped around the house, although she did cook a special dinner of chicken and almond casserole and cherry flan in case Greg arrived after all.

  He didn't. At about ten-thirty, she ended up eating by herself and going morosely to bed. She was woken just before midnight by the shrilling of the phone.

  'Greg?' she muttered blurrily.

  'Yes, my love. Sorry, did I wake you? Just rang to say things are sorted out at work and I'm about to drive down. But don't come over tonight—it's too late. I'll catch up with you in the morning. All right?'

  'Mm. All right,' agreed Rose blissfully, snuggling back under the covers. 'I love you, darling. Goodnight.'

  But once she had hung up, Rose found it hard to get back to sleep. She tossed and turned and dozed briefly a couple of times only to dream of Greg and wake with a start. At about four o'clock, she gave an exclamation of disgust and flung back the covers.

  'I don't care if it is late,' she announced defiantly. 'I'm going to go over to Greg's place anyway. As a matter of fact, I think I'll creep into his house and climb into bed with him. That will give him a surprise!'

  Giggling softly, she dressed in a tracksuit, sprayed on a liberal squ
irt of Chanel No. 5 and went out to her car. Ten minutes later she turned into Greg's driveway, still feeling as high as a kite on excitement. But what she saw in the gleam of the headlights made her excitement vanish.

  Parked in the driveway of Greg's house was Ingrid's pink sports car.

  CHAPTER NINE

  AS IF in a dream, Rose pressed her feet down on the clutch and brake and she stopped dead, staring at the unwelcome sight in front of her. A light was showing through the curtains of Greg's bedroom, but otherwise there was no sign of life in the house. Suddenly the full force of what she was seeing struck her and she slumped over the steering-wheel and gave a low groan.

  An extraordinary succession of feelings swept through her. Shock, incredulity, dawning comprehension, rage. What could Ingrid be doing here at this hour of the morning? There was only one explanation she could think of and that was so hideous that it made her shake her head and murmur in a dazed, disjointed way, like someone trying to ward off a disaster that had already happened.

  'No, no, no!' she said aloud and then gritted her teeth together to hold back a cry.

  What should she do? Go inside and confront them? Her whole being recoiled at the thought. No, there was nothing she could do. Except retreat blindly like a wounded animal in search of shelter. How she got home she never knew, for she must have been driving by instinct. Certainly she had no conscious memory of it, until she parked her car in her own garage and stumbled inside her house. She spent the few remaining hours of darkness hopelessly pacing from room to room, in too much torment even to sit down, much less sleep. By morning a reaction had set in and she had suffered a desperate change of heart. There must be some reason for this, some explanation, something that would make it all right. As soon as it was light she got into her car again and drove back to Greg's cottage. But this time there was nobody there. Ingrid's pink car had vanished from the driveway and the house was silent and deserted. Fighting down a rising sense of panic, Rose drove back to her own home and with trembling fingers dialled the number of Greg's house in Plymouth. The phone rang and rang, but there was no reply. After that she called the shipyard, but nobody answered. The rest of the weekend passed in a sickening blur, with Rose giving vent to her restlessness by working furiously in the garden and the house. No bed-and-breakfast guests arrived, but there was no message from Greg either.

  On Monday morning she phoned the shipyard again, but she did not get much joy from it. The receptionist put her through to Greg's secretary.

  'Hello,' said Rose. "This is Rose Ashley speaking. May I speak to Mr Trelawney, please?'

  The secretary's tones came down the telephone line, cool, brisk and matter-of-fact. 'I'm sorry, Mr Trelawney has flown to Copenhagen and I don't know when he'll be back. He can't be contacted unless the matter is very urgent.'

  Copenhagen! Rose almost reeled with shock. What on earth was Greg doing in Copenhagen? Of course, Copenhagen was the capital of Denmark, wasn't it?

  'What about Miss Jensen, then?' she asked in a voice sharp with dismay.

  'May I speak to her?'

  'I'm sorry. Miss Jensen has gone to Copenhagen with Mr Trelawney. Is there any message I can give either of them when they come back?'

  Gone with him! Then all her worst fears were realised. Ingrid had sworn she would succeed in winning Greg back and she had obviously done so. What possible message could Rose give either of them that would alleviate the horror she felt now?

  'No, there's no message,' she said dully. 'Thank you for your help.'

  Stunned, she put down the telephone. What was she to do? She felt as if her whole world was falling apart. Groping her way across the room as if she were blind, she found her bag and took out her car key. The enormity of what she had just learnt still had not fully penetrated and it was not until she was driving through the lush green countryside that at last the tears began to gather and roll down her cheeks. She wiped them silently away with the palm of her hand and kept on driving. She must have travelled for hours, visiting all the old haunts where she had gone with Greg—Talland Bay, Looe, Fowey, the spot near the cliff path where he had persuaded her to keep

  seeing him. Every cliff and wave and gorse bush seemed imprinted with his image and Rose gradually realised that she would have to leave Cornwall.

  It was obvious now how badly she had been taken in by Greg. She had thought he loved her when all that he had been after was sex. Now that he had taken what he wanted from her, he had lost interest and gone off with Ingrid.

  Angrily she forced herself to stop crying. This was a pain that went too deep for tears. It was not just hurt pride as it had been when Martin had left her.

  This time her whole world felt as if it was disintegrating. In spite of her protests over her mother's optimistic wedding plans, Rose had hoped to marry Greg. More important than that, she had hoped to spend the rest of her days with him, to share the joy of having children with him, to confront life's sorrows and challenges with him and, at the end of it all, to spend her old age in his company. Now all of that was snatched away from her and she felt as if she was nothing but an empty shell of the person she had once been. It was devastating, worse than devastating. She felt completely destroyed by his betrayal. Yet she must make plans, she must get another job somewhere far away from here. She could never return to Cornwall, however much its beauty clutched at her heart. The memories were too painful.

  But where was she to go? Not to Martin; she could not endure the humiliation of that. Still, there must be other companies that needed computer programmers. Perhaps she could find a cheap bedsitter in London and look for work there? But she would have to leave before Fay came back, for she simply could not endure the humiliation of revealing everything to her mother. And what about Greg? Should she write to him and explain her actions? Or maintain a dignified silence? It would be less painful to leave without any explanations at all, but the thought of Ingrid tormented her conscience. She had plenty of reason to hate the young Danish girl, yet she could not help feeling sorry for her. What sort of future did poor, foolish Ingrid have if Greg played the same deceitful tricks on her? Perhaps if Rose wrote and begged him not to do it, he might treat Ingrid more kindly. She drove back home, determined to try.

  It cost her many sheets of crumpled notepaper before she was satisfied, and in the end her brief letter was the result of considerable heartache.

  Addressed simply to 'Greg'—she could not bring herself to write 'Dear Greg'—it said:

  I'm writing to tell you that everything is over between us. You see, I know the truth about you and Ingrid. When I was in Plymouth, I found something which proved you were having an affair with her.

  At the time, I refused to believe it. I told myself there must be some mistake. Now I realise that I was just being wilfully blind because I was taken in by your charm.

  I believed all your lies, Greg. I even believed that I loved you until four a.m. on Saturday morning when I drove over to your house and saw Ingrid's car parked in your driveway. It's hard to believe that there was any innocent explanation for that and I'm tired of being deceived by you. So this is goodbye. I'm leaving Cornwall and I won't ever be coming back.

  I've only one other thing to say to you. Please don't hurt that poor, vulnerable young girl as badly as you've hurt me.

  Rose Ashley

  After she had made her decision, Rose would have left immediately, but she had barely returned from mailing the letter to Greg when the telephone rang.

  Her spirits soared and then plummeted when she realised it was a business call—a charming elderly American couple wanting bed and breakfast for a few days while they went in search of their ancestral Cornish roots. Rose's mind was kept off her own problems a little bit by cooking, cleaning and planning itineraries for them. She kept half dreading and half hoping that Greg would phone, but he didn't. On Thursday morning she waved off her visitors with the sinking feeling that she really couldn't delay her departure any longer. Her mother was due back on Sunda
y, and if she wanted to avoid a lot of embarrassing questions she must leave soon. She decided she would go shopping in Looe, restock the kitchen and catch the train to London the following morning.

  As she walked around the pretty little streets of West Looe she could hardly contain her misery. The bad weather had blown itself out and the sun was

  shining again, as warmly as if it were still midsummer, seagulls wheeled and shrieked overhead, housewives gossiped by the fresh-fruit barrows, fishermen ferried people across the river in dinghies and a few mothers and toddlers played happily on the sands. Looking at it all, Rose was suddenly smitten with a sharp pang of homesickness before she had even left. She felt she belonged here as surely as if she had lived in this beautiful place all her life. And it was even worse on her way home when she reached the road toning off to Polperro. The little village was full of poignant memories for her and she suddenly felt she had to take one last look at the tavern where she had met Greg. Cursing her own ridiculous sentimentality, she left her car in the car park at the head of the gorge and paid to ride down to the harbour in a horse- drawn trap. Yes, there was the knitwear shop where she had tried on the embroidered sweater, and there were the twisting lanes leading to the Smuggler's Rest inn. The postcards and souvenirs and advertisements for cream teas still stood outside the tiny shops, although there were fewer tourists now that the summer holidays were finished. A thousand haunting memories assailed her as she trailed pensively past the tubs of late petunias and the quaint little antique shops towards the entrance to the cliff path. As the whitewashed bulk of the tavern loomed above her she caught her breath, half expecting to find Greg inside. But when she pushed open the door the dim interior of the bar was empty except for Jim the barman, stolidly drying glasses.

  'Hello, my love,' he exclaimed. 'Ee, you've timed things badly today.'

  Rose sighed. 'Why's that?' she asked without much interest.

  'Greg Trelawney was in here not an hour ago, looking for you. Said he'd been to your house and no one was home. Took on something terrible, he did. "If she comes in here, you tell her I'll find her if I have to search every inch of Cornwall for her!" Those were his very words. Then he stormed out of here like a man possessed. I've never seen Greg so upset in me life. Had a little tiff, have you, my love?'