Devil and the Deep Sea
Sara Craven

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Former journalist SARA CRAVEN published her first novel ‘Garden of Dreams’ for Mills & Boon in 1975. Apart from her writing (naturally!) her passions include reading, bridge, Italian cities, Greek islands, the French language and countryside, and her rescue Jack Russell/cross Button. She has appeared on several TV quiz shows and in 1997 became UK TV Mastermind champion. She lives near her family in Warwickshire – Shakespeare country.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

COVER

TITLE PAGE

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

ENDPAGE

COPYRIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

THE breeze from the sea whipped a strand of pale fair hair across Samma Briant’s cheek, and she flicked it back impatiently as she bent over her drawing-board.

The waterfront at Cristoforo was crowded, as it always was when a cruise ship was in. Tourists were eagerly exploring the bars and souvenir shops along the quayside, and stopping to look at the stalls which sold locally made jewellery, carvings and paintings of island scenes. And a lot of them lingered where Samma sat on an upturned crate, amused and fascinated by her talent for capturing an instant likeness on paper, and willing to pay the modest fee she charged for her portraits.

She didn’t consider herself to be an artist. She possessed a knack, no more, for fixing on some facial characteristic of each subject, and subtly exploiting it. But she enjoyed her work, and on days like this it was even reasonably lucrative.

She had a small crowd around her already, and her day would have been just about perfect, except for one large, mauve, chrome-glittering cloud on her horizon—Sea Anemone, surely the most vulgar motor yacht in the Caribbean, currently moored a few hundred yards away in Porto Cristo’s marina. Because Sea Anemone’s presence at Cristoforo meant that her owner, the equally large and garish Mr Hugo Baxter, would be at the hotel tonight, playing poker with Samma’s stepfather, Clyde Lawson.

One glimpse of that monstrous mauve hulk lying at anchor had been enough to start Samma’s stomach churning uneasily. It was only six weeks since Hugo Baxter’s last visit. She’d thought they were safe for at least another month or two. Yet, here he was again closing in for the kill, she thought bitterly, as she signed the portrait she’d just finished with a small flourish, and handed it over to her delighted sitter with a brief, professional smile.

The fact was they couldn’t afford another visit from Hugo Baxter. Samma had no idea what her stepfather’s exact financial position was—he would never discuss it with her—but she suspected it might be desperately precarious.

When Clyde had met and married her mother during a visit to Britain, he had been a moderately affluent businessman, owning a small but prosperous hotel, and a restaurant on the small Caribbean island of Cristoforo. The island was just beginning to take off as a cruise ship stopping-point, and the future should have been rosy—except for Clyde’s predilection for gambling. While Samma’s mother had been alive, he’d kept his proclivities more or less under control, but since her death two years earlier things had gone from bad to worse. The restaurant had had to be sold to pay his debts, and the hotel hadn’t had the redecoration and refurbishment it needed, either.

Clyde seemed to win so seldom, Samma thought broodingly, and when Hugo Baxter was in the game his losses worsened to a frightening extent.

She motioned her next customer to the folding chair in front of her, and began to sketch in the preliminary shape of her head and shoulders with rapid, confident strokes.

Clyde’s only remaining asset was the hotel. And if we lose that, she thought despondently, I’m never going to get off this island.

Probably the woman she was sketching would have thrown up her hands in horror at the thought of anyone wanting to leave Cristoforo. ‘Isn’t this paradise?’ was the usual tourist cry.

Well, it was and it wasn’t, Samma thought cynically. During the years when she’d spent her school holidays here, she’d taken the romantic view, too. She’d been in the middle of her A-level course when her mother had collapsed and died from a heart attack. She’d flown to Cristoforo for the funeral, only to discover when it was over that the trust which was paying her school fees had ceased with her mother’s death, and that Clyde had no intention of paying out for her to complete her education.

‘It’s time you started working to keep yourself,’ he told her aggressively. ‘Besides, I need you here to take your mother’s place.’

Sick at heart, confused by her grief for her mother, Samma had agreed to stay. But it had been a serious mistake. When Clyde had spoken of her working for her keep, he meant just that, she’d found. She received no wage for her work at the hotel. The only money she earned was through her sketches, and although she saved as much as she could towards her airfare back to the United Kingdom, it was a wretchedly slow process.

But even if she’d been reasonably affluent, she would still have been disenchanted with Cristoforo. It was a small island, socially and culturally limited, with a hideously high cost of living. And, when the holiday season ended, it was dull.

And working at the hotel, and more particularly in the small nightclub Clyde had opened in the grounds, Samma had been shocked when she’d experienced the leering attentions of many of the male guests. Coming from the comparative shelter of boarding-school, almost overnight she’d discovered that to most of the male visitors to the island she was an object, rather than a person, and she’d been revolted by the blatant sexism of their attitude to her. She’d soon learned to hide herself in a shell of aloof reserve which chilled the ardour of the most determined predator. But she was aware that, by doing so, she was also cutting herself off from the chance of perhaps forming a real and lasting relationship. However, this was a risk she had to take, although she was forced to admit she’d never been even mildly attracted by any of the men who stayed at the hotel, or hung round the bar at the Black Grotto club.

One day, she thought, one day, when she got back to England and found herself a decent job, and a life of her own, she would meet someone she could be happy with. Until then, she’d stay insulated in her cocoon of indifference.

Except when Hugo Baxter was around, she reminded herself uneasily. He seemed impervious to any rebuff, seeking her out, taking any opportunity to touch her, Samma’s skin crawled at the thought. One thing was certain, she was keeping well away from the Black Grotto tonight.

She handed over her completed portrait, and glanced at her watch. It was nearly noon, and people were drifting away in search of lunch and shade. Time for a break, Samma thought, getting to her feet and stretching vigorously. As she lifted her arms above her head, she was suddenly aware she was being watched, and she looked round.

Startled, her eyes met another gaze, dark, faintly amused and totally male in its assessment of the thrust of her rounded breasts against her brief cotton top, Samma realised in the embarrassed moment before she looked away with icy disdain.

But she was left with a disturbing impression of height and strength, and sun-bronzed skin revealed by a brief pair of cut-off denims. As well as an absurd feeling of self-consciousness, she thought resentfully.

She should be used to being looked at. In a community where most people were dark-haired and dark-skinned, her pale skin and blonde hair, as straight and shining as rain water, naturally attracted attention, and usually she could cope with this.

But there had been something so provocatively and deliberately—masculine about this stranger’s regard that it had flicked her on the raw.

And her antennae told her that he was still looking. She picked up her sketch-block, and began drawing at random—the neighbouring stall, where Mindy, its owner, was selling a view of the marina to a tourist couple who were trying and failing to beat him down over the price. But her fingers, inexplicably, were all thumbs, fudging the lines, and she tore the sheet off, crumpling it irritably.

She stole a sideways glance under her lashes, making an assessment of her own. He was leaning on the rail of one of the sleekest and glossiest of the many craft in the marina, and looking totally out of place, she decided critically, although she supposed he was good-looking, in a disreputable way—that was, if you liked over-long and untidy black hair, and a great beak of a nose which looked as if it had been broken at least once in its career.

He was the image, she thought contemptuously, of some old-time pirate chief, surveying the captive maiden from his quarter-deck. He only needed a cutlass and a parrot—and she would give them to him!

Her mouth curving, she drew the preliminary outline, emphasising the stranger’s nose almost to the point of caricature, adding extra rakishness with earrings, and a bandanna swathed round that shock of dark hair. She transformed his expression of faint amusement into an evil leer, gave the parrot on his shoulder a squint, then pinned the sketch up on the display board behind her with a flourish.

He would never see it, of course. The boat’s owner had clearly left him on watch, and probably with good reason. Only a thief bent on suicide would want to tangle with a physique that tough, and shoulders that broad.

She had a quick, retentive eye for detail, but it annoyed her just the same to find how deeply his image had impressed itself on her consciousness. One eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation and a quick sideways glance, and she’d been able to draw him at once, whereas she normally allowed herself a much more searching scrutiny before she began. Yet this sketch had worked, even if it was a shade vindictive.

And, in its way, it turned out to be a good advertisement. People strolling past stopped to laugh, and stayed to be drawn themselves. They seemed to like the element of cartoon she’d incorporated, although Mindy, loping across with a slice of water melon for her, raised his brows when he saw it, and murmured, ‘Friend of yours, gal?’

‘Figment of my imagination,’ she retorted cheerfully.

Another swift glance had revealed, to her relief, that the rail of the boat was now deserted. Doubtless he’d remembered the owner didn’t pay him for standing about, eyeing up the local talent, she thought, scooping a handful of hair back from her face with a slim, suntanned hand.

She was putting the finishing touches to the portrait of a pretty redhead with amazing dimples, undoubtedly on honeymoon with the young man who watched her so adoringly, when a shadow fell across her pad.

Samma glanced up in irritation, the words ‘Excuse me’ freezing unspoken on her lips.

Close to, he was even more formidable. Distance had cloaked the determination of that chin, and the firm, uncompromising lines of his mouth. There was a distinct glitter, too, in those midnight-dark eyes which Samma found distinctly unnerving.

It annoyed her, too, that he was standing over her like this, putting her at a disadvantage. He was the kind of man she’d have preferred to face on equal terms—although to do so she’d probably have to stand on her crate, she thought, her mouth quirking involuntarily.

But there was no answering softness in the face of the man towering over her. He was looking past her at the display board, where the pirate drawing fluttered in the breeze.

He said, ‘I have come to share the joke.’ His voice was low and resonant, with the faintest trace of an accent.

‘Is there one?’ Samma, aware that her fingers were trembling, concentrated hard on the elaborate combination of her initials which she used as a signature, before passing over the new sketch.

‘It seems so.’ His voice cut coldly across the excited thanks of the young couple, as they paid and departed. ‘They say it is always instructive to see oneself through the eyes of another. I am not sure I agree.’

The pirate sketch was outrageous, over the top, totally out of order, and Samma knew that now, but she wasn’t going to apologise. He’d damned well asked for it, staring at her like that. Mentally undressing her, she added for good measure.

She smiled lightly, and got to her feet, hoping he’d step back and give her room, but he didn’t.

‘An interesting philosophical point,’ she said. ‘Forgive me if I don’t hang around to debate it with you. It’s time I took a break.’

‘Ideal.’ The brief smile which touched his lips didn’t reach his eyes. ‘I was about to offer you lunch, mademoiselle.’

So, he was French. Samma could see Mindy listening avidly. She said, ‘Thank you, but I’m not hungry.’

She used the tone of cool, bored finality which worked so well with the would-be Romeos at the hotel, but its only effect on this aggravating man was to widen his smile.

‘A drink, then?’

‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ Samma was angrily aware she was being baited.

‘Then a tour of Allegra. You seemed very interested in her earlier.’

‘Then my interest has waned—sharply,’ Samma snapped. ‘And maybe you should learn to take “no” for an answer.’

He shrugged. His skin was like teak, she noticed irrelevantly, darkened even further by the shadowing of hair on the muscular chest, forearms, and long, sinewy legs.

‘Is that what a pirate would do? I think not.’

Before she could guess his intention, or make any more to thwart him, he reached for her, his hands clamping on her waist, hoisting her into the air, and over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. For a moment she was stunned, dangling there, staring down at the dusty stones of the quay; then, as he began to move, she came to furious life, struggling, kicking, pummelling the strong, smooth back with her fists.

But it was like punching reinforced concrete, and he didn’t even flinch. To make matters worse, she could hear laughter and even a smattering of applause from the watchers on the quay as he walked off with her.

Mindy was her friend, but he wasn’t lifting a finger to help her, and if he imagined for one moment she relished this kind of treatment then she would be happy to disillusion him, she thought, almost incandescent with rage and humiliation.

She saw the slats of the gangplank beneath her. She expected that he would put her down when they reached the deck, but she was wrong. With alarming effortlessness, he negotiated a companionway, and entered a big, sunny saloon. Then, at last, he lowered her to her feet.

Breathless and giddy, she confronted him. ‘You bastard!’ Her voice shook. ‘How dare you treat me like that?’

He shrugged again. He wasn’t smiling any more. ‘You chose to hold me up to ridicule. You can hardly complain if I make you look a little foolish also.’

‘Well, you’ve achieved your objective,’ Samma said grimly. ‘And now I’m leaving.’

‘But I prefer that you stay.’ His voice was soft, but it held a note which told her that he meant it. That, if she tried to leave, she would be prevented.

‘I don’t know what you hope to gain by this behaviour.’ With an effort, she kept her voice steady.

‘Nothing too devastating, chérie,’ he drawled. ’Merely a companion to share some food and wine with me in the middle of the day.’

Samma lifted her brows. ‘Do you always have to resort to strong-arm tactics when you need company? You must be desperate.’

He laughed, showing very white teeth. ‘You think so?’

No, not for a moment she didn’t. This man would only have to click his fingers and women would come running, but she was on the ropes in this bout, and she would say or do anything to escape.

The saloon was enormous, and luxuriously furnished, but somehow he made it seem cramped.

He was too tall, too dominating, the kind of man she would go out of her way to avoid, and she’d been mad to provoke him with the pirate sketch.

But there wasn’t anything too major to worry about, she tried to assure herself. After all, his employer could return at any time, or so she supposed. And, if the going really got tough, she could always scream for Mindy.

She gave him a straight look. ‘Fine—you’ve had your joke. Now, I’d like to get on with my life—quietly, and without hassle.’

‘Later,’ he said. ‘Nothing happens on these islands around noon, or hadn’t you noticed?’

‘I should do,’ Samma said tartly. ‘I’ve lived here for long enough.’

‘You are a permanent resident?’ His tone held a trace of surprise. ‘But you certainly weren’t born here. I thought you were one of the new generation of island-hoppers, drifting from one location to the next like a butterfly—using your—talent—to buy your living.’

There was something in his voice which told Samma he wasn’t referring to her artistic gifts, such as they were, and in spite of herself she felt a hot blush burn her face.

‘Well, you thought wrong,’ she said grittily. ‘And now we’ve cleared up that little misunderstanding, perhaps you’ll let me go. My friends will be wondering where I am.’

He laughed out loud at that. ‘Oh, I think they know—don’t you?’

Samma almost ground her teeth. Why had she got involved in this kind of verbal sparring? she asked herself despairingly. Why hadn’t she adopted her usual ploy of blank eyes and assumed deafness? Why had she let him get to her like this?

She said quietly, ‘Look, you’ve made your point. Is there any need to go on—punishing me like this?’

‘Punishment?’ His mouth curled, drawing her unwilling attention to the sensual line of his lower lip. ‘Is that how you regard the offer of a meal. The food on Allegra isn’t that bad.’

‘You know what I mean.’ Her eyes met his directly.

‘Yes, I know,’ he acknowledged sardonically, ‘So—what do you suppose you deserve for your impudence in drawing me as you did?’

‘I draw what I see,’ Samma flashed. ‘And everything that you’ve said or done since has only convinced me how right I was.’

‘Is that a fact?’ His voice slowed to a drawl. ‘So, you really think I’m a pirate.’ He shrugged. ‘Then it seems I need have no compunction.’

He moved towards her, purposefully, but without haste and Samma backed away, until the pressure of the long, cushioned seat which ran the length of the saloon prevented any further retreat.

‘Keep away from me.’ To her fury, she sounded breathless and very young, her words more an appeal than a command.

‘Make me,’ he invited silkily. There was a disturbing glint in the dark eyes as he moved closer. With one hand, he pushed her gently down on the cushion, then sat beside her.

Samma’s mouth was suddenly dry. For the first time she had to question her actual physical ability to scream if the situation demanded it. She wanted to look away from him, but she couldn’t. It was as if she was mesmerised—like a rabbit with a snake, she thought hysterically. She tried to steady her breathing, to mentally reject the effect his proximity was having on her. She could feel prickles of sweat breaking out all over her body, allied to a strange trembling in her lower limbs, and she tensed, bewildered by the unfamiliarity of her own reactions.

His gaze travelled slowly and relentlessly down her body, and she shivered as if it was his hands which were touching her. Since her return to Cristoforo, she’d never worn a bra, considering her firm young breasts made such a restriction unnecessary. Now, as they seemed to swell and grow heavy against the thin fabric of her top, she began to wish she was encased in whalebone from head to foot—armour-plated, even.

She saw him smile, as if he’d guessed exactly what she was thinking. His eyes continued their downward journey, resting appraisingly on the curve of her hips, and the slender length of her thighs, revealed by her brief white shorts.

She had never, she thought dazedly, been made so thoroughly aware that she was female.

He said softly, ‘There are many ways of taming a woman—and I am tempted. But for an impertinent child—this is altogether more appropriate.’

Before she knew what was happening, Samma found herself face downwards over his knee, suffering the unbearable indignity of half a dozen hard and practised slaps on her rear. The first was enough to drag a startled gasp from her, and she sank her teeth into her lower lip, pride forbidding her to make another sound.

Then, with appalling briskness, he set her upright again, his amused glance taking in her flushed face and watery eyes.

When she could speak, she said chokingly, ‘You swine—you bloody sadist …’

He tutted reprovingly. ‘Your language, mademoiselle, is as ill-advised as your sense of humour. I have taught you one lesson,’ he added coldly. ‘Please do not make it necessary for me to administer another.’

‘I’ll find out who owns this boat,’ she promised huskily. ‘And when I do—I’ll have you fired. I’m sure your boss would be delighted to know you take advantage of his absence by—by abusing girls in his saloon.’

He stared at her for a moment, then began to laugh. ‘Considering the provocation, I think he would say you had got off lightly.’ He paused. ‘Had you been adult, then retribution might have taken a very different form. Perhaps you should think yourself fortunate.’ He gave her a swiftly measuring look. ‘And perhaps, too, you should leave—before I change my mind.’

‘Don’t worry,’ Samma said thickly. ‘I’m going.’

Uncaring of the few remaining rags of dignity left to her, she half ran, half stumbled to the door, only to hear as she scrambled up the companionway to freedom, fighting angry tears, his laughter following her.

CHAPTER TWO

IF SAMMA thought her day could not possibly get any worse, she was wrong.

She’d grabbed her drawing materials and fled back to the hotel, evading the good-humouredly ribald teasing from Mindy and the others. And she was halfway home when she realised she’d still left that damned drawing pinned to the board. But wild horses wouldn’t have dragged her back there to retrieve it. Mindy would throw it away with the rest of her unsold sketches at the end of the day.

And she would have to keep away from the waterfront until she could be sure that Allegra had sailed, even though it would mean a reduction in her small income.

Clyde was waiting for her. ‘So there you are,’ he said in the grumbling tone which had become the norm in the past year. ‘That blasted Nina won’t be in tonight, so you’ll have to take her place.’

Samma was still quivering with reaction. Flatly, she said, ‘No.’

His sunburned face went a deeper shade of brick-red. ‘What do you mean—no?’

‘Exactly what I say.’ She glared back at him. ‘I hate being in the club, and I won’t sit with the customers and encourage them to buy expensive drinks they can’t afford. It’s degrading.’

‘When I want your moral judgements, I’ll ask for them,’ Clyde snapped. ‘You don’t pick and choose what you do round here, and tonight you’re standing in for Nina in the Grotto. It’s no big deal,’ he added disgustedly. ‘Just sit with the punters, and be nice to them. No one’s suggesting you sleep with them.’

Samma’s delicate mouth curled. ‘Meaning Nina doesn’t?’

‘That’s no concern of yours,’ Clyde blustered. ‘Now, be a good girl,’ he went on, a wheedling note entering his voice. ‘And do something about your hair,’ he added, giving its shining length a disparaging glance. ‘Nina’s left one of her cocktail dresses in the dressing-room, so you can wear that. You’re near enough the same size.’

‘It’s not a question of size,’ Samma said with irony. ‘It’s taste—something Nina’s not conspicuous for.’

Clyde shrugged. ‘Well, at least she doesn’t look as if she’s just stepped out of a kindergarten,’ he countered brutally. ‘Maybe you should ask her for a few lessons. Anyway, I haven’t time to argue the toss with you. I have a busy evening ahead of me.’

She said evenly, ‘Playing poker, I suppose. Clyde—couldn’t you give the game a miss for once?’

‘No, I couldn’t,’ he said sullenly. ‘Baxter’s here again, and he’s loaded. All I need is one good win. His luck can’t last for ever.’

‘Can’t it? Does it ever occur to you that he wins too often and too much for it to be purely luck?’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he dismissed crossly. ‘Now, get on with some work, please. And chivvy up those girls who work on the bedrooms. Number Thirty-three claims his bed was made up with a torn sheet.’

Samma sighed. ‘A lot of the linen’s threadbare. We need to replace it,’ she began, but Clyde was already disappearing, as he invariably did when she tried to discuss anything about expenditure with him.

She sighed again, as she went into the hotel office at the back of the reception desk. In spite of her intentions, it seemed she had to put in an appearance at the club that night. And it occurred to her too that Clyde, who knew how much she hated being there, had never pressured her quite so much before. In the past, he’d been prepared, albeit sulkily, to accept her excuses. Now, it seemed, they had entered on a new phase in their uneasy working relationship, and Samma wasn’t sure how to deal with it. But it was beginning to seem even more imperative that she should get away from Cristoforo, and fast.

But without money, how can I? she thought despairingly. And I can’t even do my portraits for the next few days because of that damned Frenchman.

She bit her lip. Meeting an—animal like him was another incentive for her to get back to civilisation without delay.

She might have behaved badly—she was prepared to admit that, but his reaction had been unforgivable. Clearly he was the kind of man who was unable to overlook any slight to his self-esteem, which made him both macho and humourless, she thought—faults which far outweighed the overwhelming physical attraction which she’d been unable to deny, or even resist.

In the same way, she was unable to escape a lingering curiosity about him. He looked tough, and eminently capable, the typical roughneck who made a precarious living, crewing on charter hire boats for fair-weather sailors. But his voice had been educated, she thought frowning, so that didn’t add up.

Perhaps, like herself, he was trying to scrape together the fare back to Europe, she decided with a mental shrug. In the event, speculation was useless. She would never see him again. Fortunately, the Black Grotto kept away his sort of man, with its hefty cover charge and loaded drinks prices.

She could only wish it kept away Hugo Baxter’s kind of man, too.

But that, of course, was too much to hope for, she realised some hours later, watching his plump figure make its way across the crowded club to her side, a self-satisfied smile on his full lips.

‘Well, sweet Samantha.’ His eyes were all over her, missing nothing, from the casual blonde top-knot into which she’d twisted her hair, to the slender, strappy sandals on her bare feet. ‘You’re a sight for sore eyes.’ He leered at Nina’s horror of a dress—black, and almost transparent, with a sprinkling of sequins to veil the wearer’s breasts and form a coy band round the hips. It would take all her reserves of coolness to enable her to carry the tacky thing off with any degree of sang-froid she had thought wretchedly, viewing herself in the dressing-room mirror.

She said, ‘Good evening, Mr Baxter.’

‘Oh, come on, sweetheart. Why so formal? Surely you know me well enough by now to be—a little more friendly.’ He paused. ‘I looked for you on the quay this afternoon. Had a fancy to have my portrait drawn,’ he added, as if conferring an immense honour.

‘I have all the commissions I can handle,’ Samma told him untruthfully. The thought of committing his unprepossessing features to paper was totally unappealing, although she knew how she would do it, she thought, a little curl of malicious glee unwinding inside her.

His face fell. ‘That’s too bad. So—how about a little dance with me, then?’

The prospect of being held in his arms, his paunch pressing against her slenderness, made Samma feel as if a sudden outbreak of maggots was crawling over her skin. She stepped back instinctively, aware that he’d registered her hurried recoil.

‘I’m sorry—’ she began, but he interrupted.

‘You will be, sweetheart, if you start giving me the runaround. I’m a good customer of this club, and you’re a hostess—right? And if I want to buy some of your time tonight, there isn’t a damned thing you can do about it—right, too?’

‘Quite right, monsieur, except that the lady’s time this evening has already been bought—by me.’

The voice came from behind, but even without that betraying ‘monsieur’ she would have recognised it anywhere.

As she swung round, she stiffened, her eyes blanking out with shock as she saw him. He must be well paid on Allegra—either that or he’d raided his employer’s wardrobe. His lightweight suit was expensive, his open-necked shirt pure silk, and his shoes handmade. He looked like someone to be reckoned with in his own right, she thought, rather than simply another man’s deckhand.

Hugo Baxter was gaping indignantly at him. ‘Don’t I know you from somewhere?’ he demanded aggressively.

‘Perhaps.’ The Frenchman shrugged faintly, indicating how little it mattered. He turned to Samma, the dark eyes sweeping over her in amused and ironic comprehension. ‘I am sorry I am late, chérie.’ He ran a finger lazily and intimately down the curve of her cheek. ‘It was good of you to wait for me.’

She was stranded, Samma thought hysterically, between the devil and the deep sea. She said, ‘What did you expect?’

‘Now that is something we could more profitably discuss over a drink.’ His hand grasped her elbow, urging her away from the bar and towards a vacant table at the edge of the small dance-floor. ‘But my expectations did not include this—metamorphosis,’ he added, a note of unholy amusement in his voice. ‘Are you sure, mademoiselle, you have no younger sister?’

She was sorely tempted to tell him she had, but her previous experience at his hands warned her it might be unwise to play any more games.

She said coolly, ‘I don’t know why or how you found your way here, but if you’ve come to score points, maybe I should warn you it’ll cost you a week’s wages, plus an arm and a leg. I should get back to the waterfront. You’ll find the bars cheaper there.’

‘Yes, I heard this was a clip-joint,’ he said, unruffled. ‘But it makes no difference. I came because poker is a favourite relaxation of mine, and I am told there is a game here tonight.’

There is.’ Samma raised her eyebrows. ‘But I think you’ll find the other players take it rather more seriously than that.’

‘They may need to.’ A faint smile twisted round the corners of the firm mouth. ‘So—how do you fit into this set-up?’

‘My stepfather owns the hotel, and the club,’ she said reluctantly. ‘I help out when necessary.’

‘I see.’ His glance rested briefly and intimately on the flimsy sequin flowers which cupped her breasts, and Samma choked back a little gasp, thankful the club’s dim lighting masked the colour rising hotly in her face.

She said tautly, ‘I doubt it. Anyway, I don’t have to explain myself to you, so perhaps you’ll go now and leave me in peace.’

His sardonic gaze took in the crowded, smoke-filled room, where a buzz of laughing, chattering voices vied for supremacy with the band.

‘This is your idea of peace, chérie?’ he drawled. ‘I had a different impression of you this morning.’

‘I remember it well,’ Samma flashed. ‘I still have the bruises.’

‘I think you exaggerate. Besides,’ he glanced towards the bar, where Hugo Baxter still glowered in their direction, ‘you surely do not wish to be left to the mercies of that wolf?’

‘You’re so much better?’ She sent him a muted glare. ‘But you really don’t have to bother about me. I can take care of myself. And he’s not a wolf,’ she added, reverting in her mind’s eye to the portrait she’d planned. ‘He’s a pig, all pink and smooth, with a snout, and nasty little eyes half buried in fat.’

His brows rose mockingly. ‘You take a scurrilous view of the rest of humanity, mignonne. I hope this time your picture remains in your imagination only. Mr Baxter would be even less amused than I was if he knew how you saw him.’

‘So, you know who he is.’ Samma remembered that brief confrontation at the bar.

‘Who does not?’ He lifted a shoulder. ‘Both he—and his boat—tend to be unforgettable.’

Samma recalled just in time that this man was an enemy, and managed to stifle a giggle.

‘Then perhaps you should know he’s also a member of this poker school you’re so keen to join,’ she said tartly. ‘And he can afford to lose a great deal more than a deckhand’s wages.’

‘So I believe.’ He smiled faintly. ‘But your concern is unnecessary.’

‘I’m not concerned in the slightest,’ Samma denied instantly. ‘It wouldn’t matter to me if you lost every cent you possessed, but you could turn out to be a sore loser,’ she added, with a dubious look at the dark, tough face, and the raw strength of his shoulders.

He said softly, ‘It is true I prefer to win,’ and once again Samma was aware of that swift, appraising glance. She saw with relief that a waiter was approaching.

‘Good evening, sir. What may I get you?’ The cover charge was already noted on his pad as he waited deferentially.

‘A straight Jack Daniels,’ the Frenchman said, looking enquiringly at Samma. But the waiter interposed smoothly.

‘And a champagne cocktail for the lady, sir?’

Her companion shrugged again, his mouth twisting derisively. ‘If that is the usual practice—then by all means.’

Samma would have preferred fruit juice, but she knew protest was useless. She sat in smouldering silence until the drinks arrived, waiting vengefully for him to pick up the bill. But his face was expressionless as he glanced at the total, and it was Samma who found herself gaping, as he produced a bulging billfold, and peeled off the necessary amount, adding, she noticed, a tip for the waiter.

God, it was galling to find that he had all that money to waste on alcohol and gambling, when she was struggling to raise the price of an airfare to the United Kingdom! She tasted her cocktail, repressing a slight shudder. She knew that, if this man had been one of her island friends, she would have swallowed her pride, and asked for a loan.

Oh, why do friends have to be poor, and enemies rich? she wondered bitterly.

‘Well, why don’t you ask me?’ he said, and she bit back a startled gasp, wondering whether he included thought-reading among his other unpleasant attributes.

‘Ask what?’ She took another sip of her drink.

‘How I make my money,’ he drawled. ‘Your face, ma belle, is most revealing. You’re wondering how a humble deckhand could posibly have amassed so much money—or, if your earliest assessment is correct, and it is—pirate’s loot.’

‘Nothing about you, monsieur, would surprise me. But it isn’t very wise to flaunt quite so openly the fact that you’re loaded. Aren’t you afraid of being ripped off?’

He said coolly, ‘No.’ And she had to believe him. If this man chose to keep a gold ingot as a pet, she couldn’t see anyone trying to take it away from him.

He went on, ‘But when I see something I want, I’m prepared to pay the full price for it.’ Across the table his eyes met hers, then with cool deliberation he counted off some more money and pushed the bills across to her.

It was only to be expected, working where she was, dressed as she was, and she knew it, but she was burning all over, rage and humiliation rendering her speechless.

When she could speak, she said thickly, ‘I am—not for sale.’

‘And I am not in the market.’ He leaned forward. ‘Didn’t you hear me say, chérie, that I’m here to play poker? No, this is payment for the sketch you did of me. I presume it is enough. Your artist friend on the quay told me your usual charges, and where I would find you.’

More than ever, she wished she’d ripped that particular sketch to pieces. ‘I don’t want your money.’

‘Then you’re no businesswoman.’ His voice gentled slightly. ‘Forget how much you loathe me, and take the money. You cannot afford such gestures, and you know it.’

Samma bit her lip savagely, wondering exactly how much Mindy had told him.

‘I make a perfectly good living,’ she said defiantly. She gestured around her. ‘As you see, business is booming.’

‘I see a great many things,’ he said slowly. ‘And I hear even more. So this is your life, Mademoiselle Samantha Briant, and you are content with it? To sketch in the sunlight by day, and at night lure the unwary to their doom in a net of smiles and blonde hair?’

No, she thought. It’s not like that at all.

Aloud, she said, ‘If that’s how you want to put it—yes.’

‘Did you never have any other ambitions?’

She was startled into candour. ‘I wanted originally to teach—art, I suppose. But I haven’t any qualifications.’

‘You could acquire some.’

Samma’s lips parted impulsively, then closed again. She’d been, she thought with concern, on the very brink of confessing her financial plight to this man.

She shrugged. ‘Why should I—when I’m having such a wonderful time?’ She pushed back her chair, and got to her feet. ‘And you’ve acquired an instant portrait—not exclusive rights to my company. I’m neglecting the other customers.’

As she made to move away, his hand captured her wrist, not hurting her, but at the same time making it impossible for her to free herself. The dark eyes were unsmiling as they studied her. ‘And what would a man have to pay for such rights, my little siren?’

She tried to free herself, and failed. ‘More than you could afford,’ she said bitingly, and he laughed.

‘You estimate yourself highly, mignonne. I am not speaking of a lifetime’s devotion, you understand, but perhaps a year out of your life. What price would you place on that?’

Something inside Samma snapped. Her free hand closed round the stem of her glass, and threw the remains of her cocktail straight at his darkly mocking face.

She could hear the sudden stillness all around them as her deed was registered at the adjoining tables, then the subdued, amused hum of interest which followed. And, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Clyde bearing down on her, bursting with righteous indignation.

‘Have you taken leave of your senses?’ he stormed at her, before turning deferentially to the Frenchman who was removing the worst of the moisture with an immaculate linen handkerchief.

‘I can’t apologise enough,’ he went on. ‘Naturally, we’ll be happy to arrange any cleaning of your clothes which is necessary, Mr—er …?’ He paused.

‘Delacroix,’ the Frenchman said. ‘Roche Delacroix.’

Clyde’s mouth dropped open. ‘From Grand Cay?’ he asked weakly, and at the affirmative nod he gave Samma an accusing glance. ‘You’d better get out of here, my girl. You’ve done enough damage for one evening.’

‘Don’t be too hard on your belle fille, monsieur,’ Roche Delacroix said. ‘She has been—provoked, I confess.’

‘I don’t need you to fight my battles for me,’ Samma flared hardily. ‘And nothing would prevail on me to stay in this place another moment.’

Her legs were shaking under her, but she managed to walk to the door, ignoring the murmured comments and speculative looks following her, then she dashed for the comparative refuge of the dressing-room.

Margot, one of the other hostesses, was in there, sharing a cigarette with Cicero the barman. They looked up in surprise as Samma came bursting in.

‘What’s the matter, honey?’ Cicero asked teasingly. ‘Devil chasing your tail?’

Samma sank down on the nearest chair. She said, ‘I’ve done an awful thing. I—I threw a drink over a customer.’

‘That old Baxter man?’ Margot laughed. ‘I wish I’d seen it.’

Samma gulped. ‘No, it was a stranger—or nearly. I—I had a run in with him this morning, as a matter of fact.’

‘That’s not like you.’ Margot gave her a sympathetic look. ‘What do they call this man?’

Samma frowned. ‘He said his name was Roche Delacroix and that he came from Grand Cay.’

There was an odd silence, and she looked up to see them both staring at her. ‘Why—what is it?’

‘I said the devil was chasing you,’ Cicero muttered. ‘It’s one of those Devil Delacroixes from Lucifer’s own island.’

‘You—know him?’ Samma asked rather dazedly.

‘Not in person, honey, but everyone round here knows the Delacroix name. Why, his ancestor was the greatest pirate who ever sailed these waters. Every time he left Grand Cay, a fleet of merchant ships went to the bottom, and he didn’t care whether they were English or Spanish, or even French like himself. He’d had to leave France because he’d quarrelled with the King, which was a mighty bad thing to do in those days, and he figured the whole world was his enemy. So they called him Le Diable, yessir.’ Cicero laughed softly. ‘And they called his hideout Lucifer’s Cay.’

‘Did they, indeed?’ Samma said grimly. ‘Well, I hope they caught him and hanged him from his own yardarm.’

‘Not on your life,’ said Cicero. ‘He turned respectable, got a free pardon, and took up sugar planting. But they say every now and then the breeding throws up another Devil—a chip off the old block, like that old pirate.’

He paused. ‘This Mr Roche Delacroix now, why, they reckon he’s made more money than old Devil Delacroix himself. He owns the casino, right there on Grand Cay, and he has a boat-chartering business as well. He’s one rich guy, all right.’

‘And he’s here in this club right now?’ Margot asked huskily, her full lips curving in a smile. ‘This I have to see. Maybe when he’s dried off, he’d like some company.’

‘Perhaps—but I think he’s more interested in playing poker.’ Samma forced a smile. ‘Maybe I should have found someone else to pour a drink over.’

‘You sure should,’ Cicero agreed sombrely. ‘Why, honey, you don’t ever want to cross anyone from Lucifer’s Cay—specially someone by the name of Delacroix. That was one bad mistake.’

Margot rose, pretty and sinuous as a cat. ‘Then I’ll have to try and make up for it,’ she said, her lips curving in an anticipatory smile. ‘Wish me luck, now.’

She drifted out, and Cicero followed a moment or two later, leaving Samma alone.

She tore off Nina’s dress and bundled it back on a hanger. Never, ever again would she work at the Black Grotto in any capacity, although Clyde was unlikely even to ask her again, after tonight’s performance, she reminded herself wryly.

She dragged on her T-shirt and jeans, and walked back through the grounds towards the small bungalow she shared with Clyde.

She felt restless—on edge, and it was all the fault of that foul man. In just a few hours, he’d turned the quiet backwater of her life into some kind of raging torrent, she thought resentfully.

And nothing Cicero had told her had done anything to put her mind at ease. It was no wonder Roche Delacroix had been annoyed at her sketch, she thought restively. He probably considered she knew who he was, and was taking a petty swipe at his family history.

Well, let him think what he wanted. He would be leaving soon and, anyway, his opinions were of no concern to her. Indeed, she didn’t know why she was wasting a second thought on the creature.

But, at this rate, she wasn’t going to sleep tonight. Some hard physical exercise was what she needed to calm her down, and tire her out. She turned down the path which led to the hotel’s small swimming pool. She rarely got the chance to use the pool during the day, but that wasn’t too much of a hardship when she could come down here at night, and have it all to herself. And there was the added bonus that she didn’t have to bother with a costume.

She collected a towel from one of the changing cabins, stripped and plunged into the water. But, as she struck out with her swift, practised crawl, she couldn’t seem to capture her usual sense of wellbeing.

Oh, it wasn’t fair, she thought with a kind of desperate impatience. Of all the men who’d passed through Cristoforo, there had never been one who’d come even close to touching her emotions. Yet, in the space of a few minutes, Roche Delacroix, of all people, had given her a swift, disturbing insight into what it might mean to be a woman—even though he’d treated her for most of the time like a child, she thought stormily, as she turned for another length.

And then—paradoxically—had come that cynical—that abominable offer.

‘A year out of your life.’ His words seemed to beat a tattoo in her brain. How dared he? she raged inwardly. Oh, how dared he? And it was no comfort to tell herself that he’d simply been amusing himself at her expense. After all, a man like that could have no real interest in an inexperienced nineteen-year-old. Margot, or even the absent Nina, would be far more his type.

But soon Allegra would be gone, she tried to console herself, and she would never have to see Roche Delacroix or think about him again.

She hauled herself out of the water, and began to blot the moisture from her arms and body, then paused suddenly, a strange prickle of awareness alerting her nerve-endings as if—as if someone was watching her.

She stopped towelling her hair, and glanced over her shoulder, searching for a betraying movement in the shadows, listening for some sound. But there was nothing.

She was being over-imaginative, she told herself, but she still felt disturbed, and she resolved to give nude swimming a miss for a while. If one of the waiters from the club, say, was taking a short-cut through the garden, there was no need to give him a field day.

She pulled her clothes on to her still-damp body, and set off back towards the bungalow, her head high, looking neither to right or left.

Probably there was no one there at all. But everything was off-key tonight because of Roche Delacroix, and she would be eternally grateful when he turned his back on Cristoforo for ever.

Because, to her shame, she knew she would always be left wondering just what that—that year out of her life might have been like—with him.

CHAPTER THREE

SAMMA was woken from a light, unsatisfactory sleep by a crash, and a muffled curse. She sat up, glancing at the illuminated dial of the clock beside her bed, whistling faintly when she saw the time. The poker game had gone on for longer than usual.

She lay for a few moments, listening to the sounds of movement from the kitchen, then reached resignedly for her robe.

Clyde was sitting at the table, staring into space, a bottle and glass in front of him. The eyes he turned on her were glazed and bloodshot.

He muttered, ‘Oh, there you are,’ as if he’d been waiting for her to join him.

She said, ‘I’ll make some black coffee.’

‘No, sit down. I’ve got to talk to you.’

She said, ‘If it’s about what happened earlier—I’m sorry …’

‘Oh, that.’ He made a vague, dismissive gesture. ‘No, it’s something else.’

He was a terrible colour, she thought uneasily.

He said, ‘Tonight—I lost tonight, Samma.’

The fact that she’d been expecting such news made it no easier to hear, she discovered.

She said steadily, ‘How much?’

‘A lot. More than a lot. Money I didn’t have.’ He paused, and added like a death knell, ‘Everything.’

Samma closed her eyes for a moment. ‘The hotel?’

‘That, too. It was the last game, Samma. I had the chance to win back all that I’d lost and more. You never saw anything like it. There were only the two of us left in, and he kept raising me. I had a running flush, king high. Almost the best hand you can get.’

She said in a small, wintry voice, ‘Almost, but not quite it seems.’

Clyde looked like a collapsed balloon. She was afraid he was going to burst into tears. ‘He had—a running flush in spades, beginning with the ace.’

There was a long silence, then Samma roused herself from the numbness which had descended on her.

She said, ‘You and Hugo Baxter have been playing poker together for a long time. Surely he’ll be prepared to give you time—come to some arrangement over the property …’

‘Baxter?’ he said hoarsely. ‘I’m not talking about Baxter. It was the Frenchman, Delacroix.’

This time, the silence was electric. Samma’s hand crept to her mouth.

She felt icy cold. ‘What—what are we going to do?’

‘Baxter will help us,’ he said rapidly. ‘He promised me he would. He—he doesn’t want to see us go under. He’s going to see Delacroix with me tomorrow to—work something out. He’s being—very generous.’

There was something about the way he said it—the way he didn’t meet her gaze.

She said, ‘Why is he being so—generous? What have you promised in return. Me?’

He looked self-righteous. ‘What do you take me for?’

‘Shall we try pimp?’ Samma said, and Clyde came out of his chair, roaring like a bull, his fists clenched. He met her calm, cold stare and subsided again.

‘We—we mustn’t quarrel,’ he muttered. ‘We have to stick by each other. Baxter—likes you, you know that. And he’s lonely. It wouldn’t hurt to be nice to him, that’s all he wants. Why, you could probably get him to marry you …’

‘Which would make everything all right, of course,’ she said bitterly. ‘Forget it, Clyde, the idea makes me sick to my stomach.’

‘Samma, don’t be hasty. What choice do we have? Unless Baxter supports me in some deal with Delacroix, we’ll be bankrupt—not even a roof over our heads.’

She rose to her feet. ‘This is your mess, Clyde,’ she said. ‘Don’t expect me to get you out of it.’

Back in her own room, she leaned against the closed door and began to tremble like a leaf. In spite of her defiant words, she had never felt so frightened, so helpless in her life. She seemed incapable of rational thought. She wanted to cry. She wanted to be sick. She wanted to lie down on the floor, and drum with her heels, and scream at the top of her voice.

All she seemed to see in front of her was Hugo Baxter’s sweating moon face, his gaze a trail of slime as it slid over her body.

No, she thought, pressing a convulsive fist against her lips. Oh God, no!

Clyde said there was no other choice, but there had to be. Had to …

‘A year out of your life.’ The words seemed to reverberate mockingly in her brain. ‘A year out of your life.’

She wrapped her arms round her body, shivering. No, that was unthinkable, too. She shouldn’t even be allowing such an idea to enter her mind.

And yet, what could she do—caught, as she was, between the devil and the deep sea once again? But surely that didn’t mean she had to sell herself to the devil?

She lay on the bed, staring into the darkness, her tired mind turning over the alternatives. She was blushing all over, as she realised exactly what she was contemplating.

But wasn’t she being rather melodramatic about the whole thing? She didn’t have to meekly submit to the fate being designed for her. She was no stranger, after all, to keeping men at arm’s length. Surely, she could manage to hold him off at least until they reached Allegra’s first port of call when, with luck, she could simply slip ashore and vanish, she thought feverishly. Her savings were meagre, but they would tide her over until she could find work, and save for her flight home.

She couldn’t let herself think too deeply about the inevitable problems. The important thing was to escape from Cristoforo—nothing mattered more than that—before she found herself trapped into a situation with Hugo Baxter that she could not evade. Because it was clear she couldn’t count on Clyde to assist her.

She began to plan. She would take the bare minimum from her scanty wardrobe—just what she could pack into her bicycle basket. And she’d leave a note for Clyde saying she was having a day on the beach to think. With luck, she would be long gone before he realised she was not coming back.

When it was daylight, she went over to the hotel, and carried out her usual early morning duties, warning the staff not to expect Clyde until later in the day. Then she collected a few belongings together, wrapped them in a towel to back up her beach story, and cycled down the quay.

Apart from the fishermen preparing to embark, there were few people about. Samma bit her lip as she approached Allegra’s gangplank. She wished she could have said goodbye to Mindy and the rest of her friends, but at the same time she was glad they weren’t around to witness what she was doing.

‘Can I help you, ma’mselle?’ At the top of the gangway, her path was blocked very definitely by a tall coloured man, with shoulders like a American quarter-back.

She squared her shoulders, and said, with a coolness she was far from feeling, ‘Would you tell Monsieur Delacroix that Samantha Briant would like to speak with him.’

The man gave her a narrow-eyed look. ‘Mist’ Roche ain’t seeing anyone right now, ma’mselle. You come back in an hour or two.’

In an hour or two, her courage might have deserted her, she thought. She said with equal firmness, ‘Please tell him I’m here, and I have some money for him.’

It was partly true. The small roll of bills representing her savings reposed in the pocket of her faded yellow sundress.

The man gave her another sceptical glance, and vanished. After a few minutes, he returned.

‘Come with me, please.’

The companionway and the passage to the saloon were only too familiar, but she was led further along to another door, standing slightly ajar. The man tapped lightly on the woodwork, said, ‘Your visitor, boss,’ and disappeared back the way he’d come, leaving Samma nervously on her own.

She pushed open the door, and walked in. It was a stateroom, the first glance told her, and furnished more luxuriously than any bedroom she’d ever been in on dry land.

And in the sole berth—as wide as any double bed—was Roche Delacroix, propped up against pillows, a scatter of papers across the sheet which barely covered the lower half of his body, a tray of coffee and fruit on the fitment beside him.

Samma took a step backwards. She said nervously, ‘I’m sorry—I didn’t realise. I’ll wait outside until you’re dressed.’

‘Then you will wait for some considerable time.’ He didn’t even look at her. His attention was fixed frowningly on the document he was scanning. ‘Sit down.’

Samma perched resentfully on the edge of a thickly padded armchair. Its silky upholstery matched the other drapes in the room, she noticed. She wasn’t passionately interested in interior decoration, but anything was better than having to look at him.

She thought working in the hotel would have inured her by now to encountering people in various stages of nudity, but none of their guests had ever exuded Roche Delacroix’s brand of raw masculinity. Or perhaps it was the contrast between his deeply bronzed skin, and the white of the bed linen which made him look so flagrantly—undressed.

The aroma of the coffee reached her beguilingly and, in spite of herself, her small straight nose twitched, her stomach reminding her that she’d eaten and drunk nothing yet that day.

Nor, it appeared, was she to be offered anything—not even a slice of the mango he was eating with such open enjoyment.

‘So—Mademoiselle Briant,’ he said at last, a note of faint derision in his voice. ‘Why am I honoured by this early visit? Have you come to pay your stepfather’s poker debts? I am surprised he could raise such a sum so quickly.’

‘Not—not exactly.’ A combination of thirst and nerves had turned her mouth as dry as a desert.

His brows lifted. ‘What then?’

She couldn’t prevaricate, and she knew it. She said, ‘I know you’re leaving Cristoforo today. I came to ask you to—take me with you.’

They were the hardest words she’d ever had to utter, and they were greeted by complete silence.

He sat up, disposing his pillows more comfortably, and Samma averted her gaze in a hurry. When she glanced back, he was rearranging the sheet over his hips with cynical ostentation.

‘Why should I?’ he asked baldly.

‘I need a passage out of here, and I need it today.’ She swallowed. ‘I could—pay something. Or I could work.’

‘I already have a perfectly adequate crew. And I don’t want your money.’ His even glance didn’t leave her face. ‘So—what else can you offer?’

She’d been praying he would be magnanimous—let her down lightly, but she realised now it was a forlorn hope.

She gripped her hands together, hoping to disguise the fact they were trembling.

‘Last night—you asked me for a year out of my life.’

‘I have not forgotten,’ he said. ‘And you reacted like an outraged nun.’ The bare, shoulders lifted in a negligent shrug. ‘But that, of course, is your prerogative.’

‘But, it’s also a woman’s prerogative to—change her mind.’

When she dared look at him again, he was pouring himself some more coffee, his face inscrutable.

At last he said, ‘I assume there has been some crisis in your life which has made you favour my offer. May I know what it is?’

She said in a small voice, ‘I think you already know. My stepfather lost everything he possesses to you last night.’

‘He did, indeed,’ he agreed. ‘Have you come to offer yourself in lieu of payment, chérie? If so, I am bound to tell you that you rate your rather immature charms altogether too highly.’

This was worse than she could have imagined. She said, ‘He’s going to pay you—everything. But he’s going to borrow—from Hugo Baxter.’

‘A large loan,’ he said meditatively. ‘And the collateral, presumably, is yourself?’

She nodded wordlessly.

‘Now I understand,’ he said softly. ‘It becomes a choice, in fact—my bed or that of Hugo Baxter. The lesser of two evils.’

Put like that, it sounded awful, but it also happened to be the truth, she thought, gritting her teeth. ‘Yes.’

‘Naturally, I am flattered that your choice should have fallen on me,’ the smooth voice went on relentlessly. ‘But perhaps you are not the only one to have had—second thoughts. The prospect of being—doused in alcohol for the next twelve months is not an appealing one.’

‘I’m sorry about that.’ Her hands were clenched so tightly, the knuckles were turning white. She said raggedly, ‘Please—please take me out of here. I’m—desperate.’ Her voice broke. ‘I’ll do anything you ask—anything …’

‘Vraiment?’ He replaced his cup on the tray, and deftly shuffled his papers together. ‘Then let us test your resolve, mignonne. Close the door.’

In slight bewilderment, she obeyed. Then, as she turned back, realisation dawned, and she stopped dead, staring at him in a kind of fascinated horror.

He took one of the pillows from behind him, and tossed it down at his side, moving slightly at the same time to make room for her. His arm curved across the top of the pillow in invitation and command.

‘Now?’ She uttered the word as a croak.

His dark eyes glittered at her. ‘What better way to begin the day?’ He patted the space beside him. ‘Viens, ma belle.’ He added, almost as an afterthought, ‘You may leave your clothes on that chair.’

Shock held her prisoner. She couldn’t deny that she’d invited this, but she hadn’t expected this kind of demand so soon. Had counted, in fact, on being allowed a little leeway. Time to adjust, she thought. Time to escape …

‘You are keeping me waiting,’ his even voice reminded her.

She took a few leaden steps forward, reached the chair, and paused. She could refuse, she supposed, or beg for a breathing space. And probably find herself summarily back on the quayside with her belongings, she realised, moistening her dry lips with the tip of her tongue, as she eased her slender feet out of her espadrilles.

Her heart was beating rapidly, violently, like a drum sending out an alarm signal, a warning tattoo. She had never in her life taken off her clothes in front of a man, and she didn’t know how to begin. What was he expecting? she wondered wildly. Some kind of striptease—all smiles and tantalisation? Because she couldn’t—couldn’t …

She put up a hand and tugged at the ribbon which confined her hair at the nape of her neck, jerking it loose.

He was propped on one elbow, watching her in silence, his face enigmatic, but she had the feeling he wasn’t overly impressed with her performance so far.

She supposed she couldn’t blame him. He’d spelt it out for her, after all. ‘My bed or that of Hugo Baxter,’ he’d said. ‘The lesser of two evils.’ Well, she’d made her decision, and now, it seemed, she had to suffer the consequences.

She bent her head, letting her hair swing forwards to curtain her flushed face while she tried to concentrate her fumbling fingers on the buttons which fastened the front of her dress.

The sharp, imperative knock on the stateroom door was as shocking as a whiplash laid across her overburdened senses, and she jumped.

‘Radio message for you, boss. Maître Giraud—and I reckon it’s urgent.’

Roche Delacroix swore under his breath, and made to throw back the sheet, pausing when he encountered Samma’s stricken look. He paused, his mouth twisting cynically. ‘You’ll find a robe in that closet, chérie. Get it for me.’

She hurried to obey, holding the garment out to him almost at arm’s length.

He laughed. ‘Now turn your back, my little Puritan.’

Heart hammering unevenly, she heard the sounds of movement, the rustle of silk as he put on the robe. But when his hands descended on her shoulders, turning her to face him again, a little cry escaped her.

‘How nervous you are.’ The laughter was still there in his voice. ‘Like a little cat who has never known kindness.’ He picked up her hand, and pressed a swift, sensuous kiss into its soft palm. ‘I am desolated our time together has been interrupted, ma belle, but it is only a pleasure postponed, after all.’

He strode across the cabin, and left, closing the door behind him.

Samma’s legs gave way, and she sank down on to the chair. She lifted her hand, and stared at it stupidly, as if she expected to see the mark of his lips, burning there like a brand.

He’d only kissed her hand, she told herself weakly. There was nothing in that to set her trembling, every sense, every nerve-ending tingling in some mysterious way. What would she do if—when he really kissed her? When he …

Her mind blanked out. She couldn’t let herself think about that. She would cope with it when she had to.

And she would soon have to, a sly inner voice reminded her. ‘A pleasure postponed,’ he’d said.

For the first time in her life, Samma found herself cursing her own inexperience. She wished she had some real idea of what Roche Delacroix was going to expect from her—when he returned. Would he make allowances for her ignorance—or would impatience make him brutal?

She bit her lip. Oh, God, what right had anyone as sexually untutored as she was to throw herself at a man of the world like Roche Delacroix?

I can’t stay here, she thought, panicking. I can’t! I’ll have to leave—go back on shore—find some other way out. I must have been mad.

She retrieved her espadrilles and ribbon and, picking up her bundle, went to the door. The handle turned easily enough, but the door itself didn’t budge.

She twisted the handle the other way, pushing at the solid wood panels, but it made no difference. He’d locked her in, she thought wildly.

She might have come here of her own free will, but she was staying as a prisoner. And when her jailer came back—what then?

When the door eventually opened half an hour later, Samma was as taut as a bowstring.

‘How dare you lock me in?’ she stormed.

Roche Delacroix’s expression was preoccupied, and he looked at her with faint surprise. ‘I did not,’ he said. ‘The door sticks sometimes, that is all. I’ll have it corrected when we reach Grand Cay.’

That’s all? Samma thought, wincing. Because of a sticking door, and her own horrendous stupidity, she was still trapped on Allegra with this—this pirate.

She said. ‘I’ve been thinking it over, and I’ve decided I’d prefer to forego this cruise, after all.’ She picked up her bundle. ‘I’d like to go ashore, please.’

‘You are just hungry,’ he said calmly. ‘Jerome is waiting to take you to the saloon for some ham and eggs.’

The words alone made her stomach swoon, but Samma didn’t relax her stance for an instant. ‘I refuse to eat a mouthful of food on this boat!’

‘You are such a poor sailor?’ He sounded almost solicitous, but the gleam in the dark eyes told a different story. ‘But we have not yet left harbour.’

‘I’m a perfectly good sailor,’ she said between her teeth. ‘What I’m trying to convey is that I’d rather choke than eat any food of yours.’

He shrugged. ‘As you please, but you will be very hungry by the time we reach our destination. Besides, I thought you would prefer to occupy yourself with breakfast while I dressed,’ he added, loosening the belt of his robe. ‘However, if you would rather watch me …’

Samma fled. Jerome was waiting outside, so there was no chance to make a dash for it, as he escorted her to the saloon.

‘I’ll be just within call, ma’mselle, if you need anything.’ The words were polite, but she was being warned that he was keeping an eye on her, she thought miserably as she sank down on to the long, padded seat, and looked at the table which had been set up. There was a tantalising aroma emanating from a covered dish on a hot-plate.

She groaned silently, feeling her mouth fill with saliva. Oh, God, but she was ravenous! She’d meant every word she’d said, but surely no one would notice if she took just one—tiny piece of ham? Using her fingers, she pulled off a crisp brown morsel. It was done to a turn, of course, succulent and flavoursome, and Samma was lost.

Ten minutes later, every scrap on the platter had gone, and she was on her second cup of coffee.

‘I am glad you decided to relent. I have a very sensitive chef,’ a sardonic voice said from the doorway, and Roche Delacroix joined her.

The thick, black hair was slightly damp, and the sharp scent of some expensive cologne hung in the air as he came to sit beside her. He’d dressed, if that was the word, in the most disreputable pair of jeans in the history of the world. Not only were they torn, and stained with oil, but they also fitted him like a second skin, drawing attention Samma would rather not have spared to his lean hips and long legs.

She said breathlessly, ‘I haven’t relented at all, really. I still want to go ashore.’

He shook his head. ‘That is impossible. The bargain between us is made. The next year of your life belongs to me, and it starts here on Allegra. You knew that when you came to me—offered yourself.’

‘I—I wasn’t thinking clearly,’ she said huskily. She took a deep breath. ‘Monsieur Delacroix, it was terribly wrong of me to rush on board—and throw myself at you like this, and I’m deeply ashamed, believe me. But I have to tell you—it—it wouldn’t work out between us—really.’ She was beginning to flounder. ‘I’d just be a—terrible disappointment to you—in every way.’

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