‘I never did manage it, did I?’ I asked her. ‘I thought I could find out all about you, but you covered your tracks so well it’s like you don’t have any tracks.’
She didn’t rise to it, and I suppose by that time I knew that she wouldn’t. Her mysteries were too well concealed, but I could bide my time. So when she just smiled at me, I smiled back.
‘Why does it matter?’ she asked. ‘I did my job well, didn’t I?’
‘Is that all it was? A job?’
‘You hired me, at a very generous rate of pay.’
‘I hired you when we were strangers,’ I reminded her. ‘But we’re not strangers any more.’
‘No,’ she whispered, and I wondered if I only imagined that she sounded sad.
Suddenly I made my mind up. No more fooling. I knew what I wanted.
‘Della, I don’t ever want us to be strangers again. I want to marry you.’
From her startled look I knew she hadn’t foreseen this, although I couldn’t think why. Lord knows that I must have made myself obvious.
‘What did you say?’ she asked faintly.
‘I want to marry you. I’m in love with you. Surely that can’t come as a surprise?’
‘It does in a way,’ she said slowly. ‘You haven’t acted like a man in love.’
‘You mean I haven’t pounced on you like a starving teenager? I can’t tell you how often I’ve wanted to. I’ve watched you walking about that boat, and I’ve watched the other men slavering over you, and I haven’t known how I kept my hands off you.’
‘Oh, you kept your hands off me pretty well,’ she said, with a slight edge on her voice that made my heart soar.
‘Were you expecting anything else?’ I asked.
‘Well,’ she said slowly, ‘in the circumstances-’
‘What circumstances? I was paying your salary and therefore you were bought and paid for? Who do you think I am? Hugh Vanner?’
My darling glared at me. ‘Is that why you’ve been acting like a Boy Scout?’
‘Well-yes. And why are you snapping at me? You ought to be pleased that I showed you some respect. We made a business deal and I had you trapped on that boat. You were vulnerable. How could I-?’
She smiled suddenly. ‘Why, Jack, you’re a gentleman.’
‘Yes, heaven help me! I must be. But you were hardly in a position to fight me off-’
‘I could have jumped overboard.’
‘No, it doesn’t do to repeat a good trick. Besides, if you’d escaped me the same way you did Vanner I’d really have felt like a worm. And if you’d said yes, how would I have known why? You might have felt it was part of the bargain, and that you ought-’
My words ran out in a kerfuffle of embarrassment. There was something about the kindly way she was regarding me that was even more unnerving than her furious glare a moment before.
‘I’m making a pig’s breakfast of this, aren’t I?’ I said miserably.
That made her laugh, and she shook her head so that her earrings danced.
‘Can you really see me making love to you because I felt obligated?’ she asked.
‘I’ll be honest. There’ve been moments when I wouldn’t have cared why, as long as I had you in my bed. But those times didn’t last. I’d take a cold shower and know that it had to be because you wanted me. And I wasn’t sure if you did.’
‘Haven’t you sensed it?’ she asked, looking surprised.
‘Sometimes. But the messages were always conflicting.’
We were in a dark corner of the restaurant, not facing each other, but at right angles on a continuous seat. Without saying a word she leaned across and laid her lips on mine for a long moment, while the world went into a spiral of dizzy dancing and my heart kept time.
‘Is that message clear enough?’ she asked.
I nodded. I couldn’t trust myself to speak. When I thought I could manage it I returned to what was, for me, the important thing.
‘Now you know why I want to marry you. I’m not interested in a one-night stand, or a passing affair. I want lifetime commitment on both sides. Please, Della, will you be my wife?’
I’d been so sure she would say yes after that kiss, but she didn’t answer for a moment. Then she said slowly, ‘Don’t ask me for an answer just now, please, Jack. I think you proposed on impulse, and you might regret it.’
‘I won’t change my mind.’
‘But you know nothing about me.’
‘Not for want of trying to find out. You told me that you weren’t married already, and nothing else matters.’
‘But I might have-other obligations.’
A memory from that afternoon flitted briefly through my mind, someone called ‘darling’ whom she was looking forward to seeing. But I was on a high and I banished the thought into the wilderness.
They say there are none so blind as those who will not see. And I guess I was determined not to see.
‘Whatever your obligations,’ I said, ‘I’ll help you with them.’
She shook her head and made the first helpless gesture I had ever seen from her.
‘Jack, I can’t say yes-not right now. You don’t understand-’
‘Then help me to understand. I’m in love with you, and I think you’re in love with me. What else is there?’
‘So many things,’ she whispered. ‘We’ve been living in a little isolated cocoon, but when you return to your real life things will look different. You won’t need me quite so much.’
‘Are you daring to suggest that I want to marry you to protect me from Grace?’
‘No, I think you can manage that by yourself. After this she’ll start to understand that your no is final. But that leaves you free.’
‘Free to marry you. My darling, there’s one aspect of Bully Jack that’s true. They say when he wants something he’s like a terrier-never lets go. I want you, and I’m not letting go. Why do you doubt me? I love you. You’re my heart’s desire, the only woman I’ll ever want and love, for the rest of my life. If I could believe that you feel the same-’
She stopped me with a finger over my lips.
‘Let’s go,’ she said softly.
We walked back to the boat, our arms wrapped around each other, feeling our bodies move in perfect rhythm. Most of the ship’s crew and staff had been allowed to leave, and those that were left kept a discreet distance. We might have been the last two people on earth, wandering through an enchanted ghost ship.
Our packing was done, and the cases had already been placed in a cupboard outside the bedroom. But Della insisted on taking a last look and came up with a prize.
‘Look at this,’ she cried, waving the dowdy nightdress of that first evening. ‘I pushed it under the bed so that nobody saw it. I suppose I could wear it tonight.’
‘Tonight?’ It came out as a yelp of anguish.
‘Well, there’s nobody to fool any more.’
‘Except ourselves,’ I answered. ‘Is that what we’ve been doing? Fooling ourselves? Please don’t say it is.’
‘I suppose it depends what reality is,’ she mused, ‘and how badly you want to get away from it.’
‘No,’ I said, in a voice that surprised even me, ‘no more of that.’
‘What?’
‘No more enigmas. Now it’s time for the truth between us. I need to know how you feel about me, finally. It matters. If the answer’s no, I’ll go and spend tonight in one of the other cabins. We’ve got them all now.’
Her lips twitched. Even now she was teasing me. ‘You’re threatening to sleep in Selina’s cabin?’
‘It’s sure as hell the only way she’d ever get me in there,’ I growled.
She chuckled, and it shook me into fragments, ‘Is that all that “truth” means to you, Jack?’
‘Della, if you’re talking about what I think you are, it’s the only truth I can think of at this moment. Maybe that makes me a shallow character. I don’t know, and right now I don’t care. I’ve offered you my commitment, and now I want to make love to you so badly that it’s driving me crazy.’
Then came the thing I’d been looking for, the little smile, starting at the corner of her lovely mouth and slowly
