Devil in Disguise

by Jessica Steele

  While she had been sitting there she had, without noticing it, been aware that Rasmus was in the garden some way away busy with a hose pipe. But for a few seconds her attention became riveted on the section where he was when Lazar appeared from nowhere and went to speak to him.

  Whether or not Lazar expected to see her sitting on the terrace, she had no idea, but he couldn't avoid seeing her when he turned his head to where she was sitting. He made a move that looked as though he was going to come over and say something to her, but such a clamour of wild emotions cascaded through her that she was on her feet and disappearing through the terrace doors before he could have taken more than two steps towards her.

  As though being chased by Dracula himself, Clare sped along the hall, stopping for nothing when she reached her room, but closing the door behind her and exiting through the sliding window. Rapidly her feet skirted the house, taking a line towards the pine trees she had explored that first day.

  She stopped when she reached them, had a good vantage point of the villa from where she stood, and waited but saw no sign of Lazar coming after her. The clamouring inside her settled down, but she was nowhere near ready to leave her hiding place.

  A short while later she heard the Mercedes start up, and watched when the car come into view, making out Lazar at the wheel, obviously off somewhere. Well, he

  hadn't gone out in his boat, Clare thought with relief, and spent the rest of the morning wandering in the pine wood getting herself into a frame of mind where, since she couldn't hope to avoid him for very much longer, she could meet him at lunch with as much equanimity as possible.

  But Lazar did not pull in an appearance at lunch time, and she wished she knew something of the Greek language so she could subtly question Phoebe as to his whereabouts.

  In her room and opening one of the drawers for a fresh handkerchief, Clare spotted the brown swimsuit Lazar had bought for her. Phoebe must have put it away, she realised, and would have closed the drawer again, only the thought came—if Lazar intended to be out all day, and since he hadn't returned for his meal that must be the case, she would have the whole of the beach to herself for the rest of the afternoon. It was scorchingly hot out. She thought lovingly of those refreshing sea waters, then thought no more until she had her dress on over the top of her swimsuit and the warm sand beneath her feet.

  She walked along the beach sandals in hand, glad of the sun hat Lazar had purchased for her yesterday as the sun beat down. Thinking to let her lunch settle before she made any excursion into the water, she found a spot of shade and sat down to let her thoughts wander.

  They weren't allowed to wander very far. For as she looked back to the villa her pulses leapt to see that not only had Lazar returned, but he was walking her way. Her first instinct to get to her feet and flee had to be stifled. She couldn't spend all day running away from him. Besides, he must already think her markedly different from the other sort of women he knew. Not that she wanted to be like them, of course she didn't.

  She watched him approach, tall, athletic, easy-striding. He must have driven up while she had the taps on washing her hands, for she hadn't heard his car. He halted when he was only a yard from her, causing her to crane her neck to look up at him, her speech temporarily suspended; she could think of nothing to say.

  `Hello, Clare Harper,' he said in that barely accented voice. `Mind if I join you?' He didn't wait for her assent, but dropped to the sand beside her.

  `I thought I saw—heard you go out,' she said, knew she had muffed it, and looked in an opposite direction, feeling a blush coming on.

  `You did,' he said, not commenting on the 'saw' or `heard' part of her statement. 'I came looking for you to see if you would like to come with me, but you weren't in your room.'

  `I ...' she began, trying to think up something that would make her seem less gauche to him than she must already appear, only to find she had no need as he continued:

  `Not that it would have proved all that interesting. You would have had to wait around while I did a few necessary jobs for my uncle, but you might have enjoyed the drive.'

  `Uncle?'

  Clare picked on the one word that might take him away from asking why she had run off the way she had. And Lazar went on to explain that he had received a telephone call before dinner last night to say his uncle had met with a car accident which had necessitated him dropping everything to get to the hospital at once.

  `I apologise for leaving you to dine alone,' he ended courteously.

  But the fact she had dined alone was not important to Clare then as her natural sympathy had her forgetting the thoughts and feelings that had disturbed her.

  `Your uncle—is he going to be all right?' she enquired gently.

  `Oh yes. He was looking a little the worse for wear when I saw him last night, but even so,' he said, looking slightly amused, `nothing can stop the old fellow being a business man first and a hospital patient second. Sedated as he was, it didn't hinder him giving me a whole list of telephone calls I must make on his behalf or business documents I must take for him to look through this morning.'

  Clare had to smile too as she visualised a shrewd old man, sick as he must be, still determined not to let the grass grow under his feet.

  'He was better when you saw him today?'

  `You could say he was giving them hell,' Lazar said with a grin she suddenly found fascinating.

  Hastily she looked away, sorting round in her mind for something to say. 'Er—you have relatives in northern Greece, then?' she brought out, and could have groaned at the stupidity of her remark. It was obvious he had.

  But if Lazar thought her remark stupid he didn't say so as he revealed, 'We are a large family. I have relatives all over the place. Though in actual fact we are Macedonians by birthright. While my father's family moved on and went into shipping, my mother's side stayed on in agriculture, textiles, tobacco,' he elucidated, adding, `Which all works well, since they wouldn't dream of using any other shipping line to export their merchandise but ours! '

  The smile in his voice as he said it had her knowing that in no way did they rely on family loyalties for the majority of their business. Common sense told her they must have dealings all over the world.

  Shyly she asked what role he played in the business, and learned that he was in charge of obtaining outside contracts. Which also told her why he had studied in England, since he must have been prepared to take up this specialist work at an early age, and the use of English was of paramount importance when getting contracts from other countries.

  `How many languages do you speak?' she asked, following her own line of thought.

  `Six or seven,' he replied casually, just as though everybody did. And as her eyes flew wide, aware as she was of her own limitations in that area, he added, 'I think you'll find that most Greeks with any sort of education speak at least three languages.'

  Feelings dreadfully ignorant, Clare stared out to sea, the idea with her that when she returned home, somehow she was going to learn to speak another language if she had to rely solely on textbooks to do it. The last years of her schooling had been badly interrupted. It had been over a year before she had returned to school, apart from the time off she had to take on her bad days. But as Lazar carried on, talking naturally with no sign of showing off as he spoke of the two universities he had attended, one in England, one here in Greece, slowly in the peace and quiet of the afternoon Clare got over her feeling of inadequacy about the difference in their educations, realising that even if her school work had suffered, she was still able to follow everything he said and make the occasional comment of her own, so her intelligence had remained unimpaired.

  A feeling of being in harmony with him surprised her, so that when Lazar said in an unhurried sort of way, 'Let's go for a swim,' she didn't back away in fright as she would have done only a few days ago, but found she was telling him:

  'I'm sorry, I can't. I don't.'

  'You mean you can't swim?'

>   Perhaps it was because there was no sign of amazement in his voice that she didn't sink back into feeling inadequate again. She shook her head. 'I never learned.'

  'Then I suggest now is as good a time as any to begin,' he said quietly. And when she just sat and stared at him, 'Go and get your swimsuit on, I'll teach you.'

  'You'll teach me!' she exclaimed, a peculiar feeling starting up inside her. Then as his superbly white even teeth showed in a teasing grin at her surprise, which only added to her confusion, she found herself telling him, 'Ac-actually, I have my swimsuit on.'

  'Then actually,' he teased in a swanky English accent, 'let's go to it!'

  A smile started within her at his teasing, but it didn't get to appear as without more ado he unbuttoned his shirt to drop it casually down on the sand near her. She looked hastily away when he began to undo his trousers, then heard the roar of his amused laughter when he said:

  'I seldom bathe in the nude when women are present.'

  Her eyes flicked to him to see he was out of his trousers and was wearing the briefest of black swimming trunks. Her heart racing, she saw the tanned breadth of his uncovered shoulders, his chest bare except for the mat of dark hair that marched down to his navel, then began again. Hurriedly Clare flipped her eyes to his straight legs, his muscled thighs, and she blushed crimson when her eyes flicked up to his and she saw he had observed she had been surveying him. To her great relief he didn't comment on it, and she realised then that he saw nothing to be ashamed of in the human shape. He was not at all embarrassed—she was.

  `I'll leave you to join me when you are ready,' he said, just as though he had discerned that there was no way she was going to get out of her dress with him standing there. Then before she could answer he had turned and headed for the water.

  For a while Clare sat and watched, saw him start to swim out to sea with an easy powerful crawl. He had said he seldom bathed in the nude with women present, she recalled, as slowly she began to unbutton her dress. So at some time then he must have indulged in mixed bathing in the altogether. With the lack of shame he had for his own body that shouldn't have surprised her. What did surprise her was that when her thoughts went from there to the thought that he must have known the woman or women intimately to get to that state of affairs, she didn't find her thoughts at all pleasing.

  She reached the water's edge, her eyes fixed on Lazar still swimming strongly. Slowly she waded in until the water was up to her waist, wishing mightily that she could swim with half the ease he had. That she couldn't swim had never bothered her before. In fact she couldn't ever remember having giving it any thought prior to coming here, but just then she would have given anything to have such glorious freedom of movement.

  As she had two days previously, she enjoyed herself splashing about, and was mildly astonished to discover she had lost some of her embarrassment at being so uncovered when Lazar swam up to her, his eyes flicking over her breasts just above the water as he stood up.

  The sunlight glistened on the droplets of water on his shoulders and chest as with a careless hand he pushed his wet hair back. And then he was reaching out for her.

  Beset with nerves, Clare was startled into the awareness of not being at all sure whether her nerves were because a very masculine male was about to touch her or if it was because she was about to have her first lesson in swimming.

  `Lazar, I ... I've changed my mind,' she said, turning towards the beach, wanting to get there as quickly as her legs would take her.

  Two hands came down on her shoulders, stopping her from going a step further. He must have felt the trembling that had taken her, for his voice was slightly shocked when he exclaimed:

  'Theos! You are shaking!' Shock went from him, his voice changing to persuasive as he decided his own interpretation for her being so disturbed. 'There is nothing to be alarmed at, pethi,' and that teasing note again. 'Trust me, little Clare. I promise I will not drop you.'

  She was sure it was just the desire to know the freedom he had shown in the water and nothing to do with the charm of the man himself, when, his voice coaxing, she just couldn't resist as he asked:

  'Wouldn't you like to be able to swim?'

  'Yes. Oh yes,' she said huskily. And that was all he waited to hear.

  Without haste he turned her to face him. He looked steadily into her eyes, then teased, 'Be brave, child. I have never drowned a pupil yet!'

  Her nerves at the thought of having a man's arms around her bolted away at a different sort of panic—that of finding herself seemingly lying face down in the water as Lazar took her feet from under her. Instinctively she made a grab for him, only to hear his calm voice, telling her, `Relax, Clare,' and repeating, 'I won't drop you.' 'then she forgot everything save her confidence in him, and that regardless of elegance she was enjoying the feeling of being able to kick her legs out behind her.

  Lazar gave her concise instructions which she followed as strictly as she could, concentrating with all her attention to get it right so that she forgot completely that his hands were touching any part of her. She was enjoying her lesson so much, it seemed to have lasted only two minutes when his voice somewhere above her head said:

  'I think that is about enough for today.'

  Disappointed, for they had only just started, she made a sudden movement of protest, caught him unawares, and for the briefest of moments her head went under.

  Brief though it was before Lazar lifted her to stand up against him, she had taken fright. He was laughing at her, she knew, as he told her she had brought that on herself, but she couldn't have cared less about being laughed at as she gulped in fresh air.

  Then suddenly he was no longer laughing. She felt the arm at her back tighten. She had up'to that point been unaware that in her fright she had pressed up close to him, that her breasts were a soft cushion against his chest or that her thighs had pressed the

  water from against the front of his thighs so that the only contact was their skin.

  But with his arm tightening at her back she did become aware of all these things, knew he too was aware of her body pressed close up to his, and- with a horror that had her staring at him dumb-stricken, she realised she had aroused in him a feeling of desire.

  That thought blanked out all other thought and feeling. Her childish splashing about took on nauseating proportions and she pushed forcefully at his chest with her hands.

  He let her go at once, ready to wade back to where she had left her dress and hat. Striving for calm, Clare wondered if she had been crazy to imagine having her against him like that had stirred him to desire. For his voice didn't show that kind of emotion when he spoke, sounding perfectly controlled and in no way affected at having held her so close, as he casually remarked:

  'You did quite well for your first lesson.' His voice was so totally normal she thought she just had to have imagined what she thought had gone on a moment ago. Surely a man couldn't change from desire to the mundane so easily? 'I told you I wouldn't drop you,' he added as they waded now only ankle-deep from the sea. 'You should have more faith in me, Clare.'

  She reached the place where she had left her dress, now only partly in the shade, and stretched out a hand, only to have his voice staying her.

  'Let the sun dry you first,' he suggested, evidently reading her intention to put her dress on over the top of her wet swimsuit.

  She hesitated, saw Lazar was taking no more mind to her as he stretched out on the warm sand, closing hiseyes, apparently completely uncaring whether she followed his suggestion or not.

  It would be just as easy to go back to the villa carrying her dress, she thought. It would only take a minute or two to walk back. And yet she had spent too many hours in the solitary confines of her room and she didn't know that she wanted to go back yet.

  Without her being aware of it her decision was made. Her dress ,stayed where it was on the sand, a few seconds later she was beside it. Sitting stiffly upright, she flicked a glance at Lazar, a faint flickering
of his black lashes telling her he was not asleep but just taking this opportunity to relax and soak up the sun. His features were even, looking chiselled in repose. Clare's glance went to his mouth, then hurriedly she turned her head, her eyes staring unseeing out to sea.

  Some time before tomorrow she was supposed to go and offer herself to him! Oh, how could she do it? But if she didn't, what was to become of poor Kit? Lazar had meant every word he had said—she had tried once to get through to him and failed—and she just knew she would be wasting her time trying again. She would only make him angry with her.

  Agitation tried to get the better of her at the thought of how much more unbearable it would be if when she went to him he took her in anger. No, no, she shied from the thought. Don't let it be in anger.

  Quite when she realised she was going to have to see this thing through, that for Kit's sake she was going to have to be very brave, she didn't know. But suddenly, perhaps only five minutes later, she found she was accepting the inevitability of what must happen.

  Pictures of Kit, maybe wheelchair-bound for the rest of his life, flashed through her mind, only for her to force them away as she tried to concentrate only on how kind Lazar had been with her yesterday. Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad. And anyway, wasn't she beginning to grow a little weary of the cowardly creature she was?