Dark Pirate. Angela Devine

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СКАЧАТЬ voice. ‘I’m going to bed. Goodnight.’

      And in case there should be any misunderstandings, once she had gained the sanctuary of her bedroom, she turned the lock firmly in the door.

      * * *

      Rose woke early the following morning, roused by the flood of sunlight spilling in through the uncurtained window. For a moment she lay baffled, trying to work out where she was. Then comprehension came jolting back and with it the memory of the previous night. Uttering a low groan, Rose burrowed into the feather pillows and pulled the quilt over her head. Her cheeks went hot with embarrassment as she wondered how she could have been such a fool. She hardly even knew Greg Trelawney, so how could she possibly have kissed him with such abandon? The whole incident was completely unlike her! She had always been calm, sensible, reserved, so how on earth had it happened? She felt angry with herself and angry with Greg too, but here there was a strange confusion in her feelings. He shouldn’t have kissed her and yet…if she was honest with herself, she had to admit that she had enjoyed it. And, even if he hadn’t condemned Martin’s behaviour, she couldn’t believe that Greg himself would ever do anything so cruel. He was too direct, too primitive, too natural for the sort of calculation and subterfuge that came so readily to men like Martin. And was it really so dreadful if Greg had felt powerfully attracted to Rose and simply seized her and kissed her? It wasn’t as though he had a wife or girlfriend; he had told her that himself. Deep down she felt certain he was the kind of man she could trust completely. Of course, it mustn’t happen again, she must make that quite clear to him, but perhaps there was no need to end their budding friendship…

      Five minutes later, dressed in furry slippers and a full-length towelling dressing-gown that covered her cotton nightdress, Rose padded warily into the kitchen. Greg was already dressed and busy boiling the kettle on the gas ring, but he turned to smile at her.

      Although he was wearing the same faded jeans and checked red flannel shirt as on the previous day, there was something subtly different about his appearance. Something that nagged at the back of Rose’s mind that she could not quite identify…His dark eyes glinted at the sight of her and he seemed completely unperturbed by what had happened the previous night. In spite of his rather mocking smile, he made no attempt to touch her, so why did she feel as uneasy as if she had just stepped into a cage with a drowsing panther?

      ‘Good morning,’ said Rose coolly, retreating a pace or two.

      ‘Good morning,’ replied Greg with an undertone of amusement in his voice. ‘I’ve got the water-heater going, so once you’ve been out the back you can have a bath, if you like.’

      ‘Thanks,’ said Rose.

      After braving the outside loo, which was dark, full of spiders and definitely leaned to one side, Rose was relieved to find the old claw-footed bath brimming with hot water.

      ‘Take your time,’ advised Greg. ‘I’ll make some coffee and toast when you’ve finished. Pity we haven’t got any eggs and bacon.’

      But that was a deficiency which was soon to be remedied. Rose had just finished dressing in her severest office suit, which was navy blue with a white pinstripe and made her feel more in control of the situation, when she heard the unmistakable sound of voices from the kitchen. Surprised and curious, she hurried out and found herself warmly embraced by a grey-haired woman of about sixty.

      ‘You must be Rose Ashley,’ said the newcomer. ‘I’m your neighbour, Joan Penwithick. I was expecting you on the bus yesterday afternoon but you didn’t arrive, so when I saw the smoke from the chimney this morning I thought I’d pop down and investigate.’

      Joan’s brown eyes darted piercingly sideways at Greg as she said this. Rose flushed and launched into a hasty explanation about her lost pocketbook, the missed bus and the sailing trip back from Polperro.

      ‘And, of course, the weather was so bad last night that Greg didn’t think it was safe to sail back home, so he stayed here,’ she finished lamely.

      Joan snorted. ‘Didn’t seem that bad to me,’ she pronounced. ‘I’ve seen you out in far worse gales than that, Greg Trelawney. Anyway, why couldn’t you just sleep aboard your yacht in the bay?’

      For once Greg looked completely disconcerted, but instead of answering, he strode forward and grabbed the string bag that was dangling from Joan’s right hand.

      ‘Well, what have you got here?’ he asked. ‘Bacon and eggs? Oh, you’re a fine woman, Joan, my love. Why don’t you sit down and ask Rose all about her mother while I fry these up?’

      Successfully diverted, Joan took her place at the kitchen table opposite Rose and fired an eager volley of questions about Fay Ashley, who was only five years her junior and whom she had known in their schooldays. A complicated recital of the Ashley family history ensued, followed by an equally complicated account of the Penwithick saga, complete with the news that Joan’s second grandchild was due any day now. When she paused for breath, Greg set sizzling plates of bacon and eggs and mugs of hot coffee in front of both of them. Then he sat down to tackle his own hearty breakfast, but he had scarcely swallowed his first forkful of bacon when Joan went on the attack again.

      ‘Why aren’t you at the shipyard in Plymouth, Greg?’ she demanded. ‘Surely things are too busy for you to have a holiday on a Tuesday?’

      Greg hastily swallowed a mouthful of bacon and scowled at Joan. ‘I reckon they can do without me once in a while,’ he replied, his Cornish accent suddenly stronger than ever.

      ‘Shipyard?’ echoed Rose. ‘What shipyard? Oh, Greg, you haven’t missed a day’s work just so that you could help me? What if you get fired?’

      It was Joan’s turn to choke on a mouthful of bacon, and Greg slapped her vigorously on the back.

      ‘Well, I don’t want to rush you, Joan,’ he said. ‘But if you’ve finished your breakfast, I think you’ll have to excuse Rose and me. We’ve got an appointment with the bank manager in Looe this morning.’

      ‘Have we?’ asked Rose incredulously, after Greg had seen Joan off the premises.

      ‘We soon will have,’ promised Greg. ‘Hugh’s an old friend of mine and I know he’ll help us out. I’ll just go up to the phone box at the corner and give him a ring.’

      Feeling as helpless as if she were being swept along by some roaring river in full flood, Rose soon found herself shepherded out of the door and on to a bus for Looe.

      ‘What about your boat?’ she objected as they bowled away between the leafy hawthorn hedges.

      ‘I’ll come back and fetch it later,’ said Greg. ‘First we’ve got to get you a loan to fix up the cottage.’

      ‘This is ridiculous,’ protested Rose. ‘Look, Greg, I’m unemployed, except for a bit of freelance programming which I’m finishing off for Inglis’s—I was part-way through it when I left and the systems manager begged me to complete it on a contract basis. He’d always been helpful to me, so I agreed. But once that’s finished, I’ll have no income at all. I’ll never get a loan for the cottage. Never, never!’

      But she was wrong. Greg might be only a simple fisherman, but he seemed to have remarkably good contacts. When they entered the bank building in East Looe, there was an unmistakable deference in the manner of the staff as they spoke to him. What was more, the manager Hugh Thomas, a short, grey-haired man of about sixty with a cautious expression, treated both of them as СКАЧАТЬ