by Iris Danbury
Mallory, on the opposite side of the table, rested his chin on one hand. “Because the prevailing wind always blew from one direction.”
“What if it changed?”
“Very rarely. You’re not in England now where the winds swing from one point of the compass to another like an unpredictable woman.”
Jacynth bent her head towards the long foolscap sheets by her typewriter. “I see. Yes, thank you.” Why did he have to twist a simple innocuous question into a personal gibe?
Why, too, did he have to look at her like that so that she was quite powerless to stop the colour flooding up into her face?
For the next quarter of an hour he appeared to be studying various documents and making alterations. Then, without looking up, he asked abruptly, “How long does your boyfriend expect to be here in Rhodes?”
“Only a few days more. He has to return to Athens and then back to England.”
“You’ll miss him.” Mallory’s voice sounded sardonic. Jacynth refused to be provoked into a reply one way or the other.
“What does he do for a living? I take it he wasn’t just here on holiday?”
This time she looked up and faced him. “No, he wasn’t on holiday, but I think you wouldn’t expect me to disclose his business connections—any more than I would talk to strangers about yours.”
Mallory looked across at her, a light in his dark eyes that might have been approval or perhaps only surprise.
“Your discretion is admirable. I’m glad you have such a sense of responsibility.”
Jacynth disliked his taunting tone of voice, but she let it pass.
Then he continued, “Have you wondered why I insist on dictating all my work to my secretary instead of using a tape-machine or some other modern gadget?”
“Yes, I have. It would save a great deal of your time.”
“No doubt, but it would also provide my rivals with possible sources of information.”
“Your rivals?” she echoed. “I understood you were in a class of your own, way ahead of anyone else in your sphere.” She reddened again as the implication of her words struck her, but now he laughed.
“Even in my sphere, as you call it, one needs security. Also, as you’ve probably noticed, there is only one telephone in my study, with no extensions anywhere in the house.”
“But if people were really determined to learn your secret operations, what is there to stop them from breaking in and stealing the documents, or even photographing them on micro-film?”
Mallory laughed as he looked at her and she noticed how the hard lines of his face softened in relaxation. “You’ve been seeing too many spy films.”
“Not true. I rarely go to the cinema.”
“You spend your spare time watching television?”
“Some of it,” she answered. “I like reading, listening to music. Sometimes I make a dress.”
“Do you play any musical instrument?” he queried.
“Only the piano, and that not really very well. I tried to learn the violin, but I made the most hideous noises that even I couldn’t stand it, let alone the neighbours.” She laughed at the memory of a neighbour’s dog who always set up a tremendous howling every time Jacynth put bow to strings.
“You must entertain me with your piano-playing one evening when we have leisure.” Then, without warning, he suddenly rose, slammed down the bundle of documents in his hand and muttered, “You’ve plenty of work to do now.” Then he went out of the room as though a devil were pursuing him.
For a moment or two Jacynth stared at the closed door as though she expected Mallory to materialise through its dark polished panels. Why did he act so strangely? He had started the conversation, first about Ray, then about his own security measures, and somehow the topic had drifted to her own methods of spending her time. What was so odd in that? She racked her brains for anything she had said to cause him to stampede out of her presence with a mumbled command to get back to work. But what was the use of searching for motives where Mallory was concerned? He was entirely unpredictable, even more so than what he regarded as the typical “unpredictable woman”. In any case, Mallory would not be disconcerted by anything she could say or do, for he was too impervious to the reactions of other people.
Three days later during the afternoon, Caterina came into Jacynth’s office with a message that a young man had called and wanted to see her.
“His name?” queried Jacynth, realising with a sinking heart that her caller could be only Ray.
Caterina tilted her face upwards, raised her eyebrows and clicked her tongue. By now Jacynth had learned, after much confusion, that this was a Greek way of saying “No” and comparable to the English method of shaking the head.
She went out into the hall and Ray came eagerly towards her.
“Can’t stop more than a minute. I’m on my way to the airport, but I had to break my journey to see you once more.” He put a small parcel into her hands. “This is a little gift, so that you can remember me until I come back.”
“Oh, thank you.” Jacynth raised a delighted face towards Ray. “I’m sure it will be something I’ve wanted.”
At that moment Mallory came along the wide passage from his study and Jacynth had no choice but to introduce the two men.
“Glad to meet you,” acknowledged Ray in his most breezy manner. “I’ve heard quite a lot about you and how you keep poor Jacynth’s nose to the grindstone.”
“Indeed!” Mallory’s tone was ice itself.
“Ray is on his way to the airport,” broke in Jacynth hurriedly before Ray could make any further damaging remarks.
“Then let me wish you bon voyage,” returned Mallory, whose cold attitude appeared to have deflated Ray to some extent.
“Well then, yes, I must be getting along,” said the latter. Then to Jacynth’s dismay, he bent towards her, put both arms around her shoulders and gave her a kiss that was no mere goodbye peck, but a full-bodied salute on the lips, obviously aware that he had a definite advantage over a man standing by and looking on.
Jacynth disengaged herself as quickly as she could.
“Goodbye, Ray,” she muttered.
“Not goodbye, but au revoir.” Ray cast an oblique glance at Mallory. “And don’t forget, Jacynth, what I said about—about your future prospects.”
It was Mallory who moved towards the front door to show Ray out, superficially a courteous action, but Jacynth understood only too readily the real significance.
Still clutching her parcel from Ray, she returned to her office, hoping that Mallory would not follow, but he was close behind her.
“An affectionate young man,” he said. “On very good terms with you, apparently. Young people are fast workers these days. So he’s coming back to Greece? For a long time?”
“I don’t know,” muttered Jacynth despairingly. She would have given a great deal for Mallory not to have witnessed that little scene in the hall. Why did Ray have to come at that moment to say his farewells?
“He spoke about your future prospects,” continued Mallory incisively. “Does that mean you’re tying yourself up with his future? You’re going to marry him?”
“Oh, no!” exclaimed Jacynth, shocked at this relentless questioning and horrified at the rapid conclusions he was making—or pretending to make.
Mallory’s dark eyebrows rose in surprise. “You’re not one of those women who prefer to dispense with marriage?”
“No, no, I didn’t mean that at all. You’re twisting my words.” She was nearly in tears.
“Perhaps you’d better open your parting gift, even if it’s only a temporary parting,” he suggested. She looked up at him and saw the amused smile on his lips, the baiting gleam in his eyes. “Whatever is inside may restore your tranquillity. Obviously his departure has upset you.”
“It’s nothing of the kind,” she flared out at him. “It’s you and your incessant questioning. You won’t even allow me to have one friend outside this house. You have to pry int
o everything, even this little present.” She stopped in utter confusion, aware that her voice had risen about an octave. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Why not?” he demanded. “You’re quite right. I’ve no authority to poke my nose into your private affairs.” He put! his hand over her wrist in what perhaps he intended as a gesture of apology, but the effect on her was anything but assuagement, for her heart was racing, her throat dry and every nerve in her body was tautened almost to the disaster of breaking point.
She sank into her chair. “If you’re so keen to know what Ray has given me, I’ll open it.” She tried to keep her voice steady, but knew she had not succeeded any more than she could control her trembling fingers as she untied the string.
Then, surprisingly gently, he took the parcel out of her hands, unwrapped the paper and stood the two small replicas of Grecian vases on the table. They were black with figures in relief outlined in jade green. One represented a procession of women with urns or vases; the other a slender young man with an elaborate headdress.
“Knossos,” murmured Mallory. “You haven’t been to Crete yet, I suppose?”
“No. This is my first visit to Greece.”
“Then you must certainly visit Crete and especially Knossos for the ruins of the old Minoan civilisation. These little vases are representations of the frescoes. One is the Cup-bearers, the other, this handsome young man, is the Prince of the Lilies.”
While he talked, she realised he was giving her time to calm herself.
“These are very poor specimens of pottery,” he continued. “I think your boy-friend could have found better samples than these.”
“He’s probably a very good judge of the qualities of Greek pottery, since he happens to be in that trade and buys stuff here to send to England.” Too late, she realised that she had been over-ready to defend Ray and his choice of gift, for now she had disclosed his occupation.
“Oh? So that’s what he does. Then all I can say is that he ships very tawdry consignments to your country, if this is a sample.”
She glared at him now. “You’re implying that he’s given me two cheap little pieces because that’s all he could afford. And you’re right,” she added emphatically. “When I receive a gift, I don’t try to calculate how much it cost.”
“I know.” He smiled at her and reduced her yet again to a quivering bundle of nerves. “It’s the thought that counts.” He was standing so close to her that the sleeve of his jacket brushed her shoulder and she edged a little farther away. She could not endure his nearness, his magnetic presence that seemed to draw her irrevocably towards him.
He was still smiling and she turned her head away.
“You appear to be very distressed at parting from this chap Gurney—I think you said that was his name—and his farewell kisses have had a bad effect on you. Let’s see how we can remedy matters and soothe you.”
Without warning he jerked her to her feet and swung her into his arms. “Perhaps one of my brand of kisses will compensate.” His mouth came down on hers in a long kiss that was hard and angry and demanding, with no tenderness in it. He held her so close that it was impossible for her to pull away, but now she had lost the will to fend him off. He was arousing her to a passion and a desire that she had never experienced before. She wanted his kiss to continue for ever. She felt herself responding, even though a more sensible voice in her brain cried out that it was foolish to do so and surrender to this arrogant man’s whim of the moment.
When at last he released her, she grasped the edge of the table for support, for her knees were unsteady. Then she flopped into her chair and dared not look at him.
“H’m, it seems that one man’s kiss is as good as another’s in your opinion.” His voice held a stinging sarcasm which wounded her more than his bruising mouth. “But I suppose most girls of today are the same as you, permissive, even promiscuous.”
She was too shaken to find words, then as he was going out of the door, she said, “Maybe you shouldn’t judge other people by your own yardstick.”
At the door he paused. “I wonder if you know very much about my particular yardstick.”
Then he was gone. She held her head in her hands and let the slow, hot tears fall. What sort of exhibition had she made of herself in these last few minutes? She had betrayed herself into a passionate response that had lain dormant, that she had not even imagined she could feel for one man, let alone Mallory Brendon. Worse than that, she had revealed to him that she wanted him to make love to her.
The thought of David flashed across her troubled mind and she raised her head and stared into space. David? She had imagined herself in love with him, but now she knew beyond doubt that her feeling for him was only a pale misty wraithlike affair lacking substance. She had merely been in love with love.
Now she had to confess to herself that she was in love with a man, a man of overpowering masculine vitality, but one who was not destined for Jacynth. In due time no doubt he would marry Hermione—or even some other girl with a rich father, a marriage of financial interests rather than of love. In the meantime, Jacynth must steel herself to continue working for him as though he were a middle-aged man with a family and not in the least sexually attractive. She would concentrate on the least likeable aspects of his personality; no doubt he had a few faults here and there. He must never guess the state of her true feelings.
Permissive. Promiscuous. Those were the epithets he had applied to her, almost hurled at her when he must have realised that she was in no composed state to reply. Naturally, a man of Mallory’s calibre, a man who must realise that he could have almost any woman come running to him, would take the view that every girl who fell for his charms was an easy conquest.
As she resumed her work, Jacynth realised that in the last hour or so, she had left her girlhood behind and become a woman, with all a woman’s desires, and aware that love was not all moonlight and roses, but a pathway of thorns accompanied by an unbearable ache for one man and the fulfilment he could give her, but which she would never know.
CHAPTER FIVE
“At the end of the week I intend to go to Lindos,” Mallory announced to Jacynth one morning
“Yes?” She looked up, awaiting further instructions.
“And I want you to come with me.”
“Very well,” she murmured. As though she had any choice in the matter! As though she would not have accompanied him to the middle of the Sahara or up the Himalayas!
He was frowning over a contract and she forbore to interrupt him. After a few moments she enquired, “Will you be working there? I mean, are we to take the typewriter and so on?”
“What?” He withdrew his attention from the document! and stared at her. “Oh, er—no. Probably not.”
Her spirits rose foolishly. More than a week had gone by since Ray’s departure and that subsequent scene when Mallory had kissed her with such humiliating intensity, and during those intervening days, he had behaved as the business man who was her employer. The trifling episode; which was no doubt how he regarded it, was completely wiped from his memory, apparently.
Now he was proposing a trip to Lindos, the town halfway along the east coast of the island, the place where the ruins of an acropolis dominated a hillside village overlooking the sea. So far Jacynth had not had time to visit it, but she had decided that as soon as time allowed, she would make an expedition. Now, to her delight, Mallory would be taking her.
“We shall be staying there over the week-end,” he said, “so take whatever you think necessary—clothes and so on.”
“Of course.” Already she was reviewing in her mind her not very extensive wardrobe.
“We shall be staying at one of Mr. Perandopoulos’s houses.” Mallory broke in on her musings. “You remember that you met Miss Perandopoulos, Hermione, at the Summer Palace a week or two ago.”
“Yes, I remember.” Jacynth had to say something, but her elation had already evaporated. So he was spen
ding the weekend with Hermione at one of her father’s villas. Jacynth felt herself reduced to the role of secretarial hanger-on, yet that was absurd, for obviously he was not compelled to take her, and his next words confirmed that view.
“I think we both need a break of a day or two. You’ve worked hard and I’ve piled the stuff on to you. I need a little bit of relaxation myself.”
Jacynth thought grimly that no doubt in the company of Hermione he would get all the relaxation he needed, but she banished these unworthy ideas.
She listened carefully to Mallory’s instructions as to the various documents he required to be given priority.
He turned sharply with a foolscap folder in his hands and the edge caught one of the small Greek vases that Ray had given Jacynth. The Prince of the Lilies lay shattered on the floor.
“Oh, sorry about that.” Mallory’s tone was no more than perfunctory.
He was not sorry at all, thought Jacynth as she bent to pick up the pieces. He had probably timed his movement most carefully and deliberately to send the vase off the window-ledge.
“I’m afraid it’s not possible to mend it,” he said. “The clay is too powdery to hold together.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said woodenly.
“But it does!” he contradicted. “This little pot was precious to you because of the giver. I must buy you another to replace it.”
She wrapped the broken fragments in a sheet of paper and thrust them into the wastepaper basket.
He did not really mean what he said about giving her a replacement. He was probably thinking “Cheap and nasty”, the same valuation as he put upon Ray, but Jacynth controlled her temper. The loss of a small piece of pottery was not worth jeopardising a week-end visit to Lindos. If she made a scene, Mallory was quite capable of cancelling his good intention to take her with him.
Later, however, she took the remaining vase, the one with the Cup-bearers, up to her room. There was no sense in providing Mallory with a second target.