Lindsay Armstrong: From Waif To His Wife

That he’d be so touched by her plight and her pluck, he’d hand over some cash to help her out?

He smiled a grim, austere little smile then looked across at her to find her studying him intently.

‘You’re not believing me again,’ she said huskily.

‘Maisie,’ he gestured, ‘whatever, and I’m sorry for anyone in this position, but it’s not my affair.’

‘Did you ever live at a place called Karoo Downs?’ she queried. ‘A sheep station out west somewhere?’

He frowned. ‘How did you know that?’

‘As a matter of fact, it’s common knowledge if you’d like to look it up on the internet. Apparently there was a South African connection in the Dixon family in the early days and Karoo comes from the Great Karoo in South Africa, also sheep country.’

‘You’ve done your research well,’ he said flatly.

‘Oh, I knew about Karoo Downs before I started searching,’ she said. ‘R…he told me about it. He also told me about his two favourite dogs, Graaff and Reinet.’

Rafe Sanderson suddenly drummed his fingers on the table.

‘I asked about the names,’ Maisie continued. ‘He said Graaff-Reinet is the main town in the Karoo and these two dogs were ridgebacks, a South African breed originally, and that’s why he chose the names.’

This time Rafe Sanderson swore. ‘Who the bloody hell have you been talking to, Maisie?’

‘No one. No one else. Oh, a Dixon who shut the door in my face, only two days ago as it happens.’

‘You must have been. Family, staff.’ He narrowed his eyes on her. ‘Listen, Maisie, I want the truth and now,’ he said through his teeth.

‘The truth?’ She stared at him with her lips parted and her eyes widening. ‘There must be some man out there going around impersonating you…’

He banged his fist on the table and made the coffee mugs jump. ‘Now I’ve heard it all.’

‘But for a few minutes I thought you were him,’ she protested. ‘I mean, now I’m quite sure you’re not and if you hadn’t been dripping wet and so angry I might have realised sooner…’ She stopped bewilderedly. ‘But I did think so at first.’

He opened his mouth to retort but the VHF radio above the charting desk came alive and intervened. ‘Mary-Lue, Mary-Lue - Lotus Lady , six seven,’ a deep, disembodied voice said.

Rafe shut his mouth with a click then got up to answer the call. ‘ Lotus Lady - Mary-Lue , six nine.’ And he changed channels.

‘Rafe-Dan here; we’ll be over in about twenty minutes. Melissa wants to know if there’s anything you need-and we’ll pick up Eddie and Martha on the way.’

Rafe Sanderson hesitated and glanced darkly at Maisie. Then he depressed his PTT button and said into the mike, ‘Don’t need anything, thanks, mate. See you soon.’ He hung up the mike and came back to the table.

Maisie swallowed and suddenly looked desperately tired and uneasy. ‘How are you going to explain me to your friends?’

He took in her wan complexion. ‘I’m not. Are you sure you’re feeling all right?’

‘I’m fine but tired, that’s all. I-I didn’t sleep last night and I probably only had an hour here before you came on board. I also-sometimes I just feel like a cat who needs to curl up and go to sleep.’

‘Then go to bed, kid,’ he said, not unkindly. ‘Use the aft berth. With a bit of luck no one will even know you’re here. We can get down to brass tacks again,’ he looked impatient for a moment, ‘later.’

‘Oh, thank you,’ Maisie said with real gratitude.

‘Just one thing.’

She looked a query at him.

‘I need you to promise me you won’t try to drown yourself again, you won’t try to drown me or do anything else outrageous.’

Maisie had to laugh. ‘I promise,’ she said, ‘unless, that is, your behaviour is outrageous, Mr Sanderson.’

He studied her with a faint frown in his eyes, as if he didn’t quite know what to make of her. Then he shrugged and got up.

Maisie fell asleep with no difficulty.

She tried not to. She told herself there was too much to think about, too much to attempt to clarify, not least her reaction to a man she’d only just met, but nothing could keep at bay the tide of weariness that overcame her.

She didn’t hear the lunch party come aboard, she didn’t hear anything until she woke a couple of hours later.

She stretched, yawned and looked around with no idea where she was until the toffee and peppermint décor struck a chord.

She sat up abruptly in time to hear a female voice above deck, saying,

‘Why, Rafe, you’ve got a girl in your cabin!’

Maisie froze, and realised that it must have been the opening, or more likely the closing, of the cabin door that had woken her.

‘Melissa,’ Rafe’s voice sounding irritable, ‘hasn’t anyone told you to wait for an invitation before you nose about?’

A tinkle of laughter, then, ‘Darling, life’s too short to wait for invitations. And, unless I’m very much mistaken, she’s a redhead.’

Maisie waited with bated breath.

‘She’s also a stowaway I’d never laid eyes on until she made her presence known and nearly drowned me,’ Rafe replied coolly. ‘What’s more she’s going back from whence she came, wherever the hell that is, pronto, which is why I’m about to throw you lot off. I need to get underway.’

‘Well, darling,’ Melissa said, ‘however you want to call it is fine by us. And thanks for a lovely lunch. We might toddle off and spend the night at Blakesley’s anchorage. Oh. Will we see you at Tricia’s party on Wednesday?’

Rafe Sanderson replied in the negative.

Maisie waited, as she heard the sound of an outboard motor revving then receding, before she got up and made her way to the main saloon, not at all sure of her reception in light of Rafe’s blunt and truthful explanation of her presence, and how he planned to handle her dismissal.

He surprised her. He came down the steps at the same time, raised an eyebrow at her and asked her if she was hungry.

Maisie closed her eyes. ‘I-I’m starving! No breakfast, no lunch.’

‘That’s what I thought, so I kept you some food.’ He withdrew some foil-wrapped plates from the fridge and set them on the table.

A minor feast greeted her eyes as he unwrapped the foil. Smoked salmon and melon; cold lobster in a salad studded with black olives and feta cheese, accompanied by a crispy chicken leg and a slice of quiche which he removed and warmed in the microwave. He also warmed two rolls.

‘Thank you so much,’ she murmured as she gazed hungrily at his offerings. She hesitated. ‘I rather thought you were going to make me walk the plank.’

‘You heard?’

‘I heard. She must have woken me when she closed the door.’

‘She can be the most infuriating woman, but Dan is a good friend,’ he said. ‘As for making you walk the plank, I’m feeding you and making you a cup of tea instead because cruelty to pregnant ladies is not amongst my vices. However,’ he paused to fill the kettle, ‘as soon as you’ve eaten, we are going straight back to Manly.’

Maisie ate the salmon and melon. ‘Where you intend to wash your hands of me?’

He looked at her expressionlessly over his shoulder then lit the gas and put the kettle on the hob. ‘As a matter of fact, I intend to leave no stone unturned until I get to the bottom of this.’

Maisie demolished the lobster and the quiche then she picked up the chicken leg and sank her teeth into it. When she finished, she wiped her fingers fastidiously on the paper napkin he’d supplied.

‘You were hungry,’ he commented.

She smiled ruefully. ‘For weeks I was as sick as a dog and could hardly look food in the face; now I’m ravenous most of the time.’ She hesitated. ‘Does that mean you believe me?’