Living on the coastal fringes of the Bristol Channel as she did, Kate was used to the sight of water and boats, but this was a different kind of water, vast and beautiful.
“You can get across to France in some of the bigger crafts,” Luke said, as casually as if this was some everyday happening.
Kate stared out to sea, wondering how it must feel to have so much power beneath you, and having enough money to even own such a boat as these.
“But you have to have passports and things for that, don’t you?” she said, trying to sound knowledgeable about something that was quite outside her experience.
“Oh yes. And I wasn’t suggesting we go there today. We’ll just take a short cruise along the coast,” he said, as casually as you like.
Kate felt as if she turned her head in slow motion. She had simply agreed to take a drive with him, and now he was talking about a cruise and a picnic. It all sounded far too intimate for comfort. Before she could get her confused thoughts into order, Luke stopped the car near a sleek blue and white motor boat. It wasn’t as ostentatious as some of the other boats moored nearby, but to Kate it was all part of a different world where she didn’t belong.
She recalled how she had been told that Luke was a frequent guest at the Charlton Hotel. This was obviously the reason why. He had money. And she did not. She knew she was in danger of becoming prickly again, the way people of her class did when faced with something above their station. She hated the feeling, but recognised it only too well. And she hated the thought that that word class had entered her mind at all. But it had. And it stuck there like a burr beneath the skin.
“You’re going to tell me that thing belongs to you now, I suppose?” she said, with heavy and unwarranted sarcasm.
“I’m afraid so,” Luke said coolly. “I thought we’d have our picnic on board. You needn’t worry, Mrs Radcliffe. I’ve never lost a passenger yet.”
Once she was out there, she would be at his mercy…
She didn’t want these base feelings, but she couldn’t help them. It was Walter’s legacy to her that she was suspicious of the slightest overture from a man. She wasn’t smart or polished, and she knew only too well how a persuasive man could seduce a girl into thinking she was his one and only, and that this was the “Real Thing”.
She felt Luke put his hand over hers for a brief moment.
“You’ll be quite safe, Kate. In every way.”
She heard the sincerity in his voice, and knew she had to trust it. She was a fool to be scared at the thought of taking a simple boat ride. He was being kind, that was all. Taking pity on a lonely woman in a hotel. A sliver of her old pride and bravado made her tilt her chin high.
“I never thought anything else,” she lied.
He held her hand as she stepped gingerly on board the boat, feeling it rock beneath her. She had never been on a boat in her life before, but she remembered how some of the local boys, including her brother Donal, home from France and full of their wartime exploits, had described the motion vividly enough to make all the listeners feel seasick.
Luke placed the basket of food and drink on the deck and fiddled with the engine for some minutes before anything happened. He was in love with his boat, Kate thought, or at least, with the mechanics of it. She could sense it by the way he handled everything about it, with as much care as if it were a woman.
She watched his strong, capable hands and felt herself blush at the sudden question bursting into her mind. How would it feel to have those same competent hands caressing her?
He glanced her way, his hair more ruffled than usual, and his hands messy with grease.
“A penny for them,” he said.
“They’re private, and anyway, you wouldn’t want to know,” she said smartly.
“I think I would, but that’s another story. Hold tight now, I think we’re going to make it this time.”
He pulled on a length of wire that seemed to be the sole means of starting the engine and, after a few abortive splutters, it roared into life, and a blast of smoke and steam enveloped them for a few seconds, together with the pungent smells of oil and fuel.
“We’ll be under way in a moment,” Luke shouted. “Then she’ll settle down and we’ll be in a different world.”
It echoed her own thoughts … She clung to her seat, terrified at the rocking motion, as he steered the boat broadsides into the swell and the wind, and after a short while they headed out to sea, drifting smoothly along to the chug-chugging rhythm of the engine.
“Are you a good sailor?” Luke asked.
“I hope so, for both our sakes,” Kate said grimly.
She was starting to feel more relaxed now, and oddly reckless. She had left her hat and cotton gloves in the car, and long before they were cruising steadily along the coast, her golden hair was blowing free, whipping against her face and stirring up her colour still more. The tang of salt was strong in her nostrils, clean and invigorating, and Kate felt a sense of adventure such as she had never known before. It was such a small adventure, compared with some, but an adventure all the same.
She pushed up the sleeves of her frock and lifted her face to the sun, feeling its warmth on her face as Luke cut the engine to a purr and they drifted slowly along. Her eyes were soothed by the heat of the sun as it caressed her closed lids. She could be on some other planet, she thought dreamily, without a care in the world.
“You’re very beautiful, Mrs Radcliffe,” she heard Luke Halliday say softly.
Kate’s eyes flew open. He wasn’t close to her, or touching her, except with his eyes and his mind and his senses … and at that moment she knew as surely as she breathed that he wanted her. She didn’t want to read in his eyes what his words didn’t say. She didn’t want this. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say that wouldn’t add to the suddenly charged atmosphere between them, so she said the first thing that came into her mind.
“Please don’t keep calling me Mrs Radcliffe. I’m uncomfortable with the name.”
Aghast, she immediately wished she could have taken back those damning words. But in some strange way, she was certain that he already knew – or guessed – that she wasn’t all she professed to be.
He answered easily. “All right. Sometimes it just seems like the right thing to do when you’re so intent on keeping everyone at a distance.”
She ignored that. “Just call me Kate – please. And don’t ask for any more explanations yet.”
She realised she was implying that a time may come when she would be ready to tell him more, and she hadn’t meant that at all. And with his keen mind, he would almost certainly have registered the fact too.
“Let’s eat,” he said, more briskly. “The best panacea for too much emotion is to get some food inside you.”
Kate laughed. It was high-pitched and a little reckless, but it was a laugh all the same.
“Have I said something funny?” Luke said, smiling back.
“Probably. But I don’t even know the meaning of pan – panc – whatever it was you said!”
“It doesn’t matter. Who cares about big words, anyway? Eat, woman!”
Kate took one of the hotel’s salmon and cucumber sandwiches that he offered, and was amazed to find how hungry she was. The sea air was everything it was reputed to be, she thought, revitalising ragged nerves. It was a marvellous picnic, the best she’d ever known.
Later, when she had eaten her fill, she leaned over the boat’s rail, watching the sea birds wheel and dip and dive for fish, and thought she had never seen anything lovelier.
Luke had other thoughts on the loveliness of this day. Somehow he had managed to stop himself from asking the question that had been simmering in his brain all day long – and even before that. He realised that the idea had been there from the first moment he had seen this enchanting woman. And eventually, he had to ask her.
“Have you ever been to London?” he said abruptly.
They had left the boat and Luke was opening the door
of the posh green motor car for her with a flourish. Just for a second she knew how the regal Queen Mary must feel when she was ushered into her limousine. And the thought made her giggle. Fancy Kate Sullivan imagining herself having the slightest thing in common with Queen Mary!
“What a daft question!” Kate said with a grin.
“Why is it daft? Wouldn’t you like to see something of your own capital city?”
She realised he was serious, and she stared at him as he started to drive away from Poole harbour. In profile he had a very strong face. He was very good-looking, but it was more than that. It was a reliable, trustworthy face. Kate heard warning bells in her head at the thought, and reminded herself that she wasn’t going to trust any man again for a very long time, if ever. Alarmed at her own thoughts, she spoke curtly and without emotion.
“Girls like me don’t travel. We work in sweatshops making garments for rich folk to wear and we live in cottages, not swanky mews places, whatever they are. And if you think I’m asking for sympathy I’m not. I’m just telling you this, so you don’t get any wrong ideas about me.”
“Why the devil are you being so defensive? I only asked a civil question. And if you don’t travel, then what are you doing in Bournemouth?”
He sounded half-amused, half-impatient, but Kate stared at him dumbly. For one wild second she wondered how he’d react if she blurted out the whole truth, here and now. But she knew she couldn’t. Her pride wouldn’t let her. And besides, he was too nice to have his lovely day tainted with the likes of Kate Sullivan’s problems. He’d think her a fool for believing in the slick promises of a travelling man. Then there was the other shameful business. How would a respectable man like Luke Halliday react if he knew that she had lain with a man many times, become pregnant, and practically forced him into marriage without ever telling him that she’d lost the child? And who was the worst sinner after all – herself or Walter? she asked herself bitterly.
“I’m on holiday,” she said thickly.
“Oh, I see,” he grinned, but keeping his gaze on the road ahead. “So girls who work in sweatshops can dress in beautiful clothes and have enough money and time off to take holidays in posh hotels, do they? Pull the other one, Kate.”
He doesn’t believe me! she thought in amazement.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, starting to feel decidedly hot and bothered now. “Unless you’re implying that I’m some sort of good-time girl.”
His hand was swift to cover hers, reassuring and warm.
“Good God, I would never think that in a million years. I think you’re a lady, and I’d never demean you by thinking or acting otherwise. Does that answer a few of the questions I’ve seen lurking behind those tortured blue eyes?”
She looked down at her hands fidgeting in her lap. Whatever he saw in her eyes, she was filled with sudden shame. Whatever he saw in her, she knew she was living a lie.
“I told you before – I’m getting over a shock,” she said finally. “Can we please leave it at that?”
“For now,” Luke said. “But I hope that when we know each other better, you’ll trust me enough to confide in me, Kate.”
“It’s hardly likely that will happen. I’m only here for a week, and then—” she stopped, seeing the bleak future ahead.
“Then what? Back to the cottage and the sweatshop?”
He obviously still wouldn’t accept that she came from such a mundane background. To Kate it was quite bizarre that she should have created such a false image of herself so unwittingly. But just for a moment she tried to see herself as Luke apparently saw her.
Sophisticated – well, maybe she’d just about pass since she was staying at the Charlton alone, and she had always held herself well. A mystery woman – so it would seem. If she stood back and looked at herself through different eyes, Kate supposed she could seem a rather interesting person. Her lips twitched with mirth at the thought.
“God, what a relief,” Luke said. “I thought we were in for another fit of the glooms.”
“Do you know how much you blaspheme?” she said primly, for want of something to say.
“Because I refer to God a lot? It’s not blaspheming. It’s just an expression. I’m damned sure He doesn’t mind, so why should you?”
In a second, they were almost hostile again, and Kate knew she had provoked it. She was behaving like a schoolgirl, and the brief preening at her supposed sophistication vanished.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. It’s just that I was brought up not to do it, that’s all.”
Though she had done it far more often of late, she thought guiltily. Her father and brother never took a blind bit of notice of her mother’s house-rules.
“So was I. But we don’t always do what our parents tell us, do we? Or turn out in the way they expect.”
He couldn’t possibly mean her to take this personally, but it struck home to Kate all the same. Her mother hadn’t been all that keen on Walter, but her father had obviously seen him as a good catch for his daughter and envisaged this fine wedding and honeymoon for his girl which was going to make all the neighbours envious.
Kate had learned a bitter lesson, and she had hated the pain she had brought to her mother. She had no intention of being sweet-talked by Luke Halliday or anyone else. From now on, only Kate Sullivan was going to be in charge of Kate Sullivan’s life.
“Anyway, why don’t you think about coming to London?”
Kate looked at him sharply.
“I hadn’t realised it was an invitation!”
“Well, it is, but not in the way you’re probably thinking. I’m not suggesting you move in with me, delightful though I find the thought. I can find you decent lodgings, and you can come and work for me while you look for the kind of job you want. But my motives are also selfish. Ever since we met I’ve wanted to take some studio portraits of you. I’m keen to go into magazine work, and your face and style are exactly what I’ve been looking for. What do you say, Kate?”
She couldn’t say anything at first. None of this was in the least what she had expected to hear. None of it was within her experience at all. To live in London, away from her parents and everything she knew, and to be independent. To work for a photographer, whom she knew by now had ambitions, and with the possibility of seeing her own face on the cover of a magazine. She began to feel dizzy and out of her depth.
“I couldn’t possibly!”
“Of course you could. You can do anything you want to do. You don’t have a husband tying you down, unless you’ve been deceiving me all this time. And you have a decisive mind. Use it well, Kate. And I promise you that whatever happened in your past, you’ll be quite safe with me.”
Her eyes stung as she looked away from him.
“And do you always keep your promises?” she said.
“I don’t recall ever breaking one yet,” he said, his voice suddenly rough.
If Kate could have read his mind then, she would have seen how badly he wanted to keep this lovely girl in his life. But Luke sensed the need to go slowly, for she was as fragile as a bird with a damaged wing, terribly afraid to fly again.
She wished he hadn’t given her this new problem to think about. Because it was tempting, so very tempting to get right away from all the people who would know by now that she had been jilted – but it was impossible. Nobody from her background just picked up sticks and went off to London, unless it was for dark and dubious reasons.
She could just imagine her father’s reaction. In his view, his girl would be going to the devil, courtesy of Luke Halliday instead of Walter Radcliffe. Her father would consider them one and the same, when they were so different.
They’d spent a lot of time together during the rest of her week in Bournemouth, and she could vouch for Luke being the perfect gentleman. He had never tried to kiss her. He’d kept his distance and been a good friend. Sometimes she had wondered how she would react if he had tried it on. She had a warm and loving nature, w
hich had contributed to her downfall with Walter … and there had been moments when she had wanted Luke to kiss her. She shivered, knowing that moving to London would definitely not be a good idea, and choosing not to analyse exactly why.
On their last evening together, Luke asked her the question again over dinner.
“Have you made up your mind yet?”
She didn’t need to ask what he meant. “Of course not. How could I decide on anything so quickly, and without consulting my parents? They’d never forgive me.”
“I thought you were nearly twenty-one, and an old married lady – if that’s not a total contradiction to your stunning appearance tonight, Kate. You’re perfectly capable of taking control of your own life.”
He seemed to be doing his best to manipulate her, but she knew he was right, at least about taking control. Until now, and ever since Walter, when everything had fallen apart, she had felt as if she was simply drifting through the days with no purpose or direction. Until she’d met Luke, she had been in danger of sinking deeper into depression, and she knew she had him to thank for lifting her out of it.
“Look, I’m not trying to rush you into anything.”
Her eyes were wide, as shimmering as sapphires tonight, and she heard him catch his breath at their luminous quality in the soft, sensual atmosphere of the candlelit dining room. He was never more sure that those eyes held secrets, which made her even more of an intriguing woman.
“But you are! You don’t give me time to think!”
Involuntarily, he reached across the table to cover one of her hands with his own, but as he felt her tense, he released her at once. If he didn’t tread carefully, Luke was well aware that he was in danger of letting her lovely elusive spirit slip out of his life for ever. And that was the very last thing he wanted.
“Believe me, it’s not my intention to do so, Kate. But I don’t want to lose you. If I’ve been too forward and too fast, then I apologise.”
A Different Kind of Love Page 6
