The goddess of Mavisu

by Rebecca Stratton

  was already getting on with his meal as if he had no doubts at all about his veracity.

  Clifford should have already joined the professor on the site, but somehow this morning he seemed disinclined to leave her and Delia was certainly not averse to his company at the moment. Her ankle was still quite painful and she had been advised by Madame Renoir to rest for at least another day or two, but the idea of being confined to the house did not altogether appeal to Delia in her present restless mood, especially on her own.

  'I could stay with you this morning,' Clifford offered hopefully, but Delia shook her head.

  He was sitting on one of the floor cushions beside her and, dressed as he was, he looked very much out of place in this big exotic room. Faded shorts and a cotton shirt suggested English country rambles, but the salon was, to Delia's mind, the most completely Turkish room in the house. It was because he looked so alien to his surroundings that she felt a sudden inexplicable tenderness towards him, and reached out to put a hand on his arm. 'I'd love you to stay,' she told him, 'but Uncle Arthur would soon be up here if you did, demanding to know why you're not working, and I'm already sufficiently in his bad books after yesterday.'

  Clifford looked at her bandaged ankle and it was obvious that he had something to say about yesterday's incident that he had so far had no opportunity to say. 'I don't think he should blame you entirely,' he told her. 'Selim admitted that he—'

  'Kemal was simply trying to explain why I went out after all,' she interrupted hastily. went out of my own accord, Clifford, and I've no one else I can blame.'

  For a moment Clifford said nothing. He sat with his knees supporting his elbows and there was such a look of uncertainty about him that Delia wondered what on earth he had in mind. 'He-Selim —seems to—to know you so much better than I do,' he said, then waved his hands vaguely to erase the statement. `No—no, that's not what I mean exactly,' he denied. 'It's just that he seems to have the ability to—to get to you ! ' Delia looked puzzled and slightly taken aback and he shook ,his head again. 'I mean,' he explained, 'that he at least arouses some kind of—of reaction in you, whereas—' He shrugged, a strangely touching gesture of helplessness that she could not ignore, 'you take me as part of the scenery.'

  `Oh, Clifford, that's simply not true! '

  Delia curled both her hands round his arm, seeking to reassure him. 'Isn't it?' he asked, and she smiled, gently squeezing his arm.

  of course not ! You should know that, Off-,

  ford!'

  Clifford responded to the gesture by moving quickly towards her, sliding from his own cushion on to hers, and his grey eyes glowed with an inner warmth as he put an arm around her waist. It became apparent as soon as he spoke that her impulsive gesture of encouragement had been taken in quite the wrong way, and she would have drawn

  back hastily if such a manoeuvre had been possible in the space.

  'Oh, Delia! ' His voice was husky with emotion and he took her hand in his, pressing it to his lips, then hugging her close in an embrace that her injured foot made it impossible to avoid. 'You know how I feel about you, Delia, don't you?' he begged. 'I've loved you ever since I met you at the professor's house last summer! '

  'Clifford!' She moved away as far as she could get without toppling over on to the floor, but Clifford drew her close again, holding her more tightly, and reaching round with his other arm to complete an inescapable circle around her. 'Clifford, I didn't mean you to—to react like this!' She wriggled in vain, trying to escape, but Clifford's grey eyes were bright and determined as he looked down at her. 'Clifford, please!'

  He held her tightly, murmuring her name and soft, irresistible pleas that undermined her resistance, so that eventually she offered little opposition when he kissed her. It was a light, tentative kiss, though firm enough to be sincere, but it was nothing like Kemal's fierce, sensual passion, and it was Kemal's kiss that came to mind as she closed her eyes, making her try once again to break free.

  It was while she was struggling against Clifford's determination that she realised the door of the salon had opened and that they were no longer alone. Without turning around, Delia's instinct told her who it was and she turned swiftly and gazed at him with wide, slightly dazed eyes.

  'I am sorry to intrude,' Kemal said, pedantically correct as always. He spared her only a brief glance, then gave his attention to Clifford. 'Professor Crompton asks that you report to the site, Mr. Aitkin,' he told him. 'However, if you would like a message sent ' His dark eyes flicked again to Delia and one brow expressed his meaning quite clearly. 'You would like him told that you are otherwise engaged, perhaps?' he suggested.

  Flushed and embarrassed, Clifford scrambled to his feet. 'Not at all!' he said, and rubbed a hand through his slightly disordered hair while his eyes carefully avoided looking at either Delia or Kemal. 'I was on my way, as a matter of fact.'

  ' The brief exclamation could have expressed satisfaction and Kemal inclined his head briefly, then walked over to the window and stood with his back to them.

  Clifford, evidently expecting him to leave again, seemed taken aback when he stayed and looked as if he wondered what to do. Then he looked down at Delia with a kind of hesitant confidence in his eyes. 'I wish I could stay, Delia,' he said in a quiet, half whispering voice. 'Please believe me.'

  'I do ! ' She smiled at him, much more disturbed by Kemal's arrival than by Clifford's imminent departure.

  `Promise me you won't do anything else silly while I'm gone?' The hint of possessiveness in his tone was not altogether welcome and she glanced at Kemal instinctively.

  He stood at the window, tall and somehow

  slightly menacing with his back towards them, his lean, powerful shape dark against the bright sunlight outside, and it was obvious that he had no intention of going. Then suddenly Clifford bent over her and, before she realised his intent, took her face in his two hands and kissed her mouth. 'I'll see you later,' he whispered.

  There was a suggestion of subterfuge in his manner that was completely without cause, and as she watched him go with slightly dazed eyes, Delia wondered if there had ever been two men under one roof who were so completely unalike. Clifford, only medium tall and so very English in his faded shorts and shirt, and Kemal, dark and sultry, his tailoring as impeccable as his manners, and yet still capable of conveying his opinion of the scene he had interrupted.

  It was his impression of that scene that troubled . Delia, although heaven knew why she should bother what he thought. She looked across at the broad back, a jacket of fawn tussore stretched across the breadth of his shoulders, and the dark head held so arrogantly on the strong neck. A virile and powerful man who could cause havoc to any woman's senses, and especially a susceptible girl thrown into his company every day.

  He turned swiftly and suddenly from the window and Delia hastily looked away, although she was aware of the scrutiny of those dark eyes for several seconds before he spoke. 'How is your injured ankle this morning, hanim?' he asked, and Delia

  frowned unconsciously over the formality of the title.

  'It's painful,' she said, 'but Madame Renoir suggests I rest it for a couple of days.'

  `Then that is what you should do,' Kemal advised gravely. He would have said more, Delia thought, but the door opened once more and one of the servants announced the arrival of a caller.

  If the identity of the caller caused Kemal a puzzled frown, it stunned Delia into disbelief, but when the visitor was admitted to the salon she had to believe that Suna Kozlu had taken the unprecedented step of calling unaccompanied on a man in his home. Delia's heart was fluttering uneasily and when Kemal went forward to welcome the visitor she felt suddenly and dismayingly intrusive.

  Impulsively she scrambled to her feet, made clumsy by her bandaged foot, and stood for a moment looking at the two of them together, exchanging rather stilted greetings. They did not shake hands, neither did they embrace, but they looked so right somehow, Delia had to admit. Two darkly attractive pe
ople with the same background of race and culture and heaven knew what else in common—it was a fact, palatable or not, that Suna Kozlu would be the perfect wife for Kemal.

  `You have met Miss Crompton, have you not?' Kemal asked, turning to include Delia, and Suna Kozlu inclined her head gravely, though it was obvious she had not expected to find her there.

  `Gun aydin, hanim,' she said. There was a dark, wary look in her eyes as she spoke and they missed

  nothing of Delia's red-gold hair and slim, petite figure, nor the bandage that bound her ankle. 'You have suffered an injury?' she enquired politely.

  Unsure just where explanations could lead her, Delia decided to treat the matter lightly. 'I turned my ankle, that's all,' she said. 'It's nothing serious, Miss Kozlu.'

  The dark, not altogether friendly, eyes regarded her for a moment as if the consequences of an injured ankle did not escape her. `So you are confined to the house?' she guessed, and flicked a brief but telling glance at Kemal. 'How tiresome for you, hanim !'

  She was jealous of the idea of her being in such close contact with Kemal, Delia thought wildly, and her own pulses acknowledged the possibilities it offered as Kemal's dark eyes glittered down at her. `Perhaps you can persuade Delia Hanim to take care of the injury, Suna,' he suggested quietly. 'I am afraid that such advice from us merely meets with a determination not to follow it—as you are a doctor perhaps your word will carry more weight!'

  It was debatable who was most surprised by the suggestion, but Suna Kozlu recovered her composure first and when she looked at Delia again there was no concealing the glint of dislike in her dark eyes. 'I am not yet a doctor, hanim,' she told her, 'but I am sufficiently trained to know that it is essential to rest such an injury if it is to recover.'

  `I—I do realise that, of course,' Delia admitted, and glanced uneasily at Kemal. She wanted nothing so much as to escape and leave them together, but it

  was not easy in the circumstances, for Kemal at least seemed intent on including her in the conversation.

  'To rest means to sit down again, Delia Hanim,' he told her, but Delia shook her head urgently, resolved to follow her own inclination.

  'Not at the moment,' she murmured huskily. 'If you'll excuse me I—I'll leave you.' She would have made it- to the door, but as she passed him Kemal laid a hand on her arm, a gesture that the visitor noted with a quick frown.

  'There is no need for you to leave,' he said quietly, and Delia stared at him, unable to understand his motives for the moment. It took a second or two for it to occur to her that perhaps he wanted her to stay to satisfy his taste for tradition—so that he and Suna Kozlu would not be alone.

  The very thought of his thinking of her as some kind of youthful chaperone made her suddenly angry and she snatched her arm from his hold, casting a brief glance at Suna Kozlu as she hobbled her way to the door: 'I'd rather leave, 'Kemal Bey, if you don't mind,' she told him in a voice that was as firm as she could make it. 'Please excuse me, Miss Kozlu ! '

  The Turkish girl inclined her head politely, but it was plain that she found Delia's departure, although to her own liking, not only unexpected but puzzling; as if she could not believe Delia would willingly leave her alone with Kemal. Having escaped from an embarrassing situation Delia stood for a few seconds on the other side of the door,

  trying to do something about the rapid and anxious beat of her heart. She was certainly not prepared to stay and play chaperone to Suna Kozlu and Kemal, and the idea of his expecting her to not only made her angry but rather surprisingly hurt too.

  It was close on ten minutes since Delia had heard Suna Kozlu's car depart, but she had made no attempt to return to the house. A short turn round the garden had made her dismayingly tired and her foot throbbed painfully so that she sat for a while on a low wall that surrounded a raised bed spilling over with sweetly scented lilies and roses. A tall, dark-plumed cypress gave her shade from the sun and she was thoughtfully preoccupied as she sat with her feet dangling just above the ground.

  She had no idea why Suna Kozlu had come to Mavisu, nor should it concern her, but somehow the fact that she had come was strangely disturbing, and nothing could ,dispel the curiosity she felt. It was true that Suna Kozlu was a product of modern Turkey, an emancipated woman who wanted to be a doctor and who had, if Madame Renoir and Kemal's implications were right, refused to give up the idea for marriage.

  But it was also possible that meeting Kemal again in the restaurant had brought about a change of heart, and it was that possibility that sat so uncomfortably in Delia's mind. That Suna Kozlu had come to Mavisu with the idea of letting Kemal know how she felt, even though she might draw the

  line at actually telling him so. Kemal would not be slow to realise her intent if that was the case, Delia felt sure of it.

  `So--once again you go against good advice, hanim!' Kemal's deep voice from behind her made Delia swing round sharply and she fought for a second with the uncontrollable beating of her heart.

  'I'm not likely to come to any harm out here in the garden,' she told him, and Kemal raised a doubting brow.

  He came and stood close beside her and she despaired of the way her whole being responded to his nearness. One hand was thrust into a pocket and his jacket swung open, revealing a fine white shirt through which the shadowy darkness of his body showed faintly. It was difficult not to recognise and be affected by the sheer strength and vigour of the man behind that formally polite exterior, and Delia curled her hands tightly as she looked up at him.

  'I cannot believe that it is good for an injured foot to be suspended in that way,' he declared firmly. 'It should be resting on a cushion, hanim, as you had it earlier. There was really no need for you to leave in the way you, did.'

  Delia looked at him warily, too unsure of her ground to be too hasty, then she shook her head. 'I'm not in the habit of intruding into other people's private conversations, Kemal Bey,' she told him. 'I could hardly stay when you and Miss Kozlu had—' She shrugged off possible topics of conversation he might share with his visitor. 'I might warrant being called stubborn, but never

  tactless! '

  For a moment he said nothing, and she curled her hands even more tightly as she waited. Then he put one foot on the low wall beside her and rested an elbow on his knee, looking down at her steadily. `And you consider I was—tactless to walk into the salon when you and Mr. Aitkin were ' Expressive hands made a great deal of Clifford's diffident kiss, and Delia flushed, her eyes bright and sparkling green as she looked up at him.

  `Clifford kissed me,' she told him a little breathlessly, 'but you can hardly claim to be shocked by that, Kemal Bey, since you've done the same yourself! Just as then, it signified absolutely nothing!'

  `Ah ! ' Yet again he made that curiously expressive sound that could cover all manner of meanings, and Delia despaired of ever understanding him.

  'I rather thought you and Miss Kozlu might have things to say that you'd rather not say with a third party present,' she went on recklessly, 'and even if you hadn't I had no desire to—to chaperone you ! '

  She half expected him to be angry, but there was no sign of it beyond that deep, dark gleam in his eyes and he still rested his elbow on a raised knee, looking down at her steadily. 'Whatever reason you have for supposing Suna Kozlu called to see me,' he told her in a calm, composed voice, 'I can assure you that it was of no more consequence than to return a fountain pen that I left at her home yesterday.'

  `It doesn't concern me!'

  She was finding it hard to think straight at the

  moment. Not only was he much too close for comfort but she now knew where he had been yesterday when he came along and rescued her, and she almost wished she had not found out. Their attachment must be every bit as close as she suspected, more seriously intent on marriage, or Kemal with his traditionalist ideas would never have called on Suna Kozlu at her home.

  `You seem angry, hanim,' Kemal suggested, and Delia looked up quickly to deny it, then as quickly looked
away again. One large hand slid beneath her chin before she could evade it and strong fingers dug firmly into her soft flesh as he held her. 'And why should you be angry?' he asked softly.

  The touch of his hand made her pulses stir rapidly in response and the sense of excitement she experienced was breathtaking. Her lips parted slightly as she fought with her chaotic senses, her eyes wide and uncertain as she looked up at him. `I—I'm not angry,' she denied huskily, and his thumb moved gently over her parted lips in a suggestive caress that made her head spin.

  `No?' he asked softly. Then, as if he suddenly recalled himself, he relinquished his hold on her and shook his head, looking down at her with a hint of smile on his stern mouth. 'But I must not allow you to stay here like this when you should be resting your injured foot,' he told her. 'I will take you back to the salon.'

  Deprived of that seductive touch on her mouth Delia felt strangely let down, almost as if .he had been deliberately tantalising her for his own amuse-

  ment, and she was instinctively on the defensive. 'I don't want to go back to the salon!' she argued. 'And I wish you wouldn't concern yourself with me, Kemal Bey. I'm perfectly capable of deciding whether I'm doing the right thing or not! '

  Whatever Kemal said was in Turkish, but it sounded as virulent as curses in any language and his raised foot thudded on to the ground beside her. She gave a soft cry of surprise when she was lifted into his arms suddenly and without warning, but her arms went naturally to encircle his neck.

  She was held close to the warm, angry tautness of his body and the strong steady beat of his heart throbbed against her own body like a drum beat. His arms were hard and unyielding and there was a rocklike sternness 'about his mouth and chin when she chanced a brief upward glance. That tangy, masculine scent she remembered affected her senses like wine and she clung to him tightly while he strode across the scented gardens with her.