Apollo's Daughter

by Rebecca Stratton

  Nikolas stood for a moment or two, considering, then he nodded as if he had worked it out to his satisfaction. 'On second thoughts, I'll give you forty-eight hours instead of twenty-four for the charms of Apolidus to pall,' he told his brother. 'If you need it for

  longer ' He shrugged as if he doubted that was

  very likely, then went striding off, presumably to arrange the necessary accommodation.

  'A fine welcome!' Theo complained as he watched

  his brother depart, although he must have been sure that one person at least welcomed his unexpected arrival. *Don't you think I deserve better treatment from my brother. Aunt Alex?'

  Such an appeal could not fail, and Alexia looked at him with mingled reproach and resignation. *Oh, but of course you're welcome, Theo,' she assured him. *But you should take more care not to annoy Niko by speaking to him so—^rashly about matters he takes very seriously. As guardian to Takis and Bethany, Niko feels his responsibilities deeply, and does his best to protect their interests. You should remember that.'

  Such gentle scoldings as Alexia gave him did not trouble Theo in the least, he could shrug them off easily. What apparently concerned him at the moment was Bethany's so far rather lukewarm reception of him, and he determined to do something about it. Reaching for her hand, he held it tightly, kissing her fingers with a mere brush of his lips. 'You're glad to see me, aren't you, Bethany?' he pleaded.

  ^That's something else, Theo,' Alexia told him. 'You shouldn't be so—bold in your approach to Bethany. You know how Nikolas dislikes any display of '

  'Independence?' Theo suggested, and his voice betrayed the impatience he felt for such caution. 'Sweet Aunt Alex, such restrictions are going out of fashion and you must surely realise it. One no longer has to sit and simply look at a young woman when she is beautiful, it is not considered necessary to treat a lovely girl as if she was too sacred to be—touched.' He traced a finger along Bethany's arm, and smiled.

  A faint flush coloured Alexia's wrinkled brown cheeks. 'Perhaps,' she conceded cautiously, 'but I cannot help regretting the passing of some of our old customs, just as Nikolas does.'

  'Dear sweet aunt,' Theo drawled, and kissed her cheek with obviously genuine affection. 'Niko is a tyrant and you know it. He keeps a hard hand on Bethany and the other women in his family, but takes his pleasure where the women are less strictly con-

  trolled. I call that having double standards!'

  *Theo 1' Very obviously Alexia did not like the trend of the conversation at all, but she could not have thought herself capable of stopping it if Theo was of a mind to continue. 'Foreign women are different, and they '

  'Not only foreign women,' Theo argued. 'Greek women too. Aunt Alex; they're not all under the thumb of men like him, you know.'

  Alexia's softly gentle face was flushed, and if anger had ever showed in her eyes it did at that moment, for she had a very genuine respect as well as love for his older brother. 'Theo, I cannot allow that!' she insisted in a voice more forceful than any Bethany had ever heard her use. 'You speak as if Niko was the most unprincipled rake, and I refuse to believe you're not exaggerating out of all proportion!'

  Bethany had been listening with a curious kind of shrinking feeling inside her, and she as well as Alexia looked at Theo, waiting for him to confess to being wrong, or at least to exaggerating. It was a moment before he did anything at all, and then he beamed his dazzling smile at his aunt and kissed her again, loudly and enthusiastically, charming his way back into her good graces.

  'Of course I exaggerate, dear aunt,' he told her, 'but I cannot allow you to be deluded into believing Nikolas is as strictly puritanical as he might appear. He has a fondness for beautiful women that is at least equal to mine, although of course his tastes run more towards the sophisticated older woman. He's a man with the same desires as the rest of us, and he's never allowed his views to restrict him to my knowledge!'

  Bethany was feeling very small and inexplicably chill, and the protest she made was purely instinctive, because she could remember too clearly how it felt to be in Nikolas's arms, and the burning fierceness of his kisses. 'Don't talk like that, Theo!'

  'Bethany?'

  They both turned their heads and were looking at

  her as if they suspected she had suddenly taken leave of her senses, and it was during the ensuing few seconds that she realised just how vehement she had been. Swallowing hard, she made an effort to counter the impression, shaking her head as she sought the right words to explain her outburst.

  'It—it just doesn't seem right to talk about Nikolas like that when he isn't here,' she explained, and Theo's arched brow was faintly sardonic.

  Obviously he was taken aback, but his kind of confidence was quickly recovered and he was smiling again. 1 wouldn't dare speak about him like that when he is here/ he admitted Vith disarming candour. But her objection had obviously puzzled him and he sought a reason for it other than the one she offered. Taking her hand, he twined her slender fingers with his. *I'm surprised to hear you objecting, Bethany.'

  She preferred not to meet his eyes, and experienced a curious sense of shyness suddenly with those faintly quizzical dark eyes watching her. 1 just don't think it's right to talk about anyone on that subject when he's not here to give lie to what you say.'

  'Give lie?' Theo enquired gently, and brushed his lips across her fingers while he continued to watch her.

  'He is your brother,' Bethany reminded him.

  'Exactly,' Theo agreed in a quiet and unexpectedly sober voice, 'and in the circumstances I can claim to know him pretty well. But not as well, it seems, as you do, pretty cousin.'

  Bethany gave a brief, appealing glance in Alexia's direction, but Alexia seemed to be as puzzled by her attitude as Theo was. 'I didn't say I knew him well,' she denied, but Theo was smiling as if something about the situation intrigued him.

  'Who knows better how—traditional he can be?' he said. 'You must have hated having your wings clipped after the freedom you had enjoyed while Pavlos was alive. You must have hated him, eh?'

  Alexia was looking at her very oddly and Bethany wished she had not been so impulsively fervent about

  her objection. 'Of course I don't—I didn't hate him,' she denied. 'That's much too—too melodramatic, Theol'

  She recalled telling Alexia just how much she hated Nikolas the very first day he arrived there, but that seemed so long ago now, and a lot of things had changed. Not least her feelings towards Nikolas, although she did not stop to decide what exactly they were at that moment. Her whole emotional situation was in far too much doubt to be put into words. Instead she tried to explain that she was much less resentful than she had once been.

  1 haven't found it too bad,' she told him, 'although I admit that I resented being scolded and disciplined so often at first, until I realised it was quite reasonable to expect me to help Aunt Alex. Now '

  'Now?' Theo prompted softly, and she passed the tip of her tongue anxiously over her lips, remembering how thankful she had been for Nikolas's strength and comfort only a couple of hours since.

  'Now I'm used to him,' she confessed. 'He has a lot of good points and most of the things he says make sense, and he can be very—gentle.'

  *Aie' Theo murmured softly, and his dark, bright eyes watched the colour warm her cheeks. 'What has he done to bring about such a conversion, eh?'

  'Theo.'

  Once more Alexia's gentte voice warned him, but it was fairly clear that Bethany's reply troubled her in some way from the way she was looking at her and frowning slightly. Theo turned and smiled at her, but yet again quickly reverted his eyes to Bethany. 'I won't press the point,' he promised, having apparently taken heed of his aunt's warning after all, 'but take care, little cousin. That's far too fierce a lion for you to tame, and you could get hurt.'

  'You're talking nonsense, Theo!' She refused to take the implication seriously, especially in view of Nikolas's plans for her concerning Theo. 'You of all people should know how
he plans to marry me ofiE 1'

  The fact of Nikolas's preparing her for marriage with his brother rose once more to trouble her, and she almost wished she could have felt more deeply about Theo. All she felt was a liking, an affection even, but nothing like love, as she had always thought of it, and she could only cling to Nikolas's promise that he would never make her marry someone she did not love.

  But Theo was frowning at her curiously. 'Me?' he asked, and he looked so genuinely puzzled that she could not doubt he knew nothing about the combined future Nikolas had planned for them.

  She shook her head uneasily, realising that Alexia looked so anxious because she had passed on something that Nikolas had told her in confidence, and she did her best to cover her near slip. 'Well, you're surely in his confidence, aren't you?' she asked, and realised that she sounded just a little too bright and breathless. 1 thought he might have told you who my bridegroom was to be.'

  *Not a word,' Theo assured her, but she noticed that he was much more sober suddenly, and watched her closely while he spoke. *But you won't let him get away with that, surely, Bethany? Not with marrying you off to somebody you might not even like.'

  *Oh, I won't,' she said, but hoped it would never come to the point of having to openly defy Nikolas on that particular question. With a shrug she got up from the table and began to clear away the coffee cups, her smile strangely wistful. 'He did promise that I shouldn't have to marry anyone I don't love, and I'm sure he won't break his word; not Niko.'

  *Oh, he won't,' Theo agreed quietly, and she looked across and caught his eye, noticing how darkly serious they were. *But not being made to marry someone you don't love isn't quite the same as being able to marry someone you do love, is it, cousin?'

  Bethany stood for a moment, studying his darkly handsome face and trying to follow his meaning. Then she shook her head and began once more to gather up the coffee cups. 'I imagine not,' she said.

  Bethany had seldom suffered from sleeplessness, but sleep seemed impossible for her that night. Theo had gone very reluctantly to claim the room that Nikolas had booked for him at the taverna, and left no one in any doubt that he did not consider he was being treated as he should be. Alexia would clearly like to have offered him space in Ta;kis*s room, but she would never openly go against Nikolas's wishes.

  Bethany had felt a curious sense of relief that he would not be sleeping in the house, although she could not really have said why she did not trust Theo in the same way she did his brother. Particularly in view of those discomfiting remarks he had made about Niko-las's penchant for the opposite sex. Not that she believed he was anything like as bad as Theo implied, she told herself, but there was something oddly disturbing about thinking of him with other women.

  It must have been about two or three in the morning, Bethany guessed, when she got out of bed, and her restlessness was such that she went roaming quietly downstairs. There was a moon, a little past full, and she needed no other light to find her way for she knew every inch of the old house by heart. She passed through the living-room and her nightgown whispered, softly pale, past the familiar looming shapes of the furniture, and along to her stepfather's studio.

  She had no idea why she had come there. But standing in the familiar room among the evidence of Pavlos's creativity she felt comfortingly close to him for a while as she roamed around the room touching the marble and terracotta figures with light fingertips, and remembering. The bust of the village child he had been working on when he died was still wrapped in its protective cloths, but they had dried out now, she noticed, and it was a sharp reminder that the figure was never going to be finished. Such a sharp reminder that for a moment she felt the pain of his loss all over again, and bit hard on her bottom lip.

  The painting of her mother still hung on the wall, barely discernible in the shadowy moonlight, but what

  features she could not actually see, she could fill in from memory. The almost sly look in the eyes and the mouth with its sensual half-smile, as if she shsired a secret with the artist who had been her husband and Bethany's father. The mysterious Apollo who had drifted briefly back into her life and out again, without even identifying himself.

  She recalled the man himself and the marble reproduction of those stunningly handsome features as one impression; then wondered why Papa had never immortalised Megan in marble as Megan had done her handsome first husband. Or perhaps that had been his reason for not doing so. She thought of Papa's hurt when Megan returned to her Apollo and how he had wept, and she was so deeply engrossed in the secret and selfish behaviour of her natural parents that she heard nothing until a voice spoke her name softly in the shadowy moonlight.

  'Bethany?'

  Swinging round quickly, she stared with her mouth open and breathed as in panic, for the voice was deep and soft and brought a curious sense of anticipation that she did not begin to understand. She looked and felt very small standing there in her plain cotton nightgown with her feet bare and her tawny hair tossed and rumpled from trying to get to sleep.

  Nikolas stood just behind her, his lean length wrapped in a cotton robe that stopped short just below his knees and showed long brown legs and bare feet. His hair too was rumpled and it gave him a much less severe look than usual that was comforting in the present circumstances. She looked at him warily for the first few moments while she tried to still the almost choking urgency of her heartbeat.

  'I couldn't sleep,' she explained, in a small voice that was little more than a whisper but seemed somehow to find an echo in the shadowy corners of the room.

  'You've had rather a shattering day,' Nikolas reminded her, and the unmistakable sympathy in his voice reminded her of how he had brought her most of

  the way home held close in the curve of his arm. *You must try not to brood on things you can't change, Bethany. It's over and done with and I don't imagine Apollo is ever going to appear again to trouble you.'

  How could she tell him that in one small corner of her heart she wished he would? Instead she nodded jerkily, her tawny head bowed as she studied her bare toes peeping out from below the hem of her nightgown. *I don't suppose he will,' she agreed, then looked up at him and smiled ruefully. 'Couldn't you sleep either, Niko?' The familiar use of his name seemed more and more natural to her lately, and she liked its suggestion of intimacy.

  *I heard something.*

  She could just make out the gleaming darkness of his eyes and for some reason was reminded of the night he had brought her home from her moonlight swim. It seemed scarcely credible that it was such a short time ago and she wondered if he remembered it as vividly as she did. A gleam of white teeth confirmed the fact that he was smiling, and she remembered hazily that his room was almost immediately above the studio.

  *I'm sorry,' she murmured. 'I tried not to wake anyone.'

  'You didn't wake me, I was already awake or I probably wouldn't even have heard you.' He took a step nearer and stood looking down at her face for a moment; creamy pale in the moonlight and with the grey eyes shadowed by their heavy lashes to a darkness

  almost as deep as his own. *I suspected it might be '

  He seemed to have second thoughts about what he had started to say, and shook his head slowly. 'You might have been a thief who'd broken in.'

  'We don't have that kind of trouble here,' she told him, wishing that she did not tremble so much or that she did not have such an aching desire to be held in his arms and comforted. There was no possible reason why she should need that kind of comforting, but still the feeling persisted and she shook her head, impatient with herself. 'Where would a thief run to in Apolidus?'

  she asked with a shivery little laugh. 'Everyone here is known to everyone else, except when someone occasionally comes from outside, like Theo/ She broke off there because it suddenly occurred to her what he was going to say when he told her he suspected it might be—and stopped himself there. *You thought Theo might be here, didn't you, Nikolas?'

  The words came almost of their own v
olition and she bit hard on her lower lip while she waited for him to answer her. It was instinctive when she closed her eyes briefly and he reached out and took her chin in his hand, holding her so that a shaft of moonlight from the window fell directly across her face. His fingers were hard and strong, but their hold was more suggestive of a caress than of force as they curved into her jaw.

  *I wouldn't have been surprised to find him here,' he agreed, and Bethany took heed of the edge on his voice even though it was barely above a whisper. 'I'm only thankful that I didn't find you together—does that answer your question?'

  Her heart was thudding heavily, and she was alarmed to realise how easy it would be to become angry with him, when only seconds ago she had been longing to be in his arms. *In fact what you mean is that you believe I might be here to see him!' There was something infinitely disturbing about standing there in the moonlit studio with him, just as there had been about that first time on the moonlit hillside, and she found herself speculating on the |X)ssibility of being kissed again as she had been that night. 'Oh, Niko,' she whispered, 'why should you think that? Don't you trust me?'

  She half expected him to become angry, but instead he lifted a strand of her hair and let it run through his fingers like silken threads on to her bare shoulders, and she shivered slightly. 'It's Theo I didn't trust,' he confessed with obvious unwillingness. 'I know his dislike of losing when he's set his heart on getting something he particularly wants.'

  'But he wouldn't come here.'

  Bethany wasn't sure whether she believed that or not, but obviously Nikolas had no doubt at all, and he was nodding his head. 'Oh, but he would, child—for you.'

  It was curious, the feeling she had as she stood there listening to him declare his brother quite capable of sneaking out of his room at the taverna to come and see her. Not simply to see her, Bethany knew, she was not so naive, and she remembered Theo's jibe about Nikolas protecting his ewe lamb from the wolves, and Nikolas's ready admission of it. Theo would find such protectiveness an irresistible challenge.