Strange Adventure

by Craven, Sara

  Feeling at a loss, she wandered over to her dressing table and picking up her hairbrush began to smooth her hair, still dishevelled from her time on the beach.

  `Making yourself beautiful for me, yineka mou?' His voice, low and teasing, made Lacey whirl hastily towards the bathroom, her brush dropping unnoticed to the floor. He was draped against the door jamb, his dark hair dripping wet, a towel hitched negligently around the lower part of his body. She stood completely tongue-tied as his eyes went over her with a sensual reminiscence that turned her bones to water.

  `Well?' He smiled at her with only a shadow of the mockery she was used to. 'Aren't you going to say you're pleased to see me? That you've missed me?'

  he moistened her lips desperately. `Welcome home.'

  His smile widened slightly. He came away from the door in one swift, fluid movement and started across the bedroom towards her. She stepped backwards hastily and found herself pinned against the dressing table. He reached

  for her, drawing her taut body into his arms, holding her so closely against him that she was aware of every pulse beat in his damp skin. He bent his head and put his mouth to the curve of her neck and shoulder, pulling a handful of her hair almost savagely against his face.

  `You are the sea, the sun and the roses.' His voice sounded ragged. 'What more welcome could a man desire?'

  His hands moved to the fastening of her dress and she pulled away from him. No! '

  `Shy?' His fingers trailed fire along her throat and down to the curve of her breast. 'My sweet one, don't you realise that everyone in this house is exercising such tact that they have practically become invisible? If we don't appear downstairs tonight—tomorrow—next week, it will not be thought in any way strange. We cannot be so ungracious as to disappoint them.'

  `Stephanos said you would be tired. I'll let you get some rest.' She tried to control her hurried breathing. His nearness, the warm scent of his skin, some cologne he had used acted on her senses like a drug.

  `Lacey mou.' He let exasperation show. 'I have travelled many hundreds of miles in the past hours, gone without sleep, hurried through meetings, possibly lost on business deals because I knew I could not exist any longer without you. When I need rest, you will know because I shall sleep in your arms. But for the present, my needs have nothing to do with sleep and my patience is limited.'

  He reached for her again, but she eluded his embrace, afraid that his lips and hands would seduce her into compliance before she could confront him with her knowledge. Her hand shook slightly as she pulled open the drawer in the dressing table and extracted the small tissue-wrapped bundle she had placed there, awaiting his return.

  `Do you recognise this?' Her voice sounded breathless. He gave the cuff link an impatient glance. 'Of course. It is mine. Where did you get it?'

  'I found it,' she said. 'On a bathroom floor in a Paris hotel—months ago.'

  His eyes narrowed, then he turned on his heel and walked towards his dressing room. Lacey waited, a tight knot of fear

  and excitement impeding her breathing. When he emerged from the dressing room, he was carrying the onyx box, and it was open.

  `You are a liar,' he said dispassionately. 'You took that broken piece from this box for some reason. I am waiting to hear it. What were you doing? Making an inventory of my things in my absence?'

  Put like that, it made her action seem sly, the satisfaction of an idle curiosity. And this was not the time to try and explain that she had gone into his room only in an attempt to discover more about his personality, to try and learn about him from the intimate possessions with which he surrounded himself.

  'I found it by accident,' she said slowly. 'Just as I found the other piece in Michelle's bathroom. You lost it there, didn't you? And you telephoned the suite later to see if she had found it?'

  'Yes.' He put the box down on her dressing table and studied her as if he had never seen her before. 'And what does that prove?'

  'Not a great deal—by itself.' She pushed her hair back from her face, wishing suddenly that she had never started this. She had expected to see guilt and uneasiness, but the eyes that watched her so steadily held nothing but a bleak anger that chilled her and made her fumble for her words. 'But there was more, you see. It was Michelle. She was so angry about our marriage, and yet she had no reason to be unless she was—jealous, or felt she had first claim on you as a husband.' She moistened her lips again. 'Did she—think that you might marry her?'

  'Yes.' Grim-mouthed, he folded his arms across his bare chest and stared at her. 'Well, continue, my dove. You've poked and pried and racked your brains, and no doubt you've fed the results of all this effort into that twisted little computer you call a mind. What conclusions have you come up with?'

  Lacey lifted her shoulders almost despairingly. There was no way in which he was going to make this easy for her. He was going to make her say the unsayable, utter the thought that had tormented her days and nights.

  `You are Michelle's lover.' The words fell, heavy as stones, between them. She only had to raise her hand and she could have touched him, yet they were miles apart and she began to shiver.

  `And if so—what then?' His voice was soft, but there was a note in it which menaced her.

  She stared at him in disbelief. 'Is that all you have to say?'

  No—I could say a great deal, but I'm not sure there is any point.' His voice, even the expression in his eyes, seemed almost objective. 'You have so obviously made up your mind already that I feel I would be wasting my time if I embarked on any kind of defence.'

  `What defence is there?' she said wearily. The hurt was harsh in her throat, but what had she expected, after all? A plea for forgiveness, a promise of eternal fidelity in the future when everything she knew about him told her that he considered himself above the laws of conventional morality. The way he had forced her into marrying him should have taught her that, she supposed bitterly.

  `Very little, it's true,' he drawled. 'Yet I suppose I could plead Michelle's beauty quite apart from her utter willingness—a temptation to any man.'

  'My father's wife,' she said slowly.

  `Do you really suppose your father was under any illusions, before or after he married her?' he asked brutally and saw her wince. 'When a man takes a woman like your stepmother for his wife, then he accepts that his marriage will be a series of compromises. He puts his ideals, if he has any, behind him.'

  `As you have done?' she whispered.

  'I?' He smiled mirthlessly. 'Don't deceive yourself, pethi mou. There will be no compromise in my marriage. You belong to me and only to me.'

  `Not anymore.' Somehow she forced the words out of her throat. 'I—I can't compromise either.'

  There was 'a long silence. He stared down at her, his eyes narrowed, a frown drawing his dark brows together,

  'I suggest you explain yourself,' he said softly.

  `It's quite simple really.' She made herself meet his gaze.

  'We had a bargain. As far as I am concerned, its terms have been fulfilled. I'll go on living here as long as you need a companion for Helen, and then we can make some kind of arrangement—an annulment or a divorce—it doesn't matter which ...'

  'Doesn't matter?' His interruption cut savagely across her stumbling words. 'Perhaps not to you, my dove, but it matters to me. You're my wife, Lacey, and you'll live in this house as my wife. You may have tried and sentenced me in your own mind, but I still have the right to appeal.'

  He reached for her, jerking her into his arms with such force that her instinctive cry of protest was cut off in her throat. His mouth crushed hers relentlessly, sweeping away the defences of pride, jealousy and resentment that she had thought would be so impregnable against him. Her lips parted helplessly, acknowledging the totality of her surrender to the sheer wanton desire that was sweeping her body. Her blood ran fire, meeting his urgency with her own as his hands moved on her in intimate demand. But as he. picked her up and started with her towards the bed, sanity
returned and with it at last, desperate determination to salvage at least something of her self-respect and she began to struggle against his imprisoning arms.

  'No,' she gasped, twisting away from him across the quilted coverlet. 'No, you'll make me hate you.'

  'Meaning you don't already?' There was derision in his voice and he twisted one hand in the smooth fall of her hair, forcing her brutally to stillness. 'What is more to the point, Lacey mou, you might make me hate myself.'

  He released her almost contemptuously and rolled away from her across the width of the bed. She lay for a moment hardly daring to move, then sat up slowly, pushing her dishevelled hair back from her face. But he made no move to prevent her as she climbed off the bed and, moving like an automaton, walked across the room to the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind her. She stripped off her torn dress arid underclothes and stood under the shower, letting a torrent, of warm water pour over her body as if she was performing some ritual cleansing ceremony, while the

  drops mingled and fused with the tears of self-loathing that ran unchecked from, beneath her aching eyelids.

  Lacey never knew how she managed to get through the evening that followed. When she emerged from the bathroom, it was to find the rest of the suite empty. The only sign of Troy's presence was the damp and crumpled towel he had been wearing which now lay discarded on his dressing room floor.

  Lacey was tempted to stay in the suite and avoid going downstairs altogether, but she did not know what Troy's reaction might be to this and she felt it would cause gossip in the household if the breach between them became open knowledge. It would be better, she decided, to go down to dinner and try and behave with at least a semblance of normality, so she dressed with care in a long hostess gown patterned in blues and greens and tied her hair back with a floating chiffon scarf in the same shades. As she gave herself one last critical look before turning away from the mirror, she thought ironically that at least on the surface she resembled the glowing bride everyone would be expecting to see. The dress with its soft, clinging lines was both seductive and feminine, the perfect choice, she decided with a sigh, for any new wife dressing to please her husband.

  When she eventually arrived downstairs, she found Helen and Aunt Sofia occupying the saloni and learned that Troy was shut away in his study with Stephanos going through some papers. It was evident from Aunt Sofia's expression that she thought this a strange occupation for a man still virtually on his honeymoon and Lacey hastily decided she was going for a stroll before dinner before the older woman's curiosity caused her to start probing into this unusual state of affairs.

  Somewhat to her dismay, Helen immediately offered to accompany her. Lacey wanted to think, away from the frankly stifling atmosphere of the house and she did not want to undergo a cross-examination on her relationship with Troy by her young sister-in-law. But Helen seemed oddly quiet again as they walked through the garden, as though she too had things on her mind, and the conver-

  sation was of a desultory nature and safely kept to impersonal topics.

  Lacey had just reluctantly decided it was time they retraced their steps back to the house, when a boy's voice called, `Kyria '

  Lacey recognised the lad approaching her as Petros, the younger son of Spiro who looked after the villa's garden and grounds with the help of the older male members of his family, but she knew they had normally finished for the day long before and she waited rather curiously to see what he wanted.

  He came up to them beaming and poked a rather crumpled envelope at Helen. 'I bring a letter from Kyrios Kent,' he announced.

  `Oh—er—thanks, Petros.' Helen seemed oddly taken aback and Lacey felt a resurgence of her old uneasiness about Helen's relationship with the young photographer.

  `I thought Evan was in Corfu,' she said, and Helen looked almost startled for a moment.

  `I guess he must have written this before he went,' she said at last, gazing almost frowningly at the envelope which she made no attempt to open. It was clear she wanted some privacy, so, stifling her misgivings, Lacey wandered on ahead, expecting that Helen would catch her up once she had read her letter. She was a little concerned about the situation. Helen's reluctance to open the note suggested that it might be some sort of love letter, and Lacey had no illusions about what Troy's reaction to that would be. Yet had she any choice but to tell him? She groaned inwardly. At the time it had all seemed so innocent, but Aunt Sofia's warning and Evan's own behaviour had destroyed that innocence. She did not relish the thought of telling Troy that she had encouraged Evan's visits to the villa. In retrospect she could see that this had been a mistake from every point of view. She might even have unconsciously given Evan the impression that she was a neglected wife, eager for consolation.

  She bent and restlessly picked one of the flowers that grew beside the path, holding it to her face so she could inhale its fragrance.

  What, after all, did she really know of Evan, apart from

  the fact that Helen had been acquainted with his family in California, and that was not a fact that was likely to recommend him to Troy, she thought ruefully. It seemed hardly likely that he should attempt to make love to herself, if it was Helen he was really interested in. On the other hand it would be some years before Helen would be considered adult enough to conduct a serious relationship, and she would probably have fallen in and out of love several times before then. Did Evan really think he could make an impression on her sufficiently lasting to carry through to Helen's maturity? Lacey shook her head doubtfully. She did not care to contemplate the other possibilities which kept thrusting themselves to the forefront of her mind, reminding her that Helen would be a very rich girl some day, and even more disturbingly that the guardians of very rich minors had been known to pay out large sums to keep away undesirable suitors.

  She sighed. She did not want to think badly of Evan, even now, but his attitude towards herself and the ambiguity of his relationship with Helen had raised serious doubts in her mind which could not easily be dispelled.

  There was still no sign of Helen and rather impatiently Lacey walked back to the bend in the path where she had left her sister-in-law. But the girl seemed to have vanished, and there was no response when she called.

  Her heart sank. Helen's behaviour had on the whole been so much more reasonable and predictable of late that it seemed barely credible that she should have chosen Troy's first evening at home to do another of her disappearing acts, she thought despairingly. Now what was she to do? Make some excuse for Helen's absence at dinner or inaugurate a search party for the girl, adding further stress to an already unhappy situation? She groaned inwardly. Explaining Evan's visits was probably going to be difficult enough without having to reveal the existence of secret letters. If it hadn't been for the fact that Evan was in Corfu, she might have thought Helen had gone off to meet him clandestinely.

  And she had really thought she was making progress with Helen, and that at least this aspect of her bargain with

  Troy was working out as he wished. Now it seemed she had yet another failure to cope with.

  A feeling of guilt at having let the situation develop added to her depression as she walked across the terrace and entered the saloni, and it did not help that the first person she saw was Troy, sardonically attractive in a white dinner jacket, pouring drinks for himself and Stephanos at the cocktail cabinet.

  He gave her a level, unsmiling glance before asking with chilly formality whether or not she wanted an aperitif before her meal. Lacey shook her head, feeling the colour rise in her cheeks, and was glad to sink into the nearest chair, her legs trembling. She could see Aunt Sofia looking anxiously around, obviously in search of her errant niece, and was relieved when Stephanos came over and began to chat with his usual friendliness. It meant she could turn her attention to him and avoid Aunt Sofia's questioning and increasingly accusing look as the minutes ticked by and Helen failed to appear.

  Dinner had just been announced when there was a rus
h of feet across the terrace and Helen almost fell into the saloni. She looked hot and breathless as if she had been running a long way, and the hem of her long cotton dress was caked with dust. Aunt Sofia clucked disapprovingly, but if Troy noticed there was anything amiss, he had obviously decided to ignore it. As they went in to dinner, Lacey hung back and spoke to Helen in a low voice.

  `Where did you get to? I was worried about you.'

  'Oh, for God's sake!' Helen hunched her shoulders petulantly. 'I just didn't feel like coming back to this morgue before I had to, so I walked some more. There's no need to make a federal case out of it.'

  Lacey flushed and relapsed into silence, but she was not convinced. The very tone and nature of Helen's reply had revealed that something had upset her badly, and she wondered what it could be. Lacey had little appetite for the meal that followed and she noticed that Helen, too, was picking at her food in a most uncharacteristic manner. Lacey found herself wondering whether the letter from Evan had been a farewell note to say that he was on his way out

  of her life and back to the States. If Helen really thought she was in love with him, that would explain her despondency, but Lacey herself could not avoid a tinge of relief. If he had gone, this was at least the solution to one of her problems and perhaps Troy need never know anything about it at all.

  She felt sad for Helen, drooping so visibly in her chair. Lacey had never been tormented by adolescent passions for young men at Helen's age—she supposed vaguely that all her emotional energies had been used by her music—but she could remember what some of her friends had suffered and she was determined to treat Helen's young feelings with respect. After all, love was love no matter what age you were, and if the man you wanted with all your heart, body and soul didn't want you, the hurt was still intolerable, she thought, her throat aching suddenly.