Romance Classics (93 page)

Claire laughed. “It does, at that. I’ll try very hard not to miss any meals, lest the crew’s morale suffers.”

“I’m sure seeing you in the dining salon three times a day would be very uplifting for anyone’s morale,” the little man told her with old-fashioned but quite sincere gallantry. “Oh, I’m being very rude; I’m Major Lesley, and I do hope I’m not boring you?”

“I’m Claire Frazier, and you aren’t boring me a bit!” she assured him promptly. “You see, this trip came so unexpectedly; a week ago, the last thing in the world I would ever have dreamed was that I’d be aboard ship en route to Honolulu by now. So you must tell me about the things I should know.”

Members of the crew, busy with their task of getting the big freighter down-river to the sea, glanced at them with friendly interest, and Claire smiled at them and saw some of the dark faces light up.

“Yes,” murmured Major Lesley, eyes atwinkle, “you are going to be very good for the crew’s morale. Just what the shipping lines ordered, I’m sure!”

Claire laughed. “Oh, but there’s a lady aboard I’m sure will do a great deal more for their morale than I could!”

Oddly enough, Major Lesley’s gaiety faded and his gray brows were drawn together in a slight scowl.

“Mrs. Barclay, you mean — the vivacious and charming Vera.” There was a faint note of disapproval in his voice, and he looked up at Claire suddenly. “I have the oddest possible feeling that I’ve seen her before.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that, Major,” Claire told him quietly. “There are a great many women scattered about the world who are as like her as peas in a pod. She’s by no means unique, though I’m sure she’d hate me if she knew I said that.”

Major Lesley nodded thoughtfully, his brows still drawn.

“Yes, of course it must be that,” he admitted with a relief that Claire found puzzling. “I must have seen someone who resembles her. “I’d hate to think it was anything else.”

“Then don’t, Major!” Claire urged him gently. “If it’s a disturbing memory, then throw it away. You don’t want to spoil your trip with a puzzle like that.”

“No, you’re quite right, I don’t,” he agreed with relief. “It’s just that in my former profession I was known for a rather phenomenal memory for faces and names. But I’m retired now, so I don’t have to keep on remembering if I don’t want to, do I?”

“Of course you don’t,” Claire assured him, and smiled as they stood leaning against the railing, watching the landscape across the river slip past them as the
Highland Queen
set forth on her journey.

The travel agent had assured Claire that informal dress was all that was required aboard a freighter like the
Highland Queen
, but when she entered the dining salon that evening, wearing a well-cut but not new sheer wool dress of brown-gold, her eyes widened as she saw Vera and Nora. They were in full formal attire, Vera’s a filmy blue chiffon that would have looked better on a girl as young as Nora, while Nora wore a dark green sheath that only highlighted the carrot color of her hair and her freckles.

The steward smiled at Claire as he bowed her to her place at the captain’s table, and Curt Wayne, standing with the other men, made the introduction.

“Miss Frazier, Captain Rodolfson,” said Curt pleasantly. “Replacing Miss Dawson, who originally booked the passage but has suffered an accident and was unable to join us.”

Captain Rodolfson, a big, grizzled man in his late fifties who was about to burst out of his white uniform, which had obviously been tailored for him when he was twenty pounds lighter, acknowledged the introduction, growled something that could have been mistaken for a welcome, and returned to his dinner.

It was Curt Wayne who performed the introductions to the rest of the passengers. There were two couples who had obviously established friendly relations when they first boarded the ship at Boston. Both women were plump, middle-aged, cheerful; both husbands in their middle fifties, bearing the unmistakable stamp of men who had done well in their businesses and who were now retired. They were Mr. and Mrs. Burke from Milwaukee and Mr. and Mrs. Hennessy from Connecticut, but which was which Claire decided to leave until further acquaintance with them.

“I believe you have already met Mrs. Barclay and Miss Barclay,” Curt said, and Vera gave Claire a dazzling but measuring smile, while Nora scarcely looked up from her plate. “And Major Lesley — ”

Major Lesley gave Claire his little, old-fashioned bow and beamed.

“Oh, we’ve met, thank you,” he said happily.

There were three other men, as different in appearance as it would be possible to imagine. They had just one thing in common — they were obviously not interested in a lone female passenger who had just joined the party. The twelfth passenger was a man in his middle twenties: sullen-looking, withdrawn, who barely glanced at Claire, nodded indifferently and went back to his dinner.

Mrs. Burke and Mrs. Hennessy were seated on either side of the captain, and their efforts to draw him into their gay and friendly chatter were hopeful but not unduly so. Listening to them as they chattered about their trip ashore at Jacksonville while the ship took on and disgorged cargo, Claire told herself she could understand the captain’s refusal to be drawn into conversation with them. Their husbands were exchanging the kind of man-talk two men retired from business who had met for the first time could be expected to exchange.

Curt Wayne was at the foot of the table, and on his left Vera was being very vivacious, dropping her voice now and then to an intimate murmur as she leaned toward him and laughed gaily. Nora plowed her way stolidly through the excellent dinner with an appetite that matched that of the young man who sat to her left.

Surveying her fellow passengers, Claire was grateful that she had already struck up an acquaintance with Major Lesley. She could see no one else who offered any possibility of being a companion who could add to her enjoyment of the voyage.

Enjoyment! The word struck at her with unleashed claws, and for a moment she felt slightly sick. How could she expect to enjoy anything when the shadow of Rick’s jilting was so black around her? It had all happened so suddenly, without a moment’s warning, that she was still dazed and confused by it.

She drew a deep, hard breath, fighting with everything within her against the desolate feeling that swept over her, feeling tears clogging her throat, despising herself that she could so poorly control her emotions.

“Here,” murmured a voice beside her, and a hand slid a bottle of horseradish before her. “The stuff’s not so bad if you put enough of this on it to kill the taste.”

Startled, Claire turned her head and discovered the morose young man seated beside her, and her color deepened.

“Oh, thank you, I don’t need that. The food is delicious,” she said faintly.

“So why aren’t you eating it, then?” asked the man, his eyes dark and sullen.

“Because I’m not really hungry,” she answered with spirit. “I had a late lunch in Jacksonville.”

“Not feeling the motion, are you?” he probed dryly.

“The motion?”

He grinned so unexpectedly that she was startled by the transformation it made in his lean, homely face.

“Don’t lie and say you are, because there isn’t any motion,” he assured her firmly. “The sea’s like a mill-pond, and there’s only the vibration of the engines, so you can’t be seasick.”

“And who said I was?”

“Hi, put down that gun,” the young man ordered sternly. “I’m only trying to be sociable, like it says in the brochures — a small passenger list so everybody can be palsy-walsy. Personally, I find that a loathsome phrase, don’t you?”

Claire was being lifted somewhat out of her dark pit of desolation by the man’s brashness and even managed a faint attempt at a laugh.

“Well, let’s just say it’s scarcely my favorite phrase,” she agreed.

The man nodded. “I knew you were the sensible sort.” He seemed to congratulate himself for his perspicacity.

“That, my friend, as you should surely know, is the most deadly insult you can offer to any woman, whether she’s six or sixty!” she assured him firmly.

He looked quite surprised.

“It is, now?” he marveled. “Funny, so few women deserve it I’d consider it a sort of — well, accolade.”

“Then you obviously don’t know much about women,” Claire assured him, and was startled at the sudden change that came over his face, making it dark and morose and seeming to add years to it.

“That’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?” he admitted grimly. “I never realized just how little I knew about them until I came back from overseas — ”

He checked himself with an almost physical effort and returned to his neglected dinner.

Claire studied him for a moment and then probed gently, “So this isn’t your first trip abroad?”

The man gave a sound that was halfway between a chuckle and a snort.

“The first one for which I ever paid my own passage,” he admitted. “Our kindly old uncle in the striped pants and the high hat took care of all expenses on the other trip. This time, I thought I’d like to pick my own route and my own destination. And besides, I’m writing a book.”

Claire said, gently mocking, “Isn’t everybody?”

“You’ve got a point there,” he agreed. “But I decided it would be cheaper to ‘get away from it all’ aboard a slow boat to China than to hang around New York and freeze to death. Why are
you
making this trip?”

Claire laughed. “Well, I’m not writing a book,” she assured him.

“Congratulations! Then why?” he persisted. “And don’t tell me it’s none of my business for when you come aboard on one of these junkets, your business is everybody’s business. So — why are you taking the trip?”

“Partly a vacation, partly to visit my parents in Honolulu,” she answered, and could not quite keep the curtness out of her voice.

She studied him for a moment and then asked, “Would I dare ask about your book? Its subject, I mean? What it’s about?”

The man made an airy gesture and leaned away so that the steward could remove his plate and put his dessert in front of him.

“Oh, I haven’t decided yet,” he said carelessly. “But I’m sure it will be an earth-shaking idea when I catch it by the tail, as I’m sure I will while this voyage progresses.”

“So, without the faintest idea what you’re going to write about, you are already developing yourself as a ‘character’ because you are so sure your book is going to make you famous?” Claire asked.

“That’s right.”

“And rich, of course?”

“Of course.”

Claire laughed so suddenly that for a moment the man looked puzzled and then he grinned, too.

“Sounds pretty fantastic, doesn’t it?” he agreed with her laughter good-humoredly.

“I have to admit it does,” Claire confessed.

“Well, don’t be too surprised when you pick up a bright-jacketed book and read the author’s name — MacEwen Russell.”

“Oh, is that your name?”

“Well, of course. Handsome Harry introduced us.”

His slight nod toward Curt told her who he meant, and Claire caught Curt’s eye and saw that he was studying her with a curious intentness. She turned back to the man beside her, her chin slightly in the air.

“And you’re Claire Frazier,” said MacEwen. “See? I remembered your name. But then that was easy; you are the only good-looking gal aboard — ”

“There’s Mrs. Barclay and her daughter.”

MacEwen studied Vera and Nora and shuddered.

“Like I said,” he insisted, “you are the only good-looking gal aboard —

“And you’d be a very smart gal if you kept your pretty little paws off Handsome Harry,” MacEwen went on grimly, “on account of the Barclay dame has branded him as her very own. And it couldn’t have happened to two more deserving people. They deserve each other, don’t you think?”

“I’m afraid I wouldn’t know,” Claire said diplomatically. “You see, I don’t really know either of them. She is beautiful, though.”

The other men rose politely as she stood up, all except the captain, who seemed lost in not too pleasant thought. And Claire was glad to escape to her cabin and solitude.

The night was gusty and windy, though clear, and overhead the stars swam in a bowl of blue so dark that it was like velvet. Claire leaned on the rail, her coat drawn about her shoulders, and was lost in her thoughts when a voice spoke from the gloom behind her and she turned, startled, to see in the faint light from the cabin behind her Curt Wayne.

“Beautiful night, isn’t it?” His tone was as routine as the words. “It will be much better a few nights from now, as we get closer to the tropics.”

“No doubt.” Her voice was curt as she turned back to the rail.

“Are you enjoying your trip, Miss Frazier?” he asked politely.

“Oh, yes, thank you.”

There was a brief silence, and then he said quietly, “I hope you won’t let Russell bother you, Miss Frazier. I saw him talking to you at dinner. He’s a — well, a rather peculiar person. Seems to have a ‘down’ on the whole world — ”

“I didn’t find him like that at all, Mr. Wayne,” Claire said coolly. “As a matter of fact, I found him quite interesting. He’s writing a book, you know. I suppose all writers are a bit peculiar or they’d be living instead of writing about it, don’t you think?”

“Matter of fact, I’m afraid I’d never given the subject much thought,” Curt answered. “We frequently carry writers on our passenger lists. Usually they’re rather run-of-the-mill human beings. Russell seems to fancy himself as a ‘character.’ That’s usually the mark of a would-be writer who just talks about writing and never does any.”

“I thought you’d never given the matter much thought,” she mocked him with a touch of acid.

There was a tiny silence, and then Curt said politely, “I only meant, Miss Frazier, that I hoped he wouldn’t annoy you. It’s part of my responsibility toward the passengers to see that they have a pleasant time.”

“Oh, I’m sure they do, Mr. Wayne.”

“It is, at least, something we all hope for.”

“Even the captain, who hates passengers and considers them merely a necessary evil and very much wishes they weren’t necessary?”