The Legend of Lexandros

by Anne Mather

‘Of course not. You can be assured I am not a gossip! ’ Dallas drew on her cigarette, thinking how strange it was that their lives should have become so closely entangled. Was it only about six weeks ago that she had met him for the first time? Maybe a little more than that, but a short period nevertheless. And so much had happened in that time.

  ‘I am going away tomorrow,’ he remarked suddenly, tapping ash from his cheroot into the hearth. ‘ I have business in Athens. I will be away about two weeks. The Sharefs are leaving with me.’ Dallas felt slightly sick, and stubbed out her cigarette hastily, and with a nervous, jerky movement. ‘Are you?’ she said, her voice assumedly light. ‘Wh ... when will I begin my work?’

  ‘As soon as you like. Minerva and Paul are quite agreeable. You can begin tomorrow if you wish. Simeon, one of the servants, acts as chauffeur when required. I will see that a car is put at your service. Materials, books, etc. have all been provided, and are available here. I further believe Minerva has assigned a room in which you, and the girls, may work.’

  Dallas looked up at him anxiously. ‘I can’t help but feel that your brother and his wife have practically had me forced upon them. Paula knew nothing about them wanting a governess when I asked her. ’

  ‘Didn’t she?’ Alexander smiled sardonically. ‘Well, contrary to your opinion, Paula does not know everything. And Minerva and Paul need a governess for the girls. Need I say more?’

  Dallas shrugged. ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘Then cheer up, for God’s sake,’ he muttered, surprising her still more. ‘You’d think I was asking you to enter the arena with the lions, instead of offering you pleasant employment in pleasant surroundings.’

  Dallas stiffened, but then Minerva was back, and there was no time to say more. Minerva had changed into slacks and another sweater, and obviously cared little for her appearance. The girls were scrubbed and neat, in print dresses and ankle socks, but they were Minerva’s children, and could not be mistaken.

  They had tea, although Dallas didn’t particularly care for it, and she accepted one of the sweetmeats that Minerva pressed upon her. They discussed the arrangements, and it was agreed that Dallas should come mornings to teach the girls from nine until twelve. It was going to be a very simple occupation for her and Dallas still felt guilty about the whole thing.

  She said as much to Alexander Stavros again, on the journey home, and shivered when he got angry with her.

  ‘Why is it you doubt everything I do?’ he asked violently. ‘You doubt my integrity, my responsibilities, and my motives. Why? What have I ever done to deserve this kind of treatment from you?’

  Dallas bit her lip. ‘I can’t help it,’ she said, bending her head. ‘It’s probably because I’ve seen you in various situations that ... well, that can be misconstrued. Or maybe that’s the wrong description. Maybe the life you lead is as careless as it seems.’

  She looked up and realised that they were not going home the same way as they had come.

  ‘I’d like to know how you have come to this conclusion,’ he remarked coldly. ‘What kind of “situations” are you talking about?’

  Dallas hunched her shoulders. ‘You know perfectly well. In London there was Athene Siametrou, and here there is Dahlia Sharef. It’s obvious that you attract the opposite sex, isn’t it?’

  ‘Is that my fault?’ he asked idly.

  ‘No, not exactly. But you said yourself, you use women. That’s hardly the kind of remark to arouse compassion in its listener. ’

  ‘My God! Dallas Collins, you amaze me,’ he muttered, shaking his head. ‘What business is it of yours what I do?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘Good! I’m glad you understand that.’ He lit himself another cheroot, and for a while there was silence.

  The shadows were lengthening, the afternoon was passing into early evening. Dallas judged the time to be around six-thirty.

  They were climbing an incline now, and at the top she recognised the little temple which she and Paula had visited that morning. To her surprise Alexander pulled the car off the road, and halted beneath the grove of olive trees. Then he looked thoughtfully at Dallas, and slid out of the car.

  Dallas felt herself shaking a little, but when he glanced back at her and said: ‘Come here,’ she slid reluctantly out of the vehicle.

  The grass was soft underfoot, and the scent of mimosa was wild and sweet. Alexander Stavros entered the arched entrance to the temple, stepping over the mossy marble slabs lazily. Dallas followed him, wondering why he had brought her here. The others would be expecting them back, and no doubt Jane would be beginning to feel resentful of her absence. Besides, they had nothing more to say to one another, and Alexander Stavros had made it perfectly plain that he found her attitude annoying.

  He had stopped now, and she halted beside him. He was looking down at the basin which had once held the legendary fire of Lexa. ‘Did Paula tell you what this was?’ he asked softly.

  In the dusk his features were darkly, arrogantly foreign, and Dallas trembled a little. He smiled, his even teeth very white against the tan of his skin.

  ‘Y ... yes, she told me,’ stammered Dallas awkwardly. ‘Mr. Stavros, I really think we ought to be getting back.’

  He studied her features intently, and startled her by running the back of his fingers down the side of her cheek. ‘You’re a very nervous creature tonight, Dallas,’ he murmured lazily. ‘What has happened to that determined young woman who spars with me quite unyieldingly?’

  Dallas shivered. ‘I want to go back,’ she said placidly, marvelling at the calmness of her tone.

  ‘There’s no hurry,’ he replied quietly, the smile still lurking in his eyes.

  Dallas turned abruptly away. ‘Wh ... what’s that noise?’ she asked hastily, trying to lighten the tension.

  ‘You call them crickets,’ he murmured easily. ‘Didn’t you notice them last night?’

  ‘I ... I must have been too tired,’ said Dallas, swallowing hard. ‘What time do you leave in the morning?’ Her sentences were forced and jerky, and she knew with his expert knowledge of women he would not find it difficult to sense her discomfort, when he himself was the direct cause of it.

  ‘Forget me for the moment,’ he answered, running exploratory fingers round the rim of the fire-basin. ‘Why are you so scared suddenly? What do you expect to happen to you?’

  In this remote yet strangely gentle place, Dallas found it difficult to hold on to reality. There was something entirely unreal about this whole incident, and she felt sure that Alexander Stavros had known about the atmosphere of this temple when he brought her here at dusk. The wind through the delicately curved arches which had stood for thousands of years whispered like music, and the crickets added their own rhythm to the sounds of the encroaching night.

  She looked round at him, and found his eyes on her disturbingly. ‘Why have you brought me here?’ she asked breathlessly.

  He shrugged his broad shoulders. ‘Maybe to see whether you were as immune from atmosphere as you normally appear to be.’ He smiled. ‘And of course you are not. You know that this place has a sense of presence, of immortality, if you like. It shakes off the petty restrictions of earthly life, and gives one a taste of eternity.’

  Inwardly, Dallas knew he was right. He had voiced her own feelings entirely, but she shook her head, and moved with stumbling steps across the uneven slabs of the lower terrace. She sensed rather than felt him close beside her as she halted uncertainly, looking down on the rocks below the temple.

  ‘Did Paula tell you the end of the legend?’ he asked, in her ear.

  Dallas shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.

  ‘There are many, of course, but the most popular one is that Lexa threw himself off this cliff on to the rocks below, and because he was a god his spirit sank below the waves, and

  became a constant warning to sailors, not to come too close to these rocks. Don’t ask me how, or why, but there has never been a wreck here since.’ He gave a
short laugh. ‘It is not a spot frequented by the local population after dark. ’

  Dallas looked up at him, and his eyes darkened, his lids shading the expression in their depths. Her legs turned to jelly, and she shivered involuntarily.

  ‘So,’ he murmured, drawing her towards him unresistingly. ‘Now I am the god in charge of the island, are you going to rekindle my fire?’

  ‘Alexander,’ his name came easily to her lips. ‘Please, don’t!’ The appeal in her voice was lost on him, as the warmth of her body penetrated the thin suit he was wearing.

  ‘Don’t say that,’ he murmured achingly, his mouth caressing the side of her heck. ‘Oh God, you do something to me!’

  Then his mouth found hers, and her lips responded involuntarily. Her arms slid round his neck, and the music in the arches became a crescendo in her ears. She was drowning in feeling, sensual feeling, and she lost all sense of time and circumstance. It would have been so easy to succumb to him; she had never known she could respond in such a manner to the touch of a man’s hands, while her lips clung to his, willing to go on being hungrily possessed.

  But the desire to be possessed and the actual meaning of possession were two entirely different things, and Dallas drew her arms from around his neck, and began pressing him away from her violently, struggling to be free. For a moment he resisted her feeble attempts to escape, and then he let her go, and she stood back quickly, and without looking back pushed her way through the arched portico, across the rich turf to the sanctuary of the car. She badly wanted to cry now, and she wished desperately that she did not have to get into the automobile and wait for him to come to drive her back to the villa.

  It was some minutes before he joined her, but when he did so she saw that he was completely composed, and immediately she felt uncomfortable. Looking down at her hands in her lap, she saw that a button of her jacket was loose, and she hastily fastened it, wondering how he could appear so immaculate while she felt hot and untidy, and when he slid into the car beside her, she moved as far away from him as she could along the bench seat.

  He glanced her way rather sardonically, and shrugging inserted his key in the ignition. ‘Relax,’ he said, his voice cold as a mountain stream. ‘I don’t want to touch you.’

  Dallas rubbed her cheeks with trembling fingers. The dark beard along his jawline had chafed her a little, and her skin felt tender. Alexander turned the car on to the road again, and then said:

  ‘What’s wrong? Apart from your morals digging you, of course!’

  Dallas clenched her fists. ‘Don’t speak to me like that! she said angrily. ‘My morals are not in question.’

  ‘And mine are?’

  ‘You said it, not me.’ Dallas stared unseeingly out of the side of the car. ‘And my cheeks hurt, that’s all! You weren’t exactly gentle!’

  He uttered an angry expletive in his own language. ‘You didn’t exactly object!’ he muttered sarcastically.

  Dallas’s cheeks burned now with embarrassment. ‘All right, don’t let us have an inquest. I ought to have known . . .’

  ‘Damn you, you know absolutely nothing,’ he ground out furiously. ‘Not about men in general, and this man in particular! You haven’t the faintest idea of the precariousness of your position. Don’t ride me, Dallas, or you may find you have bitten off a little more than you can digest! ’

  ‘Chew,’ said Dallas automatically, and then pressed the knuckles of one hand to her teeth, and wished she could dissolve into thin air.

  Alexander merely moved his shoulders carelessly, and pressing his foot on the accelerator deliberately sent the powerful car surging hard down the road.

  She had not thought that the sight of the Stavros villa would-ever seem like home, but it did, when the car halted she slid out

  without waiting for any further comments from him, and sped across the grass through the trees to the chalet, and Jane.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The next morning Dallas prepared for her new job with mixed feelings. It had been relayed to her through the medium of Nikos that Alexander Stavros had left instructions that she should be ready at eight-thirty next morning when Simeon would drive her to Paul Stavros’s villa for lessons with Eloise and Estelle. This had been revealed at dinner last evening which she had taken at the house, despite her misgivings, at Nikos’s insistence. To her relief Alexander was not present, and in consequence her nerves were less taut.

  So today she dressed in a slim-fitting shift of blue linen, with a white cardigan about her shoulders, in case she needed it. Before leaving she went into Jane’s room. She was looking disgruntled again, and Dallas said quickly: ‘What’s wrong?’

  Jane grimaced. ‘Andrea won’t be coming today. His mother has found some unexpected occupation for him. I suspect because she thinks we’re becoming too friendly. Isn’t it sickening?’

  Dallas bit her lip. ‘Well, you’ve brought plenty of magazines, surely you can entertain yourself for a couple of hours. I shall be back soon after twelve myself. ’

  ‘I suppose I can, but I shall be glad when I can get up and about again. I’m not used to such enforced inactivity.’

  ‘Of course you’re not,’ agreed Dallas, nodding. ‘Never mind, you can get up tomorrow, so long as you take it easy.’

  ‘I don’t want to take it easy,’ muttered Jane mutinously. ‘Why should I? I don’t want this baby anyway! ’

  ‘Oh, Jane, please!’ Dallas sighed. ‘There’s nothing either of us can do about that, is there, so stop feeling sorry for yourself! ’

  Jane was aghast; Dallas had never spoken to her like that before. She hunched her shoulders. ‘Well, anyway, how did you

  get on with Alexander Stavros yesterday?’ she countered, knowing that Dallas preferred not to discuss their host,

  Dallas turned away to hide her expression. ‘Oh, all right,’ she replied lightly.

  Jane’s eyes narrowed. “Did you? How nice! You didn’t have much to say about it last night. Come to think of it, you didn’t have much to say about anything, did you? Why?’

  ‘Must there be a reason?’ asked Dallas wearily.

  Jane stared at her sister’s back intently. ‘Usually there is with you. What happened? Did he make a pass at you?’

  Dallas clenched her fists. ‘Oh, don’t be so ridiculous!’ she exclaimed angrily, and marched out of the room, before she lost her temper altogether. She found she was trembling again, and gripped her handbag tightly. Calm down, calm down, she told herself furiously. Calm down!

  The ride out to Paul Stavros’s house was accomplished in a much shorter time than she and Alexander Stavros had taken the day before, and she could only assume that they had taken a less direct route. Minerva Stavros was there to greet her, and with her was a tall, broad Greek, who vaguely resembled Alexander, except that his features were heavier, and his lips fuller. There was something about him that Dallas didn’t particularly like, but as liking her employer was no part of her employment, she smiled politely when he was introduced by his wife.

  Eloise and Estelle came running down the stairs as they all entered the cool hallway. The girls were dressed in shorts and sweaters again, and Dallas thought they looked adorable. Paul Stavros excused himself on the grounds that he had business to attend to, and Minerva showed Dallas the schoolroom.

  ‘You’ll have complete freedom here,’ she said, smiling in a friendly fashion. ‘Eloise and Estelle are good children, and shouldn’t cause you too much bother. They are eager and willing to learn, as Alexander has promised they shall attend an English boarding school if they work hard.’ It was apparent that Alexander Stavros’s word held weight among his family.

  ‘Thank you,’ Dallas smiled. ‘I only hope they like me.’

  Minerva smiled conspiratorially. ‘I’m sure they will. Besides, Alex wouldn’t have recommended you without good reason.’ Dallas flushed. That man again! Was she never to feel free of him?

  In actual fact the children were pathetically eager to please. They listene
d carefully to everything she said, and worked hard and conscientiously. In fact, during the course of the morning, Dallas began to wonder whether such diligence in ones so young was a good thing. Most six-year-olds were mischievous to a certain extent, but these Stavros children showed no such tendencies. But again, she felt it was not her place to voice opinions, so she accepted the situation, and tried to draw the children out in other ways.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘do you have any brothers or sisters?’ Estelle wrinkled her nose. ‘No, Miss Collins.’

  Dallas looked thoughtful. ‘Do you have many playmates, then?’

  ‘We are not encouraged to mix with the village children,’ said Eloise sedately. ‘Daddy says we must entertain ourselves, as there are two of us.’

  That explained why they were so eager to attend a boarding-school, thought Dallas wryly. With only themselves to play with, even in these idyllic surroundings, they must get bored stiff. She decided to mix a little play with work in future weeks. She might even take them down to the village herself, and explore the tiny harbour.

  When she returned to the chalet before lunch she found Jane

  sunbathing on the patio. She looked up at Dallas’s arrival, and

  said:

  ‘Well? How did it go?’

  ‘Very well,’ replied Dallas carefully. ‘Have you been all right?’

  ‘So-so,’ replied Jane, screwing up her face. ‘I had a visit from

  Madame Stavros.’

  ‘You did what?’ Dallas stared at her sister.

  ‘Yes. Madame herself.’ ‘What did she want?’

  ‘This and that.’ Jane struggled into a sitting position. Dallas compressed her lips. ‘Anyway, what are you doing out of bed? The doctor said you should stay there two days.’

  ‘Rubbish!’ Jane grimaced. ‘I feel fine. I’m not lying there like some invalid. In any case, Madame Stavros didn’t object when she found me here, and I’ve no doubt she found out what the doctor had to say. ’

  Dallas sighed. ‘I can’t understand why she should come to see you. Unless it was a purely friendly visit.’

  ‘I’d hardly call it that!’ remarked Jane annoyingly. ‘She told me that Andrea would be working the rest of the week, and that he had been neglecting his duties spending so much time with me. Besides, Andrea was an impressionable youth, and ought not to be taken seriously. ’