Free Dying For a Cruise by Joyce Cato Page B

told you flat out the last time – I heard him. The Stillwater Swan is not for sale.’
    Gabriel smiled and inclined his head. He was enjoying this game. ‘So he did. But—’ His smile widened ‘—that was then, and this is now. Things have a way of changing. And this time, I think he’ll have a change of heart.’
    Jasmine’s eyes narrowed. ‘Just why did you go up to London last month?’ she asked suddenly, her voice sharp.
    Gabriel laughed. He had to hand it to Jasmine, she was as smart as a whip. ‘I told you. Just to visit my club.’
    Which was, in a way, strictly true. He had gone to the Regiment Club, a club whose membership – as its name might have suggested – consisted entirely of retired officers of the British army. What he hadn’t told her was what he had gone to find out . And succeeded in finding out, beyond even his wildest dreams.
    Jasmine narrowed her eyes. ‘I’m not going to let you waste all our money on this floating heap, Gabby,’ she warned, her voice lowering ominously. Her dark eyes flashed, reminding her husband of a tigress he’d once seen in London Zoo, pacing furiously in her enclosure and watching the human visitors with repressed feline fury.
    She had looked at him just as Jasmine looked at him now.
    He glanced at her hands, almost expecting her elegantly painted red nails to turn into sharp claws. She was such a cat. She looked like one, and she had the morals of one. An alleycat!
    ‘My dear Jasmine, you can’t possibly stop me from spending my money,’ he stressed insultingly, ‘in any way that I want.’
    Jasmine stamped her foot. It was a ridiculous habit, she knew, and one left over from her rather spoilt childhood, but she had never managed to break it. ‘I’m warning you, Gabby,’ she said, her voice lowering to a hiss. ‘I need that money. I like buying clothes and jewellery. I like going to Ascot, and Stratford for the Shakespeare. I like taking holidays in France and the Caribbean, and I won’t give it all up just so that you can go and play captain.’
    Gabriel smiled. ‘I don’t intend to “play” at all. Once the Swan is mine, I intend to learn to navigate her and overhaul her myself. No namby-pamby crew for me. This is a man’s boat. It needs a man who can appreciate her, nuts and bolts and all. Lucas is no man. He just plays at being her master. He doesn’t deserve a queen like this.’
    He laughed openly at the look of chagrin that crossed his wife’s face. ‘What’s the matter, Jasmine?’ he scoffed softly, his voice becoming deliberately cruel now. ‘Afraid that that young lad of yours will leave you if you can no longer afford to keep him in the manner to which you’ve allowed him to become accustomed? After all, there are plenty of other women around who can afford to buy him fancy watches and little runabouts, aren’t there?’
    Jasmine felt the breath leave her lungs in a quick ‘whoosh’. She hadn’t thought Gabby knew about Matthew. ‘You … you …’ she spluttered, and then couldn’t think of anything suitably scathing to tack onto the end of it.
    Gabriel threw back his head and laughed. ‘It’s your own fault, Jasmine,’ he said at last, his face settling into a harsh, unyielding mask. ‘You reneged on our agreement first. There was nothing in our “understanding” that allowed you to be unfaithful. I never agreed to being made a laughing stock!’ he all but roared. ‘If the good life wasn’t good enough for you, then you’ve got no one else to blame now that I’m taking it all away again.’
    Jasmine’s hands clenched into fists. She could feel her nails digging into her palms, threatening to draw blood, but she continued to stare at her husband helplessly, with her smouldering, tiger eyes.
    ‘Never mind, darling,’ Gabriel commiserated with patent insincerity. ‘It won’t be so bad living on the Swan . Oh, I’m going to sell the house, didn’t I tell you?’ he added, seeing her look of astonishment.