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wide hips and a generous bosom. She smoothed down her dress and

fluffed up her hair, and hoped that she’d make a good impression.

“Marina darling, it looks like your first potential artist-in-residence has arrived,” exclaimed her husband, Grey Turner, peering through the

glass and chuckling as an elderly man stepped onto the gravel in a long brocaded coat and black breeches, his scuffed shoes decorated with

large brass buckles that glinted weakly in the spring sunshine.

“Good Lord, it’s Captain Hook!” remarked Clementine, Grey’s

twenty-three-year-old daughter, who joined him at the window. She

screwed up her nose in disdain. “Why Submarine wants to invite a

painter to sponge off us every summer is beyond me. It’s very preten-

tious to have an artist-in-residence.”

Grey ignored the disrespectful nickname his children had coined for

their stepmother. “Marina has a good nose for business,” he said mildly.

“Paul Lockwood was a great success last year; our guests loved him. It’s only natural that she should want to repeat it.”

“She might change her mind when she sees this old sea dog!”

“Do you think he has a parrot tucked away with all that luggage?”

Grey continued, watching the old man walk stiffly round to the boot

and pull out a shabby portfolio.

“I think most certainly, Dad—and a ship moored down at the quay.

At least he doesn’t have a hook for a hand.”

“Marina will think he’s delightful. She loves eccentrics.”

“Do you think that’s why she married
you
?”

Grey straightened up and put his hands in his pockets. He was very

tall with curly, graying hair and a long, sensitive face. He looked down at his daughter and shook his head. “Don’t forget you carry my genes,

Clemmie. If I’m eccentric, there’s a good chance that you have inher-

ited the same flaw.”

“I wouldn’t consider it a flaw, Dad. There’s nothing more boring than

regular people. Mind you,” she added, as the artist closed the boot, “you can have too much of a good thing.”

“He’s here! How exciting!” Marina joined her husband and step-

daughter at the window. Clementine watched her joy deflate as she

laid eyes on her first candidate, staggering towards the entrance with

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his artwork tucked under his moth-eaten sleeve, and felt a small swell

of pleasure.

“My God!” Marina exclaimed, throwing up her hands. “What am

I going to do?”

“Too late now, darling. You’d better show him in, or he might draw

his sword.” Marina implored her husband with a desperate look, but

he shook his head and laughed at her affectionately, digging his hands

deeper into the pockets of his corduroy trousers. “This is your project.

I know how you hate me to interfere.”

“Why don’t you interview him with me?” She tried to seduce him

with a grin.

“Oh, no, darling, he’s all yours.”

“You’re a wicked, wicked man, Grey Turner,” she retorted, but her

lips curled at the corners as she took her place in the middle of the hall by the round table and extravagant flower display, while Shane Black,

the porter, helped the old man in with his portfolio.

Ignoring the amused faces congregated at the window—for by now

Jennifer, one of the receptionists, and Heather, a waitress, had found

an excuse to come into the hall—Marina smiled at her first candidate

warmly, extending her hand. His was rough and calloused, his finger-

nails ingrained with old paint. He seized hers with a firm grip. His eyes devoured her with the relish of a man who has been at sea for many

months, and he seemed lost for words. “It’s so good of you to come,

Mr. Bascobalena. Let’s go into my office where we can have some cof-

fee and a little chat. Perhaps you would prefer tea?”

“Or a barrel of rum,” Clementine hissed to her father.

Mr. Bascobalena cleared his throat and swallowed. “Black coffee, no

sugar—and please call me Balthazar.”

His deep baritone startled Marina, and she flinched, withdrawing

her hand. She could see her stepdaughter sniggering out of the corner

of her eye, and she lifted her chin defiantly.

“Shane, see to it that Heather brings Mr. Bascobalena a pot of black

coffee right away and a cappuccino for me.”

“Will do, Mrs. Turner,” said Shane, suppressing his mirth.

Picking up the portfolio, Shane followed them across the hall,

through the drawing room, where a few clusters of guests sat reading

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the newspapers, and into the pretty green sitting room beyond which

Marina’s office overlooked the Children’s Garden, redundant aque-

duct, and the sea. She gestured that he place the portfolio on the coffee table, then watched him leave the room, closing the door behind him.

Marina invited Balthazar to sit on the sofa and winced as his dirty

clothes made contact with the pale green chenille. She sank into the

armchair and turned her face to the open window, where the sea breeze

carried on its breath the sweet scent of cut grass and ozone. She could hear the distant roar of the ocean and the plaintive cry of gulls wheeling on the wind, and felt her heart ache with yearning to be down on the

beach, her feet in the water, her hair tossed about by the breeze. Reluctantly, she wrenched her thoughts back. She already knew that Baltha-

zar Bascobalena would not be spending the summer at the Polzanze,

but she had to do him the courtesy of going through the motions.

“You have a wonderful name—Bascobalena. Sounds Spanish.” She

was aware that he was staring at her, his jaw a little slack, as if he had never seen a woman before. In spite of the open window, his unwashed

smell was beginning to fill the room. She wished Heather would hurry

with the coffees, but guessed Shane was hanging around in the hall

discussing their visitor with the rest of her staff. She hoped none of her guests had seen him come in.

“Perhaps, somewhere in my family history, there’s a Spaniard. But

we’re Devon folk through and through, and proud of it.”

Marina raised her eyebrows doubtfully. He had the dark skin and

eyes of a Spaniard. When he bared his teeth, they were brown and rot-

ten like a sailor with scurvy. “And Balthasar. You have the name of a

hero in a book.”

“My mother was fanciful.”

“Was she an artist, too?”

“No, but she was a dreamer, God rest her soul.”

“So, tell me, Balthazar, what do you paint?”

“Boats,” he replied, leaning forward to open his portfolio.

“Boats,” Marina repeated, trying to inject some enthusiasm into her

voice. “How interesting. But not surprising,” she added humorously.

Mr. Bascobalena missed her reference to his pirate outfit. “Oh, I’ve

been fascinated by boats since I was a nipper.”

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“Raised on the sea?”

“Oh, yes, as was my father and grandfather before him.” He was dis-

tracted by a couple of paintings hanging on the wall. “Those are good

landscapes. Are you a collector, Mrs. Turner?”

“Sadly not. I don’t paint, either. I just admire people like you who do.

So, let’s see some of your work.”

He pulled out a sketch of a fishing boat in a tempestuous sea. For

a moment Marina forgot his smell and his extraordinary clothes and

stared incredulously at the picture before her.

“It’s beautiful,” she gasped, shuffling to the edge of her chair. “You

have a gift.”

“Look at this one, then.” He pulled out another, his enthusiasm ris-

ing. Marina was stunned by the wistful charm of his work. He had

sketched boats of all kinds: from fleets of Elizabethan ships to modern yachts and barges. Some drawn in calm waters at dawn, others on the

high seas by moonlight, all with the same stirring sense of melancholy.

“I paint in oils, too, but they’re too big to bring. You can come and see them if you like? I live near Salcombe.”

“Thank you. I’m sure they’re as lovely as your sketches.” She looked

at him with sincerity. “You have an extraordinary talent.”

“If I could paint people, I’d paint you.” Marina ignored the lecherous

look in his eyes.

“You don’t paint people?” She feigned disappointment.

“Not a chance.” He ran a hand through thinning gray hair that

reached the gilded epaulettes on his shoulders. “Never have done. Can’t get them right. Whatever I do they always look like monkeys.”

“What a shame. You see, Balthazar, I need my artist-in-residence to

teach my guests how to paint everything. Not just boats and monkeys.

I’m sorry.”

As Balthazar’s shoulders hunched in defeat, Heather appeared with

the tray carrying a silver coffeepot and a cappuccino. Marina shot her

a furious look for having taken so long, and Heather flushed a little as she placed it on the desk. Marina hoped he’d leave right away, but his

greedy eyes settled on the gingernut biscuits and his spirits lifted. Reluctantly, she poured him a cup of coffee, handed him the biscuits, and watched him sink back into her sofa.

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* * *

Clementine climbed into her red Mini Cooper and drove down the

winding narrow lanes towards the town of Dawcomb-Devlish. Woolly

fields undulated in a patchwork of assorted greens beneath a clear ce-

rulean sky. Swallows dived and seagulls wheeled, and every now and

then she glimpsed the sparkling blue ocean gently rippling into the

hazy mists on the horizon. And yet, in spite of the beauty, Clementine’s heart was a nugget of resentment.

She stared miserably at the gray tarmac and considered her lot. She

wished she was traveling around India again, enjoying the freedom

that three years and a respectable degree at university merited, instead of schlepping into Dawcomb-Devlish every morning to slog away as

secretary to the desperately bland Mr. Atwood and his sleepy estate

agency on the high street.

It had come as something of a shock when her father had declared

that he no longer had the money to fund her self-indulgence. She had

hoped to defer work for another year at least. He had offered her a job at the hotel, like Jake, who had worked his way up to manager, but she’d rather die than call her stepmother boss. So he had found her a position for six months while Mr. Atwood’s secretary, Polly, was on maternity

leave. If she lasted six weeks it would be a miracle—not only was she

barely able to type, but she was very disorganized, relying on Sylvia,

Mr. Atwood’s partner’s secretary, to do most of the work for her. She

was aware that Mr. Atwood’s patience was being sorely tested, but as

he was indebted to her father for sending him clients there was little

he could do.

It was a bore to be in Devon at all. If her mother hadn’t had to sell

her house in London and move up to Scotland, she’d have found a far

more glamorous job in Chelsea and would be spending every night

with her friends in Boujis. As it was, she found herself in Devon, which she loathed on account of the many summer holidays she had spent

being dragged onto cold beaches and shivering on rocks while her

brother and father went crabbing. Marina used to make lavish picnics

and would take her up and down the beach looking for shells, but Cle-

mentine always refused to take her hand. It was a small act of defiance.

But she had always felt inadequate beside this beautiful creature who

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had stolen her father’s heart. She was well aware of the light in his eyes when he looked at her, as if he were gazing on an angel, and the way the light dimmed when he looked at
her
, as if she were an interruption. She didn’t doubt his love; he just loved Marina more.

Approaching the town, Clementine noticed a black object lying in

the middle of the road. At first she thought it was an old boot, and

slowed down. But on closer inspection she saw that it was a hedgehog,

crawling leisurely across the tarmac. She glanced in her rearview mirror to see a couple of cars behind her and knew that if she didn’t stop, the hedgehog would surely be crushed. The animal’s plight drew her out of

herself, and she braked suddenly, threw open the door, and hurried to

his aid. The man in the car behind tooted angrily. Clementine ignored

him and bent down to move the hedgehog along. The trouble was, he

was very prickly and riddled with flees. She thought quickly, noticing

a couple of cars coming towards her, and took off her shoes. Carefully, she scooped the hedgehog off the ground in one and put him down on

the grassy verge. It gave her pleasure to watch him shuffle into the bush and disappear. By the time she climbed back into her car there was a

small queue behind and in front. She waved her thanks as she passed,

beaming a smile at the drivers who scowled back at her.

When she burst into the office, mumbling apologies, it was well past

ten. Sylvia Helvin, a feisty redhead divorcée with big breasts barely

restrained by her tight green V-neck sweater and silk scarf, placed her hand over the telephone receiver and grinned broadly. “Don’t panic,