Almost before her dress of lilac muslin had vanished through the french window leading into the house, Jason turned on Marianne and accused her roundly:
'What were you doing down on the beach last night with that crazy Turk?'
'Good God!' Marianne exclaimed faintly, subsiding despairingly on to her cushions. The gossip on this island flies faster than in Paris!'
'This isn't gossip. Your admirer – there is no other word for the fellow – came on board just now and told me that you saved his life last night in circumstances which are to say the least obscure – as obscure as the jargon he talks!'
'But why should he go and tell you that?' Marianne said, mystified.
'Ha! You admit it, then?'
'Admit what? I have nothing to admit. Nothing that signifies, at least. It's true I did happen to save the life of a Turkish refugee last night, quite by chance. It was so hot that I could not bear to stay in my room and I went down to the beach for a breath of fresh air. At that hour of night I thought I should be quite alone there—'
'So much so that you thought you could bathe. You took off your clothes – all your clothes?'
'Oh, so you know that, too?'
'Of course. I gather the memory of it kept your exotic swain awake all night. He saw you emerge from the sea in the moonlight, as naked as Aphrodite, it seems, and by far more beautiful! What have you to say to that?'
'Nothing!' Marianne cried, stung by Jason's accusing tone, especially as she was beginning to feel slightly more guilty and a trifle less nostalgic about the passionate scene of the previous night. 'It's quite true I took my clothes off. My goodness, what's wrong with that? You're a sailor yourself. Don't tell me you never swam in the sea? Would you put on a dressing-gown and slippers and a nightcap to get into the water?'
'I'm a man,' Jason snapped. 'It's not the same.'
'I know!' Marianne flashed bitterly. 'You are creatures apart, demi-gods to whom all is permitted, while we poor females are only allowed to enjoy the water all bundled up in shawls and overcoats! The hypocrisy of it! When I think that in the days of King Henry IV the women used to bathe stark naked in the middle of Paris in broad daylight, right below the Pont Neuf, and no one thought a penny the worse! And now I'm committing a crime because I try to forget the heat for a little while on a dark night on an empty beach on what is practically a desert island! Well, I was wrong and I'm sorry. Will that do?'
Something of the venom in her tone must have penetrated, because Jason stopped striding up and down the terrace, hands behind his back, much as he was used to do on his own deck, although rather more furiously and came instead to stand before Marianne. He looked at her for a moment and then said on a note of vague surprise:
'You're angry?'
She stared up at him with flashing eyes.
'Is that wrong of me, as well? You come here steaming with rage, you rant at me, determined to find me guilty, and then when I object you are surprised! You always make me feel halfway between a hysterical bacchante and the village idiot!'
The privateer's set face relaxed for an instant into a fleeting smile. He held out his hands and plucked her from her cushions, drawing her up to stand within the circle of his arms.
'Forgive me. I know I've been behaving like a brute again, but I can't help it. As soon as it is anything to do with you, I see red. When that blundering idiot came along, all smiles, and told me about your exploit, incidentally describing how he'd seen you coming out of the water all glistening in the moonlight, I very nearly throttled him.'
'Only nearly?' Marianne said nastily.
This time Jason laughed outright and held her closer.
'Are you sorry? If it hadn't been for Kaleb – you remember the runaway slave I found – who got him away from me, I'd have done Ali Pasha's work for him after all.'
'The Ethiopian?' Marianne said thoughtfully. 'Did he dare to come between you?'
'He was at work on the planking close by, and on the whole, just as well,' Jason said indifferently. 'Your Chahin Bey was squealing like a stuck pig and people were beginning to notice.'
'He's not my Chahin Bey!' Marianne broke in with annoyance. 'And you still haven't explained what made him go off and tell all this to you, of all people?'
'Didn't I tell you? For the simple reason, my angel, that having made up his mind to go with us to Constantinople he came to ask me to take him on board with his household.'
'What? He wants—'
'To go with you, yes, my darling. The boy seems to know what he wants. His plans for the future are quite cut and dried: to go to Constantinople and complain to the Grand Signior of the wrongs done to himself and his people by Ali Pasha, then set off home with an army – oh, and yourself – and when he has reconquered his province to offer you the position of first wife to the new Pasha of Delvino.'
'And – and you agreed?' Marianne cried, appalled at the idea of trailing the young Turk after her for weeks to come.
'Agreed? I told you, I nearly strangled him. After Kaleb got him away from me, I told him to see him ashore, and I informed your admirer that under no circumstances would I have him set foot on board my ship again. I've no use for would-be pashas. For one thing I didn't like him, and for another I'm beginning to think there are a deal too many people aboard the Witch as it is. You don't know how much I long to be alone with you, my love… Just you and me, the two of us, day and night. I think I must have been mad to think I could ever part from you! Ever since Venice, I've gone through hell, just wanting you. But that's all over now. We sail tomorrow—'
'Tomorrow?'
'Yes. The repairs are almost done. By working all night we'll be able to leave in the morning. I'm not leaving you here much longer, not with that besotted ape on your doorstep. Tomorrow I'll take you away. Tomorrow our new life will begin. I'll do anything you want – only for pity's sake don't let's hang about in Turkey! I can't wait to get you home – to our home. Only there will I be able to love you as I want to… and I do want to, so very much.'
As he spoke, Jason's voice had dropped until it was no more than a deep, passionate murmur, punctuated by kisses.
Around them, dusk was falling and the glow worm lights were springing up about the garden. Yet to Marianne, in the arms of the man she loved, there came, oddly enough, none of the joy she would have imagined, only a few minutes earlier, from such a signal victory. Jason was surrendering, he was admitting defeat: she ought to have been wild with delight. But while her heart melted with love and gladness, her body had no share in it. In fact, she was not feeling at all well. She had the impression she was going to faint, as she had the other day, getting off the boat… Perhaps it was the faint tobacco smell that clung to Jason's clothes, but she was almost sure that she was going to be sick…
He felt her slump suddenly and start to slip from his arms. He caught her just in time. In the last glimmer of daylight, her face was deathly pale.
'Marianne! What is it? Are you ill?'
As he spoke, he picked her up and laid her down gently in her nest of cushions, but this time Marianne had not lost consciousness altogether. Gradually, the dreadful sick feeling passed off and she managed to smile.
'It's nothing… the heat, I expect.'
'No, you are not well. This is the second time you've swooned like that. You must see a doctor.'
He stood up as though to go in search of Maddalena but Marianne clutched his arm and pulled him back.
'It's nothing, I tell you. I'm quite sure I don't need a doctor. I know what it is.'