Free Full Tide by Celine Conway Page A

Nancy fell down the stairs at the hotel. I owe you an apology for the way I spoke to you that day. I know almost nothing about children, but I ought to have remembered some of the nursery episodes abroad, and made allowances.”
    “It’s sweet of you to apologize,” she said gratefully, hoping he wouldn’t spoil everything by harking back to Jeremy.
    He didn’t. “Some time,” he said, “you must tell me how you came to be Nancy’s keeper. I won’t detain you any longer now”
    A minute later they were outside in the moonshot darkness and moving towards the companion. A junior officer appeared and saluted.
    “Sir, the officer of the watch ... ”
    Mark cut him short. “All right, I’ll see him. Escort Miss Maxwell to the promenade deck.”
    He behaved as if it mattered not a scrap that she was there with him in a part of the ship sacred to officers and men, thought Lisa, who had been thrown into a temporary panic. But as she went on her way with the young man she reflected, more calmly, that Mark would never allow himself to be disturbed by so trivial an incident. His men knew him. They would, know that the Old Man—yes, even Mark was given the affectionate appellation by his subordinates—really had no time for women. He always put in the duty hour in the lounge after dinner, but he preferred a game of poker, or to read, or simply to stare over the vast expanse of ocean, thinking.
    A little later she lay in bed, recalling details of the short interlude in the comfortable little sanctum. Chiefly, it was Mark that she saw; his angular face and the mouth that could harden or soften his whole expression. She remembered his fingers holding his glass, strong and brown and well-tended; his wrist below the navy serge and gold braid, his hair, dark and very slightly wavy above the short hair at the temples. And she remembered his touch when they had both stood at the door while he unlocked it; the impersonal pressure of cool fingers on her arm which, for an agonizing second, she had wished would intensify, even bruise her. During those last minutes he hadn’t behaved like a ship’s master at all. She had glimpsed a gentler, more human personality.
    It dawned on her, suffocatingly, that many women must, at different tunes, have fancied themselves in love with the aloof and commanding Mark Kennard.
    The next day was comparatively tranquil. Madei r a was sighted, a green mound with shadowed valleys in the sunshine. Through binoculars Lisa saw the tiny white mass which was Funchal, and, much nearer, the long boats crammed with laughing, gesticulating Portuguese. There were a few flying fish, the vanguard of the swarms which inhabit tropic waters, but these Lisa found disappointing. They w ere so small, like a lot of aerial herrings, flashing silver in the sun but without the color she had somehow expected.
    Someone sighted an albatross which was written off by skeptics as an oversize seagull, and someone else embarked on a lecture about the geographical importance of the islands, and about the men who had discovered them.
    The deck sports got under way, but as Lisa found out from the notice board that she had been paired with Jeremy—who presumably was again closeted with Astra—she only played a practice game here and there, and spent much time teaching the finer points of table tennis to Nancy.
    Wi th the ship ploughing steadily ahead with scarcely any detectable movement, the swimming pool was crowded, and all the space about it, covered now by a white canvas awning, was packed with deck chairs. The swift change from grey biting weather in England to the semi-tropical heat off the shores of North Africa had reduced many to slumbering heaps.
    It really was hot. The rail burned, and so did the deck beneath bare feet. Even the wind was heat-laden and lazy. T he officers came out in dazzling whites; crisp shorts, short-sleeved shirts, stockings to the knee and white shoes, and a snowy cover to the peaked cap. The