Sally Wentworth - The Sea Master Read online

  'What's for dessert?'

  'There—there isn't one.'

  'I thought as much.' Putting his elbows on the table he leaned towards her. 'Have you ever cooked for a man before?'

  Warily she shook her head. 'No, as a matter of fact I haven't.'

  'That's pretty obvious. The meal you've given me would hardly keep a mouse alive, let alone a grown man. I get hungry up there on the bridge. I could eat this three times over. In future I want a decent-sized main course with soup first and a dessert to follow, then cheese and biscuits and real coffee, not the instant stuff you gave me at lunchtime. Understand?'

  Michelle nodded in scarcely concealed anger mixed up with dismay. It had taken all her ingenuity to produce this meal, how on earth was she to manage all that he demanded? What did he think she was, a Cordon Bleu cook or something?

  They ate the meal in virtual silence and Michelle reluctantly had to admit to herself that she, too, was still hungry after it. Not that she let him see, of course; instead she sat back in her seat as if she was full up and couldn't eat another bite. Guy looked at her sardonically and made her make up the last of the French bread and ham into a sandwich, which he took with a mug of coffee up to the bridge again. Michelle watched him go rather malevolently; she had been hoping to fill up on the bread herself, but instead she had to make do with a packet of chocolate biscuits she found in a cupboard.

  Tiredly, then, she stood at the sink to wash the dishes, looking abstractedly out of the window at the slowly darkening sky. Her thoughts were miles away; on her mother mostly, wondering what she was doing and whether she had sent for her father, but then her thoughts came sharply back to the present as her attention was caught and held by the glow of the sunset. Uncluttered by hills and houses as it would be on land, the horizon lay stretched out in a long, seemingly endless line, and in the west where sea and sky met, the brilliant colours were mirrored in the water' reflected and polished by the shimmering effect of the moving .sea until they became almost too dazzling for the naked eye. Catching her breath in wonder, almost afraid to move in case she broke the spell, Michelle stood and gazed, her eyes opening wide to drink in and hold the glory of the scene that was unfolding before her. It was a fantastically beautiful sky, no lesser words could describe it, no adequate ones had yet been invented. The sky was blood-red on the lip of the horizon, turning to fluorescent pink at the edges of the feathered clouds that stroked the clear, deep blue of the upper stratosphere.

  Slowly, as the sun sank behind the horizon, the other colours too disappeared, until the last of the light had gone and Michelle came back to reality to find herself standing in darkness, her hands still in the washing up water that had turned cold while she watched. The transition was not a pleasant one and she sighed as she turned on the light and finished the

  dishes. She felt incredibly tired after her night of seasickness and all the work she'd done today, and she longed for sleep.

  The tempo of the engines changed as darkness fell and the boat slowed down, rolling a little more with the waves without the added speed to posh her through them. Guy came into the galley soon afterwards, running a hand rather wearily down his face, and Michelle realised that he hadn't had much sleep during the storm last night either. Less than she'd had, probably.

  'Make me a hot milk drink, would you? I'm bushed.'

  Resentment prickled through her at the arrogant way he ordered her about, but he looked so weary that she silently took a packet of milk from the fridge and poured it into a saucepan, turning on the gas underneath.

  'How do you manage to get any sleep when there's only you to drive the boat?' she asked him.

  'I told you, there's an auto-pilot.'

  'Oh, yes, of course.' Taking a big mug from a cupboard, she added powdered chocolate, but paused with the spoon in mid-air as a thought occurred to her. 'But what if another ship should run into us in the dark?'

  'We're showing lights. And it's a big ocean. And anyway, we're not on a shipping lane.'

  Michelle turned to stare at him in consternation. 'But what if a big tanker, or a liner or something, were to be off course? They'd never see our lights— we're too low in the water. They would run us down without even noticing.' Her voice rose in horror as she saw the whole scene in her imagination.

  Guy grinned tiredly. 'It's all right, you don't have to worry. This boat is fitted with all the latest electronic gear available. She has a radar set that lets out a warning signal if anything comes within five miles when we're on auto.'

  'What sort of warning signal?' Michelle demanded, not yet convinced.

  'It sounds like an air-raid siren, an alarm clock and a girl screaming, all rolled into one. At the moment it's switched through to here, but when I turn in I'll switch it over to the crew's cabin.'

  'You're sure it will wake you?'

  'It'll wake the dead,' he assured her with a yawn. Then, 'The milk! It's boiling over.'

  Hastily Michelle turned to grab the pan, but she'd forgotten the open tin of chocolate powder and her arm caught it and sent it flying. 'Oh, no!'

  For a moment she was completely confused, trying to pick up the tin which had fallen on to the cooker with one hand, and the pan with the other, but the handle was so hot that she dropped it again and more milk splashed on to the names, to hiss and bubble, the acrid smell filling the galley.

  The next minute she was pushed out of the way as Guy turned off the gas, grabbed a doth and lifted off the pan and righted the upset tin of powder. He looked at the state of the cooker and the pan and then turned on her, his tone scathing. 'You,' he told her, 'are the most useless, clumsy, landlubberly female it has ever been my misfortune to meet. Not only do you not know one end of a boat from the other, but you can't cook, can't dean, and are so damn hamfisted that you make more work than you do. If we ever manage to get to Bermuda in one piece! he added through gritted teeth, 'I shall be very much surprised. Because the way you're going on you'll either set fire to the boat or Wow us to kingdom come before you're through!'

  Then he turned, poured what was left of the milk into the mug, and thrust the dirty pan into her hands. 'I'm turning in. Clean the mess up and put this in to soak overnight. Then you can turn in. And don't try skimping on the job,' he added curtly, 'because I'll check on it in the morning.'

  He waited for her to speak, but she just stood and glared at him resentfully, very close to tears, her mouth set into a petulant, sulky line.

  'Goodnight,' he said, and when she didn't answer shrugged his shoulders scornfully and walked out of the galley.

  It was a good half an hour later before Michelle got to bed, but even though she was so tired she -couldn't get to sleep. She lay listening to the creaking noises that the boat made and the sound of the waves slapping against the hull. It was such an alien environment, different from anything she had ever known before, and the thought of the smallness of the boat and the depth of Water underneath the keel made her nervous. When the wind increased she was sure it was the sound of a ship's engines, and, when a particularly large wave hit the side, that it was the wash of a big ship close by. For what seemed like hours she lay tossing and turning uneasily in the bunk, until utter exhaustion made her fall asleep at last.

  It seemed only two minutes later when she was woken by a loud banging on her door and Guy's voice calling her to get up.

  'Come on! It's six-thirty and I want my breakfast. You can make it while I shower.'

  Dazedly, her eyes hardly in focus, Michelle stumbled out of the bunk, then realised what he'd said. Six-thirty! Heavens, she'd never been up that early before in her life. Almost she rebelled and got back into bed, but the thought of his anger and contempt if she did made her put on his jeans and sweater and go yawningly into the galley, rubbing her eyes and looking at the cooking hob with a glazed expression as she tried to think what she was supposed to give him to eat.

  Down the corridor behind her she could hear Guy whistling above the noise of the shower; evidently he had slep
t well and was feeling bright and refreshed, whereas Michelle looked out at where the cold grey vastness of the sea met an equally grey sky and shivered as she thought longingly of the warmth of her sleeping-bag.

  Guy's hair was still damp when he came into the galley dressed in his usual jeans and Aran-knit sweater. He bade her a cheerful 'Good morning,' but Michelle's reply was muffled by a yawn.

  'What's the matter—didn't you sleep well?' He put a casual hand up to brush a lock of damp hair off his forehead and sat down at the table.

  'No,' Michelle answered grumpily, 'I didn't.'

  Guy looked at the sullen set of her mouth and remarked sardonically, 'Don't tell me—on top of everything else, you're one of those people who're just walking zombies until midday?'

  'Not at all,' Michelle answered none too politely. 'I just didn't get much sleep last night, dial's all.'

  'You'll soon get used to the movement of the boat,' he assured her. "Then, when you get back on land, you'll find dial you won't be able to sleep because everything is so still.'

  Michelle pursed her lips into a moue of disbelief, convinced that she wouldn't get a decent night's sleep until they reached Bermuda.

  'How about breakfast?' he reminded her. 1 want to get back to the wheel.'

  With a feeling of smug triumph, she spooned two eggs out of the pan of boiling water, placed them carefully in eggcups and carried them across to him. Guy looked at them for a moment, up to her waiting expectantly in front of him for a word of praise, then back at the eggs. Slowly he lifted up his spoon and tapped it experimentally against the egg. It made an odd, dull sort of sound. His face quite expressionless, he put down the spoon, picked up one of the eggs and lifted it high above the table, then, as Michelle watched in open-mouthed amazement, he let it drop. The egg hit the wooden table with a loud thud— and bounced!

  There was a shattering silence until Guy remarked, almost conversationally, 'I was right, you can't even boil an egg.' Then, 'Have you got something against me, Mitch?'

  'N—no,'

  'Then why are you trying to either poison me or starve me to death?'

  'I'm not! I've never had to boil an egg before. It's not my fault if they came, out hard. The gas must have cooked them too quickly.'

  Guy stood up and came over to the cooker. 'A poor workman' always blames his tools,' he quoted, the contemptuous curl back on his lips. He bent to a cupboard and said, 'Look, this is your first cookery lesson, and I'm going to show you this just once, so you'd better make sure you get it right. This,' he' said, thrusting it under her nose, 'is a frying-pan. It is a non-stick frying-pan, so you don't need any fat or cooking oil. You place it on a medium gas and you break the eggs into it So.' Deftly, he cracked two eggs against the side of the pan and twisted open the shells with one hand, so that the yolks lay round, golden and unbroken. Then he added bacon, mushrooms and tomatoes until the pan was full.

  'Where's the bread?' he demanded.

  'There isn't any—you wolfed what was left of it last night,' Michelle reminded him nastily.

  'Then you'll have to bake some,' he told her, quite unperturbed by her tone.-

  'Bake some? But I don't know how to.'

  'Well, now's your chance to learn.' He crossed to the freezer cabinet and took out two oblong packets. 'Uncooked loaves,' he told her briefly. 'All you have' to do is put them in the oven at the required temperature for the required length of time. A child—or should I say, even you—could do it.'

  Taking a large plate from the cupboard, he piled everything from the frying pan on to it. '-This is my normal sized breakfast,' he informed her. 'I want this, or its equivalent, waiting for me on the table every morning by seven o'clock. Got that?'

  Michelle nodded, but then it occurred to her to ask, 'Where's mine?'

  Guy grinned. 'Now that I've shown you how to do it you'll be able to cook your own. It will be good practice for you before tomorrow morning.'

  She stared at him speechlessly for a moment, then flounced out of the galley, slamming the door behind her. Let that—that pig eat by himself, she certainly wasn't going to stand there and try to cook with him watching her and probably grinning all over his ugly face at her mistakes.

  It was the start of a hellish day that went from bad to worse. Guy's voice over the intercom seemed to be hounding her every five minutes, added to which she threw all the-rubbish over the wrong side of the boat so that the wind blew it all back again, she forgot to turn off a tap in the bathroom so that a lot of fresh water was wasted, and she burnt three lots of dough before shem anaged to get two loaves that looked reasonably edible. By the time Guy came down before the evening meal Michelle felt more tired than she'd ever done in her life, her head ached unbearably, and her nerves were stretched to screaming point.

  This evening she had put a frozen casserole in the oven,, together with an apple pie for dessert, and had vegetables and soup cooking on the hob. Surely tonight he wouldn't be able to find any fault.

  But Guy took one mouthful of the soup and then threw his spoon down in disgust. 'What the hell's this? It's stone cold!'

  'But it can't be. It's been cooking for ten minutes.'

  'Taste it for yourself,' he ordered grimly, and watched as Michelle tasted her own, her face falling in dismay as she realised he was right.

  'But I don't understand.'

  Guy got up and stepped to the cooker. 'All the pans are nearly cold, and the oven's not much warmer. Don't tell me you forgot to turn the gas on? Even you couldn't be that stupid.'

  'Of course I turned it on,' Michelle retorted indignantly.

  Picking up a pan, Guy exclaimed, 'The pilot light's gone out. You've used up all the gas. How could you possibly have used up a whole gas cylinder in two days? You'd have had to have the cooker on for the whole day to use that much.'

  Michelle had been about to make a rude reply, but came to an abrupt halt as she realised that she had had the cooker on virtually the whole day, trying to bake the rotten bread.

  Guilt and consternation must have shown in her face because Guy immediately rounded on her. 'My God, now I've seen everything! Not only can you not boil an egg but you don't even know when the heat's on underneath a pan. Tell me, Mitch, just what the hell are you good for?' he added, his tone sneering and contemptuous.

  'How dare you speak to me like that?5 Michelle shouted back at him angrily, the last threads of her temper snapping like fireworks. I'm not your servant. All day long you've been ordering me about or calling me over that rotten intercom thing. And I'm sick of it, d'you hear me? I'm just sick of it! Do this, do that. Bring me one thing, clean up something else.' Guy opened his mouth to speak, but she swept on explosively. 'I've had it! I'm not going to lift another finger until we get to Bermuda. I just wish to hell I'd never decided to come on your lousy boat!'

  She went to go on, but this time Guy interrupted her angrily. 'You lazy little devil! Just because a few things go wrong you want to run away and hide like a child instead of trying to learn by your mistakes.

  'A few things! You've been picking on me every minute since I came aboard. How was I supposed to know the gas would run out? And it isn't my fault I don't know how to cook.'

  Guy's left eyebrow rose interrogatively. 'In that case why did you lie and say that you could when I first talked to you?' he asked in heavy sarcasm.

  Deeming it better to ignore that question, Michelle drew herself up to her full height and said tartly, 'Well, you needn't think that I'm going to work for you any more, because I'm not. In future you can do your own cooking and…'

  'Well, at least I won't get poisoned,' he put in sarcastically.

  'And I'll do mine,' Michelle swept on, infuriated by his interruption. 'And the less I see of you between here and Bermuda, the better I'll like it!'

  She went to stalk past him with her chin in the air, but he reached out and caught her arm, swinging her round to face him again. 'Oh, no you don't. I'm not through talking to you yet. I told you when you came aboard that I'm
not carrying any passengers on this trip. If you want to get to America then you're going to work whether you like it or not.'

  'Oh, no, I'm not! You can't force me.'

  The pressure on her arm didn't increase any, but there was something in his eyes and his voice as he said softly, 'Oh, yes, I can,' that made Michelle's face suddenly pale,

  Rather unsteadily she said, 'Don't worry, you won't be out of pocket. I'll pay you for my passage as soon as I get to Bermuda.'

  'But you haven't any money, remember?'

  'I'll get some.'

  His eyes, cold and contemptuous, looked into hers as he said with insolence, 'Of course, I'm sure you'd have
  'I've already told you,' Michelle yelled back at him, vainly trying to wrench her arm from his grasp. 'I'm not going to do any more of your filthy, horrible jobs. You can do your own work!'

  'All right, if that's the way you want it. Then there's only one thing left to say.'

  Michelle glared at him, hating him. 'And what's that?'

  'If you won't work your passage as crew then you'll have to work it the other way.'

  Michelle's brows drew together in a puzzled frown. 'I don't understand what you mean.'

  'Don't you? I think you do. There has to be something you're good at. Maybe it's this.' Taking hold of her other arm, he firmly pulled her towards him and bent to kiss her.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  For a few minutes Michelle was too startled to react. It was only when she felt the hardness of his lips exploring hers, his hands move from her arms and hold her closer against his lean, muscular body, that she jerked back to life and tried to move-away. But his arms held her prisoner, depriving her of movement, and her sound of protest was lost beneath the increasing demands of his mouth as he sought to make her respond. Michelle had been kissed by Peter and other boy-friends often, but none of them had ever had Guy's strength, not only of body, but of mind; it was as if he sought to impose his will on her, to dominate her completely. Vainly she tried to push herself away, but his hand came up and twined in her hair, keeping her still.