Secret Harbor Read Online Free PDF Page B

distilled the perfume which she always used, and which in consequence now brought her back so vividly to Grania’s mind that instinctively she looked towards the bed as if she expected to see her there.
    Then suddenly she was very still as if rooted to the spot, staring as if her eyes must be deceiving her.
    It was not her mother she could see against the white pillows, but a man.
    For a moment she thought she must be imagining him. Then almost as if the light grew clearer she could see quite distinctly and unmistakably there was a man’s head on her mother’s pillows.
    She stood for a moment staring, wondering whether she should go or stay.
    Then as if in his sleep her presence communicated itself to him, the man stirred and opened his eyes, and now they were looking at each other across the room.
    He was good-looking—handsome she supposed was the right word.
    He had dark hair sweeping back from a square forehead, a clean-shaven face with distinctive features, and dark eyes which for a moment stared at her blankly.
    Then his expression changed, and there was a smile on his lips and a sudden twinkle of recognition in his eyes.
    “Who are you? What are you doing here?” Grania asked.
    “Your pardon, Mademoiselle,” the man replied sitting up against the pillows, “but I have no reason to ask who you are when your picture hangs before me on the wall.”
    Without really meaning to Grania turned her head to where facing the bed over the top of the chest-of-drawers there was a picture of her mother painted when she had first been engaged to her father and before she had come to Grenada.
    “That is a picture of my mother,” she said. “What are you doing in her bed?”
    Even as she spoke she realised that the way the man had spoken to her showed that he was not English.
    She gave a little gasp.
    “You are French!” she exclaimed.
    “Yes, Mademoiselle, I am French,” the man replied, “and I can only apologize for occupying your mother’s room, but the house was empty.”
    “I know that,” Grania replied, “but you had no ... right. It is an ... intrusion for you to ... come here. And I do not understand ... ”
    Then again she stopped and drew in her breath before she said:
    “I think ... perhaps I have ... heard of you.”
    The man made a little gesture with his hand.
    “I promise you I am not famous, but infamous,” he said. “Beaufort—at your service!”
    “The pirate!”
    “The same, Mademoiselle! And a very contrite pirate if my presence here upsets you.”
    “Of course you upset me!” Grania said sharply. “As I have said, you had no right to intrude because we were away from home.”
    “I knew the house was empty, and may I add that nobody expected that you would come when you returned home to Grenada.”
    There was silence. Then Grania said hesitatingly: “You ... speak as if you knew I was ... coming back to the island.”
    The Pirate smiled at her and it not only seemed to make him look younger, but gave a touch of mischievousness to his expression.
    “I should think everybody on the island knows it. Gossip is carried on the wind and in the song of the birds.”
    “Then you knew my father had gone to England.”
    The Pirate nodded.
    “I knew that, and that you sent for him because your mother was ill. I am hoping that she is better.”
    “She is ... dead!”
    “My deepest condolences, Mademoiselle .”
    He spoke with a sincerity which did not make it seem as if he was being intrusive.
    Suddenly Grania was aware that she was talking to a Pirate and he was lying in her mother’s bed, his shoulders above the sheets showing that he was naked.
    S h e had half-turned towards the door when the Pirate said:
    “If you will permit me to dress myself, Mademoiselle, I will come downstairs to explain my presence, and make my apologies before I leave.”
    “Thank you,” Grania said and went from the room closing the door behind her.
    Outside on the landing she stood for a moment thinking that