Devil and the Deep Sea (3 page)

tonight you're standing in for Nina in the Grotto. It's no big deal,' he

added disgustedly. 'Just sit with the punters, and be nice to them.

No one's suggesting you sleep with them.'

Samma's delicate mouth curled. 'Meaning Nina doesn't?'

'That's no concern of yours,' Clyde blustered. 'Now, be a good girl,'

he went on, a wheedling note entering his voice. 'And do something

about your hair,' he added, giving its shining length a disparaging

glance. 'Nina's left one of her cocktail dresses in the dressing-room,

so you can wear that. You're near enough the same size.'

'It's not a question of size,' Samma said with irony. 'It's

taste—something Nina's not conspicuous for.'

Clyde shrugged. 'Well, at least she doesn't look as if she's just

stepped out of a kindergarten,' he countered brutally. 'Maybe you

should ask her for a few lessons. Anyway, I haven't time to argue

the toss with you. I have a busy evening ahead of me.'

She said evenly, 'Playing poker, I suppose. Clyde—couldn't you

give the game a miss for once?'

'No, I couldn't,' he said sullenly. 'Baxter's here again, and he's

loaded. All I need is one good win. His luck can't last for ever.'

'Can't it? Does it ever occur to you that he wins too often and too

much for it to be purely luck?'

'You don't know what you're talking about,' he dismissed crossly.

'Now, get on with some work, please. And chivvy up those girls

who work on the bedrooms. Number Thirty-three claims his bed

was made up with a torn sheet.'

Samma sighed. 'A lot of the linen's threadbare. We need to replace

it,' she began, but Clyde was already disappearing, as he invariably

did when she tried to discuss anything about expenditure with him.

She sighed again, as she went into the hotel office at the back of the

reception desk. In spite of her intentions, it seemed she had to put in

an appearance at the club that night. And it occurred to her too that

Clyde, who knew how much she hated being there, had never

pressured her quite so much before. In the past, he'd been prepared,

albeit sulkily, to accept her excuses. Now, it seemed, they had

entered on a new phase in their uneasy working relationship, and

Samma wasn't sure how to deal with it. But it was beginning to

seem even more imperative that she should get away from

Cristoforo, and fast.

But without money, how can I? she thought despairingly. And I

can't even do my portraits for the next few days because of that

damned Frenchman.

She bit her lip. Meeting an—animal like him was another incentive

for her to get back to civilisation without delay.

She might have behaved badly—she was prepared to admit that, but

his reaction had been unforgivable. Clearly he was the kind of man

who was unable to overlook any slight to his self-esteem, which

made him both macho and humourless, she thought—faults which

far outweighed the overwhelming physical attraction which she'd

been unable to deny, or even resist.

In the same way, she was unable to escape a lingering curiosity

about him. He looked tough, and eminently capable, the typical

roughneck who made a precarious living, crewing on charter hire

boats for fair-weather sailors. But his voice had been educated, she

thought frowning, so that didn't add up.

Perhaps, like herself, he was trying to scrape together the fare back

to Europe, she decided with a mental shrug. In the event,

speculation was useless. She would never see him again.

Fortunately, the Black Grotto kept away his sort of man, with its

hefty cover charge and loaded drinks prices.

She could only wish it kept away Hugo Baxter's kind of man, too.

But that, of course, was too much to hope for, she realised some

hours later, watching his plump figure make its way across the

crowded club to her side, a self-satisfied smile on his full lips.

'Well, sweet Samantha.' His eyes were all over her, missing nothing,

from the casual blonde top-knot into which she'd twisted her hair, to

the slender, strappy sandals on her bare feet. 'You're a sight for sore

eyes.' He leered at Nina's horror of a dress—black, and almost

transparent, with a sprinkling of sequins to veil the wearer's breasts

and form a coy band round the hips. It would take all her reserves

of coolness to enable her to carry the tacky thing off with any

degree of sang-froid she had thought wretchedly, viewing herself in

the dressing-room mirror.

She said, 'Good evening, Mr Baxter.'

'Oh, come on, sweetheart. Why so formal? Surely you know me

well enough by now to be—a little more friendly.' He paused. 'I

looked for you on the quay this afternoon. Had a fancy to have my

portrait drawn,' he added, as if conferring an immense honour.

'I have all the commissions I can handle,' Samma told him

untruthfully. The thought of committing his unprepossessing

features to paper was totally unappealing, although she knew how

she would do it, she thought, a little curl of malicious glee

unwinding inside her.

His face fell. 'That's too bad. So—how about a little dance with me,

then?'

The prospect of being held in his arms, his paunch pressing against

her slenderness, made Samma feel as if a sudden outbreak of

maggots was crawling over her skin. She stepped back instinctively,

aware that he'd registered her hurried recoil.

'I'm sorry -' she began, but he interrupted.

'You will be, sweetheart, if you start giving me the runaround. I'm a

good customer of this club, and you're a hostess—right? And if I

want to buy some of your time tonight, there isn't a damned thing

you can do about it—right, too?'

'Quite right,
monsieur,
except that the lady's time this evening has

already been bought—by me.'

The voice came from behind, but even without that betraying

'monsieur'
she would have recognised it anywhere.

As she swung round, she stiffened, her eyes blanking out with

shock as she saw him. He must be well paid on
Allegra—
either that

or he'd raided his employer's wardrobe. His lightweight suit was

expensive, his open-necked shirt pure silk, and his shoes handmade.

He looked like someone to be reckoned with in his own right, she

thought, rather than simply another man's deckhand.

Hugo Baxter was gaping indignantly at him. 'Don't I know you from

somewhere?' he demanded aggressively.

'Perhaps.' The Frenchman shrugged faintly, indicating how little it

mattered. He turned to Samma, the dark eyes sweeping over her in

amused and ironic comprehension. 'I am sorry I am late,
cherie.'
He

ran a finger lazily and intimately down the curve of her cheek. 'It

was good of you to wait for me.'

She was stranded, Samma thought hysterically, between the devil

and the deep sea. She said, 'What did you expect?'

'Now that is something we could more profitably discuss over a

drink.' His hand grasped her elbow, urging her away from the bar

and towards a vacant table at the edge of the small dance-floor. 'But

my expectations did not include this—metamorphosis,' he added, a

note of unholy amusement in his voice. 'Are you sure,

mademoiselle,
you have no younger sister?'

She was sorely tempted to tell him she had, but her previous

experience at his hands warned her it might be unwise to play any

more games.

She said coolly, 'I don't know why or how you found your way

here, but if you've come to score points, maybe I should warn you

it'll cost you a week's wages, plus an arm and a leg. I should get

back to the waterfront. You'll find the bars cheaper there.'

'Yes, I heard this was a clip-joint,' he said, unruffled. 'But it makes

no difference. I came because poker is a favourite relaxation of

mine, and I am told there is a game here tonight.'

There is.' Samma raised her eyebrows. 'But I think you'll find the

other players take it rather more seriously than that.'

'They may need to.' A faint smile twisted round the corners of the

firm mouth. 'So—how do you fit into this set-up?'

'My stepfather owns the hotel, and the club,' she said reluctantly. 'I

help out when necessary.'

'I see.' His glance rested briefly and intimately on the flimsy sequin

flowers which cupped her breasts, and Samma choked back a little

gasp, thankful the club's dim lighting masked the colour rising hotly

in her face.

She said tautly, 'I doubt it. Anyway, I don't have to explain myself

to you, so perhaps you'll go now and leave me in peace.'

His sardonic gaze took in the crowded, smoke-filled room, where a

buzz of laughing, chattering voices vied for supremacy with the

band.

'This is your idea of peace,
cherie
? ' he drawled. 'I had a different

impression of you this morning.'

'I remember it well,' Samma flashed. 'I still have the bruises.'

'I think you exaggerate. Besides,' he glanced towards the bar, where

Hugo Baxter still glowered in their direction, 'you surely do not

wish to be left to the mercies of that wolf?'

'You're so much better?' She sent him a muted glare. 'But you really

don't have to bother about me. I can take care of myself. And he's

not a wolf,' she added, reverting in her mind's eye to the portrait

she'd planned. 'He's a pig, all pink and smooth, with a snout, and

nasty little eyes half buried in fat.'

His brows rose mockingly. 'You take a scurrilous view of the rest of

humanity,
mignonne.
I hope this time your picture remains in your

imagination only. Mr Baxter would be even less amused than I was

if he knew how you saw him.'

'So, you know who he is.' Samma remembered that brief

confrontation at the bar.

'Who does not?' He lifted a shoulder. 'Both he—and his boat—tend

to be unforgettable.'

Samma recalled just in time that this man was an enemy, and

managed to stifle a giggle.

'Then perhaps you should know he's also a member of this poker

school you're so keen to join,' she said tartly. 'And he can afford to

lose a great deal more than a deckhand's wages.'

'So I believe.' He smiled faintly. 'But your concern is unnecessary.'

'I'm not concerned in the slightest,' Samma denied instantly. 'It

wouldn't matter to me if you lost every cent you possessed, but you

could turn out to be a sore loser,' she added, with a dubious look at

the dark, tough face, and the raw strength of his shoulders.

He said softly, 'It is true I prefer to win,' and once again Samma was

aware of that swift, appraising glance. She saw with relief that a

waiter was approaching.

'Good evening, sir. What may I get you?' The cover charge was

already noted on his pad as he waited deferentially.

'A straight Jack Daniels,' the Frenchman said, looking enquiringly at

Samma. But the waiter interposed smoothly.

'And a champagne cocktail for the lady, sir?'

Her companion shrugged again, his mouth twisting derisively. 'If

that is the usual practice—then by ail means.'

Samma would have preferred fruit
juice, but she
knew protest was

useless. She sat
in smouldering
silence until the drinks arrived,

waiting
vengefully for
him to pick up the bill. But his face
was

expressionless as
he glanced at the total, and it
was Samma who

found herself gaping, as he produced
a bulging bill
fold, and peeled

off the necessary amount, adding,
she
noticed, a tip for the waiter.

God, it was galling to find that he had all that money to waste on

alcohol and gambling, when she was struggling to raise the price of

an airfare to the United Kingdom! She tasted her cocktail,

repressing a slight shudder. She knew that, if this man had been one

of her island friends, she would have swallowed her pride, and

asked for a loan.

Oh, why do friends have to be poor, and enemies rich? she

wondered bitterly.

'Well, why don't you ask me?' he said, and she bit back a startled

gasp, wondering whether he included thought-reading among his

other unpleasant attributes.

'Ask what?' She took another sip of her drink.

'How I make my money,' he drawled. 'Your face,
ma belle,
is most

revealing. You're wondering how a humble deckhand could

possibly have amassed so much money—or, if your earliest

assessment is correct, and it is—pirate's loot.'