Deceptive Passion

by Sophie Weston

  `And what do I do now?' she asked her blank computer screen, feeling no less blank herself.

  She thought about telling her parents, and shuddered. They would be overjoyed. They would also expect her to go back to Miles. She shuddered again, more deeply. She couldn't bear it. She couldn't.

  There were occasions—short, ecstatic and unforeseeable moments—when he wanted her with a physical passion that, if you were very gullible, looked like love, Diana allowed. Felt like love, even. But then he would go away and not want her. He might want Susie Galatas, or some other worldly sophisticate who could match him, in those moods. But he wouldn't want Diana. And that would break her, she knew.

  Diana tipped forward and leaned her hot forehead against the top of the computer screen. If you were very gullible or very much in love ... she mused. If you were very much in love you saw what you wanted to see and only counted the cost afterwards. As she had counted the cost in the last two years.

  `I can't do it again,' she said aloud. 'I wouldn't survive another blast.'

  And yet. And yet ...

  Didn't Miles have a right to know that she was expecting his child? She knew if she were advising someone else she would disapprove violently of a woman not at least telling her child's father. Yet if she told him, what could she expect? Worse, what would she want?

  Diana closed her eyes.

  Face it, she told herself with fierce contempt, what you want is your fantasy back. Miles loving you. Miles wanting the baby. Miles holding your hand through all the things you're scared of: doctors and clinics and the whole bureaucracy. And getting ready for the baby. You don't want to do it alone. But it's more than that. You want Miles. Haven't you got any backbone at all? Haven't you learned anything?

  The arguments went round and round, not just that day but all the days that followed. The results of the test came but Diana was not surprised at the result. She still didn't know what she was going to do. She put off going to see her parents that weekend. Constance's eyes were too sharp.

  Every morning she woke up with the conviction that it would be all right if she told Miles. He was a civilised man and he would be considerate and helpful in a practical way. And then during the day she would lose her nerve. She would start to imagine herself taken over by him again, as he took charge of the situation. Or, worse, living with him, trying not to beg him to love her.

  She could have found out where he was easily enough. If he was writing his paper for Moscow he was probably in Oxford anyway. Or Joan Dryden could have talked neutrally to his solicitor. Diana stayed silent.

  She lost weight. Knowing it was bad for the baby, she began to watch her diet in a distracted way. She worked like a demon, and spent the small, sleepless hours knitting secret garments for a February baby. She knew that the time during which she could hope to keep her secret was running out.

  And then Susie Galatas turned up, out of the blue, unannounced, standing on Diana's doorstep in glamorous scarlet with diamonds in her ears and round her slender wrist.

  `Oh,' said Diana, conscious of bare feet and jeans and enormous hostility.

  Susie's eyes gleamed for a moment, then were swiftly veiled.

  `Busy?' she asked, following Diana into the sitting-room.

  Diana took the excuse gratefully.

  `I'm afraid so. So I don't want to be rude, Susie, but it's a quick coffee and goodbye, I'm afraid,' she told her uninvited guest.

  Susie sat down in Diana's Victorian chair and inspected her bracelet.

  `I think you were so sensible not to go back to Miles,' she said. 'Chris thought you would.' It was not quite a question.

  Diana felt her face freeze into a mask. 'Milk in your coffee?'

  Susie crossed exquisite legs. 'Of course, living here in Oxford you'll have heard the gossip. About him and the wife of the man he was working with. Yes, milk and a little sugar, please.'

  Diana stirred milk and several teaspoonsful of sugar into the brew with unnecessary viciousness.

  `That's why they cancelled the lecture tour, you know. The boffin found out that his wife was having an affair

  with Miles and had a breakdown.' She took the coffee and sipped. 'Personally, I always thought that was why Miles wanted you to go back to him—to knock the rumours on the head. Though why he bothered ...' She shrugged. 'I suppose he must have wanted to go on working with the husband.' She put her head on one side. 'What do you think?'

  `I think you've got a poisonous tongue and a worse mind,' Diana said.

  It was a great release to say it. Susie looked astonished.

  `Steve and Hilary Gilman are Miles's friends. That's

  not the way he treats friends,' Diana continued quietly. Under the perfect make-up, Susie flushed.

  `You know him so well, I suppose?'

  `Well enough to know he doesn't cheat friends.'

  Susie gave a trill of laughter that sounded forced. 'Oh, they'll have hushed it up. The husband's gone into some academic nut-house,' she said cruelly, 'and the devoted wife's gone home to hold his hand. So Miles went to the castle to play peasant and look for some longer-term cover before he went back on the academic circuit: you.'

  Diana looked at her with dislike.

  `If it were true—which it isn't because Miles doesn't do things like that—he wouldn't need cover,' she said in a light, hard voice. 'Academics run off with other academics' wives all the time. It's a licensed university sport.'

  Susie was pitying, and her tone was triumphant.

  `Miles doesn't do things like run off with people,' she said. 'I agree. He travels light. He doesn't want a lady cluttering up his life. He's not into permanence.'

  Unwarily, Diana shut her eyes. 'He was into permanence once.' She wasn't talking to Susie.

  Susie made an angry noise. 'Darling. How blind can you be? Miles didn't marry in thirty-six years. He'd had hundreds of women after him. Some of them were dev-

  astating. He didn't marry because he didn't need to. When he saw you—well, frankly, darling, none of us could understand it. Until Chris said it had to be the only way he could get you. Then it made sense.' She pulled out a packet of cigarettes and lit one with unsteady fingers. 'That was how it was, wasn't it?'

  Diana whitened.

  There had been a night—nights—when Miles had taken her back to her graduate house and sat drinking coffee with her until the small hours. He had wanted more, urged her, demonstrated beyond any doubt that she wanted more as well. It had all been so new, so strong. She had hesitated.

  Ironically, she had said to Miles that all that there was between them was sex. And here was Susie telling her the same thing.

  `That's all,' said Susie, her eyes like diamonds. She drew rapidly on the cigarette. 'If you'd gone to bed with him, you'd have got rid of him inside three months like the rest of us.' She sounded furious.

  Diana drew a careful breath. Susie was jealous, she told herself. Jealous and angry, though heaven knew why. Miles seemed to be more committed to her than he had ever been to his wife. But she knew the expression on Susie's face. The Countess was hurt and she wanted to lash out at someone. Diana could even sympathise with it, reluctantly.

  She said gently, 'That's all in the past, Susie. There's no point in raking it over again. Now, was this only a social call or did you want me to do something for you?'

  `The Princess's room,' said Susie, 'the man you told us to go to. The Italian? He says we need to have the paint made up specially if it's to be authentic. In England. He recommended you.'

  Diana closed her eyes. That was undoubtedly Francesco trying to do her a good turn professionally after she recommended him to Castle Galatas. She cursed all friends.

  `I'm really terribly busy. I couldn't fit you in for ages..:

  Susie said swiftly, 'A weekend. That's all it would take. The Italian said so. You take photographs and scrapings of the existing paint and then come back and commission some firm you know here. They can ship the paint out to us without your ever going near
them again. It needn't take long. Dimitri could fly you out.'

  It was true. Diana glared at her.

  Susie said stiffly, 'Miles told me to get it finished. He doesn't think I've got the sticking power. I—need help.'

  It was that unvarnished statement that persuaded Diana. It couldn't be easy for the Countess to ask for help from someone she'd always despised. And Diana had some fellow feeling for her. Miles was an impossible taskmaster.

  `All right,' she found herself saying. 'One weekend.' She put a hand over her stomach in an instinctive protective movement that Susie didn't notice. But soon.'

  As Susie promised, Dimitri flew Diana out to Greece. He piloted the plane himself with another man whom he introduced as his navigator. He was friendly enough but businesslike. A laughing, holidaying Dimitri was, Diana realised, a different proposition from the serious man of affairs.

  They landed at a small, private airstrip. The Galatas Mercedes was there to meet them. Dimitri handed her into it, bade goodbye to the navigator and got in beside her. He looked tired and preoccupied.

  Diana said, 'Do you often spend weekends here?'

  He shrugged, looking out of the window at the passing landscape. It was a uniform golden brown now; the green of spring had disappeared. It was very hot, too.

  `I used to,' he said evenly. 'Lord knows why I've come this time. I don't know what game Susie's playing.'

  He turned and Diana could see the pain in his eyes. It was a pain she was not a stranger to. She had an impulse to touch his hand, and curbed it. He wouldn't want pity any more than she did herself.

  `I want her to marry me, you know.'

  She nodded. 'Yes. I thought you did. I'm sorry.'

  `I nearly asked her in the spring. She seemed as if she was changing, calming down a bit. Not chasing round all over the world the way she has been. This last winter I thought, At last. But—' He shrugged. 'Miles came back and she ran to him, just as she always does. As if they're still children.'

  Diana's heart lurched. 'I'm sorry,' she said with difficulty. 'But I don't think he thinks of her as a child.'

  He gave a brief laugh. 'He does,' he contradicted her. `Because that's what she is. She refuses to grow up.'

  Diana thought of the intensity she had sometimes detected in Susie Galatas. With sudden insight, she said positively, 'It won't be enough for her. She wants a husband. Children. I'm certain.'

  This time his laugh was gentler. But he shook his head. `She lives in a fantasy world,' he said.

  There was only Maria to meet them when the car swept into the courtyard. Maria looked worried and was uncommunicative in the extreme. Diana was surprised, then decided that Maria must be embarrassed by what she could not help knowing about the circumstances of her parting with Miles. Whatever the reason, Maria's eyes didn't quite meet hers. And even before the chauffeur

  had taken their cases out of the car the housekeeper disappeared back into the kitchen muttering about supper.

  The chauffeur led the way into the eighteenth-century part of the house. Dimitri was puzzled.

  `I always have the tower room under Chris,' he objected. `So I can listen to the sea.'

  The chauffeur was wooden. 'The Countess said you were to have the lilac room, overlooking the terrace.'

  Dimitri made a face. 'Susie pointing out she'll do as she pleases in her own house,' he deduced. 'She can be so childish sometimes,' he muttered, though Diana wasn't sure whether she was intended to hear.

  He shrugged, anyway, and went in. The chauffeur led Diana round the corner of the corridor. She found that she, at least, was in the same room as before. So Susie was only playing power games with her rejected suitor.

  Diana unpacked her overnight case briskly. Her kit for taking paint samples was the largest thing in it, she thought wryly, shaking out her creaseless lace and muslin. She sat down in front of the flower-framed mirror and unpinned her hair. She was brushing it with smooth, rhythmic strokes when, to her consternation, the door from her bathroom opened. She dropped her brush with a clatter and jumped to her feet.

  `Who... ?' she gasped, thinking, Not Miles. Please don't let Susie have betrayed me to Miles after all.

  But to her amazement it was Dimitri. His face was like thunder.

  `Do you know what that woman has done?' he almost shouted.

  Diana was astonished. 'Maria?'

  `Maria!' he spat. 'Of course not. The witch of the castle. Susanna Eleni Penelope Galatas.'

  Diana prepared to be soothing and sympathetic. `No. What?'

  He seized her by the hand. 'Come with me.'

  He marched her through the bathroom to the bedroom on the other side. It was full of flowers too.

  `The lilac room,' Dimitri said grimly. 'Susie clearly thinks you and I should console each other.'

  Diana quailed before his ferocity. If he was right, Susie, she thought, had been very unwise.

  She said feebly, 'There must be some mistake.'

  `No mistake. Susie,' said Dimitri with barely repressed violence, 'has played her last game with me. I bet she isn't even here.'

  Diana stared. 'What? But she asked me for the weekend.'

  `And me. She has set us up, my dear Diana, for a romantic weekend a deux.'

  Diana sat down suddenly on the side of the bed. Her head was whirling unpleasantly. 'I don't believe it.'

  He flung away and punched the bellpush in the wall as if it were a personal enemy.

  `All right. We'll take statements,' he said grimly.

  And when Maria arrived, knocking cautiously, he flung open the door and almost dragged her into the room.

  `Where's the Countess, Maria?' he asked her without preamble.

  Maria looked unhappy. She sent Diana a faintly apologetic look and launched into a flood of Greek. Dimitri's face darkened even more, if that were possible. He turned back to Diana.

  `Unavoidably detained. She rang Maria this morning. I,' he said, 'am going to talk to her. Now.'

  He stalked out, banging the door behind him. Maria looked after him with consternation. Diana put an alarmed hand to her suddenly tremulous stomach.

  `I'm going to be sick,' she said on a rising note.

  And Maria, taking one look at her white face, had no trouble at all in leaping the language barrier.

  She wasn't in fact sick. But Maria put her to bed as tenderly as if she had been. Dimitri, Diana thought muzzily, would have had to wait an unconscionable time for his dinner.

  The next morning she was awakened early. There were alien noises, loud and angry, which brought her up on one elbow. Straining her ears, she thought she caught Miles's deep tones. It was, she thought wryly, a product of pathetic wish-fulfilment. Oh, lord, would she never get him out of her blood? The slightest confusion in the distance and she thought it was Miles calling her.

  The noises got louder. Yet it was hardly day. Beyond the open french windows, the dawn was streaking the horizon. Diana pushed her hair back, bewildered. And then she heard her name being called indeed, but not by Miles.

  The door to her room was flung back and Susie rushed in. She was dishevelled and breathless, her sunburst scarves flying.

  Diana sat up, startled. Her modest broderie anglaise nightdress slipped off one shoulder.

  `What is it?' she demanded.

  `When you didn't get to the flat, we thought Dimitri must have had an accident. We checked but no one knew anything. It never occurred to us that he would have brought you straight here. We were frantic'

  Diana plucked the only word out all of this which made any sense.

  'We?' she said with foreboding.

  Susie ignored that. Her eyes slid sideways.

  'Susie, what have you done?' Diana asked in dawning alarm.

  But there was no need for an answer. The door to the bathroom was pushed open and Miles strolled in.

  For a timeless moment there was absolute silence in the opulent bedroom. Across the flowers and the heavy furniture Miles met her eyes, his expression unmistaka
ble. Diana took in the naked hunger in one appalled second. She hauled the strap of her nightdress back into place with fingers that shook.

  A quick glance told her that Susie, wringing her hands, was oblivious of that instantaneous, blazing signal. Diana's mouth was dry. She swallowed.

  Susie turned to Miles, palms outspread.

  `They were here together all night,' she said. 'I was going to tell him I'd marry him. I thought he loved me...'

  Miles didn't speak. Something flickered in Susie's eyes. She whirled, draperies flying. 'Where is he?' Her voice rose to screaming-pitch. 'Bitch! Traitor! Where is he?'

  Diana got out of bed. If she ever told Miles the truth about her night here with Dimitri, she knew she couldn't do it in front of a hysterical Susie. She was shaking. But she took hold of her courage and her common sense and faced the fierce Countess.

  Susie screamed. And went on screaming. The look she turned on Diana was pure hatred.

  Miles stepped between them. He looked cool and about as approachable as the moon. Had she imagined that blazing look? Would he believe his cousin's melodrama? And would he care?

  There was a sharp crack as his hand connected with Susie's cheek, but his voice was gentle. 'That's enough, Susanna,' he said firmly. 'You're leaping to conclusions again.'

  Susie's hand went to her reddening cheek. She didn't look glamorous and sophisticated any more. She looked

  like the child Dimitri called her. She was crying in great gulping sobs, like a schoolgirl.

  He—he ...'

  `You don't know what's happened yet,' Miles said, still in that steady voice.

  But Susie was looking at Diana now and her expression was murderous.

  `Oh, yes, I do,' she said fiercely, and made a dart at Diana.

  Not expecting it, Diana flinched away and stumbled, cracking herself against the side of the bed. She gave an exclamation of pain at exactly the same time as Miles said in quite a different voice, 'Enough!'