The Vital Spark

by Carson, Angela

  `We'll call it a deal then, shall we?' Haydn held out his hand, and the boatyard owner took it and shook it heartily. We can settle all the details later.'

  `Any time,' the other man told him accommodatingly. `Now we know where we stand I can go ahead and settle the details of our own move to the new premises. In the meantime, feel free to use our private mooring at the present yard,' he offered, 'it's as good as yours now, except for the formalities.' He nodded in a friendly manner to Lee, and rose to his feet as the orchestra began to reassemble.

  `Do you intend to take over the entire town, eventually?' Lee's voice was tight.

  `Not the entire town.' Haydn steered her skilfully back on to the dance floor as the orchestra struck up the first bars of a waltz. 'I have got one more—er—item in mind,' he admitted, 'but the boatyard is ideal as a distributing centre for our mail order business.' He did not enlarge on what the other item was, and Lee determined not to ask.

  `I thought you'd decided on Polrewin as your distributing centre,' she said drily, and he shook his head.

  `You're really not very businesslike,' he reproached her. `A mail order business requires a warehouse, where the goods can be packaged and transported from. With a private mooring, the boatyard is ideal for running the stuff across from the Islands straight to the packing sheds, with no second handling necessary. Polrewin will be a customer for salad crops and so on, a sort of middleman, nothing to do with the mail order business at all.'

  `I don't see why you couldn't build your warehouse on Guernsey,' Lee said stubbornly. If he had done, she would not have met him, and would not feel so wretched now. She

  might even be dancing with Vince. She wrinkled her nose at the thought.

  `Why pull such a face?' She had forgotten Haydn could see.

  `My nose itches.' She could not explain the real reason.

  `I'll rub it for you.' He leaned down and touched her nose lightly with his own. 'That's the way Eskimos kiss,' he informed her solemnly.

  Not in here.' She pulled her head back hurriedly. A passing couple gave them an amused look, and she went scarlet.

  `Let's go outside, then,' he suggested.

  `You haven't answered my question,' she digressed hurriedly, her colour rising still further.

  `Why don't you expand on Guernsey?' He repeated it. `We can't. There's no room,' he said simply. She had not thought of that. 'I told you, you're not very businesslike.'

  `I don't want to be businesslike. I want....' She could not tell him what she wanted. She leaned her forehead against his stiff shirt front, hiding her face, and let the sentence go.

  `I wonder what you do want.' He addressed the top of her head, and when she did not answer, added provocatively, `It looks as if Vince wants to dance with you. He's hovering at the end of the room.' He did not need to add, the end in which direction they themselves were heading.

  `I don't want to dance with him.' That brought her head up, her eyes imploring him. 'Steer us the other way, do.'

  `You're sure? You won't change your mind?' Maddeningly he continued on his course. If she baulked, she would cause a collision with the other dancers, and some badly trodden on toes.

  `They might turn this into an excuseme dance....' If they did, Vince would grab his chance, and her, and she shrank from the thought of him touching her. 'I don't want to dance with him,' she insisted.

  `I just wanted to make sure.' He changed course with an expert twirl, and she breathed freely again.

  `You haven't got a flower in your hair tonight,' he observed. 'Did your daisy wilt?'

  `No, I pressed it.' As soon as the words were spoken, she wished them unsaid.

  `Pressed it?' His eyebrows rose.

  Why, oh, why did she have to say that? Why couldn't she have said she'd left the daisy at home? Carelessly, as if she might have simply forgotten it. As if it was of no importance.

  `Yes, as a souvenir.' Perhaps he would think she meant a souvenir of the festival. But it was after the procession was over that he had given her the daisy. Just before he kissed her, by the float.

  `I wanted to keep just one. The others will fade.' It should have come out sounding bright and matter-of-fact, but instead it merely sounded forlorn.

  `The daisies won't fade. Every time you close your eyes, they'll always be there, bright and fresh as ever.'

  So would Haydn's face, and she would be afraid to close her eyes because of it. The strains of The Blue Danube sighed across the room, haunting, nostalgic, and he lowered the hand that held her own, guiding her fingers to his waist, then he put both his arms right round her and held her close to him, dancing as she liked to dance, as if they were one.... Lee let her hand rest where he had put it. She could feel his movements, lithe and effortless beneath fingers that felt warm from his touch, and she laid her cheek against him, suddenly too weary to fight any more. The lights dimmed round them, so she did not need to guard her expression, and her lids dropped, drugged by the soft notes drawn from the throbbing strings of the wandering violinist, now close to them, now a lifetime away.

  She felt a light touch on her hair, and another, but she did not stir. Haydn had kissed her before, but it did not mean anything, at least not to him. How could you go on dancing, she wondered, when your heart felt as if it was breaking in two? Would she ever hear The Blue Danube played again, and not feel the agony of this moment in his arms?

  The lights went up, a low murmur of laughter rippled round the room as more than one couple were caught in a closer embrace than was strictly necessary, and the tune

  changed to a quickstep. The M.C. announced an excuseme-dance.

  `Let's sit this one out,' Lee began, but she was too late. Vince pushed through the crowd and laid a hand on her arm.

  `My dance, I think.' He glared at Haydn belligerently, and Lee's eyes widened with dismay.

  `Don't....' she began nervously, and glanced apprehensively at Haydn. He must not make a scene, not in here. But he merely smiled, and bowed, and let her go, and contrarily she felt abandoned. Vince took her triumphantly on to the floor.

  `It's about time somebody else had a chance,' he muttered as he steered her away. He was heavy-footed, and his hands were hot. Lee put the one firmly back to her waist where it belonged, and held it there so that it should not stray again, and her lips tightened. 'I haven't set eyes on you all evening,' Vince went on petulantly, without bothering to lower his voice. 'You promised me a dance.'

  `Which you've just had, so that releases the lady.' Haydn stepped towards them as they completed their first circuit of the room. Vince's hand tightened on Lee's arm, and he turned to the other man with an angry exclamation. Momentarily his move loosened his fingers a little, and Lee took the opportunity and twisted away from him before he tried to detain her, as she knew he would.

  `Thank you, Vince,' she smiled at him nervously, and ducking under his arm she fled to Haydn's side. His arm came up and circled her confidently, and swept her away from Vince and his angry protests, and lost them among the other dancers, but not for long.

  `Where are we going?'

  Instead of circling the room in the approved manner he spun her away towards the exit. Dimly she became aware that over his other arm he held folds of cloth that shone green-gold in the lamplight.

  `Put it on.' Haydn held her cloak towards her, and deftly turned her so that he could slip it across her shoulders. She stood still and watched his face while he bent over her, intent on the task of snapping the slender gold fastening

  across the high mandarin collar, his fingers slim and cool against her chin.

  `Let's go.' He did not say where. He put his arm round her and turned her towards the door. For a mutinous second Lee thought of refusing. They had come to dance, and the ball would not be over for another two hours at least. But the words would not come. She shrugged, and walked beside him silently down the hotel steps. She heard him wish the hall porter goodnight; so he did not intend them to come back. Resentment stirred in her, that he had not
asked her whether she wanted to leave, but she thrust it aside resignedly. She did not really want to dance any more anyway. The decorated floats, parked in front of the hotel, glowed pale in the summer moonlight. She paused beside their own.

  `It seems a shame they ever have to fade.' She raised her hand from inside the folds of her cloak and touched the daisies wistfully. 'They've kept fresher than most of them, though.' The flowers on the float next to it showed obvious signs of wilting.

  `Thanks to Ben.' Laughter threaded his voice, and his teeth flashed white in the dusk.

  `Thanks to Ben.' She could laugh about it too, now. `That was about the wettest ride I ever had !' She strolled on, propelled by his arm across her shoulders, not really conscious of where they were going. 'Don't you like dancing?' she asked him idly, not caring about his answer, but afraid to let the silence drop between them, and allow room for her thoughts to torment her.

  `Yes, but I don't like crowds,' he answered, 'and I thought you'd probably had enough of the opposition.'

  It was a second or two before his meaning dawned on her.

  `There isn't any opposition,' she told him stiffly. He gave a low chuckle. 'I'm glad to hear it.'

  `I didn't mean....' she began confusedly, then stopped. What use to try and explain what she meant? Haydn was deliberately provoking her, and she refused to be drawn into another argument with him today. She invariably lost. `We're at the harbourmaster's office,' she realised. 'Are

  you going to the end of the hard and back?' The sea wall was a long one, and the thin leather of her dancing pumps was not made for treading rough stone.

  `Only as far as the Sea Mist. I'm going to put her into the private mooring for the night—you heard the man from the boatyard offer me the facility.'

  Lee stopped short at the top of the harbour steps. 'I'm not going in a rowboat and climbing up rope ladders in these clothes,' she told him indignantly.

  `You won't have to go in a rowboat.'

  `And I'm not going to be left alone here while you look after your precious boat !' She clung to him, suddenly nervous, not hearing what he said. In bright sunshine the' harbour wall was an attractive place to be. Now, the moon cast only a faint illumination. The slapping of waves against the wall made an eerie accompaniment to the faint sigh of the wind which was never long absent from the water. 'I refuse to stay here on my own.' What if Vince followed them? She swallowed, and her voice trembled in spite of her efforts to keep it firm.

  `I don't intend you to,' Haydn said calmly. 'You're coming with me.' With a swift movement that took her completely unawares, he picked her up in his arms. He held her with one arm while he tucked her cloak round her with his other hand, effectively preventing her from using her hands. The enveloping folds of material swaddled her like a child's shawl, and she gave a gasp of fright as she felt the ground give beneath Haydn's feet. What if he fell? She closed her eyes tightly, and opened them again when she realised he was merely running down the harbour steps, lightly, as if he had both hands free, and no burden to carry.

  `I told you we shouldn't have to use the rowboat.' With a long stride he spanned the distance between the steps and the deck of the Sea Mist.

  `Let me go!' She tried to push away from him, but her cloak made a very effective bond.

  `You'll lose your shoes if you kick,' Haydn warned her, and there was an underlying laugh in his voice that made Lee redouble her efforts to get free. She drew in her breath on a hard, angry note, and kicked just the same, although

  her feet touched nothing but empty air. She felt the shoe on her right foot come loose, and curled her toes frantically to try and keep it on, but perversely her move made it slip further until it hung right on the end of her toes. At any moment it would drop into the water.

  `I told you to keep still.' Haydn paused and propped her against his upraised knee, then removed her shoe from her - foot.

  `Put it back!'

  `When you behave yourself.' Calmly he pushed her shoe into his jacket pocket.

  Put it back now. And put me down !' she shouted furiously.

  `I will if you want me to,' he offered easily, and tipped her so that she could see the width of dark water over which he straddled between steps and deck.

  `I d-didn't mean....' She gulped into silence. He was more than capable of dropping her, if she insisted. She closed her eyes and turned her head into his shirt front, and felt as much as heard a laugh shiver through him.

  `You.... you.. !'

  Fright stopped the words in her throat as she felt him step across the strip of water dividing the boat from the wall, then she relaxed slightly as he straightened up with both feet on the deck. He moved forward again, and she tensed. Where was he taking her? Below decks, to his cabin? But his feet kept on the even deck, and she felt him edge sideways as if into a narrow space. She opened one eye in an apprehensive peep, then the other as he tipped her the right way up and stood her on her feet beside him in the cockpit of the Sea Mist.

  `I'm going back.' She spun away from him and ran to the rail, but Haydn made no move to detain her. With an unhurried hand he reached towards the controls, and the engine of the boat purred into life.

  `Go ahead, if you want to swim for it,' he told her mildly. He spun the wheel, and Lee gripped the rail convulsively as the width of water doubled between themselves and the harbour steps.

  `I hate you!' she gritted furiously.

  `So you told me, once before.' He sounded completely unperturbed.

  `Give me back my shoe. My foot's cold.' It was not. The layers of petticoat, long dress and cloak dropped right to the floor and insulated her with cosy, protective warmth.

  `I'll keep it until you listen to what I've got to say.' The steps on the opposite side of the harbour loomed close, and he let the Sea Mist drift gently into the private mooring to the boatyard, and cut the engine into silence before he turned to her. 'You can have your shoe back afterwards, and walk away, if you still want to.'

  `What makes you think I won't want to?' she ground out. The conceit of the man! 'I want my shoe now.' She could see it, sticking out of the top of his jacket pocket. If she could reach it, she could slip it on and jump on to the steps up to the boatyard. The Sea Mist had come to rest right against them. She held her breath and grabbed. Her fingers actually touched the coloured satin toe of her shoe, then his hand descended on her wrist. His other hand left the wheel of the cruiser and grasped her round the waist, and spun her to face him. She loosed her shoe with a furious exclamation.

  For two pins, I'd use it to give you the spanking you deserve,' he threatened roughly.

  `Let me go!' She beat at him with her one free fist. 'Let me....' His lips closed on her mouth and cut off the rest of the sentence. They sought, demanded, and found. They kissed her eyes, her cheeks, and returned to her lips again, and she was lost. An aeon passed, during which the only sounds were the lapping of the water against stone, and the soft sigh of the wind. An aeon in which Haydn's hand captured her free one and drew it to him, and instead of beating against him it remained where it was, of its own accord.

  `Let me go!' It was only a whisper now, and it had no conviction behind it.

  `I'll never let you go,' he told her roughly. 'Never, so long as I live. I love you, do you hear me?' He gave her a little shake to make sure she had heard.

  Lee nodded, unable to speak.

  `And you love me,' he told her; he did not ask. 'Only you've been too stubborn to admit it. Tell me you love me,' he demanded, and tipped her face up so that she had to look at him.

  `I love you,' she whispered, and her heart was in the glow of her eyes, 'but I didn't know—I thought—'

  `You thought—what?' he asked her softly, but his voice was gentle now, and he gathered her to him, but this time she did not resist, and his lips sought her cheeks, and the small, soft hollows of her throat. 'Tell me,' he demanded huskily.

  `I thought you wanted Polrewin.'

  `I wanted Polrewin to be a success.'


  `You wanted that to help Jon.'

  `At first, yes. And then I wanted it, so that you could be free,' he told her astonished ears. 'You said you wouldn't leave Polrewin until it was a viable concern, so I had to try and make it one. Fast.'

  `And all the time I thought....' It didn't matter now what she had thought. She nestled back contentedly in his arms, and the wind crooned a gentle melody, and the long, slow minutes ticked by unheeded.

  Did you know my rose bush was a red one?' Lee asked, at last. She knew in her heart what his answer must be, but she wanted to hear him say it.

  `Of course I knew.' Haydn looked surprised. 'I picked it specially for you.' He sat her upright on his knee and looked at her sternly. 'I've tried to tell you in a dozen different ways that I love you, practically since I first set eyes on you, but you've been so busy suspecting me of trying to wreck Polrewin, you wouldn't let yourself listen,' he accused her.

  `I'm listening now.'

  So he told her again, until he was quite sure she believed him. And the Sea Mist rocked gently, sharing their secrets.

  `There isn't a glow round the masts tonight.' She let her eyes follow the pointers rising black against the soft light of the summer moon.

  `There's no storm about tonight. At least, not up there.'

  `What do you mean?' She eyed him suspiciously, and his teeth flashed in a quick grin.

  `St Elmo's not the only one who's holding fire,' he laughed.

  `I'll blow the flame out if you like,' she offered demurely.

  `Don't ever do that. Promise me,' he begged her huskily.

  `Without fire there'd be no light. At least, not for me.' His

  eyes went bleak at the prospect.

  `I promise.' She could not bear the look in his eyes. She herself had felt the same way such a short while ago.

  `You can help the chef if you want to,' he conceded, 'but not all the time. I shall want you myself.'

  `And I'll help you build your mail order business.' A memory stirred. 'You said you wanted something else on the mainland, too.' She could not remember him saying what it was.