Second-Best Bride

by Margaret Rome

  'Have I any other option, guardian angel?' he countered dryly, yet with a hint of expectation that caused her to smile.

  'Not really,' she admitted cheerfully. 'I'll find Nikos and tell him to have two horses saddled up by the time we've changed.'

  Half an hour later they were each preparing to mount one of the two horses standing nuzzling noses outside the villa. Ruefully, Angie compared her ancient slacks and faded blouse with Terzan's impeccable shirt and riding breeches, her sandals with his leather knee-high boots, polished to perfection yet supple with constant use.

  'Endaksi!' Nikos beamed approval as he stepped back after helping each of them into the saddle. Then anxiously he encouraged, I’m certain, kirie, that you will soon discover a leading rein is unnecessary. These two horses are friends, therefore if you keep to the inside, I'm sure you'll find that you can keep in company with the little Anghlika without difficulty.'

  Tm sure you are right,' Terzan agreed with alacrity, too much alacrity for Angie's peace of mind., 'Except in the company of a really expert horseman, a leading rein can be positively dangerous. On second thoughts, I feel I am too much of a coward to put myself at the mercy of my wife's bird-boned wrists,' he grinned to soften the blow of rejection, 'so I'll follow your advice, Nikos, and handle my own reins.'

  ‘I’m quite capable—' Angie began a heated objection.

  'Keep quiet, please!' he ordered sharply as their horses began picking their way along the drive. 'What I lack in sight I must make up for by concentrating hard upon the sounds around me.'

  With her heart in her mouth, she confined her speech to directions, having to tell him often at first to move over more to the left or to the right, then gradually sensing, as they travelled along the route Nikos had indicated, that he was managing to keep pace without conscious effort.

  Curiously, she closed her eyes, trying to simulate I blindness, and discovered that being transported on horseback through a dense black void was com­parable to the terror of jumping off the edge of a cliff, completely at the mercy of Providence, the sound of hoofbeats, the jangle of a bit, the creak of a saddle, barely audible above the pounding of her heartbeats in her ears. 'Talk to me!' Terzan commanded, momentarily relaxed and at ease in the saddle. 'I know I'm contradictory, but the sound of your voice is important, it helps me to pinpoint exactly where you are.'

  'What about . . .?' she stammered, completely caught out.

  ‘It doesn't matter in the least,' he snapped, quickly irritated. 'Tell me your girlish secrets if you like, I shan't be listening. All I want to hear is the sound of your voice, for to the blind,' he stressed impatiently, 'silence is far from golden.'

  'Perhaps it might be better if I describe our sur­roundings as we go along,' she suggested hastily, wary of his lashing tongue. 'We're about to turn off to the left towards a steep winding road that seems to level off on to a plateau. To our right, far below us, lies the sea, and in the distance I can see a clutch of white sun-drenched houses that could almost be hanging from the side of a hill covered by orchards, I think ...'

  He nodded. 'Orange, lemon, fig, olive and grape,' he confirmed. 'The village you mentioned is the place where leather peasant boots are made, the islanders have worn them as protection against snakebites since ancient times.'

  'Yes, I've noticed,' Angie affirmed eagerly.

  'Actually, they're knee-high, but most of the girls seem to wear them folded down to their ankles.'

  'We'll stop when we reach the village, if you like,' Terzan suggested, seeming almost on the verge of a yawn, in the streets and courtyards there are some very fine examples of chochlaki.'

  Resentful of his bored tone, Angie hastened to air her knowledge before he had a chance to elaborate, I've already seen quite a number of church floors patterned in black and white sea pebbles. This style of pebble mosaic is typical of most of the Aegean islands, I believe?'

  Her slightly huffed tone seemed to amuse him; he almost smiled as he nodded acknowledgement of her grasp of local history. But much to her regret he seemed to interpret from her words a disinclination to stop, for he made no further reference to it as they passed through the one main street just wide enough to accommodate the horses.

  As they headed towards the plateau Angie felt herself beginning to wilt. She cast an envious eye over Terzan, who was wearing a hat with a brim pulled well down, almost touching the rims of the dark glasses that were essential to protect his eyes from the very same sun that had melted down the wings of Icarus. She dared not complain, for to do I so would be an admission that once again she had ignored his order that she was never to stroll in the sunshine with her head uncovered. So she kept her lashes lowered in a vain attempt to forestall a headache jabbing painfully behind her eyes.

  Her relief was enormous when, after crossing the plateau, the road began descending and was soon swallowed into a narrow, heavily-wooded gorge filled with green shade and scented with resin.

  'We'll tether the horses and continue on foot,' Terzan decided, identifying their location by the resinous smell and the sound of running water. 'The paths through the woods are winding and the footbridges narrow.'

  He slid from the saddle and waited, giving her time to hook the bridles over the branch of a tree, then surprised her with a wide, boyish grin. 'Take my hand, I know every inch of this gorge. Come, let me show it to you.'

  She was glad to let him lead the way along paths slicing cool through banked-up fern, sometimes slippery underfoot, and occasionally made treacher­ous by the exposed roots of trees poking upwards to trip the unwary. But with the surefooted stride of one who is on familiar and well-loved territory, he managed to avoid each obstacle in their path until, with an attitude of proud achievement, he halted in a small clearing refreshed by a crystal-clear stream.

  'May we sit for a while?' Angie gasped, then slumped without waiting for permission by the side of the stream to splash cool water on to her violently throbbing temples.

  'What's wrong?' he rapped in a tone sharp with suspicion.

  'Nothing.' She forced a trill of nervous laughter. 'Except that I'm a product of a cool English cli­mate, unused to such heat even in high summer. Sit beside me,' she urged, trying desperately to lull his suspicions, 'and tell me why you love this place so much, why you told Nikos to direct me here?'

  To her great relief his frame, towering as a Colossus, relaxed as he sank down beside her. ‘I’ll do better than that, I'll show you.' Her puzzlement grew when he instructed: ‘Inhale deeply. Can you smell the resin? It is this same resin that attracts the Quadrina butterfly to this valley each year. When their wings are folded they are camouflaged a dark brown colour that renders them invisible when they settle on to the barks of trees or upon the rocks. But when they are in flight the full glory of their wings is exposed. Like this ...!'

  The clap of his hands ran pistol-sharp through the quiet woods and immediately the air came alive with the fluttering of thousands of flimsy wings a black, brown, white and orange curtain of gauze that lifted and billowed for a moment over their heads before drifting soundlessly out of sight.

  Angie stared, wondering if she had imagined the glorious spectacle, the magical splendour of a host of butterflies in simultaneous flight. 'How... splendid,' she groped, conscious that the word was inadequate to describe a beauty that had moved her almost to tears. 'Thank you for bringing me here,' she said huskily, ‘I shall treasure the memory for the rest of my life.'

  ‘I know exactly how you feel,' he jerked, his pro­file tightening with a spasm of pain. 'When I last watched the butterflies I remember feeling the same sense of awe. At that time, of course,' his voice roughened, ‘I had no way of knowing that I was never to see them again, that any future enjoy­ment would depend absolutely upon my ability to remember. Unfortunately,' he grated with a bit­terness that made her shudder, 'memory, like woman, is usually unfaithful.'

  'Sometimes,' a catch caught in her voice, 'it's a mercy that some memories do fade, for if they didn't we might
live our lives in a state of constant bitterness and regret.' She was thinking solely of him, worried by his cynical attitude towards mem­bers of her own sex, the way his dislike and mis­trust of the women he had known had eroded his character. But he jumped to the conclusion that she was speaking personally, obliquely reminding him that he had played a major role in her own unpleasant memories.

  Temper reared—a stallion he was unable to tame—lending to his tone the distant arrogance of a Greek god. ‘I don't see what you have to com­plain about,' he told her coldly, 'you came to Karios a pauper, but will leave a rich divorcee!'

  Angie gasped, appalled by the cruel thrust ren­dered all the more painful because of the harmony that had preceded it. In a state of high agitation she jumped to her feet, then had to clutch her throbbing temples.

  'How can you be so heartless?' she choked. 'You take over people as you do companies, pouncing like a vulture when they're at their weakest, cal­culating their worth in terms of gain to yourself, exploiting them to the uttermost and then tossing them aside immediately they outlive their use­fulness. No wonder you're known throughout the business world as an asset stripper!'

  Terzan rose, casting his shadow over her stricken face, and without a trace of compunction assured her coolly, 'You are the only asset I have ever! found pleasure in stripping.'

  Only a blind man could have remained un moved by the rush of colour that stained her cheeks, by her trembling mouth and by the pain that leapt into wounded eyes. The only sound in the clearing was the trickle of water over a stony bed, the buzz of a nearby bee, the rapid drumming, of her heartbeats as she forcibly reminded herself that his cruelty stemmed from the frustration of not being able to see, that his flashpoint temper was a safety valve and that therefore his insults should be quickly forgiven. She found it amazingly difficult, however, to manage to rebuke him gently: 'You seem determined to humiliate me, Terzan, to treat me as a substitute for the fiancée who deserted you, for the aunt whose cruelty you resented, and for all those other women who tried to twist your blindness into an instrument of gain. Please try to remember that I'm your wife,' her voice developed a sudden wobble, 'and not a stand-in for Cilla.'

  'Aren't you?' His cold rain of sarcasm threatened to beat her to her knees. 'Forgive me, but I thought that was exactly the reason your sister sent you here. I don't think I shall ever forgive her for that,' his voice developed a resentful snarl. 'To be blind is bad enough, but if only she had come herself I would have been spared the additional burden of despair.'

  CHAPTER TEN

  On their return journey they stopped to eat lunch at a tavema, a modest establishment with a few rough wooden tables and chairs set out beneath a vine-covered pergola in a garden overlooking the sea, but with a proprietor who fussed with delight from the moment of their arrival and food which at any other time Angie would have found superbly tempting.

  But as it was, she did no more than toy with the dzadziki that Terzan chose as an appetiser, a chilled dip of yogourt, garlic, cucumber, oil and vinegar whipped together to make a tangy cream. A silken breeze was rustling the trees behind her, the air drew soft and warm across her shoulders, yet she shivered, feeling her skin cold and clammy.

  She yearned to be back at the villa, not just be­cause the harmony they had shared had com­pletely disappeared, but because of a wave of nausea that made her hasten to refuse a helping of moussaka that Terzan enjoyed with obvious relish, and to push aside the bowl of succulent peaches and freshly gathered grapes that the pro­prietor tried to press upon her. Terzan said nothing, seemingly deaf to the man's efforts to coax her to eat and to her unusually terse re­fusals, then proved that he was not quite so indifferent as he appeared by remarking caustic­ally:

  'Heaven preserve me from a moody woman! As a sullen temperament seldom mellows with age, it is a relief to know that we are not destined to spend the rest of our lives together.'

  ‘I'm not moody!' Angie protested weakly. 'And never in my life have I been accused of being sullen. I'm simply not hungry—I think perhaps the heat has a lot to do with my lack of appetite, it came upon us so suddenly I haven't had time to become acclimatised.'

  'Are you feeling unwell?' His head lifted sharply.

  'Of course not,' she lied through gritted teeth, ‘I'm feeling just a little lethargic'

  ‘In that case,' the grating of his chair acted like a knife thrust through her temples, 'let us make back home immediately.'

  Conscious of the desperate importance of hanging on to her senses, and especially anxious not to betray the trust that had allowed him to blindly follow her lead, she fought the giddiness, the nausea, the cold shivers that gradually became more frequent, and concentrated upon describing the cypresses, lemon and olive trees falling in graceful swathes towards tiny coves, and deserted beaches washed by sea glittering in the sunshine with all the colours of a peacock's tail, almost babbling in her effort to appear normal.

  They stopped twice, once to pass the time of day with a man who was leading his donkey to the olive groves, and again to accept an offering of fresh lemon juice from an old lady sitting on her porch crocheting dainty lace which she intended using as edging for a pillowcase she was making for her granddaughter's trousseau.

  Angie was feeling definitely lightheaded by the time they breasted the hill and began cantering towards the villa, which was why she doubted the evidence of her eyes and had to strain to focus seaward to where a yacht was retreating towards the skyline, its occupants on deck waving an en­thusiastic farewell to the girl they had obviously just deposited upon the jetty, a slim, vivacious golden-haired figure surrounded by piles of suit­cases.

  Her laughter must have sounded quite hysterical to his ears, her voice barely recognisable when she slid from her mount at the entrance to the villa and croaked:

  'Your devil's luck has not deserted you, it seems it's sufficient for you just to voice a wish to have it immediately granted. Only a short while ago you expressed regret at Cilla's absence and now, lo and behold, she's arrived!'

  The following minutes passed in a dream or, more truthfully, in a nightmare. Servants were sent scattering in every direction to prepare a room, to provide a refreshing drink, to set an extra place at the dinner table, to transport the luggage and to escort their unexpected guest up to the villa.

  Angie was standing trembling by Terzan's side when Cilla erupted into the hallway. 'Darlings!' She flung her arms wide. 'How delightful to see you both looking so well. Come along, Angie,' she tilted an inviting cheek, but kept her sparkling eyes fastened upon Terzan's impassive features, 'have you no welcoming kiss for your sister?'

  'Yes, of course . . .' Angie stumbled forward, trying to focus through eyes glazed with pain, then shocked everyone present by sliding in a dead faint at her sister's feet.

  Perhaps it was a subconscious reluctance to face unpleasantness that prevented her from respond­ing to Crisulla's expert nursing, to the complete rest, the icy-wet towels bound round her head, that formed the basis of the treatment for heat exhaus­tion that was competently diagnosed. It ought to have taken less than twenty-four hours for the treatment to work, yet almost two days had passed by the time she became aware of a hand soothing an ice cube over her brow, and before she opened her eyes to see a room dimmed by shutters and Crisulla's concerned face looming over her bed.

  'Sigha . . . sigha . . .!' For once, Crisulla's eyes were devoid of a twinkle as she urged Angie to remain still. Then from behind her shoulder Lira appeared carrying a bowl of water bobbing with cubes of ice.

  'Arketa . ..!' Crisulla waved it away, and with a look of relief Lira deposited it on a nearby table before returning with a gratifying smile of pleasure to the bedside.

  'Thank heaven you are better!' she exclaimed, ‘I don't think we shall ever recover from the fright you gave us—especially not the kirios, who raged demented when we explained that you had fainted from the heat. Nikos bore the brunt of his dis­pleasure because it was he who should have noticed that you h
ad forgotten to wear your sun-hat. "What use is sight," the kirios lashed out in his fury, "to an idiot without brains to use it?'" She clasped her hands together in an ecstasy of wonder. 'Ah, me . . .!' she sighed, her simple pea­sant mind immune to undercurrents, 'how wonder­ful to be loved by a man such as the kirios.' As if reminded of an order, she spun on her heel, ‘I must tell him the good news, he has missed you very much, even though he has been consoled by the presence of your sister.'

  The very idea of Terzan erupting into her room was enough to revive Angie's anxiety about her appearance. Gingerly she levered herself upwards on to the pillows Crisulla rushed to place behind her head and was relieved to discover that though she felt weak her headache had completely gone.

  In spite of Crisulla's objections, she insisted upon leaving her bed to stagger across to the bath­room where, with willing help, she enjoyed a tepid bath, then sat waiting, dressed in a crisp yellow nightdress and with a band of matching ribbon tied round damply-curling hair, while the house­keeper stripped off crumpled sheets and placed freshly laundered covers on her bed.

  But neither Terzan nor Cilla seemed in any hurry to visit the patient. After a very light meal of toast and melon, Angie sank back against her pil­lows to wait, tense with anticipation, for the scold­ing she could expect from her husband and for Cilla's unknown reaction to the news that her ex-fiancé was now married to her sister.

  Why had she come? Angie fretted away the hours guessing the answers to a score of questions. How was her father coping without help? And most important of all, how did Terzan feel about the sudden reappearance of the girl he had never ceased to love? Was he regretting his hasty mar­riage, or had he already consoled Cilla with the assurance that their marriage was merely one of convenience and had never, been intended to last?

  She dozed, worn out by abortive conjecture, then was startled awake by the unusual sound of Terzan's laughter echoing down the passageway outside. By the time he tapped lightly upon her door and ushered Cilla inside the room she was waiting, all delicacy and dignity, sitting straight in her modest nightdress against a backdrop of lace-edged pillows.