White Heat by Pamela Kent Page A

Throughout the hours of darkness she hardly stirred, and the only occasion when she did remember vaguely where she was, and partly opened her eyes, she received the extraordinarily vivid impression that someone was watching her — and it wasn’t Rolands, because he was fast asleep at the opposite end of the boat — and she actually felt warm breath on her cheek, and there was a faint, masculine smell of pipe tobacco in her nostrils, and something that could have been a bristly chin scraped the smoothness of her forehead.
    Just before dawn she woke again, and then the boat was rocking gently because a brisk wind appeared to have arisen. She lay thinking dreamily that if they had a sail, and they hoisted it now, it might carry them somewhere. But both of her two male companions were sleeping soundly; and Kent was sleeping so soundly that his arm, with which he had been maintaining her in a secure position throughout the night, was now lying limp and inert beside her. But he was breathing very, very quietly. She thought, in a lightheaded, ridiculous fashion that was all a part of the extraordinary situation in which she found herself, that a man like him — despite the fact that he was forced to wear a sweat- s tained shirt, and he liked to change his linen several times a day — would be unlikely to be guilty of such a very human failing as snoring.
    It was Rolands who snored, lying flat on his back beside the inert motor that might have prevented this disaster, and staring sightlessly up at the star-spangled sky.
    Apparently he was capable of sleeping with his eyes, as well as his mouth, partially open when he was completely exhausted.
    Karin realized that it was still very cold, and she lay down again quickly. Without quite realizing what she was doing she snuggled close to Kent, burrowing her head into his shoulder again. He wakened slightly and murmured her name.
    ‘Karin?’
    ‘Yes?’ she whispered, bending near to him.
    To her surprise he started to laugh, low in his throat, which proved that he was much more widely awake than she would have supposed. Or, on waking, had come to his senses very quickly.
    ‘Comfortable?’ he asked, as if it was absolutely natural that he should address her thus with several hours still to go till early morning.
    ‘Very,’ she answered, lowering her head again quickly, ‘but I’m afraid you’re not.’
    ‘On the contrary,’ he assured her, a dry note in his voice, ‘I can’t remember when I was more comfortable.’ He put up a languid hand and touched her hair, that was tickling his chin. ‘This is fantastic, isn’t it?’ he said, in a sleepily amused tone. ‘If you and I had been told two days ago that this was what was going to happen to us we wouldn’t have believed it, would we? If we’d had our fortunes told, for instance?’
    ‘Do you believe in fortune-telling?’ she asked, because his hand was leisurely stroking her hair ... as if he liked the feel of it, and was giving himself up to a form of pleasure.
    He answered in an amused tone:
    ‘I think I will after this.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘There was a woman I once met — it was at a cocktail party, or something of the sort — she warned me to take particular care when I was crossing water, and she also warned me against redheaded women!’ He twisted a little, in order that he could inhale the fragrance of her hair. ‘But yours isn’t red, is it?’ he said, very softly. ‘It’s just very, very lovely.’
    She closed her eyes determinedly.
    ‘But not as lovely as your Sarah’s,’ she thought, a little unreasonably since he had just paid her a compliment.
    The boat rocked, and the wind appeared to have an extraordinary velocity behind it, which no one heeded.
    ‘On the whole,’ Kent told her, ‘I’m not altogether sorry I kissed you, Karin. It was an experience, ’ he said appreciatively.
    But she did not answer. He received the impression that she was fast asleep, and as Rolands was still snoring