by Sara Craven
‘And you did not?’
‘Oh, naturally.’ She sat down on the edge of the bed, and poured herself some coffee. ‘It’s always been an ambition of mine to be-—deflowered by an expert. I shall remember it as the highlight of the trip.’
There was an electric silence, then he said silkily, ‘But you have forgotten. It is my intention to supply you with a more tangible reminder of your stay here.’
Her cup clattered back on to the tray. She felt all the colour drain out of her face. Involuntarily her hand flew to the flatness of her stomach. ‘No.’
‘You have some reason for thinking you are immune?’
She had no reason at all, and she wished desperately she’d listened more closely to the information which would have told whether it was likely. She supposed it could be.
She had been so busy fighting her attraction to him, that she had indeed forgotten that last stark threat to make her pregnant.
He said, his tone dry, ‘The idea does not seem to appeal to you. You would not like to carry my child under your heart?’
It was agonising to realise there was little she would like more, if only ... She snapped such thoughts off at the roots. They were futile, and could be heartbreaking.
She made herself meet his gaze, lifting her chin defiantly. ‘I wouldn’t carry it,’ she said. ‘In England, we have resources to deal with such problems.’
‘But only within a certain length of time, I understand. How do you know I would let you go in time?’
She said in a low voice, ‘Because I don’t believe that even you could be that cruel. You said you wanted my family to suffer? Just knowing that I was pregnant by a man they’d never met would be enough for that.’
The dark face was hard. ‘Well, let us wait and see.’
She said almost inaudibly, ‘Yes.’ Then, more strongly. ‘Could I have my case, please. I’d—I’d like to get dressed.’
‘Then you shall.’ From the doorway he looked back at her. ‘Eat something, pedhi mou.’ He sounded faintly mocking. ‘To starve yourself now will solve nothing.’
She said coolly, ‘I suppose not.’ She reached for the bread, took a piece, added butter and honey, and bit into it, marvelling at her own outward calm.
But he was right about one thing, she thought as she listened to him go down the stairs. There was only one solution, as there always had been, and that was escape.
Back in her own clothes she looked and felt more like the Gemma of old, she decided, taking a critical look at herself in the mirror. He had left her alone to change, which she hadn’t altogether expected, and when she heard him come back into the room, she tensed slightly, waiting for some sardonic remark. But although the dark eyes took in every detail of the plainly cut cream shift, and the low-heeled sandals which matched it, he said nothing.
He glanced at his watch. ‘It is time we were going. It’s a long drive.’
Gemma examined a fleck on one of her nails. She said, ‘I’ve changed my mind. I’d prefer to stay here.’
‘With Cerberus?’ he asked mockingly.
‘With anyone, or anything,’ she said. ‘I hope I make myself clear.’
‘As the finest crystal,’ he returned civilly, but she could detect an undertone of anger. He walked over to her and took her chin in his hand. He said, ‘Do nothing foolish, my dove.’
She shrugged. ‘What could I do? I imagine I’m still persona non grata in the village, you’re taking the jeep, and I shall have my jailer. Getting my clothes back doesn’t really make all that difference.’
He smiled rather grimly. ‘You are wrong, believe me, matia mou. They make all the difference in the world.’ He bent and kissed her on the mouth, then left the room and went downstairs.
Gemma unpacked her case, and put her things away, but in her own room, not the one they had shared. Defiantly, she shook out a simple broderie anglaise nightdress and arranged it on the bed.
She was just putting the last dress on the hanging rail, when she heard Cerberus bark below.
Andreas was in the living room waiting for her, his hand on the dog’s collar. He said, ‘Here is your companion.’ He paused. ‘Can I bring you anything from Aghios Nikolaos?’
‘No thank you.’ She would have loved some more books, but would have died rather than tell him so.
‘A different brand of perfume perhaps?’
‘No.’ She glared at him.
For a moment it seemed as if he was going to say something else, but he merely shrugged, and went down the terrace steps, and presently she heard the jeep drive off.
She sank down on to the sofa, and began to cry very softly, the tears running unchecked down her face and dripping on to her skirt.
She heard an anxious snuffling whine, and then Cerberus was beside her, pushing his formidable nose on to her lap, and presenting all the signs of a sheep in wolfs clothing.
She said brokenly, ‘Oh Cerberus—I should hate him, but I can’t. It’s only been a couple of days, but it seems like a lifetime, and it will be too, because I’ll love him until I die.’
She didn’t seem to be making a lot of sense, but Cerberus seemed to understand, because he whined again and allowed her to put her wet cheek on top of his massive head. He smelled strongly of dog, and he was probably infested with fleas, but Gemma put her arm round his shaggy neck and hugged him and knew an odd comfort.
Presently she sat up, scrubbing the tears fiercely from her face with her hand. Andreas didn’t give a damn about her. He was and always had been using her, as he’d made brutally clear, and it was no use sitting moping all day.
She got up, hooking two fingers into Cerberus’ collar with what she hoped he would recognise as confidence. ‘You and I,’ she told him, ‘are going for a walk.’
He couldn’t have known the word, but perhaps he recognised the tone of voice, because to her amazement he trotted along obediently beside her. Once outside the house, she didn’t even hold on to his collar any more. There was a slight contretemps outside the gate when Gemma turned towards the track up the mountain, when Cerberus clearly thought they should be going to the village, but that was soon resolved.
‘You’re a fraud,’ Gemma told him pulling one of his ears. ‘I let you terrify the life out of me yesterday, yet I bet at home you fetch people’s slippers, and roll over and die for your master.’
He grinned, showing the kind of teeth nightmares are made of, and she said, ‘And there again, perhaps not.’
The track proved to be very much as Andreas had said, only rather steeper and stonier. Gemma found it hard going. The stones kept slipping and rolling under her feet. Once she nearly fell, and another time twisted her ankle badly enough to have to sit on a boulder and swear at it.
Certainly it was the last sort of place that any pregnant woman should be scrambling about on, she thought, grimacing. She’d been thinking of Maria, but of course the same thing could apply to herself.
Could it possibly be true? She did some swift calculations, and realised it wouldn’t be too long before she would have proof, one way or the other. It was a shattering realisation, underlining with humiliating force her own naivete about the workings of her body and emotions. But then, how could she have expected her life to change so fast and so violently, she asked herself despairingly. Up to only a short time ago, her body had been her own private domain, and she’d been content for it to be so until she met the man she could love, until the tender leisurely courtship she’d envisaged took place, culminating eventually in a marriage when her white dress and veil would mean more than mere tradition.
She’d expected love to come to her like a gentle breeze blowing across the summer of her life—not a hurricane sweeping her crazily away, she thought helplessly.
She struggled up the last few yards of the track and emerged panting on to a small plateau. The view to the valley was dizzyingly spectacular, but was it this Maria came to see?
Beside her Cerberus barked excitedly, and took off towards what she’d first thou
ght was a pile of stones under the cliff wall, but which Gemma now realised must be the remains of the shepherd’s hut Andreas had mentioned.
It had been constructed out of the materials closest to hand, she thought as she approached. There was a low door, but no windows, and an apology for a roof made from brushwood.
Cerberus had vanished inside and was giving little muffled yelps, and she followed, bending to avoid cracking her head on what passed for a lintel. It was very dark inside, and it smelt of animals. Presumably on occasion the sheep and goats slept there along with their herders, she thought, wrinkling her nose, and this must be what was exciting Cerberus.
As her eyes became accustomed to the gloom, however, she began to realise the hut had been occupied and recently. There was a tin plate, still with traces of food, which Cerberus was investigating noisily, a water bottle, and reposing on a pile of scrub which had been pulled together in a comer to form a bed, a sleeping bag.
Gemma’s mouth went dry suddenly. The pattern of the bag, dark blue with a red lining, was familiar. She half-knelt beside it, her fingers searching the lining just inside the zip until she found what she was looking for. She knew it was there, because she’d sewn it in herself, a long time ago, and not very neatly either. She looked down at the narrow strip of fabric, and the words ‘Michael Leslie’ danced before her eyes. Mike’s sleeping bag. So he was here, living rough in this hut, hiding from Maria’s family. She pressed her knuckles against her mouth like a frightened child. So this was why Maria was braving that awful scramble—because Mike was relying on her for food and other essentials.
She shivered. Had either of them considered what the consequences might be if Maria’s relatives became suspicious of her daily jaunts and followed?
She remembered that stomach-churning drop to the valley floor, and felt sick. One of her main consolations had been that Mike was well away from Loussenas, out of immediate danger from Maria’s justifiably resentful family.
She licked her dry lips. Yet here he was, within half a mile of the village, liable to discovery by anyone with the same measure of idle curiosity as herself.
And it hurt, too, to think that Maria must have told him she was at the Villa Ione and why, yet he’d made no attempt to help her, or even send her a message.
He must be terrified, Gemma thought, biting her lip. And he must have little faith that her sacrifice—that the vengeance already exacted— would be enough to satisfy the blow to the pride of Stavros and his family. He must know that he was in peril, too.
Cerberus lifted his head, whined sharply and was gone, his body darkly silhouetted against the sunlit doorway. At the same moment, Gemma heard the sound of a footstep, and rose sharply, her heart thudding unevenly. She said shakily, ‘Mike?’ and moved into the sunlight. For a moment it dazzled her, but not enough to make her think, even for a minute, that it was really Mike standing in front of her.
The hands which gripped her shoulders, hurting her, were only too familiar.
His voice shaken by rage, Andreas said, ‘What in the name of God are you doing here?’
‘I came for a walk,’ she said defensively. ‘I thought you were going to Aghios Nikolaos. Why did you come back?’
‘Because I didn’t trust you,’ he said bitingly. ‘And it seems I was right. When I found the house empty, I remembered the questions you’d asked about the mountain, and followed.’ He shook her. ‘You little fool, this is not the place for a casual stroll. You could have fallen—injured yourself—and for what—a glimpse of a wilderness?’
She dragged herself free. ‘Thank you for your concern,’ she flashed. ‘Is it for me, or for the seed you’re so egotistically sure you’ve planted in me?’
His eyes blazed at her, making her shrink away from him. ‘How dare you speak to me in such a way...’ He stopped abruptly, clearly fighting the loss of his temper. There was a silence, then he said, ‘I ask again, Gemma, what are you doing here?’ He looked past her to the hut, his eyes narrowing. ‘Or must I guess?’
She said in a thread of a voice, ‘No..but before she could intervene, he was past her, bending his tall body beneath the low door. She waited, trembling with apprehension, as long minutes seemed to drag past.
He rejoined her, his face set and grim. He said softly, half to himself, ‘So this is where he has been—all this time. If Stavros had known—if we had all only known.’
She said urgently, ‘Andreas—don’t tell anyone— please.’
His mouth curled. ‘You can plead for him—this worthless brother of yours? When he has been hiding here like a coward, letting you pay the price of his folly?’
‘Perhaps he doesn’t know,’ she said desperately. ‘Perhaps he’s only just returned.’
His glance was contemptuous. ‘He has been there for days. Didn’t you count the number of cigarette ends?’
She looked at him dazedly. ‘Cigarette ends? But Mike doesn’t smoke.’
He shrugged. ‘Then he has started since you saw him last.’
‘No,’ Gemma said with conviction. ‘He never would. He’s a botanist—mad on ecology. He looks on cigarettes as a source of pollution—a health hazard. He wouldn’t use them under any circumstances.’
His gaze was still sceptical. ‘Fear can do strange things to a man.’
‘Nor,’ she said clearly, ‘is he a coward.’
There was a brief tense silence as they looked at each other. Then Andreas turned abruptly, whistling to Cerberus who had retired to a safe distance and was sitting, watching them. ‘Come.’ His hand closed round hers. ‘We will go down.’ Although she would have died rather than admit it, she was thankful he was there as she slid and slithered behind him down to firmer ground.
He didn’t relinquish her hand, and she almost had to trot to keep up with his long stride. She was breathless and indignant by the time they reached the top of the terrace steps. He pushed her ahead of him into the house.
He said arctically, ‘You have ruined your ridiculous shoes.’
Looking down, she saw that he was right. One of the straps on her sandal was hanging broken, and the leather was scuffed and spoiled. Her dress too was streaked with dust, and there were other marks on the skirt from where she’d knelt in the hut.
She said in a voice which quivered, ‘I’ll have to change.’
‘Then do so quickly.’
She glared at him. ‘Don’t give me orders. Besides—I’ve hurt my ankle. I can’t hurry.’
‘Allow me to help,’ he said. He picked her up in his arms as if she was a child, and carried her up the stairs to her room, setting her on her feet not too gently. His eyes scanned the rail of her clothes. He pulled out a dress, sleeveless and full skirted in glazed cotton and tossed it to her. ‘Wear this,’ he directed. ‘I shall return in a few minutes. Be ready to leave with me then.’
She swallowed, fumbling for the zip of her dress. ‘Where are you going?’
‘To the village.’
‘To—to tell them about Michael?’
He exhaled impatiently. ‘That is not your concern.’
‘Whatever he’s done, he’s my brother.’ She slid the dress off her shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. She stepped out of the little heap of crumpled fabric, and walked across to him, putting a hand on his arm, raising her face pleadingly to his. He looked back at her expressionlessly, but she knew what he was seeing—her body, barely covered in the wisp of bra which lifted her breasts, the lacy triangle veiling her womanhood. She whispered achingly, ‘Andreas—please don’t give him away—for my sake. I’d do anything...’ She paused, half-expecting him to draw her close, but he didn’t move. She lifted her hand, sliding it inside the opening of his shirt, caressing the warm, hair-roughened skin with the tips of her fingers. She said again, ‘Please...’
He touched her then, putting her away from him with a suddenness which robbed her of breath and sent the colour draining from her cheeks.
His eyes were cynical as they flicked over her. His voice sn
eered. ‘Bribing me, Gemma mou! Then try offering me something I do not already possess.’
He walked past her to the door, and went out, leaving her humiliated and alone.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THEY travelled in silence. Gemma kept stealing sideways glances at him, but the dark enigmatic face revealed nothing.
She’d hurried into her clothes, expecting at any moment to see a group of grim-faced men with rifles pass the villa on their way to the hut, to hunt Mike down, but in the end Andreas had returned alone, walking slowly, clearly lost in thought, his face frowning as he stared down at the dusty ground. Perhaps they hadn't believed him, she thought, or maybe they were just waiting for him to get her out of the way before they started their search.
She wanted to ask what was going to happen, but couldn’t find the words. And she couldn’t plead with him again, she thought, the bitterness of shame sharp in her throat as she relived those few humiliating moments in the bedroom.
She had not, she realised, underestimated his skill as a driver, but her heart was in her mouth a few times as he manipulated the jeep round those dizzying hairpin bends. She found herself remembering James’ cautious ascent, and had to resist an impulse to grab the side of the jeep to steady herself. In a way, she was almost grateful for that fast, relentless drive, because while she had the prospect of imminent death at the foot of some gorge to think about, she couldn’t worry about Mike and what was going to happen to him when Stavros and his family caught up with him. Or, what was going to happen to her too, she reminded herself a little shakily.
She’d expected Andreas to take the broad national highway which carved its way across the island from Heraklion to Aghios Nikolaos, but instead, to her surprise, he turned the jeep on to a secondary road and began to climb again.
She ventured, ‘I thought we were going to Aghios Nikolaos?’
‘Later,’ he said. ‘There is something else I must do first.’
She recognised that he did not intend to tell her what this was, and she subsided into silence once more, turning her attention to the cultivated terraces and olive groves they were rapidly passing. Ahead of them she could see a cluster of roofs, and a church tower very white against the blue arch of the sky, and she felt the jeep began to slow as they entered the village street.