Star Creek

by Pamela Kent

  “But according to the film that was made of Trelawnce—in which, I’ll admit, it was only used as a background—smugglers used it in the early nineteenth century. And that’s not so long ago!”

  “Only a hundred years … rather more than a hundred years.”

  And you think there could have been serious falls of rock in that time because no one has used it since?”

  “There could.”

  She decided, by this time, that he was either not interested, or it was a subject he did not wish to discuss. His expression was perfectly affable, but there was a bored look in his eyes, and something that was not quite boredom in his voice.

  She looked away over the sparkling sea to the cave that was fast disappearing from their sight, and then she glanced up at him, sideways, a little curiously.

  He was wearing a dark blue blazer with a club badge, and a silk shirt open at the neck. A wine-coloured silk neckerchief was knotted carelessly and tucked into the opening of the shirt, and altogether he looked very handsome and successful—only that empty sleeve hinting at tragedy—and very much a man who had an assured position in the world, and would never be in the slightest danger of wanting for anything.

  She thought of the manor and its luxurious suites of rooms—including her own and that which was occupied by Valerie Trelawnce; the cars in the garage, the number of men who worked on the estate, and the number of servants who were employed at the house. It was very different at Roselawn, where Colonel Wince looked after his own garden, and, she felt almost certain, did the better part of his own housework. And in addition to everything else there was this superb little cabin cruiser that was cutting through the water with the minimum of effort...

  A rich man’s toy that Tom Broad had been clever enough to foist on him.

  She give her head a little shake, because she did not wish to dwell on such thoughts just then—or, indeed, at any time, for they were dangerous thoughts. And Tom emerged from the tiny galley with two cups of steaming tea in his hands, and a very broad grin on his face.

  “I thought the lady would like a cup o’ tea, sir,” he said. “Maybe it’s a bit strong, but that’s the way I like it meself.”

  Helen smiled gratefully as she accepted her cup of tea, and Roger Trelawnce asked for his to be set down on the deck beside him. Helen quickly realised why he did this, because it was difficult for a man with only one arm to cope with a steaming beverage and maintain his balance against the side of the rail at the same time, and she instantly and impulsively asked if she could help him. “At least let me hold the cup—”

  But he frowned so blackly that she was just as quick to realise she had blundered badly, and it did not need his, “No, thank you, I can manage,” in a cool voice to cause her to subside like a pricked balloon beside him; and wish she was not quite so impulsive.

  “Well, Tom?” he said, as Tom stood there obviously expecting praise. “How’s she doing?”

  Tom’s white teeth flashed in his weather-browned face.

  “How do you think she’s doing, sir?”

  “Very nicely.”

  “Good.”

  “I was saying to Miss Dainton that we’ll have to rename her.”

  Tom crouched on a locker and put the inevitable question.

  “Ha’ you got anything in mind, sir? Seein’ as ’ow you ain’t took with Zephyr?”

  “What about Helen?” He glanced for a moment at the face of the girl beside him. “Or The Helen?”

  “Oh, no!” she protested, as if he had startled her.

  A change came over his face. All in a moment it looked; cold and set—and as displeased as if she had criticised the boat itself.

  “I’m sorry,” he said stiffly, apologetically. “I realise that was rather a liberty, making such a suggestion. But of course we’ll think up another name for the boat. Almost anything will do.”

  Tom looked from one to the other of them with perplexity in his eyes, and Helen felt a strange, helpless sensation take possession of her. She didn’t know what to say, or how to take him, and the fact that she had already suggested Valerie to him made it all the stranger.

  He must realise that, since he possessed a wife, he could not name personal things like boats after another woman ... not even a ward to whom he was showing particular kindness, Valerie must and should come first ... always first.

  Whether he was in love with her or not was another matter. And even if he was not in love with her now he' must have been at one time.

  They were returning to the creek, and the strange gloom of it enveloped them as they slid back upstream to their moorings. Perry Trelawnce was waiting for them at the head of the creek, and his dark eyebrows went up quite noticeably when he caught sight of Helen on the deck of the Zephyr.

  Tom gave her his hand to assist her into the dinghy, and as the tide was running strongly it was not such a simple matter to step ashore without wet feet as it had been to board the boat in the early afternoon. Helen felt the cool waters of the creek lap round her ankles, and anxious to avoid bedraggled skirts she stepped cautiously on her way to firmer ground. But Perry was watching her with a derisive sparkle in his eyes, and it made her nervous. She slipped and fell, grazing the insides of her wrists, and even cutting her cheek a little on a jagged piece of stone.

  She was up in an instant, declaring that she was not a bit hurt, but Roger Trelawnce would not accept this. He examined her wrists carefully, and her cut cheek, and said he would deal with them as soon as they got back to the manor. His dark agate eyes were blazing with an extraordinary mixture of emotions that baffled her. There was something like anger—anger with himself, presumably, because he had been unable to prevent the accident—a concern that she thought was far in excess of anything the occasion warranted, and an almost womanish pity as he touched the bruised place on her cheek with one of his slim, brown, shapely surgeon’s fingers.

  “If it hurts now, it will soon stop hurting when I’ve dealt with it,” he promised her. The corners of his mouth quivered with tenderness. “You poor child!”

  “It’s nothing ... nothing!” she assured him, but he insisted on her accepting his own clean, white handkerchief to bandage the worst of her wrists.

  This was where Perry came forward.

  “Pity I don’t carry an immaculate white handkerchief about with me during working hours,” he remarked. “If I did I would certainly insist on wrapping it about that other poor injured member of yours, Miss Dainton!”

  Roger addressed him curtly.

  “If you’ve nothing particularly important to talk about,” he said, “we’ll get on up to the house. We’ve had a very pleasant afternoon, and I don’t want it entirely spoiled.”

  “I’m sure you don’t,” Perry drawled.

  His cousin looked him full in the eye.

  “What is it you want to see me about? Not trouble with the new tractor?”

  “Nothing at all to do with tractors,” Perry replied, in an almost insolent manner. “And, as a matter of fact, I didn’t want to see you. It was Tom I came here to have a word with.”

  Tom Broad, about to cast off again, looked over his shoulder sharply.

  “Yes, sir?”

  Perry leaned against a tree-trunk and smiled at him languidly.

  “Tomorrow night, Tom,” he said. “See you about six? Of if you can’t make it six, you’d better make it ten.”

  “I’ll make it six, sir,” Tom answered.

  “Good,” Perry said softly. “I’ll buy you a drink, and play you a game of darts.”

  “Aye, aye, sir,” Tom answered, and returned to the Zephyr.

  Helen and her guardian walked back through the woods to Trelawnce, and neither of them saw what happened to Perry. He did not ask to accompany them, and he did not attempt any farewells, or say anything to Helen about hoping her injuries would heal themselves quickly.

  That could, however, have been the fault of the elder cousin, for he took her by the arm and hurried her forward throu
gh the wood and up the steep slope of the hill to the house that was peacefully soaking up the afternoon sunshine as it stood etched against the sky.

  Although Helen would have preferred that no further attention—apart from anything she chose to devote to them herself—should have been paid to the various grazes she had collected, they went straight through to the library, where Trelawnce opened a cabinet and produced a workmanlike first-aid kit, the contents of which he handled deftly with his one hand. At first he treated the grazes with antiseptic spirit,, and then, with her assistance, he bandaged the worst of her wrists neatly with an adhesive type bandage. The cut on her cheek received most attention, but he did not cover it, and when she looked at herself in a mirror the slightly livid bruise that was already distinguishing the area round it made her lips twist wryly.

  “I look a mess, don’t I?” she said. “But it was my own fault. I shouldn’t have been worrying so much about getting my feet wet when we came ashore. After all, the weather’s so warm it wouldn’t have mattered, and all I had to do was take my shoes off.”

  “Tom should have 'carried you,” Roger said shortly. “If only I had two arms instead of one I’d have carried you myself!” And he looked down at his empty sleeve with an expression of fierce distaste on his face.

  Helen wheeled and confronted him laughingly.

  “Oh, but really,” she protested, “aren’t we making an awful fuss about nothing...?”

  Roger frowned at her fiercely.

  “Nothing?” he echoed. “You’ve collected a nasty bruise on your face, and those wrists are smarting badly at this moment, I know. I’d give anything if it hadn’t happened! You must believe that!”

  Helen’s expression sobered.

  “I still say it was my fault—”

  “It was Tom’s fault. He’s got about as much imagination as a block of wood.”

  “Oh, no! It was so nice of him to make tea for us.”

  He put out his hand and gently touched the bruise.

  “It will fade very quickly, you know. You mustn’t worry about your appearance.”

  “I’m not,” she assured him. She laughed again, uncertainly. “I’m not as conceited as all that.”

  “But you’re so lovely! ... At least you don’t need me to tell you that!”

  She caught her breath. She could feel the extraordinary gentleness of that long finger caressing the smooth side of her cheek, and there was a look in his eyes that was a revelation. She had not really listened to what Valerie had said to her the other night, because it would have been mad of her to do so, but all the same, she knew how she felt herself ... but she could not remember the precise moment when it started happening to her.

  And now, with her heart beating all at once like a frightened bird in a cage, and his strange eyes that she had once thought hard as rocks subjecting her to a curious, searching inspection that was the more disturbing because behind it there seemed to be something like a tiny flame leaping up and down in his eyes, and although his mouth was tender there was something electrifying and startling in the atmosphere, she drew back, and even turned away, with a jerkiness that barely disguised her own sudden agitation.

  “I’d better go and get changed,” she said. “There’s barely an hour before dinner...”

  “Don’t go until you’ve had a drink.” His voice was urgent. “I think you need it.”

  “I don’t,’ she assured him, with brittle brightness. “After that strong, black tea—”

  “That was hours ago.”

  He went to his own private cocktail cabinet and produced bottles and glasses. Although she insisted that she would prefer a long drink, if she had to remain and have a drink at all, he made her accept a glass of sherry, after she had bluntly refused a small brandy.

  “After all, I’m not suffering from shock.”

  “Aren’t you?” Their eyes met, and she knew what he meant. She had been startled by that look in his eyes, the way his fingers had clung to her cheek, the upset and agitation in his voice because she was hurt. He suspected that he had badly alarmed her, but he did not know the reason why. There was a certain wryness in his expression, a somewhat bitter curve to his lips, and he lifted his glass high and toasted her.

  “To the next time we go out in the Zephyr! I’ve decided, after all, not to change the name.”

  “Oh, but why—?”

  “It’s as good a name as any other ... Since you seemed to have an objection to bestowing your own name on it!”

  And Helen went up to her room wondering whether he was really and truly blind, and exactly what type of a bond it was that held him and the unfortunate Valerie together.

  And also what kind of an ‘accident’ it was she had been involved in.

  Certainly no one at Trelawnce seemed anxious to tell her.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  TWO days late she ran into Perry Trelawnce again, and this time she was alone, and he was alone, too.

  She had been bathing, and was drying herself behind a rock when she heard a discordant whistle. Hurriedly she slipped into her cotton dress, and dragged a comb through her still wet hair. The whistling continued, and she rolled up her towel and dripping swim-suit and stood still in the hopes that the whistler would fail to discover her presence and go on his way.

  After all, it was a very secret cove. There was no real reason why anyone should visit it unless they were interested in natural rock formations, were collecting fossils, or wanted to bathe. And as only anyone residing in Trelawnce Manor had the right to bathe there it limited the number of strangers one was likely to encounter.

  But somehow she knew immediately that the whistler was no stranger. That was why her dressing was a little panic-stricken, and why she hoped against hope that she would not be noticed. She stood with her back against the sun-warmed rock, in the protection of which she had undressed and dressed many times, and felt her heart give a strange, uneasy leap when a voice—nearer than she had thought—called to her in amusement.

  “You can come out if you’re ready. I’m no Peeping Tom ... but I have a sort of sixth sense when an enchanting young woman with bright brown hair, a peaches and cream complexion, and all the right measurements, is around. I’ve known you were there for about ten minutes, but I didn’t want to throw you into a panic, so I whistled!”

  Helen, wearing a sky-blue linen dress, and with bare feet and definitely tousled hair, emerged in some indignation.

  “You may not be a Peeping Tom,” she said, “but if you knew I was here, and you must have realised I’ve been having a bathe, why didn’t you go farther away before you started to whistle?”

  He smiled at her lazily, and his hard, dark eyes raked her from head to foot. She put up a hand and thrust a drying curl out of her eyes.

  “Did I startle you so badly?” he enquired drily.

  “I wasn’t prepared to meet anyone down here on the beach. It’s a private beach,” she added.

  “But you forget I’m a member of the family,” he said.

  She stared at the rough fisherman’s jersey he was wearing.

  “I thought you were a farmer,” she remarked, with crinkling brows. “At this hour of the day I would have expected you to be working on the land, not staring out to sea. By the way,” following the direction of his eyes, which had swivelled back again to something he had been studying before, “is that a boat out there?” She shielded her eyes with her hand. “A big boat?”

  “Clever girl.” He spared her a fleeting, white-toothed smile. “It’s a yacht. I’ve been studying it through glasses from the cliff top. Some Greek ship-owner, or multimillionaire, on a summer cruise. Lucky devil! He’s probably got his favourite girl friend and a collection of other millionaires aboard.”

  “May I look?” she asked, as she noticed that his glasses were still hanging across his shoulders.

  “Of course.”

  He handed them over to her, and she adjusted the focus. All at once the yacht became quite clear to her, a grac
eful shape against the unsullied skyline. She thought she made out a flag flying at the masthead.

  “Is it British?” she asked.

  He shrugged.

  “I shouldn’t think so.”

  “It doesn’t look like a British flag to me.”

  “Then we’ll say it isn’t, shall we?” he said lazily.

  She handed back the glasses, and studied him curiously. His tone was bored, but she had a sudden conviction that he was not in the least bored. She even thought she detected a faint gleam of satisfaction in his eyes.

  “I must go,” she said, turning to walk back up the beach. Without meaning to do so she glanced at the yawning entrance to the cave. Despite the sunlight that filled the cove the entrance was very dark ... inside it would be even darker, and very dank, and probably cold. She shivered, and failed to realise quite why she did so.

  “Oh, must you really leave me?” he said, a note in his voice that she recognised as derisive, although there was certainly a strong hint of interest in his eyes as they concentrated their attention on her bare left shoulder. “I was hoping we might seize the opportunity to get better acquainted. Up till now you’ve always been so prickly... I don’t seem to make any headway with you at all. Even that day when we lunched together you treated me as if I was a kind of natural enemy... and I’m not, you know!” the dark depths of his eyes repelling her because there was now a kind of gloating look in them.

  “That bruise on your cheek has faded very quickly,” he remarked, studying it with the same interest. “Did Roger use a little of the old skill on it?”

  “He attended to it for me,” she replied coldly.

  “I’ve no doubt he thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity you presented him with to find out whether his one hand retains its cunning. By the way, do you get on very well together, you two? It struck me that he was taking his guardianship duties very seriously for one who doesn’t normally bother himself with other people’s concerns. And he really was annoyed with Tom for allowing you to fall and hurt yourself, wasn’t he?”