Dark Pirate. Angela Devine

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СКАЧАТЬ found that she felt much better, but all their discussion produced no useful solutions. When they had washed the cups under the dripping tap, Greg moved purpose-fully towards the door.

      ‘Are you leaving now?’ asked Rose, her heart sinking. Greg’s glib certainty that she could find a way of restoring the cottage infuriated her. And yet she knew with a sudden twinge of dismay that she did not want him to go.

      ‘Not unless you want me to. I thought I’d try and find some gardening tools out in the shed and cut back a bit of that creeper over the sitting-room window. This place would look much more cheerful with a bit of sunlight in it.’

      ‘There’s no need—’ began Rose, but he had already gone.

      She caught him up in one of the dilapidated old sheds, busily engaged in dusting cobwebs off some rusty garden tools. He handed her a pair of threadbare gloves and an old set of clippers.

      ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get to work.’

      Rose looked at her watch and was surprised to find that it was now after nine o’clock, but although the sun had set, a pure apple-green twilight still lingered around the hills so that it was perfectly possible to go on working. Back home in tropical Brisbane it would have been dark by six o’clock even in the summer. As they worked it began to grow cooler. An occasional quite strong gust of wind came in from the sea. Rose took out her disappointment about the cottage and her antagonism towards Greg on the Virginia creeper and hacked viciously at the encroaching strands. At last, when the sitting-room window was quite clear and there was a large pile of green creeper clippings underneath it, Greg called a halt. Another sharp gust of wind blew in from the sea and Rose shivered involuntarily.

      ‘Are you cold?’ he asked. ‘I can light a fire, if you like.’

      Rose gave him a shamefaced smile.

      ‘It’s just my thin, tropical blood,’ she explained. ‘I’m not used to a place where it gets cool in the evenings.’

      ‘Well, I’ll just get the fire going for you before I go,’ he offered.

      She followed him back towards the woodpile that was stacked neatly at the rear of the house. A sudden unwelcome thought flashed through her mind.

      ‘Don’t you have a wife or a girlfriend you have to get back to?’ she asked.

      He picked up an axe and began to split some kindling, producing half a dozen neat, dry sticks before he answered. Then he wiped the sweat off the back of his forehead with his hand.

      ‘No,’ he replied in a mocking voice. ‘I’m a completely unloved man.’

      I find that hard to believe, thought Rose as she followed him inside. With those devastating good looks, the sensual, throaty voice and his aura of lazy, animal magnetism, Greg must have women swarming around him all the time. With a sudden miserable sense of self-doubt, she wondered why he was wasting time on her when she was so unmistakably ordinary. She was startled when he suddenly stretched out his hand to her.

      ‘Matches,’ he ordered.

      She blushed in sudden comprehension as she saw the neat pile of kindling and crumpled newspaper which he had arranged in the fireplace. Hurrying into the kitchen, she retrieved the box of matches and Greg soon had a bright orange blaze crackling in the fireplace.

      ‘Are you hungry?’ he asked abruptly. ‘I’m starving.’

      ‘There were some tins in the kitchen cupboard—’ she began, but he overrode her.

      ‘I can do better than that. I brought a few supplies ashore from the boat. Do you fancy some fried lemon sole?’

      He did not wait for the fire to burn down but cooked the fish in an old frying-pan over the gas ring. Half an hour later, replete with delicious fish and a butterscotch pudding from one of the tins in the kitchen followed by a fresh pot of tea, they were both sitting on the lumpy sofa in front of a roaring blaze in the sitting-room. Rose’s feelings were in turmoil about Greg’s willingness to linger. She had grave suspicions about his motives and she was still smarting from his earlier comments on her cowardice, yet she was sneakingly grateful for his company. At eleven o’clock, when Greg still showed no signs of heading for home, she was just beginning to wonder whether she should raise the subject delicately when a sudden spatter of raindrops hit the window outside.

      ‘Looks as though we’re in for some dirty weather,’ said Greg, his brows drawing together. ‘It’ll be a chancy business sailing home in this.’

      Rose got to her feet and walked across to the window. Outside it was almost dark and a strong wind was be-ginning to moan through the trees in the garden. Another spatter of raindrops hit the glass, bringing with them a rush of cool, scented air. It would certainly be a difficult task to get into the dinghy and row out to the yacht in total darkness. But if Greg was a fisherman, surely he was used to that sort of thing?

      ‘These be very dangerous coasts,’ he said gravely, as if he had read her thoughts. ‘I don’t mind going now if you want me to, but I reckon there’ll be some powerful bad weather tonight and there’s rocks out there that would tear the bottom out of the boat in the darkness.’ Rose shivered and looked at him uneasily. How would she feel if he really was shipwrecked all because she had sent him out into the darkness after doing a favour for her?

      ‘I suppose you could stay here,’ she said uncertainly.

      ‘That’s very kind of you, my love,’ said Greg, a shade too quickly. ‘Very neighbourly. Thanks very much, I’ll be glad to.’

      Rose shot him a suspicious look. ‘I hope you don’t think…’ she began. ‘What I mean is…I don’t…’

      Greg looked shocked. ‘Of course not,’ he replied in a voice full of injured innocence. ‘I never thought of such a thing.’

      Rose retreated to the sitting-room door. ‘Would you like some coffee or something?’ she asked to cover her embarrassment.

      ‘That’d be nice,’ he agreed. ‘And there’s a packet of chocolate fudge in my knapsack.’

      The evening was taking on a decidedly domestic quality, Rose decided a few minutes later as they sat drinking coffee and chewing delicious chocolate fudge. The sofa had proved too uncomfortable to endure any longer and Greg had suggested that they should sit on the sheepskin rug which he had found bundled in one of the cupboards under the stairs and brought into the sitting-room. Lounging back in its tickly warmth with the flames crackling in the fireplace and the rain drumming at the uncurtained window felt remarkably cosy, so why did she have this sense of mounting tension? She darted a swift sideways look at Greg, but he simply smiled blandly at her and took another gulp of his coffee.

      ‘You said earlier that you were named after the cottage,’ he reminded her. ‘What did you mean?’

      ‘Exactly that,’ she replied. ‘My mother grew up here, you see, and she was always terribly fond of the place. Her parents died in the bombing of Plymouth when she was only two years old during World War Two, and Aunt Em, who was her mother’s older sister, brought her up. Mum always used to talk about Rose Cottage as if it were heaven and I think calling me Rose was the highest compliment she could possibly pay me.’

      Greg nodded thoughtfully. ‘You say she loved this place and yet she went to Australia. Why was that?’ he asked.

      Rose СКАЧАТЬ