“Er, yes. Yes, I did.”
“I believe she’s a widow, but she’s the kind who could make a happy marriage because I’m sure she’d stand up and say what she wants. You can only accommodate so far . . . then you begin to lose what you really are yourself. Of course, most women aren’t encouraged to have real selves . . . And most men don’t want them to have, either.
“Mind you,” she added, reverting to Corinna, “she could also make a disastrous one, far worse than an accommodating wife.”
Ranklin didn’t feel comfortable talking about Corinna. He wanted her out of his mind, leaving him in the present of that (fairly) cosy saloon, glass in hand, with the ship swaying and throbbing gently around them; not intrusively, just enough to remind them their surroundings were alive.
“Was your -” he’d been going to say “second marriage”, but had it been only that? Had she “married” any of the Arab sheikhs she was credited with? “- your marriage to Viscount Kelso what you hoped for?”
She smiled reminiscently. “He was a sweet old thing. And pretty shrewd, not the fool he . . . well, his family thought he was. I think his son Henry never grew out of that stage when boys think their fathers are embarrassing old dunces. He – more likely his wife – had packed James off to visit the Holy Land – that’s where we met – I think hoping it would kill him. So Henry could inherit the title and get on with a political career in the Lords. Political career!” She snorted delicately. “I suppose they might have put him in charge of Dog Licences if the Liberals hadn’t swept the board, I think he could just about tell the difference between a cat and a dog. Though one can never be sure, since he married a mixture of both.”
Ranklin grinned, despite a warning feeling that Snaipe should have looked shocked. “And were you happy?”
She didn’t answer immediately. She sipped her cognac, cocked her head, looked slowly around the saloon. At last she said: “I was content, I think. I thought all of this -” the wave of her hand might have encompassed the whole of the Near East “- was behind me. I ought to settle down to a dignified old age – as near as I could get, anyway.
“I was pretty good at being accommodating by then, too,” she added. She looked at her glass. She had placed herself with the light behind her, outlining her delicate profile, putting her face in soft shadow when she looked towards him. And why not? She really was deliciously seductive in a plain blouse and skirt; she didn’t need the dressiness she had favoured on the train.
“And why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.
“You’re a very attractive woman.”
She smiled and looked away. “A lot of men, when they know something of my past, they make certain assumptions about me and just – try to – pounce.” She looked back at him. “But not you. Does that mean you’re an honourable man, Patrick?”
“Perhaps they think they are.” It was certainly “honourable” to categorise women in such a way; only dishonourable to get it wrong.
“But you?” she persisted.
“I think I used to be, once. I tried, anyway.”
She thought about that for moment, then asked: “Could you get me just a spot more cognac, please?”
He fetched the decanter and when he had refilled her glass, she laid a hand on his wrist. “I don’t think you’re really what you pretend to be. No, I’m not prying; I prefer you being a bit . . . mysterious. But if you wanted to, you could take the Honourable Patrick Snaipe’s clothes off, as it were, just for tonight.”
He took her hand and the pull she gave was so slight it could have been ignored without offence. Accommodating.
* * *
On Vanadis O’Gilroy was taking an after-dinner cognac, too. Actually, he was just finishing his second, or he might have felt too circumspect to ask: “Are ye going to marry this French banker feller, then?”
Billings had laid out his saloon far more personally, and for smaller groups. They were at the far end of it; in a house it would have been around a fireplace, but here it was just an alcove of dried flowers. Corinna, stretched out on a sofa, looked up from her book. “Yes, of course I am. Have you met Edouard? – no, probably not.”
“Never at all . . . Ah, ’tis a good thing.” He nodded. “Ye ought to settle down.”
She sat up and swung her feet to the floor. “What d’you mean, settle down? It’s as much a merging of interests, banking interests.”
“So that’s the way of it, is it?” He nodded again; a marriage that blended two plots of land to form one viable farm was understandable, too.
“I’ll become a full, paid-up partner in Pop’s Bank and in the merged one, if we go ahead on that.”
“Ye mean, jest the same as yer husband?”
“Of course just the same.”
“If ye say so.” The disbelief in his voice was tangible.
“Now look: as far as capital and clients go I’ll be bringing in just as much of a stake as he will. And I’ve just as much experience as- Why the hell do I have to explain myself to you?”
“Ye don’t. Jest, I never knew a farm that worked with two farmers on it, is all.”
“We’re not talking about farms.”
“Sure. Must be different entirely.”
“You think just because Edouard’s a man – Did Matt put you up to this?”
“Himself? He never said a word, ’cept that yer marrying this feller.”
“I don’t believe you.” But she did; she just wanted to annoy him as much as he was annoying her.
It didn’t work; he only shrugged philosophically. “Anyways, I think yer doing the right thing. Ye had yer bit of fun with the Captain, and-”
“It wasn’t just a bit of fun! I-” So now she’d got her argument firmly facing both ways. “And what fucking business is it of yours, anyway?”
There, she’d done it: shocked him. But only by descending to bar-room language. She felt furious, and ashamed and. . . . furious. If she’d been shorter, she could have flounced out; with her height, she had to sweep. And if she’d gone onto the deck she’d have frozen, so it had to be down the curling steps to the cabin deck, and going down was ignominious. So she reached her cabin in no better temper. Even slamming the door didn’t help.
Damn it, she was going to marry Edouard. Even if Conall O’Gilroy . . . well, even if he approved of it. What the hell did she care about his opinion? He was so conventional, apart from being a spy and a gunman. And that went for Matt Ranklin, too. Just let them come around and see, ten years from now, if she wasn’t happily married and an equal partner in the merged bank.
Ten years of being married to that man?
* * *
Her body was smaller than . . . More yielding, not leading, but instantly responsive to his every move, taking and multiplying his fierce joy . . . A small voice kept asking What did he think he was doing? But he wasn’t thinking now, only doing . . .
21
Ranklin woke, in his own bed, slowly, luxuriously – and a bit guiltily. But why guilt? You know perfectly well why. That’s nonsense; it’s over. She ended it, anyway. Did I mention a name? Perhaps I was talking about being true to yourself, to your own feelings – So my feeling is that it’s over and last night proved it – it isn’t as though you’ve much else to be true to, in this job . . .
Lady Kelso didn’t appear until midway through the morning, and then greeted him with just a warm smile. Yet it wasn’t as if she were dismissing last night; he felt she was giving him the chance to dismiss it. If he wanted to recall it, she’d help; if he wanted it forgotten, she’d forget.
Feeling a coward, he said nothing and the day passed calmly, quiet as the sea and its misty horizon.