White Heat Read Free Page A

back, her employer asked the inevitable question.
    ‘By the way, dear, did you see Mr. Willoughby and give him my message? He’s usually to be found on deck at some time between lunch and tea, and you must have run into him.’
    ‘I did,’ Karin answered, in a small voice that became frozen almost instantly, ‘but I didn’t have any opportunity to give him your message.’
    ‘Why not, child?’ Mrs. Makepiece turned to her and looked for a moment surprised. ‘If you spoke to him ...’ And then understanding dawned, and she looked arch. ‘You mean he didn’t give you an opportunity to speak to him? He really can be terribly rude to some of the young things like you ... and to some of the older women as well. The bored wives and the eager widows. I expect it’s a kind of protection he finds it necessary to adopt. But I’ll have to speak to him about you, because you really are a nice little thing, and he needn’t have any fears that you would ever run after him ... or any man, I would say! You’re just not the type!’
    ‘Thank you, Mrs. Makepiece,’ Karin replied, as she sprayed her with expensive French perfume and then handed her her bracelets to put on, ‘but I’d rather you didn’t mention my name to Mr. Willoughby, if you don’t mind. I’d rather you refrained altogether from ever mentioning me to him.’
    The rather sparse grey eyebrows that had had a thin black line drawn through them with an eyebrow pencil lifted.
    ‘But, my dear girl, why not? If he was rude to you this afternoon there’s no reason why he should go on being rude to you. Besides, it might prove inconvenient — if I want you to convey a message, or simply pass on a tit-bit of information. After all, that’s what you’re paid for, you know,’ with a smile that robbed her words of any unpleasantness.
    ‘Yes, I know. But, as a special favour, I’d rather you didn’t mention me all the same.’
    Mrs. Makepiece shrugged.
    ‘Very well, if you insist. I won’t say anything about you tonight, but I can’t promise I won’t mention you in the future. After all, one can’t have a companion and keep silent about her all the time, and I think you’re being ridiculously over-sensitive.’ She held out her hand for her brocade evening bag, which was lying on the bed. ‘And I think I’d better have my mink stole, because even though it’s so much warmer it’s often a little chilly on deck once the sun has set. I don’t like sitting about on deck at night — I much prefer playing cards; but one never knows ... If someone asks one!’ and she smiled with sudden roguishness. ‘Do you know, dear, I feel younger with every day that passes since this voyage started!’
    ‘Do you, Mrs. Makepiece?’ Karin murmured, and added mechanically: ‘I wonder why that is?’
    Mrs. Makepiece nudged her in the ribs with her elbow.
    ‘Silly child! What’s one man’s meat is another’s poison ... and Mr. Willoughby is always over-poweringly nice to me. We are, I think you might say, twin souls!’
    Karin shuddered.
    What kind of a man was Mr. Willoughby? she wondered. He couldn’t be a gigolo, because he had no need to be anything of the kind. And gigolos were not drawn from the ranks of the rich and the tight-lipped, especially when they had green eyes as cold as frozen rivers.
    Did he, perhaps, seek safety in the company of someone like Mrs. Makepiece? Or was it that he enjoyed her conversation?
    Karin shook her head in some bewilderment as she followed Mrs. Makepiece out of the cabin. Mrs. Makepiece’s brand of conversation was soon exhausted ... and enough of it that was intelligent would not suffice to beguile the ears of an intelligent man throughout an entire evening. Unless, of course, the subject under discussion was bridge, and nothing but bridge.
    Mrs. Makepiece was a woman of some substance, and she had more or less insisted before she made her booking that she should be placed at the captain’s table in the dining-saloon. It