Dark Pirate Page 3

  Yet even Rose's optimistic spirit sank a little when she saw how the

  guttering was sagging over the front porch and the steps were broken and leaning to one side. Wouldn't repairs like that be expensive?

  'Look, the cottage is named after you,' joked Greg, pointing to the sign over the door. 'Rose Cottage, 1742.'

  'Actually, it's the other way round,' Rose corrected him. 'I'm named after the cottage. But don't let's hang about. I can't wait to see inside.'

  Unfortunately, when she inserted her key into the front door, she found that it would not budge. She looked helplessly at Greg.

  'The wood is probably swollen from the rain,' he said with a shrug. 'Or else your aunt Em didn't use the front door much. I could force it open for you, but why don't we try the back door first?'

  The back door was more co-operative but the results were hardly encouraging. When it finally creaked open they found themselves in a dim back porch with a strong smell of rising damp and the sound of a tap dripping persistently somewhere nearby. As Rose's eyes became accustomed to the gloom, she saw that the wallpaper was stained and discoloured and that some of the floorboards were rotting beneath their feet.

  The first, faint misgivings began to stir inside her. All the same, she wasn't prepared to give up without a fight.

  'Let's take a look at the rest of the house,' she said bracingly. 'I'm sure it'll be much better.'

  It wasn't. If anything, it was worse. The discovery of her suitcases in the front bedroom and a few basic food items with a friendly note from her neighbour cheered her up briefly, but her enthusiasm was soon quenched as she explored further. All the four downstairs rooms were spacious and charmingly old-fashioned with carved wooden fireplaces and small paned windows, but there were patches of damp on the walls and the only floor covering was a faded pink carpet square in the front bedroom. Most of the furniture was old and shabby without being antique, and the only indoor plumbing appeared to be a tap in the kitchen sink and a claw- footed bath with rusty legs. The upstairs rooms were no better. The stairs themselves

  had handsome barley-twist newels, but the treads were narrow and worn almost paper-thin in the centre and, judging by the thick layer of dust that covered everything on the first floor, it was probably years since Aunt Em had ever climbed up them. The attics were in the saddest condition of all, crammed full of boxes of old junk and with a couple of big holes m the plaster where rain had come in through missing tiles on the roof. By now, Rose's initial euphoria had completely" vanished and she could not help heaving a deep sigh as she followed Greg back down the precarious staircase. As they reached the bottom he turned back and raised his eyebrows at the sight of her woebegone face.

  'I think it's time we had that cup of tea,' he said.

  Trying to prepare the cup of tea was the final straw for Rose, since the kitchen seemed to be circa 1742 just like the rest of the house. The only cooking equipment was a malevolent-looking rusty black wood stove set into the fireplace and an array of smoke-blackened old teapots and frying-pans. All very well if you wanted to be picturesque, but not much use if you were hungry and thirsty! And the cold tap that was still trickling dis-mally had left a trail of rusty stains on the enamel sink. Rose sat down at the scrubbed pine table, buried her head in her hands and groaned.

  'It's hopeless,' she said despairingly. 'I'll never be able to get it all repaired.'

  'Don't talk so foolish,' urged Greg. He grabbed one of the old kitchen chairs and sat astride it, facing the wrong way with his chin resting on his folded arms and a stern look in his eyes. 'You're not going to give up at the first minor difficulty, are you? You don't have the look of a coward, my dear.'

  A hot surge of rage flooded through Rose's entire body at this criticism. A moment before she had felt like bursting into tears. Now she felt like hitting Greg, which was a definite improvement, but still rather startling. She had always thought she was a peace-loving person.

  'Minor difficulty?' she snorted, gesturing at the chaos around them. 'I wouldn't call this mess exactly minor.'

  Greg shrugged dismissively and his jaw set in an obstinate line. 'It all looks structurally sound to me and there b'ain't much wrong with it that fifteen thousand pounds or so wouldn't fix.'

  Rose gave a gasp of bitter laughter. 'Fifteen thousand pounds! You just don't understand! I haven't got nearly that much money to spare. There was a small legacy that came with the house, but nothing like that amount. Oh, Greg! I've come all this way just for an impractical dream. There's no way I'll ever be able to afford to stay here.'

  Greg's dark eyes took on a keen, brooding expression as if he was giving the problem his full attention.

  'You could take out a bank loan,' he suggested. 'All you have to do is decide you want this cottage badly enough-and you'll find a way of keeping it.'

  'No bank manager in his right mind would lend money to me now,' retorted Rose coldly. 'I'm officially unemployed.'

  'Well, don't give up too soon. Let's make a cup of tea.'

  'How?' demanded Rose. 'There isn't even any way of boiling water, as far as I can see, unless we fire up that wood stove.'

  'Yes, there is,' said Greg. 'There's a gas ring over in that far corner.'

  Rose was too disheartened to do anything at first, but when Greg produced coffee, teabags, tinned milk and a box of matches from his knapsack, she roused herself sufficiently to go and find some cups in the old wooden dresser against the wall. Once she had a steaming mug of hot, sweet tea and a digestive biscuit inside her, she 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 purposefully 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 beginning 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 sighed. 'Well, my father was an Australian who was over here on a working holiday. She met him when she was only twenty, fell in love, ran off and married him.'

  'And the marriage wasn't happy?' guessed Greg shrewdly.

  'How did you know?' demanded Rose. 'Are you clairvoyant or something?'

  Greg shook his head, but in the firelight his dark eyes seemed so piercing that she had the uncanny feeling that they could look right into her soul.

  'No,' he said. 'But you have a very expressive face and the way you sighed told me a lot. So what happened?'

  Rose shrugged. 'Other women. A drinking problem. She divorced him when I was eight years old.'

  'But she didn't ever think of coming back to Britain?'

  'No. It was sad really. I think she would have given her eye-teeth to come back, but she'd quarrelled with Aunt Em about it in the first place because Em didn't approve of my father and Mum didn't want to admit that she'd been in the wrong. The other thing was that she didn't want to be a burden to Aunt Em. After all, she had three kids and no real training for a job. Besides, Daniel was in high school and didn't want to move and Jane was eleven and perfectly happy in Australia.'

  'So what did your mother do? How did she support you? Or did your father do that?'

  'No, he didn't,' said Rose bitterly. 'He paid maintenance irregularly for about two years and then vanished. Later we heard that he was working in a mining camp in Western Australia, but I haven't seen him since I was ten years old and I don't want to. Mum went out to work as a cleaning lady for other people. So there you are, then, the story of my life.'

  'Not quite,' replied Greg, rising to his feet to put another log on the fire. It went in with a crash, sending a hissing cloud of orange sparks up the chimney. 'You haven't told me much about yourself. What sort of job you had before you came here, what things you enjoy, who you first fell in love

  with and why.'

  'I'd rather not remember who I first fell in love with and why, said Rose in a hard voice. 'But the rest is easy. My hobbies are reading, gardening and cooking and I have a degree in computer programming. That was my mother's influence I suppose. She thought it would be a steady, well-paid job, which it was. But I didn't realise that it would also be pretty soul-destroying or that I'd contact with some quite nasty people.'

  There was no mistaking the vehemence in her tone. All the same, Rose was startled when Greg squatted down beside her, took her hands and pulled her to her feet.

  'Who was he, Rose?' he asked bluntly.

  'Who was who?' faltered Rose.

  'Don't play games with me. The man who hurt you.'

  A convulsive spasm passed over her face. 'How did you know?' she asked hoarsely.

  His warm hands gripped her shoulders, moving, caressing, stroking away the pain. 'People don't get as upset as that just because they hate jobs,' he said. 'They only look that way if they've been in love and been betrayed.

  Who was he?'

  'My boss,' muttered Rose. 'Martin Inglis.'

  'Were you lovers?'

  Rose hesitated. 'Yes,' she admitted at last.

  'What was he like?' asked Greg with a frown. 'What kind of person?'

  She let out her breath in a long sigh. 'I hardly know how to describe him. I was only twenty-two when I first met him and didn't like him much at first.

  Oh, he was certainly good-looking, in an outdoor sort of way. Big, blond, muscular, rather brash. And very masculine, but the kind
of man who doesn't really think much of women except in bed or in the kitchen. He liked horse-racing and flashy sports cars and all-night parties.'

  'Doesn't sound much like your type,' observed Greg.

  'No, that's right,' agreed Rose unhappily. 'And he always used to tease me about being prim and proper and joke about how I was probably dynamite underneath. Then, after I'd been with the company for a couple of years, we happened to be at a conference at Magnetic Island. I bumped into him on the beach in the moonlight one night and he came straight out and told me that he'd always thought I was gorgeous. I was stunned, but I began to think I'd misjudged him. He didn't kiss me or anything, just looked at me... After we got back to Brisbane, he asked me to have dinner with him. We went out together for a year or so, then he told me he loved me and we...started

  sleeping together. I always thought marriage would follow but we went on like that for over two years. Then a couple of months ago he suddenly announced his engagement to someone else. I didn't even know about it until I saw it in the newspaper.'

  If she had hoped for some sign of outrage or sympathy from Greg, Rose was disappointed. His face was an inscrutable mask, as impartial as that of a judge interested only in the facts.

  'Did you have a quarrel or something?'

  'No.' Rose's throat hurt as she answered. 'It came completely out of the blue.

  Of course, I went to his office and demanded an explanation. He said...he said...that he thought I'd understand his position. He was wealthy and successful and people like that couldn't afford to marry beneath them. His fiancee, Delia, came from an important family, but he said I shouldn't be hurt because he wasn't in love with her and there was no need for anything to change in our relationship.'