away a memory even more unsettling than the uproar at last week’s ball, Kat stepped out onto the quayside and couldn’t help noticing that people had stopped to look at her.
But then, people always did. If you dazzled them with the externals, then they never really looked beyond to see the real person underneath. Clothes could be the armour that shielded you—that stopped people from getting too close. And it was better that way. Much better.
She was wearing a teeny pair of shorn-off denim shorts and a shrunken white T-shirt which gave the occasional glimpse of a flat midriff tanned the colour of pale caramel. Shiny black hair cascaded down over her shoulders and all the way down her back—and her Balfour blue eyes were hidden behind a pair of enormous shades. She knew exactly what kind of uniform to wear on this kind of rich and privileged yachting trip—and she had abided to it by the letter. You dressed down, but you wore as many status symbols as possible.
‘Bring my bags, will you?’ Kat said to the driver, before making her way towards the gangplank. Teetering a little on a pair of the season’s most fashionable espadrilles, she saw a fair-haired man in uniform approaching her and she smiled.
‘Hello. You’re probably expecting me. I’m Kat Balfour,’ she said.
‘Yeah.’ The man nodded, squinting his pale blue eyes at her, a small diamond glinting at his ear lobe. ‘I thought you must be.’
Kat looked around. ‘Any of the other guests here yet?’
‘Nope.’
‘And my…host?’ How crazy it sounded not to even know him—or her—by name! Why hadn’t she insisted her father tell her? Because you were too busy trying to ingratiate yourself with him, whispered the candidly cruel voice of her conscience. Knowing that he was in an odd sort of mood and terrified that he might put a stop to your allowance—and then where would you be? She could see the man looking at her quizzically and realised it would look faintly ridiculous if she had to ask him who his employer was! ‘Has my host arrived yet?’
The man shook his head. ‘Not yet.’
‘Perhaps you’d like to take my luggage?’ she suggested pointedly.
‘Or you could do it yourself?’
Kat stared at him in disbelief. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I’m the engineer,’ he said with a shrug. ‘Not a baggage handler.’
Somehow she kept her smile fixed to her face. No point in getting into an argument with a deck-hand but she would certainly speak to his boss about his attitude. He would learn soon enough that nobody spoke to a Balfour like that. ‘Then perhaps you could show me to my cabin,’ she said coolly.
‘My pleasure.’ The man smiled. ‘Follow me.’
Kat hadn’t carried her own bags since she’d been expelled from her last school. These were heavy and they were cumbersome—and on the too-high shoes she was wearing, it wasn’t the easiest task in the world to walk across the gleaming deck with any degree of grace.
If that was bad, then it suddenly began to get worse because just then they arrived at her cabin—and Kat looked around in disbelief. It had been ages since she’d stayed on a yacht, but in the past she had always been given the best and most prestigious accommodation available. Something near the deck, where you could climb out of bed and wander straight outside in the morning and be confronted by the ever-moving splendour of the sea. Or somewhere a little farther down towards the centre of the vessel—which meant that you were in the most stable part of the boat and buffeted from the possibility of too much movement.
But this.
Kat looked around. It was tiny. A cramped little bunk and barely any wardrobe space. No pictures on the walls and, even worse, no porthole! And someone had actually left a drab-looking piece of clothing hanging on the back of the door! She dropped her bags to the ground and turned to the man. ‘Listen—’
‘The name’s Mike,’ he interrupted. ‘Mike Price.’
She wanted to tell him that his name was of no interest to her and that by the time the day was out he would be looking for a new job, but right then there were more pressing matters on her mind than the man’s crass inefficiency and overinflated sense of his own importance. Kat took in a deep breath. ‘I think there’s been some sort of mistake,’ she said crisply.
‘How come?’
‘This cabin is much too small.’
‘It’s the one you’ve been assigned.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘Better take it up with the boss.’
Kat gritted her teeth. If only she knew who the boss was! But by now she knew she couldn’t possibly lose face by asking this unhelpful man. ‘I don’t think you understand—’
‘No, I don’t think you understand,’ interrupted the engineer brusquely. ‘The boss likes his staff to put up and shut up—that’s why he pays them so well.’
‘But I’m not a member of staff,’ she protested. ‘I’m a guest here.’
The man’s eyes narrowed and then he laughed—as if she’d made some weird kind of joke. ‘I don’t think so. Or at least, that’s not what I’ve been told.’
Kat felt the first tremor of apprehension. ‘What are you talking about?’
Jerking his head in the direction of the garment which had caught her attention when she’d first walked in, Mike reached out and plucked it from the hook before handing it to her.
Kat looked at it blankly. ‘What’s this?’
‘What’s it look like?’
It took her a moment to realise—since it wasn’t an item of clothing she was familiar with. ‘An…an apron?’ Momentarily, Kat’s fingers tightened around the heavy fabric before she pushed it back at him, her heart beating wildly. ‘What the hell is going on?’
Mike frowned. ‘I think you’d better follow me.’
What could she do, other than what he suggested? Start unpacking all her expensive clothes and attempt to start storing them away in that rabbit’s hutch of a room? Or maybe she should do what her gut instinct was telling her—which was to get off the wretched boat and forget about the whole idea of a holiday at sea.
She began to follow him through a maze of wood-lined corridors until at last he threw open a set of double doors and Kat quietly breathed a sigh of relief. Now this was more like it.
The room in which she now stood was the polar opposite of the poky cabin she’d just been shown. This had the enormous dimensions she was used to—a grand dining salon set out on almost palatial lines. Inlaid lights twinkled from the ceiling, but these were eclipsed by the blaze of natural light which flooded in through sliding French windows which opened up on to the deck itself.
There was a dining table which would have comfortably seated twelve people—though Kat noticed that only two places had been laid and used. Various open bottles were lined along the gleaming surface and candle wax had dripped all over a bone-china plate. At its centre
