Apollo's Daughter

by Rebecca Stratton

  'If I fail to comply with my cousin's wishes,' Nikolas interrupted firmly, *it will be because I would think twice about joining any man for life to a spoiled and wilful young woman who would probably make his life a misery! Now will you sit down, Bethany, and let us get on with the rest of the business?'

  'There is no other business as far as I'm concerned 1' Bethany insisted. 'You have to promise me, Nikolas,

  that you won't Aunt Alex!' She turned to the old

  lady anxiously, her hands as well as her grey eyes a{> pealing to her. Tlease, you won't let him do this, will you?'

  Alexia sympathised, she guessed, but she had been brought up in the old way and she would see nothing wrong in a girl's future being settled for her. It was the way things had always been done; the way they were still done by a great many people, particularly in the islands where progress had been slower and old ways died harder. Also there was little she could do to influence her redoubtable nephew, Bethany knew that, and felt a taste of bitterness for the changing climate of her safe little world.

  'Trust Niko, child,' Alexia advised gently, but Beth-anv shook her head vehemently.

  'That's just it,' she cried despairingly. 'I don't trust him!'

  'Be silent!' Nikolas said sharply. 'Pick up that chair, Bethany, and sit down, there is no need ifor hysteria.

  You have my word that you will not be forced to marry anyone you are not quite willing to marry. Does that satisfy you?'

  Still shaking with emotion, she faced him across the table, only now realising that he too had got to his feet, leaning his weight on his hands and bringing his dark, strong face close to hers. Tou mean it?'

  Her voice shivered uncertainly and he drew a deep breath, coping with a rapidly thinning patience, she guessed. 'Trust me, as Aunt Alexia suggests. Is that so difficult to do?'

  She shook her head, glancing from the corner of her eye at Alexia's encouraging expression. Without a word, she bent and picked up the chair, then sat down on it, holding her hands in her lap as she had been. Nikolas, once she was seated, resumed his own seat and sat for a moment running his long hands through the papers in front of him before he spoke.

  *Shall we continue?' he asked, but Bethany heard little of what followed, for her own future loomed too largely in her mind for her to give much attention to anything else. And no matter what impression she had given, she still did not entirely trust him.

  The situation proved less uncomfortable during the several days that followed than Bethany had feared, and so far she and Nikolas had had no really serious clash—possibly because she now did far more household chores than ever she had done before, and found it rather less irksome than she anticipated. Nikolas was tolerant to a degree, but he expected more of both her and Takis than Papa had ever done. And while Takis seemed quite amenable on the whole, yielding her accustomed freedom to Nikolas's determined discipline aroused both resentment and rebellion in Bethany.

  With time to spare one day, she walked up the hill above the harbour to visit the artists' colony, returning windblown and warmly flushed, carrying her sandals as she continued barefoot along the quay. Going bare-

  foot occasionally was something she had done since childhood, partly because she liked the feeling, and partly because it was something that a lot of the people from the art colony did.

  It set them apart from the village people, made them different, and Bethany had inherited enough of her mother's character to enjoy being different sometimes. There was a spring in her step and she was smiling to herself as she walked past the fishing boats moored in bobbing rows all along the harbour wall, pleased because she thought she had eluded Nikolas's eagle eye for once.

  'Aie! Will you look over here!'

  The half-mocking voice turned to chuckles, joined by others; deep, friendly laughter from the young men working in the boats, but Bethany was so accustomed to them by now that she did no more than smile to herself as she walked on. Whistles and catcalls shrilled among the laughter, and she knew that if she so much as turned her head and looked at one of them he would immediately become the target of his friends' teasing, mocking his prowess with women. It was all harmless enough, and it had never troubled her at all.

  It was different on this occasion, however, for Nikolas was standing along at the end of the quay beside his own boat, and he waited for her to come along, with a look that spoke volumes. As if they had only just noticed him and realised his mood, her admirers returned to their tasks with merely a wry grin among themselves, while Bethany was obliged to face the dark censorious eyes that noted her bare feet and disapproved.

  She was already on the defensive when she stopped beside him, and she put a hand on his arm to balance herself while she slipped her feet into her sandals. Tve walked barefoot before, Nikolas,' she told him. It doesn't hurt when you're hardened to it.'

  When they moved on, Nikolas made sure that she walked just slightly ahead of him, so that their progress along the narrow path from the quay suggested

  he was herding her and preventing her escape. 'Are you also hardened to the remarks of the men who whistle and call after you?' he asked, and Bethany turned and looked at him over her shoulder, the colour in her cheeks deepening slightly.

  'They do no harm,' she told him, but had little hope of convincing him. 'It's only fun, Nikolas.'

  Tun I' He spoke harshly and caught her arm, pulling her round to face him now that they were out of sight of the quay and for the moment unobserved. The narrow, stony road curved around a garden wall and a straggling plane tree cast a shadow over them that turned Nikolas's eyes to jet-black. 'What kind of a woman do you think they consider you, Bethany? Your hair blown into a tangle and your feet bare,

  flushed and smiling Mother of God, but you show

  yourself off like a whore! *

  'How dare you say such things to me!' She faced him with bright, indignant grey eyes, and she was trembling with anger. 'And you sound very familiar with the subject; maybe you're not as virtuous as you try to sound!'

  'You ' His eyes blazed and, seeing them, she

  cringed inwardly, for he had seldom appeau-ed more awe-inspiring than at that moment. But while she watched him with awed fascination, he was already bringing his formidable temper under control. 'Not only are you wanton in your looks, but you have the undisciplined insolence of a street-urchin,' he informed her relentlessly. 'You are a Meandis, whether or not you choose to remember it, and you will not walk about the village looking as you do, or smiling at every man you pass, as if you enjoy the sensation you cause. Do you understand me?'

  *I won't be bullied, Nikolas!' Her breathing was short and uneven, and lurking not too far behind the anger were tears. She tried so hard to get along with him, she told herself, but still he found fault, and she despaired of their ever understanding one another. Looking up at him, she shook her head. 'Oh, why don't

  gS APOLLO'S DAUGHTER

  you go away and leave me alone?' she whispered. 1 was happy until you came, and now '

  'Now that you're being made to grow up and behave like a woman instead of a wanton child, you resent it!' His eyes gleamed darkly in the shadow of the plane tree, but there was a very faint suggestion of softening in the firm line of his mouth as he looked down at her. 'I realise how hard it must be for you, Bethany, but you must have realised that one day all this—this butterfly existence would have to come to an end. Didn't you?'

  Bethany didn't answer for several moments because she could not find the words; she simply stood looking down at the vee of bronzed skin where his shirt opened, and tried to think of ways she could earn her own living. She was a modest sculptor and a fairly good painter, but there were so many in Greece already, and she had no other talents. For all his harshness and his curtailment of her freedom, Nikolas offered a curiously comforting kind of security, and she didn't want to leave Apolidus, or Aunt Alexia and Takis.

  Tapa never found anything wrong with my walking about barefoot,' she told him. and Nikolas sh
ook his head, but there was a kind of gentleness in his voice just the same that she noted and clung to hopefully.

  'Your papa spoiled you,' he said, 'and now / must make of you what I can; it isn't an easy task.'

  Glancing upward, she caught his eye for just a second. 'What are you trying to make of me, Nikolas?' she asked.

  He did not answer at once, and eventually she once more looked up at the dark, brooding eyes beneath their black lashes. 'I'm trying to make a mortal of you,' he said softly, after a moment or two. 'You live too much in your own world, Bethany, and somehow I have to make a normal flesh and blood woman of you —a Meandis for preference.'

  She stirred, curiously uneasy suddenly, the colour in her cheeks more evident again. 'Does it matter?' she asked. 'I doubt if you'll be able to change me now.'

  Nikolas reached out and took a handful of bright tawny hair, holding it so tightly that she felt the pull of his strong fingers at her scalp. Looking down into her face while he held back her head, he gazed for a long, silent moment at her mouth. 'Perhaps not/ he said with unexpected candour, and let her hair run through his fingers as he released her. 'Come,* he added, turning her about, 'Aunt Alexia will need your help with dinner.'

  Alexia's support of Nikolas when she heard about their verbal skirmish, brought home to Bethany the fact that there were some aspects of Pavlos's lenient upbringing that Alexia frowned upon almost as disapprovingly as Nikolas did. She probably always had in her heart, but she was a kindly woman and had a genuine love for her nephew by marriage and his family. Under Nikolas's more strict authority, however, she probably saw less need to conceal her own more traditional views.

  She had always been concerned, she confessed to Bethany, that she took such little care with her reputation, and she wished Bethany would believe that Nikolas had only her best interests at heart. Bethany's retort that she doubted very much if Nikolas had a heart brought a gently reproachful frown. He was very concerned about her. Alexia insisted.

  Takis was wildly excited a couple of days later when Nikolas anounced that he had arranged for them to take a trip to Rhodes so that he and Bethany could meet more of the Meandis family. Bethany's reaction was less enthusiastic, a point that Nikolas did not fail to notice and remark on.

  *I see no reason why you behave as if I'm sending you into exile,' Nikolas told her impatiently. 'You're simply going on a visit to other members of the family, and you'll be welcomed, you need have no fear of that.' His dark eyes quizzed her shrewdly for a moment. 'Is that what bothers you, Bethany? That you

  won't be welcome because youYe Pavlos's adopted child rather than his natural one?'

  His constant reference to her as a child always irritated Bethany, but she let it go in this instance while she considered the reason for her reluctance to accompany him on the trip. 'I just thought ' She

  shrugged, reluctant to put it into words. 1 can't help feeling that you won't be the only one of your family who views me with a disapproving eye,' she told him. *And it won't be much of a pleasure trip if I have to spend the whole time watching every word I say and every move I make.'

  'Do you do that here?' he countered with surprising mildness, and she looked at him as if he was being rather obtuse.

  Tou know I do, ever since you came, Nikolas. And

  it's bad enough here, but among a lot of strangers '

  'Your family,' Nikolas insisted firmly, but a faint smile touched the firm lines of his mouth for a moment. 'And I hope you won't make such dramatic claims about having to watch every word, etcetera, to the family, Bethany, or you'll have them thinking I've turned into some kind of t}Tannical monster since I came here/

  'I didn't say anything of the kind,' Bethany objected, but Nikolas was shaking his head slowly.

  'You don't have to when you look so woebegone. My reputation will be ruined if you continue to look so soulful and unhappy.'

  'Do I?' It hadn't occurred to her that she gave quite that impression, and she looked at him curiously. 'Do I really look soulful and unhappy, Nikolas?'

  'Sometimes,' Nikolas insisted, and that slight smile still lingered about his mouth. Tm not really such a brute, am I, Bethany?' She shook her head rather than condemn him that fiercely, and he went on. 'I'm simply trying to make a woman of you.'

  Urged on by heaven knew what, Bethany glanced upward, and her mouth was softly appealing, her lips slightly parted with a suggestion of guileless inno-

  cence. 'And is being a woman only a matter of cooking and cleaning, and never walking barefoot along the quay, or laughing at the way the fishermen talk? Isn't there something more to it than that, Nikolas?'

  If she had but known it there was the look of her mother about the way she glanced at him, and his mouth tightened ominously, banishing the smile altogether. *Holy Mother!' he breathed with pious softness. Tou can't mean to be as provoking as you look!'

  1 only meant that if you're teaching me, Nikolas, shouldn't you '

  'Be still!' Nikolas commanded firmly, but there was a certain look in his eyes that belied the sternness of his tone and sent a shivering little thrill of excitement running through her veins. 'You'll go to Rodos with us, and you'll behave like a civilised young woman or you'll answer to me, my girl! You won't behave as if you're a poor little orphan bullied by her guardian, nor will you flaunt yourself before every man you seel And if you so much as look at '

  He stopped short and shook his head, but again that thrilling sense of exhilaration possessed her, egging her on. 'Who mustn't I look at, Nikolas?' she asked meekly.

  Nikolas ran his long fingers through his hair and half turned from her. 'Go and help Alexia,' he ordered sternly, 'and don't ever try to provoke me too far, Bethany, or you'll find out just how much of a tyrant I can be!'

  'Nikolas '

  'Go!' he insisted harshly, and she turned swiftly, a bright warm colour in her cheeks.

  But resentful as she was at being ordered so harshly, there was nevertheless a curious thrill of elation stirring in Bethany's blood as she obeyed him. It was a strange feeling to realise she had the power to push Nikolas to the point of losing that iron self-control of his, and it was a sensation she had to admit she enjoyed, although she wasn't sure she understood it.

  Alexia was quite frank about her feelings. She

  looked forward to the trip to Rhodes as excitedly as Takis did, and only Bethany was at all reluctant to go. It brought home to her, too, that for the first time in her life she was disturbingly at odds with the two people, next to Papa, who had always meant most in the world to her. It troubled her and she sought reasons for it.

  In part she attributed it to the reasons she had given Nikolas, but it was also because she had always had an aversion to change, especially when it meant leaving Apolidus. It was a feeling that probably stemmed from those restless years of wandering when, as a tiny child, she had been moved from one commune to another without ever being quite sure who her parents were, or where she belonged. In Apolidus she felt secure as she never had anywhere else.

  If she could have managed to elude Nikolas she would have stayed behind, even at the very last minute, when she came downstairs wearing a demurely pretty blue print dress that was at least two years old. She wore her hair loose and it had been brushed until it gleamed like burnished bronze, and she looked much less than her eighteen years.

  She found Nikolas alone when she came down into the living-room, and something about the way he smiled faintly when he first caught sight of her put her immediately on the defensive. *I suppose you think this dress a bit—ordinary for visiting rich relations,' she guessed, rashly aggressive because she suspected he was laughing at her very everyday little dress. *We don't have the latest fashions here, you know, and you didn't expect me to wear my Sunday black, did you?'

  'We can do something about buying you more clothes when we get to Rodos,' Nikolas told her. *In the meantime you have no need to feel you're the poor relation, Bethany.' He arched a black brow at her quizzically. 'That was behi
nd your outburst, wasn't it?'

  'I suppose so.' She avoided his eyes carefully when she answered. *I thought perhaps you found my dress '

  'It's very pretty and it suits you/ Nikolas told her, and the pitch of his voice was subtly different somehow, so that the colour warming her cheeks was something she couldn't help. 'You look very young, Bethany; it's very hard to believe you're eighteen. You remind me of my first sight of you, nearly four years ago —a beautiful child, coming up to womanhood.'

  Compliments like Nikolas paid her were a completely new experience, and affected her much more deeply than the bold whistles and laughter of the village youths. They could be laughed off, but somehow it was not possible to suspect him of being merely flighty. Stroking a hand over her hair, tawny in the sunlight from the window, she did her best to cope.

  'You didn't think much of me on that occasion,' she reminded him, then laughed unsteadily. *I suppose that hasn't changed much either, has it, Nikolas?'

  He had taken over Pavlos's old and overstuffed armchair, and he leaned back against the shabby cushions, completely at ease. His long legs crossed and his hands on the chair arms, he watched her where she stood in the sunlit window, and the shadows in the big room moulded curves and angles into his ruggedly handsome features, giving prominence to high cheekbones and a deeply cleft chin, making smudged shadows of the thick lashes hiding his slightly almond-shaped eyes.

  *Did it trouble you that I disapproved, Bethany?' he asked quietly, and she turned away from him uneasily, into the full sun, closing her eyes for a moment against its brilliance. 'Does it still trouble you?'

  'Not as much as it did.' She didn't bother to deny that it had troubled her, or that it still did, for he had not really needed to ask. *I hated you,' she added without turning her head, and she heard him click his tongue in the expression of impatience she was fast becoming familiar with. Turning to look over her shoulder, she angled her chin in defiance of his impatience. 'You don't believe it?' she challenged.