Читать книгу An Unsuitable Wife - Lindsay Armstrong, Lindsay Armstrong - Страница 5

‘HOW’S that?’

‘It’s really excellent. She sails like a dream!’ Sidonie said enthusiastically. ‘Wouldn’t you just love to own a boat like this?’

Mike Brennan shrugged non-committally. They’d cleared the Abel Point Marina and Pioneer Rocks very early and were sailing down the Whitsunday Passage in light conditions, and added to the magic of Morning Mist there was a slight haze in the air so that the passage looked ethereally lovely in the morning light, a serenade of pale blues, sky and water with the islands appearing insubstantial and as if they were floating themselves. Two dolphins had accompanied them for a time, rubbing their backs under the bow of the boat then curving out of the water joyfully.

Sidonie had been aware as they’d hoisted sail and cut the motor that she’d been under Mike Brennan’s hawk-like scrutiny, and aware that she’d passed his unspoken test, which had given her a curiously joyful little lift herself. Not that she’d ever handled a boat this size before, with its impressive spread of sail, but the rudiments were always the same, and she thought her father, who had taught her to sail, would have been proud of her. Then she thought of Peter Matthews, who had also been impressed by her sailing abilities, and the many happy days they’d spent together on Port Phillip Bay, and blinked a couple of times. Why didn’t I realise until it was too late? she asked herself. I mean realise that what we shared wasn’t the stuff dreams are made of? If only I had I could have spared myself the indignity if nothing else of having to be told he’d fallen in love with someone else. Perhaps even spared him the embarrassment of it all...

‘Penny for them?’ the tall man beside her said quietly.

‘Er—’ She jumped and looked at him ruefully. ‘Oh, nothing really.’

‘It’s a shame to be sad on a morning like this.’

‘You’re right, it is. I’ll stop!’

He smiled briefly. ‘Would some breakfast help?’

‘It certainly would.’

‘Well, if you keep her on this course, I’ll do the necessary. Are you a big breakfast eater?’

‘Oh, no. What do you usually have?’

‘Muesli and fruit, toast and coffee.’

‘So do I!’

‘Well, I’m glad we’ve found a couple of things in common,’ he said, but nicely, and disappeared down the ladder.

I think he is nice, Sidonie found herself reflecting as she held Morning Mist on course with her sails nicely filled. She was not to know that while Mike Brennan could undoubtedly be nice he could also get extremely angry in a very cold and cutting manner...

That discovery came to her the next evening after another lovely day’s sailing, when they were anchored in Stonehaven Bay off Hook Island. Not only had they had a great sail but after they’d anchored he’d lowered the dinghy and taken her coral viewing per medium of a coral viewer held into the water over the side of the dinghy, and she’d been amazed and thrilled at the colourful sight. She’d even said it reminded her of buried treasure and he’d raised an eyebrow and agreed that it was a good description.

Unfortunately, after that, she’d been unable to put off the evil moment any longer—her turn to cook dinner. Breakfast had been a breeze, lunch fairly simple—even she couldn’t do much wrong with cold meat and salad—but there was plump fresh chicken reposing in the fridge awaiting her attentions, and she got a sinking feeling every time she thought about it.

Fortunately, or so she thought at the time, one of the other boats anchored in Stonehaven was known to Mike and when he was invited aboard for a drink and asked her if she’d like to go as well she’d declined and said she would rather start dinner, thinking that she’d be much better off without him breathing down her neck.

She wasn’t. Despite a cook book she found—or, as she later heard herself say, actually because of it. She certainly wouldn’t have been as adventurous without it but when there was cauliflower crying out for a white sauce and the instructions for it, a recipe for honeyed carrots... The list went on.

None of this altered the fact that, an hour and a half later when Mike Brennan returned to the boat, she’d got herself into an unbelievable, not to mention dangerous mess and had just managed to tilt the roasting tray, complete with burnt chicken, pumpkin and potatoes, so that all its contents had slid to the galley floor.

The first words he spoke she heard quite clearly although she couldn’t quite see him through the smoky black haze that filled the boat.

He said, ‘My God...!’ Then, ‘Just what the bloody hell do you think you’re doing, Sidonie? Trying to burn the boat to the waterline?’

‘No, no!’ She gasped and coughed then yelped as she burnt herself on the roasting tray.

The next few minutes were confused and not helped by the white sauce, which quadrupled its volume into a billowing, bubbly head and cascaded all over the top of the stove, thereby adding another smell of burning of a slightly different but equally unpleasant nature.

It was only after Mike Brennan had managed to reduce the haze by opening every porthole and hatch that he stopped swearing. Then he surveyed her with blazing blue eyes but said in a voice like ice, ‘How did this happen?’

Sidonie wiped her watering eyes and thought briefly. ‘Food and I don’t get along too well. I mean, I enjoy eating it well enough, there are some things I love, but I’m just not very good at...cooking it. Although I followed the instructions to a T, I do assure you!’

‘You thoughtless, stupid, pedantic, tiresome little girl—why didn’t you just tell me you couldn’t cook?’ he ground out through his teeth. ‘Not only could you have burnt the boat but it will take a week to clean up the mess.’

Sidonie thought again although she felt a bit fearful and looked it. ‘I don’t understand why I can’t cook, you see. And I really thought that without you around to give me an inferiority complex, plus the help of this recipe book, I might just get it right this time.’

He said something extremely uncomplimentary towards her thought processes and added that he hoped she was as good at cleaning up messes as she was at creating them, but when she assured him eagerly that she was he glared at her in a way that made her quake inside, and turned away in disgust.

They worked together for over an hour in a cold, absolutely demoralising silence. Then he said curtly, ‘Leave it now, Sidonie. For one thing I’m tired of tripping over you—go and have a shower or something. I’ll make us something to eat.’

She opened her mouth but received such a devastating blue glance that she closed it and turned away defeatedly.

* * *

He’d made them scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, she discovered when she nerved herself to leave her cabin, washed and cleaned up but feeling like an incredible fool.

She also discovered she was still in Coventry as they ate, and for once she could think of not a thing to say or do to ease the situation.

Then he broke the silence to say with considerable irony, ‘Would I be wrong in surmising your ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend possesses some culinary skills?’

Sidonie winced and looked away. Don’t cry, she warned herself. However hurtful, it was still a horrible thing to say.

‘Sidonie?’

‘I don’t really know. Probably,’ she said gruffly and concentrated on the last little bit of smoked salmon.

‘Probably,’ he marvelled. ‘Even if it were a bare modicum it would have to be an improvement on you.’

She didn’t answer but put her knife and fork together and went to get up but flinched as the inside of her forearm came into contact with the edge of the table. She didn’t see him frown and looked up in surprise when he took her wrist and turned her arm to the light, exposing the nasty little burn she’d received from the roasting dish.

Their gazes caught and held and he said in a different voice, ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘About this?’

‘Yes, about this burn,’ he said deliberately, still holding her wrist.

‘I...I don’t really know,’ she murmured. ‘I suppose because I’d created enough havoc without adding to it. But it’s nothing,’ she assured him. ‘I—’

‘Stop right there, Sidonie,’ he warned. ‘I know damn well it must have been hurting like hell and still is, and if there’s one thing I don’t appreciate it’s false bravery—’

‘It’s not false—’

‘It’s not hurting?’ he shot at her.

‘Well...’ she bit her lip ‘...only a little. And if you must know,’ she continued, ‘if you hadn’t made me feel entirely as if I’d crawled out from under a stone, I would have asked you for something to put on it. I don’t believe in false bravery either.’

He moved his fingers on her wrist so that she flinched again, then he raised his eyes heavenwards in total exasperation. ‘Just promise me one thing, Sidonie.’

She looked at him wide-eyed. He surveyed her upturned face and wide eyes for a moment then shook his head and said merely, ‘Don’t talk the hind leg off a donkey until my mood improves.’ And he gave her back her wrist and motioned her to sit down, whereupon he brought out a first-aid kit and dealt with her burn competently and clinically. Then he made them some coffee but declined her offer to do the dishes. ‘Although,’ he said meditatively, ‘I think that will have to be the division of labour from hereon in. I’ll be chief cook and you can be chief bottle washer.’

‘Thank you very much,’ she said with a rush of gratitude. ‘I can’t tell you how sorry I am. And tomorrow I’ll clean every crevice so that it will all look like new again. Unless...’ She paused and eyed him warily.

He narrowed his eyes. ‘What?’

‘I just wondered if it would be possible to teach me a bit of cookery, seeing as you seem to be so very good at it.’

He eyed her over the rim of his cup. ‘How come no one else has been able to teach you?’

‘No one’s ever tried. Dad and I always lived on campus, you see. Oh, we had a self-contained flatlet but it was much easier to eat in the canteen.’

Mike Brennan put down his cup and stared into it silently but when she thought he wasn’t going to say anything and had begun to wish she’d never mentioned the subject he looked up at last with something wry and quizzical in his eyes. ‘I suppose one could only try,’ he said gravely. ‘If nothing else it might render you more marriageable.’

The glow that had started to light Sidonie’s face up faltered and he grimaced, stood up and patted her on the head. ‘Don’t look like that, kid. I’m still recovering from the shock of your little débâcle—yes, I’ll teach you how to cook, if it’s possible.’

With that she had to be content, and discovered, curiously, that she was. And even more so when, after he’d dealt with the dishes, he put some music on the CD, a lovely Enya album, and brought out the manual for the instrument known colloquially as a GPS, short for Global Positioning System. In fact it would have been true to say she was entranced as he explained the finer points of satellite navigation and how the instrument locked into several satellites and was thereby able to record the boat’s position so that they could plot it on a chart and know exactly where they were as well as being able to put in a destination point and have it tell them the course to steer to get to it, the range in nautical miles and the time it would take to get there.

And within a very short time she had a complete grasp of the instrument, causing him to say with a lifted eyebrow, ‘You may not be able to cook, friend Sid, but you’ve picked all this up in record time.’

Nothing diminished her glow of pleasure this time and she went to bed not long afterwards in a more contented frame of mind than one would have thought possible considering she’d nearly burnt the boat down. And as she listened to the gentle slap of the bow wave against the hull and snuggled beneath the covers her thoughts once again turned to Mike Brennan, a man she knew so little about yet was coming to like a lot.

It was at this point that it occurred to her again that while he might look like a rough diamond he didn’t sound like one nor behave like one and was even looking less and less like one on closer inspection. In fact, although she wouldn’t call him handsome, she decided, those aquiline features appealed to her, at least his brown hair was shiny and clean, and he did things on the boat with an economy and precision of movement, a fine-tuning of his superb physique, those broad shoulders, lean torso and long legs that was a pleasure to watch and even made her heart beat a little oddly sometimes. Then there was the way he cooked and the things he cooked and the music he liked and the books he read—you could almost be forgiven for thinking he was educated and cultured, she mused. And there was now the conundrum to add to all this that, despite her early doubts and despite incurring his dire wrath, she felt strangely safe with Mike Brennan...

* * *

The weather turned against them over the next few days. It was windy and wet, and they had a few exhilarating sails both clad in yellow rain-jackets, but when the wind rose to above twenty-five knots they sought protection in a secluded anchorage and spent two nights there until the weather eased. They were to turn into two of the happiest days Sidonie had known for a while, for several reasons. For one thing he cut down an ancient set of overalls for her and together they clambered down beneath the floorboards and inspected every part of the boat’s machinery minutely and she was able to exhibit her knowledge of diesel engines and run her hands lovingly over the Gardiner as well as attend to it where required. She was also able to squeeze into impossibly small spaces, spaces he couldn’t get into, and it was she who discovered the bilge pump that was not operating properly and was able to take it apart and fix it.

And although he didn’t say a lot she could see from the wry look he occasionally directed her way that she sometimes amazed him, sometimes amused him.

Then there were the evenings when the wind was howling through the halyards but they were snuggly battened down and he commenced his cooking lessons. They seemed to get into a routine. They showered and changed then she perched on a stool on the other side of the island bench from him and under his direction chopped, peeled and prepared. That was all she did the first night but she listened minutely as he explained what he was doing—pot roasting a piece of blade beef, sealing in the juices by searing it first then laying it on a bed of the vegetables she’d done with a little bit of liquid, seasoning and some red wine and setting it to simmer covered until done.

‘Very healthy and economical,’ he commented, pouring her a glass of wine.

‘Why?’

‘Well, you’re cooking everything in one pot on one burner and none of the goodness of the vegetables is lost because you use the liquid it’s cooking in as a thin gravy.’

‘I would never have thought of that. How do you know so much about it? Are you self-taught?’

‘More or less.’

‘That’s what I thought I could be,’ she said with a grimace. ‘It obviously didn’t work in my case.’

He smiled faintly. ‘Once some of the basics become clear to you, you could surprise yourself.’

But it was the next night that he surprised her. This time they were cooking the sweetlip he’d caught earlier; he’d shown her how to fillet it, how to make a light batter and they were intending to pan fry the fillets in olive oil. The wind had dropped but it was raining heavily, the lamps were on, and for the first time she’d left her hair loose to dry after getting caught in a shower while she’d checked that the anchor was holding; it was simply parted on the side and hanging to her shoulders. It was almost dry as she concentrated carefully on the potatoes she was slicing for chips. And when she looked up once it was to find him staring at her with a faint frown.

Her eyes widened. ‘Something wrong?’

‘No. Why on earth do you always scrape your hair back in a pigtail or a bun?’

She put a hand to her hair self-consciously. Its colour was fine, the palest gold in fact, its texture strong and vibrant, but left to itself the ends curled riotously. ‘Isn’t it a terrible mess?’

‘The kind of mess women pay fortunes to induce in their hair,’ he said ironically.

Sidonie stared at him, her lips parted. ‘Are you sure?’ she said after a moment.

His blue eyes roamed her face and she could see a kind of wry exasperation in them as he said, ‘Don’t you ever look at other women?’

‘Of course. Well, I must, mustn’t I?’

‘Then how come you’ve failed to realise that you have an almost perfectly oval face, beautiful eyes, skin like pale velvet, an amazingly stern little mouth when you want it to be but pink and inviting at other times—and that heavy mass of lovely hair just as it is sets it all off to perfection while the way you had it scraped back didn’t do much for you at all?’

Sidonie’s eyes almost fell out. ‘You’re joking!’

He grimaced. ‘I’m not. It may not be what you see on the pages of Vogue, although if you didn’t bite your nails that could help, but it’s a big improvement on Sidonie Hill as you normally present her to the world.’

‘But...but there’s the rest of me.’

His lips twisted. ‘I can’t see a great deal wrong with the rest of you either,’ he replied prosaically.

‘Well, I’m not terribly well-endowed if you must know.’

‘That could be a matter of opinion,’ he commented. ‘You actually have a rather coltish grace.’

‘I...I don’t know whether I should believe you,’ Sidonie said, her brow furrowed in a mighty frown.

He shrugged and looked amused. ‘Why don’t you test it out, then?’

‘How?’

‘Just leave your hair the way it is, for starters. Try not to be too serious when you’re around boys—it might help to sound a little less learned—I’ve already mentioned your clothes, and if you could relax, who knows?’ He turned away and reached for the oil.

Sidonie stared at his back and was possessed of the strangest impulse, which manifested itself in what she said. ‘At twenty-three aren’t I bit grown-up for boys?’

‘You look about sixteen at the moment,’ he said drily.

She bit her lip. ‘Well...but the problem of being too serious and learned-sounding—might that not appeal to older men?’

He turned back and looked more amused. ‘Once again, who knows?’

‘How old are you, Mike?’ The words were out before she could stop them and once out the implication was deafening and she blushed vividly but being Sidonie immediately attempted some rationalisation. ‘I mean, as an older man yourself, do you find me boring and too learned? I just thought it might give me some sort of guide. However else it may have sounded,’ she said lamely, and not entirely honestly, she realised.

The amusement left his eyes; she saw it go and flinched inwardly. Yet he said normally, even whimsically, ‘Definitely an older man; I’m thirty-six...’ he paused ‘...and too old for you, friend Sid.’ But he held her grey gaze in a level look for a moment before gently prising the knife out of her fingers and briskly slicing the last potato into chips.

She took a breath then said with all the hauteur she could muster, ‘That could be a matter of opinion too—speaking purely academically.’

He was unmoved. ‘So it could. Speaking generally as well, but not in this case.’

She couldn’t help the slightly crestfallen look that came to her eyes but if he noted it he made no comment as he put the chips in the hot oil.

And all she could think of to say was, ‘I see.’ But then she leant her chin on her hands thoughtfully, looking genuinely puzzled, and said, ‘If I were to assure you I had no designs on you at all—which shouldn’t be that hard to believe after the way I carried on a few days ago—could we continue this discussion on an academic level?’

An unwilling smile twisted his lips and he murmured, ‘The mind boggles but I have no doubt you’re going to pursue it to the death so I guess I have little choice. What is it you’d like to know, Miss Hill?’

She tried to marshal her thoughts into order as her father had always trained her to do when confronting a scientific problem and said at last, ‘Well. If as you said I’m not quite the rather ordinary, plain person I took myself for, does it mean you have a preference for tall, statuesque brunettes?’

‘Not necessarily. It merely means, and you should understand this, Sid—’ he glinted a blue glance at her ‘—that there has to be a certain kind of chemistry between a man and a woman that’s a subtle, mysterious thing and is the reason why a man will fall in love with one girl and not ten others who may be equally as beautiful if not more so. And vice versa.’ He laid the fillets of sweetlip carefully into the pan.

Sidonie grimaced. Then she said carefully, ‘Point taken. On the other hand it crossed my mind to wonder if there wasn’t more to it in your case. And by that I mean, on the scale of averages, most men of your age are either married or have been married.’

‘True,’ he conceded, quite unperturbed. ‘But I can assure you that I’m perfectly normal.’

Sidonie’s lips parted and her eyes widened. ‘Oh, I didn’t mean that,’ she said flusteredly. ‘I was thinking more along the lines of some deep unhappiness associated with falling in love that had come your way.’

‘Sidonie...’ he stopped what he was doing to look levelly across at her ‘...that is the kind of daydream impressionable sixteen-year-old girls are notorious for indulging in.’

A wave of colour stained her cheeks as their gazes held and for one horrifying moment she wondered if he was right. Then her natural obstinacy reasserted itself, although obliquely, and she shrugged her slim shoulders gently and said wryly, ‘Oh, well, I’ve told you all about me, I thought you might like to tell me a bit about you, that’s all. But naturally I’ll respect your wish for privacy. Would you like me to do the salad?’

For a moment he returned her innocent gaze then he muttered inaudibly beneath his breath and said, ‘No. Come and watch the fish and observe the temperature I’m cooking the chips at, but promise me one thing—you won’t ever attempt to cook chips on your own. That way you could burn the boat down.’

The fish was delicious but dinner was a slightly strained affair until Sidonie said, ‘I’m sorry, Mike.’

He lifted an eyebrow at her and looked sceptical.

‘No, I am. Could I explain to you what really made me so maddeningly inquisitive?’

He sighed. ‘Do you have to?’

‘I think so. I don’t like to think we’re not friends now so I’ve turned it all over in my mind and decided it’s probably only human nature of the feminine variety to feel a bit piqued when you receive a compliment such as you gave me but nevertheless delivered in such a completely disinterested as well as uninterested way.’

‘I see,’ he said gravely.

‘But my ego has recovered, I—’

‘Do assure me,’ he broke in solemnly but she could see the glint of laughter in his eyes.

‘Yes.’ And she smiled wonderfully at him with both relief and gratitude in her eyes. ‘Can we be friends again?’

‘I don’t see why not.’

They remained friends for about a day and a half but it was a growing cause of concern for Sidonie that, while what she’d told him about feeling piqued was undoubtedly true, what she’d told him about her ego being recovered was not. Added to this she became more and more curious about him and vaguely aware that there was a lot to Mike Brennan that absolutely intrigued her and reinforced her feeling that there might be some mystery about him too. Because, although he was mostly an easy person to live with, there were times when she got the feeling that he withdrew totally. And there were times when she watched him handle the boat or the sails and knew not only that he was a master mariner but kept feeling there had to be more to him... Why? she wondered several times. And answered herself, Well, perhaps it is because he’s such a master mariner yet it’s in a very educated way; he’s so scientific about the weather and navigation and a lot of other things—maybe he was in the navy once? Then one afternoon she saw him watch a plane fly over them towards Hamilton Island, and got the strangest feeling he knew all about it too.

So it was safe to say she became quite puzzled and concerned, and finally in a way that hit her rather like a sledgehammer despite making him even angrier, if anything, than he’d been over her failed dinner.