White Heat (15 page)

She felt as if she wanted to run away and hide herself on the farthest tip of island, instead of which she had to return and help Kent with the Primus, which, because they neither of them understood it, refused to function properly for at least ten minutes after they began their operations. It was Karin, at last, who got it to work in the way it should, and as she set the water container on to boil she heard Kent observe jibingly:

‘Even if you’re not tough, you’re clever, aren’t you? Or possibly it’s because you’ve got neat fingers.’

His eyes dropped to them. For the first time, she realized, he was deliberately studying the shape of her hands, and the delicate curves of her wrists. Upwards, along the line of her golden-brown arm to the palpitating pink colour in her neck his eyes roved, and then they met hers, and he smiled a little peculiarly.

‘You know,’ he said softly, ‘you’re a very lovely young woman. I can’t help wishing I was an artist!’

‘It wouldn’t help you very much being an artist,’ she returned, fumbling with the canister of water until it nearly upset on the Primus stove, ‘and you were thinking of painting on this island, because you haven’t any materials to work with.’

‘True,’ he agreed.

‘And in any case, there are far better subjects than me in a paradise like this.’

‘Do you think it’s a paradise?’ he asked, crouching on the smooth sand beside her and rolling a leaf into the shape and semblance of a cigarette. She wondered whether he was intending to
smoke it ...
or to attempt to smoke it. ‘Because I don’t!’

‘You don’t like it here?’

His green eyes glinted at her.

‘I might like it under certain circumstances, but not as things are at the moment. And unless you’re a basically primitive person it’s difficult to take naturally to
primitive conditions and surroundings.’

‘Y-yes,’ she agreed, ‘I suppose it is.’

‘You don’t sound entirely sure yourself.’

She looked up at him, startled.

‘Of course I’m sure!’

‘You’re not afraid that primitive conditions
—
and surroundings
—
might breed primitive feelings?’

‘Wh-what do you mean?’

As she was still agitatedly fumbling with the water container he put out his hand and took it off the Primus, and then, despite all their efforts to get it to work properly, extinguished it. He smiled even more oddly as he did so.

‘Before you have an accident,’ he said. Then he stood up, and automatically she did the same. With nothing but the Primus dividing them he stared at her. ‘Have you ever thought very much about that deplorable occasion on the
Ariadne
when I kissed you?’ he asked.

She shook her head quickly, although her deepening flush and her eyes gave her away.

‘No,’ she said.

‘Little liar,’ he accused. And
then, suddenly, he put back his head and laughed. ‘If I could do that to you on the
Ariadne
,
with Mrs. Makepiece not more than a few yards away — as it later transpired — and all the civilizing effects of the
Ariadne
surrounding us, why do I hesitate to try the same experiment now? After all, we know one another much better than we did then. I’ve actually sle
p
t with
y
ou in mv arms.’ his smile, and the queer, gloating look in his eyes filling her with a feeling like sudden terror as well as arousing sickening embarrassment. ‘We couldn’t possibly have done that on the ship, without Mrs. Makepiece insisting that I marry you afterwards, and the captain offering to perform the ceremony in his cabin. But here, on Castaway Island, there’s nothing to prevent us getting to know one another a little better, is there? ... Especially with Rolands away!’

Karin, suddenly horrified, started to back away from him hastily, but he laughed and pursued her relentlessly. Just as he had done once before he caught her in his arms, and probably as a result of his experiences over the past few days they felt like iron bands as they fastened ruthlessly about her. His whole body felt hard and unyielding as iron as she was crushed up against it.

‘Don’t look at me as if I’m behaving abnormally,’ he chided her, laughing and showing her his white teeth. ‘This is not abnormality, it’s the most natural thing in the world, and if you didn’t want it to happen you shouldn’t have accepted my challenge to swim in the lagoon ... not when Rolands was out of the way, and there was no one to chaperon you!’

And with mounting horror causing her to fight him furiously she felt him forcing her face into the open and thrusting back her head until she felt as if her slender neck would snap. Her ribs were hurting her excruciatingly because of his bruising hold, and the thing that frightened her more than anything else was the
knowledge that she couldn’t get away from him.

And when his mouth closed down over hers, while he still actually laughed a little, desperation seized her. Desperation and revulsion ... until all at once he relaxed his hold a little, and he murmured to her:

‘You’re so soft and
lovely ...
so adorable! I’ve kissed quite a few women in my life, but never one who made me feel
—
quite
—
as you
do!’

And then, to her increased horror, she found herself clinging to him, and his attractive masculine mouth actually wooed her with tenderness.

‘That’s right, little redhead,’ he approved. ‘Stop fighting me like a tigress and be really womanly. We’ve a lot to give one another, you and I! A lot to teach one another! And this time I forbid you to slap my face!’ Karin did not slap his face, but she managed to win free of his hold within a bare few seconds after the last words had left his lips. Racing away from him towards the woods, she was in no position to be impressed by the look on his face, but she heard him call after her in mingled vexation and surprise:

‘Why in the world did you want to do that? I thought we were beginning to
r
ather like one another
...’
Then he raced after her. ‘Karin! Karin!’ he called again, lessening the distance between them. The beach sloped upwards towards the first belt of trees, and although the girl was barefoot and ran with the ease and grace of a Diana
—
and was actuated by an almost frantic desire to get away from him
—
his strides were longer, and he caught her up as she was about to collide with the stout bole of a tree. Gasping and frantic, she turned to confront him, and he grasped her by her shoulder and shook her quite gently.

‘
Karin, what’s got into you? I’m not going to eat you, and I’m not going to despoil you
...
’
with an amused twist to the corners of his mouth. ‘I simply thought that the time had arrived when we might make some attempt to get to know one another a little better, but apparently you don’t agree ... in which case I’m not going to force my attentions on you, believe me!’

She stared up into his green, cool, amused eyes, and the very fact that they could wear an amused look when he had just kissed her in a very different way from his first manner of kissing her shook her, somehow, to her foundations. She herself had been so carried away by that kiss that she had actually given way to weakness and clung to him for a few moments. But never again. She vowed it, silently, to herself.

These past few days hadn’t made any real difference in his attitude towards her. On the ship he had despised her, but had condescended to talk to her. Since the fire aboard the
Ariadne
there had been moments when they had been so physically close that the very thought of such an altered relationship would have shocked her in the days when she knew his opinion of her ... and every other young woman who bore some sort of likeness to her, if it came to that. But now, when he should have maintained his distance, he had suddenly started to treat her as if he was very far from despising her, and
his main purpose in life was to protect her.

She should have realized that, when a man of his type feels the urge to protect, it doesn’t necessarily mean that he is attracted, or that his basic opinion has altered in any way, but simply that his better nature is stirred, and the very femininity he would avoid in normal circumstances had had its effect on him. Even Rolands did his best to protect and spare her, but Rolands had always had quite a high opinion of
her ...
so if Rolands had suddenly felt the urge to make love to her it would have been different.

It would have meant that out of good beginnings something far more important was developing. But with Kent it meant nothing of the kind. It simply meant that a primitive set of circumstances had aroused a primitive desire to take advantage of those circumstances. And that was what Kent, a little surprised
—
even, perhaps, a little hurt because she wouldn’t co-operate — was doing.

Pressing back against the tree beside her and forcing him to release her shoulders, she spoke breathlessly.

‘I don’t know what you mean by getting to know one another better. Once we’re taken off this island we’ll probably never see one another again
.
..
’

‘Probably not,’ he agreed.

‘And if I were your friend Sarah you wouldn’t attempt to take advantage of the situation as you did just now, would you?’

She didn’t quite know why she brought the unknown Sarah into it, but she did, and she could actually feel him stiffen. The lines of his face assumed that look of aloofness, coldness and disdain that she had got to know so well while
they were still on the
Ariadne
.

‘Certainly not,’ he admitted.

‘Well, then
...’
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue, already engulfed by an acute sensation of humiliation and something more vitally concerned with her own future happiness. ‘Since you don’t know me as well as you do Sarah why do you-have to behave towards me as if
—
as if
...’

Her voice failed her, and he answered her curtly.

‘I’m afraid I rather fail to get the drift of all this, but since Sarah Montague is a very close friend of mine, and has been for years, I would prefer to keep her name out of any discussion in future, if you don’t mind.’ His voice was like the drip of ice. ‘In any case, discussion of Mrs. Montague is hardly relevant to our present circumstances, is it?’

And it could have been her imagination, but she thought he slightly emphasized the ‘Mrs.’ Montague.

‘No-no
...’

‘Well then,’ with a flash of something oddly like rage, ‘why did you have to drag her into it? She’s nothing to do with you ... nothing to do with life on this island! If she had the smallest connection with it I could understand your mentioning her name, but you don’t even know her. And if you did you’d understand perfectly that, shipwrecked or not shipwrecked, she wouldn’t be running around barefoot and bedraggled as you are doing at this moment. She’d have had the sense to grab up a handbag and a few ordinary, everyday necessities before trusting herself to an open boat. Sarah is like that ... calm, collected and poised, and I’ve never yet seen her without her make-up or looking anything but completely ravishing. And if a man she didn’t want to do so tried anything on with Sarah she wouldn’t demean herself by smacking his face, or run away like a frightened schoolgirl. She’d wither him with a look ... and believe me, one look would be sufficient!’

Karin felt as if he had deliberately gone out of his way to strip her of what little dignity the fire aboard the
Ariadne
had left her, and his singularly brutal way of doing it
—
on top of forcing his purely primitive attentions on her — made her actually feel a trifle sick.

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ she returned, in a thin voice, before she turned her back on him and walked back down the beach to the spot where their temporary camp had been established. ‘It just shows how clever you are at picking lady friends. And I’m sorry you had to be saddled with me when
Ariadne
caught fire!’

Neither of them spoke again, or attempted to speak to one another, until Rolands returned, and he did so so much sooner than they expected that the strain was not as unendurable as it might otherwise have been. He came bursting upon them through a tangle of shrubbery, and started to race along the shore, and when Kent went to meet him he waved his arms excitedly.

‘I’ve found them!’ he declared. ‘A perfectly dry set of caves, which will provide us with complete shelter when the next patch of bad weather blows up. I suggest that we move there without delay, if you agree, guv’nor
...’

He was so excited and pleased with himself that he lapsed into pure Cockney.

‘Blimey,’ he exclaimed, surveying them with his head on one side, ‘you look as if you’ve had a bad morning, guv! Don’t tell me you’ve seen
anythin’ ...
a band of head-hunters, or somethin’ like that? I wouldn’t want to lose my head now that I’ve found this cosy set-up for us. And little Miss Karin can have a cave all to herself if she wants one! Private bed-and
-
dressing-room
...’
He grinned from ear to ear. ‘And not even damp! Dry as a bone, I can and do assure you!’

Kent answered as if he was far from being impressed.

‘If you prefer sleeping in a cave you can sleep in one, Rolands,’ he told his servant. ‘But I prefer sleeping in the open, and I shall continue to do so until a merciful providence intervenes and removes us from this island. If Miss Hammond would like the bed-and-dressing-room you’ve found for her she’s welcome to
it ...
And it might be a good idea if you slept across the entrance in order to protect her from any unsuspected marauders who might interfere with the quality of her night’s rest,’ with such an acrid note in his voice that Rolands’ eyebrows arched.

‘Gawd blimey, boss, you don’t mean you really have seen a bunch of natives?’

‘I’ve seen nothing
—
or rather, no one
—
but Miss Hammond since you left this morning.’

Rolands’ expression grew thoughtful.

‘I see, guv,’ he said.

And he winked at Karin. She was unable to decide whether it was a cautionary wink, or a knowing wink.