'No, thanks.'
.She crossed to give it to him, looking into his eyes and then quickly away again as their coldness struck her.
'I found this in your cabin after you'd gone.' He put-his hand into his pocket and pulled out the earring, holding it out to her. It reminded her forcefully of how she'd held out the engagement ring to Peter; but somehow she couldn't believe that he had felt even half the reluctance she felt as she reached out to take it.
Her eyes searched Guy's face, but he raised his glass and drank from it before saying abruptly, 'Why didn't you accuse me of abducting you as you threatened?'
'I don't know.' Michelle turned and walked a little away from him. 'Because I couldn't when it came to it, I suppose.'
'Well, I'm grateful, for what it's worth; it will enable me to get away tomorrow.'
'You're leaving tomorrow?'
'Yes.' He drained his glass in one swallow and put it down. I'd better be going. Goodbye, Mitch.'
'No! Don't go, I…'She moved between him and the door, looked up at him pleadingly. 'Guy, I meant what I said back there on the boat. I want to go with you.'
'Did you leave your earring behind on purpose?' he demanded.
'Yes. I wanted to see you again. I—I love you, Guy.'
His jaw tightened. 'So you said before. But you just think you do, that's-all. You said, yourself that I'm different from all the men you've known. It was being thrown together with an older man, someone who treated you like a grown woman and not a child, that made you feel like this.'
'That isn't true! I know how I feel. Nothing will make me change.' She caught hold of his sleeves, gazing up at him beseechingly. 'Please believe me. I…'
'No!' He caught her wrists and pulled them down. "You're no more in love with me than I am with you.'
That hurt, and Michelle flinched al if he'd struck her but she said steadily, 'I don't believe you. I think you do care for me. Oh, it may not be very much, not enough to call—to call love, but I think you do care for me a little.'
Angrily he turned his back on her. 'You're mistaken,' he retorted harshly.
Michelle's chest heaved as she struggled to keep control of her emotions. 'You know, Guy,' she said chokily, 'I feel sorry for you. Just because a woman hurt you once you're afraid to even admit to your own feelings, let alone show any emotion. You're just afraid to let yourself fall in love!'
Guy stared at her, his face white around his set mouth, a savagely angry light in his eyes. He took a hasty step towards her, but stopped precipitately as he heard a door open and her mother came into the room.
'Why, Mr Farringdon, how nice to see you again. I'm sorry I wasn't here to greet you, but I was changing for dinner.'
Guy recovered himself superbly, there wasn't a trace of anger left in his face as he moved forward to shake hands. He smiled warmly, his eyes running over Adele Verlaine's perfect figure in a long, swathed black dress with a plunging neckline. 'It was well worth the wait,' he told her appreciatively.
'Adele smiled at him, her eyes assessing him as a man. 'How different you look tonight, Mr Farringdon—or may I call you Guy?'
'By all means.' Adele sat down on a sofa and looked at him invitingly. Immediately he crossed to sit beside her, giving her all his attention.
Michelle turned away, feeling sick inside. Was this to be the final degradation? That the man she loved should become just another of the men who fawned at her mother's feet, overwhelmed by her beauty and charm?
'Darling, why don't you pour us out some drinks, and then I really think you ought to get dressed, don't you? You can borrow something of mine, if you like,' Adele added, as if she was giving her a treat.
Somehow Michelle poured the drinks and took them over. Guy hardly bothered to glance up before turning back to smile and laugh at something her mother was saying as she exerted her charm to attract him. Stiffly she went back to her bedroom to finish dressing. When she came back they'd gone, and the maid told her that they had gone out to dinner together.
'Your mother said that she thought you'd prefer to have dinner alone with Sir Richard,' the maid told her with unwanted sympathy in her tone.
It was very late before they got back. Michelle was lying in bed and heard the door open and her mother's' voice followed by Guy's laugh. The voices continued for a little while and she lay there rigidly, hating them both, waiting to hear them go into her mother's bedroom, but instead she heard the sound of the outer door closing. Her eyes flew wide open as she stared into the darkness, hardly able to believe her ears. Quickly she got up and went to the door to listen. There was only the sound of her mother's footsteps as she went to her room. Bewildered, Michelle went to the window in the hope that she might see Guy as he left the hotel. He came out of the entrance a few minutes later and paused on the steps to light a cigarette. The doorman approached him and gestured towards a waiting taxi, but Guy shook his head and began to walk through the gardens. He went slowly, as if he was preoccupied, and he paused when he was almost opposite and looked up at the windows of the suite.
Michelle's room was in darkness and she knew he couldn't see her, but even so she drew back, afraid of being seen. Guy continued to gaze up for a while longer, then he turned and sat on a low stone wall while he finished his cigarette. There was a hibiscus bush growing nearby, the pale lemon-coloured flowers looking ghostlike in the moonlight. As Michelle watched, Guy reached out and plucked one of the blooms and held it in his hand. It was just a bud, its petals folded tightly over one another, waiting for the morning and the sun that would give it the light and warmth it needed to open its petals and display its vivid beauty. Guy ran his finger along it, stroking it gently, and Michelle suddenly remembered a phrase he had once used: 'You're like a bud waiting to burst into flower.'
A strange, tense excitement gripped her as she watched, and she was hardly aware that her mother had come into the room until she was by her side, her hand on Michelle's shoulder. Following her daughter's gaze, she, too, saw Guy in the garden. Michelle expected her to make some remark, but never the one she did.
'Are you very much in love with him?'
Slowly Michelle turned to face her mother. For a second she thought of denying it, but then her chin came up and she answered, 'Yes, I am,'
'So why don't you tell him so?' Adele Verlaine asked mildly.
'I already have. He doesn't want me. You should know that,' Michelle added bitterly.
'Should I? How?'
'Well, it was you he took out tonight.'
'Yes. But not because he wanted to.'
'What do you mean? He was obviously attracted to you.'
'Rather too obviously, I think. Oh, good heavens, Michelle, do you think I can't tell the difference between genuine feelings and acting by now? He couldn't have cared less about me. Once we were outside the door he was merely politely charming. He was just using me.'
'B-but why? I don't understand.'
'Because he thought that taking me out and showing me attention would finally put you off him, of course.'
'He was right, it did,' Michelle answered shortly.
'Then you're as big a fool as he is.'
'He isn't a fool,' she retorted, jumping swiftly to his defence.
'Yes, he is, All men in love are fools. He thinks he's all wrong for you and that you're just infatuated. And if you want him you're just going to have to convince him that it's for keeps.'
Michelle looked at her mother helplessly, 'But how? He won't listen to me.'
Impatiently her mother answered. 'Go after him, of course. Now. Before it's, too late. Show him that you care. Make him take you with him.' Then she laughed at Michelle's amazed face. 'Well, don't just stand there, get dressed
Michelle took another look into the garden and saw Guy get up, grind his cigarette end into the earth and look down at the bud in his hand. His fingers closed over it and he looked as if he was going to throw it aside, but instead he thrust it deep into his jacket pocket before turning and strid
ing quickly away.
'Immediately she began to dress while her mother helped her.
'You can have one of my cases and I'll put some of my things in for you. Oh, and I brought your passport with me—you'll need that. And some toiletries, of course.'
She ran out of the room and returned with a partly filled suitcase into which she hastily put Michelle's own clothes. 'There, I think that's everything. Here's some money for a taxi, and in case you need it.'
"Thanks.' Michelle fastened the strap of her sandal and stood up to take the case. 'You'll say goodbye to Daddy for me, won't you, if I—if I don't come back?'
'Yes, of course.'
They hurried together to the outer door, but then Michelle paused uncertainly and turned to look at her mother searchingly. 'Why are you doing this for me?'
Adele Verlaine hesitated, then said, 'When your father and I were splitting up you still had his love, his unreserved, unbounded love, but I was losing it. He wanted to take you with him, but I wouldn't let him because I wanted to hurt him. And I was so jealous of you that I wouldn't even let you go and visit Wm when he wanted.' She looked down at her hands. 'Jealousy is a most terrible emotion, Michelle, it makes people do crazy things. But now perhaps I can make it up to you a little.' She leant forward and kissed her daughter. 'Good luck, my dearest. I hope you get the man you love, and once you've got him make sure you don't lose him like I did.' Lifting a hand, she touched Michelle's cheek and smiled at her mistily. 'Go now.'
But still Michelle hesitated. 'But what about you?'
'Me?' Adele Verlaine smiled. 'Well, your father's room is just down the corridor, and I've heard rumours that all isn't well between him and his current wife. So perhaps it may not be too late after all, and I'll go along there and see if I can't win back the man I love!'
They smiled at each other, both with a common bond that for the first time bridged their relationship, then Michelle turned and ran down the corridor to the lifts.
She took a taxi from the hold, expecting to overtake Guy as he walked along, but the taxi cut through the town instead of going- along the waterfront and she didn't see him. The boat was in darkness when she climbed aboard and she had to scramble through a window because the cabin door was locked. Once inside she hesitated, wondering what to do, but then she smiled and made her way to the main cabin, switching on the light to reveal the big circular bed. Swiftly she made it up with the specially fitted sheets that were kept in one of the drawers, listening all the time for the sound of Guy's footsteps. But she had time to hide her suitcase in a cupboard, to brush her long hair and put on a little make-up, and, after a long-moment's hesitation, to take off all her clothes and put them away. Then she turned off the main light so that only the dim glow of the bedside lamps illuminated the cabin, that and the shafts of moonlight that came -through the windows after she'd opened the curtains so that Guy would be sure to see the lights when he came aboard. One last look round and then she slid between the cool sheets to wait.
It was almost twenty minutes later before he arrived. Twenty minutes of rapidly growing tension and nervousness. His footsteps came quite slowly along the pier, hesitated near the boat as Michelle imagined him looking up and seeing the light, and
then came on swiftly, purposefully. She sat up in the bed and pulled the sheets up to cover herself, her heart beating wildly.
The door burst open and then Guy stopped dead on the threshold, staring at her in total disbelief. Michelle had carefully worked out what she was going to say while she was waiting, but now every word of it had gone and she could only sit there like a fool and wait to see what he would do. It took hini several seconds to recover, but then he came into the cabin and pushed the door shut.
'How long have you been here?'
'Not long. I took a taxi from the hotel shortly after you left.'
'I see.' His mouth set into a grim line. 'Well, you can just get dressed, because I'm taking you straight back.'
.'I'm afraid I can't do that,' Michelle answered steadily enough. 'You see, I thought you'd try that one, so I threw all my clothes out of the window into the sea.'
'Did you, by God?' He moved towards the bed and stood looking down at her. 'I suppose you've run away again without letting your parents know where you are?'
'No. As a matter of fact my mother told me to come here. She seemed to think that you did care for me after all.'
'Indeed?' He was at his most disdainful.
'Yes,' Michelle persisted. 'And I think so too. If you look in your right-hand pocket you'll see why.'
Guy's eyebrows rose. He put his hand in his pocket and then his expression changed. He pulled out the hibiscus bud and looked down at it lying pale gold on his palm. Slowly he lifted his eyes to look at her.
'I remembered, you see, what you said, and it gave me the courage to—to come here.' Her voice trailed off as he continued to stand and look at her so silently. Biting her lip, she looked down at the coverlet, began to pleat it nervously between her fingers, convinced that he was finding the words to send her away again. Perhaps the bud hadn't reminded him' of her at all, perhaps it was someone else.
She was on the verge of breaking down into tears when he said almost conversationally, 'I knew that I was in love with you the day I helped you to catch a fish and then you cried because I killed it. I'd begun to suspect it before, but-that was when I knew for certain.'
Michelle's head came up and she stared at him open-mouthed,. He glanced at her and began to take off his jacket, throwing it on to a seat. Then he took off his tie. 'I told myself that I was thirteen years older than you and that you were too young to know your own mind, but it didn't make any difference.'
His shirt followed his tie on to the seat, then he sat on the bed to take off his shoes. Matter-of-factly he went on, 'Every time I saw you, touched you, I wanted you. Trying to act like some sort of older brother to you was pure hell, especially when you tried to provoke me like you did. The only way I could keep my hands off you was by telling myself that we'd soon be in Bermuda and you'd be leaving the boat.'
He slipped off his trousers, then turned to look at her fully for the first time. 'But then you told me all in one breath that you loved me but were engaged to someone else. I reckoned that the only decent thing I could do was to get the hell out of your life and if making you hate me by going out with your mother helped, then I'd do that too. But it seems it didn't work.'
'No,' Michelle agreed softly, 'it didn't.'
Putting out a hand, he gently pilled the sheet from her fingers, a bright flame of desire in his eyes as they caressed her. 'You realise that if I get, into that bed then I'll have to make an honest woman of you, don't you?'
She smiled, her eyes radiant with love and happiness. 'I rather hoped you might,' she admitted.
He leant forward and kissed her long and lingeringly, then reached over to turn out the light.
His voice thick and unsteady, he said, 'Well, on that understanding, my dearest love, you'd better move over.'
Sally Wentworth - The Sea Master Page 16
