Island of Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page B

explained. “I know I shouldn’t have been so careless, but -well, I’m sorry.”
    Once again Scottie glanced at his companion before he spoke, and his smile was perhaps far more tolerant than his employer would have approved of, if he could have seen it. “Och, there’s no harm done, lassie,” he told her quietly.
    “And none of us had a ducking, so don’t worry about it.”
    “But - your hull,” she began, and again Jason Connor took up cudgels.
    “What about the hull?” he asked brusquely and suspiciously. “Have a look at it, Scottie, and see what she’s done to the damned thing!”
    “There’s a wee bit of a scratch,” Scottie informed him soothingly and not altogether truthfully. “It’ll cover easily enough, I dare say.”
    “And I’ll pay for it,” Leonora interposed hastily, before some reference could be made to that aspect of it. “I’ll do that, of course, Mr. Connor.”
    “Thanks!”
    She suspected sarcasm, but since she was determined not to indulge in a lengthy battle of words with him she said nothing more. It would seem almost like sacrilege to quarrel in such surroundings, out here on the serene blue ocean, and she looked instead at Scottie’s encouraging smile.
    “It’ll be O.K., lass,” he told her, sotto voce. “Don’t you worry your pretty head about it.”
    “But, Scottie, I meant—”
    “Now what?” The impatient voice from the stem cut into her protest and Leonora frowned. “If you’re telling her she needn’t bother about paying for the damage, Scottie,” he said harshly, “forget it!”
    Leonora flushed angrily, her hands tight and white-knuckled as she looked at the taunting, rugged features of her tormentor. “I have every intention of paying for the damage, Mr. Connor,” she told him stiffly. “Just send me the bill when the repairs have been done and I’ll pay it.”
    “Independent, eh?” he jeered, and another dry smile twisted his mouth as he looked at her with his blank eyes. “For heaven’s sake, girl, you don’t have to be so touchy because I pull your leg! I can afford to pay for a scratch on my own boat, you don’t have to!”
    “I’ve every intention of paying for it!”
    She would have felt more satisfaction from her defiance if he could have seen her lifted chin and the fiercely defiant glint in her eyes, but he could tell from her voice how she felt. Scottie, who could see her, was looking very unhappy about her attitude and he shook his head over the angry tension he felt in the hand under his own.
    “Leonora,” he pleaded, but she shook her head firmly, and he shrugged. “All right,” he said resignedly. “Have it your way.”
    “I imagine she mostly does,” Jason Connor remarked dryly from the stern, and surprisingly, he laughed. “That’s quite a girl you’ve got yourself there, you old sinner,” he told a plainly embarrassed Scottie. “I’m not sure she won’t prove too much for you!”
    “Boss, there’s no call to—” Scottie’s nice, honest face looked faintly pink, and he looked at Leonora apologetically. “I’m sorry, Leonora!”
    “Oh, come on!” his employer told him impatiently. “Don’t be so bashful about her! She must be quite a beauty if she’s swept you off your feet, so why not make the most of it?”
    “You’re not only embarrassing me, but Leonora too,” Scottie informed him in a voice far less friendly than Leonora had heard from him before, and it was something of a shock to realise that this was the second time she had been a subject of contention between the two of them. She regretted it, but she could scarcely be blamed for it in the circumstances, and she looked at Scottie as she shook her head.
    “Please, Scottie,” she begged. “It doesn’t matter to me.” “It does to me!” Scottie set his jaw stubbornly as he held on to the side of her boat with one hand. They were bobbing side by side in the middle of the sparkling blue bay and it occurred to Leonora suddenly that