White Heat by Pamela Kent Read Free Book Online Page A

Willoughby?’
    ‘Yes.’ Karin examined her nails hastily. ‘It was kind of him, wasn’t it?’
    Anthea Makepiece appeared to consider the matter. She looked puzzled.
    ‘Captain Brown was speaking about him,’ she revealed. ‘He was the only one who received an invitation to his party who didn’t turn up. I realize, of course, that he probably considers he doesn’t have to accept invitations of that sort ... but it was a little rude of him not to send an excuse. And a short time before you went ashore I heard him say quite distinctly to that manservant of his that he had seen as much of Capetown as he wished to see in one lifetime, and would be spending the afternoon in the ship’s library. I wonder what caused him to change his mind?’ and she looked thoughtfully sideways at Karin.
    Karin declared hurriedly that she had not the least idea.
    Ahead of them, just before they reached the revolving glass doors that admitted them to the dining - saloon, they saw Kent Willoughby himself, beautifully turned out by his manservant, as usual, for the evening. He was the sort of man who always had a light tan, but the past two weeks had given him a superb additional coating of bronze, and he really looked intensely attractive in a smooth, polished, very masculine way as, head and shoulders above everyone around him, he inched his way towards the dining-saloon.
    Mrs. Makepiece made a point of according him an extremely condescending nod as he glanced backwards and caught her eye. To her surprise he stood aside and waited for her and Karin to catch up with him, and then he smiled with a somewhat cynical flash of his excellent white teeth and inquired whether she liked being jostled on the way to her meals.
    ‘I always feel like an animal at the zoo at feeding time,’ he remarked. ‘But at least the English don’t drool at the mouth when they hear the dinner-gong,’ with a disparaging glance at a blunt-headed German who was literally licking his lips at the thought of the well-covered menu that would be presented to him when he finally reached his table. ‘They just manage to refrain from that!’
    Mrs. Makepiece, who was never one to harbour a grievance, and could grasp at an olive branch when it was offered to her, answered immediately with an eager smile.
    ‘How right you are, Mr. Willoughby. But it must be the sea air that makes us all so hungry. I’m sure I’ve put on pounds since I came aboard, but I don’t dare weigh myself. I simply don’t dare!’
    Kent looked directly at Karin, and smiled at her with a subtly different expression in his face. He murmured for her ear alone as he came up close behind her:
    ‘Does your weight ever fluctuate, Miss Hammond? You look to me as if it would be a simple matter to pass you through a wedding ring at any time!’
    After dinner Karin was one of the first to make her escape to her cabin, and once there she sought to make up her mind how she would pass the evening. She could rejoin Mrs. Makepiece and watch her play bridge, she could select a comfortable corner of a settee for herself and read — the public rooms were usually cooler than it was on deck, except after the sun had set — o r she could make her way up to her favourite corner of the boat-deck and watch the Ariadne , having refuelled, get under way again.
    As it was a brilliant sunset, and she was much fonder of sunsets than she was of ships and the movements of ships, she went up to the boat-deck to watch the last of it. Tom Paget had been one of the last to leave the shore, having apparently lost himself much more completely than Karin had done, and he was still in the dining-saloon, so she could count on being undisturbed for a quarter of an hour at least. After that Tom, like a tracker dog, would follow her up to the boat deck.
    She leant on the rail and felt bemused by the beauty of the evening light. Despite the fierce heat of the day there was an extraordinary tranquillity about it, as if the angry