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
