The Realms of Gold

by Elizabeth Hunter

  ‘There’s no truth in it, you know,’ she said aloud.

  Hermione laughed. ‘You’ll have to do better than that if you mean to protect Demis’ pride,’ she retorted. ‘What a blow it must have been to him! My God, when I think that he might just as well have married me! It’s quite a joke you’ve played on him, isn’t it? Only I don’t suppose he sees it as that. Is that why you’re looking so miserable? Was he beastly to you?’

  Emily’s expression became as haughty as she could make it. ‘If you can think that of Demis, you can’t know him very well,’ she said.

  ‘I expect I know him better than you ever will,’ the Greek girl insisted. ‘Heavens, how many times has he brought me to Hydra in the past, do you suppose? I never lived openly with him, of course, but that was because of my father, not because I didn’t want to.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  Hermione eyed Emily quizzically. ‘Don’t you? You can, you know. Whose cosmetics did you suppose those were on the dressing-table?’ She put her wrist close under Emily’s nose. ‘Didn’t you recognise it as mine?’

  ‘But Demis said—’

  ‘He wanted to spare your feelings, I expect. There are certain conventions in these things, after all.’ Hermione made a face. ‘I shouldn’t be talking to you like this, should I? But why should Demis have everything his own way as far as you’re concerned? If you like,’ she added calmly, ‘you can travel back to Nauplia with me. That will give him something to think about! His wife and his mistress in the same boat, so as to speak!’

  Emily couldn’t bring herself to smile. ‘How did you come?’ she asked.

  ‘Easily enough. I hired a boat and came. I thought that if I could find you before Demis took you to the cottage, I could spirit you away before you were silly enough to fall in love with him. Or is it too late for that?’

  ‘I am his wife.’

  ‘Oh yes, we all know about that!’ Hermione agreed. ‘But he wouldn’t touch you after the incident with Keith—I know him far too well for that! —and it was all pretty airy-fairy before, wasn’t it? You mustn’t mind my knowing, my dear. I’ve been a friend of the family for years and years, and Barbara was bound to tell me her doubts about her brother’s marriage sooner or later. It was you we were worried about. None of us wants to see you hurt.’

  For a few moments Emily was silent, as her eyes held Hermione’s. Then she said, ‘It wasn’t like that at all. Ours is a perfectly normal marriage.’

  ‘Is it?’

  Emily found some difficulty in continuing to meet Hermione’s innocently wide eyes. She was shocked to see the momentary venom that she caught in their depths before it was overtaken with her more customary blandness.

  ‘Why should you suppose that it wasn’t?’ she asked.

  Hermione’s face tightened. ‘Barbara said—it wasn’t normal before Demis went to England, was it? And Demis always sails the yacht himself when he’s on board, so that nothing much could have happened last night—or did it? If it did, it was just his revenge on you—but then you already know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Have you been with Demis on his yacht often?’ Emily asked quietly.

  ‘Often and often. What did you expect?’

  ‘That you’d probably lie to me. It hasn’t worked. I’m staying with Demis, Hermione, and nothing you can say will alter that. I think you’d better go back to Barbara and tell her that.’ She took a deep breath walked back through the arch into the street outside. ‘Goodbye, Hermione!’

  But it was one thing to put on a show for Hermione Kaloyeropoulou, quite another to convince herself. She pushed her way into the nearest cafe and ordered herself a drink that she didn’t want, trying desperately to pull herself together before she had to face Demis.

  Like a refrain in the back of her mind, his words of the night before came back to mock her, that he would have made love to her then if she had wanted a hundred other men before him. Didn’t he care what she thought and felt about him?

  ‘There you are!’ his voice said beside her. ‘Are you trying to avoid me? Why, agape? I thought I succeeded in making you very happy last night?’

  ‘In a way,’ she admitted uncertainly.

  ‘Well, you scarcely look much of an advertisement for marital bliss this morning,’ he said dryly. ‘Even Yannis noticed that you looked more forlorn than radiant.’

  ‘It’s how I feel,’ she muttered. She knew that he had sat down beside her, but she averted her face, wondering what he would say if she asked him to go away.

  ‘Emily, look at me!’ In spite of herself, she turned towards him, veiling her eyes from his piercing look of inquiry. ‘You look rather less like Aphrodite in that sweater,’ he observed. ‘I’m glad I know the real you underneath.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘Did I tell you how beautiful you are?’

  She grimaced. ‘I won’t be compared to that statue! Besides, I think it’s a horrible thing to have in one’s front hall!’

  The light in his eyes was very bright. ‘If I didn’t know you better, I’d say you were afraid of the competition,’ he said. ‘Aphrodite’s beauty won her the golden apple in the first known beauty competition, if you remember? Cheer up, Paris could only have agreed with me that a living beauty is better than one made of marble any day.’

  ‘Only because it’s there!’ she told him, looking away. ‘You’d have been just as happy with anyone else. I never pretended to resemble Aphrodite in the first place.’

  He forced her face up to meet his glance. ‘It was you who claimed to share her liking for variety in your lovers!’ he reminded her grimly. ‘What was I supposed to think about that?’

  She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I only said it to annoy you. You were doing your best to annoy me!’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Was I? It sounds as though I succeeded.’

  ‘And you lied to me too!’ she went on, unable to stop herself. ‘I’ll never forgive you for that! If I hadn’t believed you, I wouldn’t—I couldn’t—’

  He was silent for a long moment. ‘I think you’d better tell me what this is all about,’ he said at last.

  ‘I think you already know.’ Her tone was expressionless. ‘There isn’t any point in staying here in Hydra, is there? I’m not the only woman you’ve ever brought here, and you didn’t buy those things on the yacht specially for me. I should have known—I think I did know!—but I pretended to myself that I didn’t. Only now I can’t go on pretending. I’m sorry, but I can’t!’

  ‘I see. What do you want to do, Emily?’

  She looked away from him again. ‘We’d better go back to Nauplia,’ she said. ‘Chrisoula may need us. It isn’t good for her to be left in Barbara’s care.’

  ‘Barbara is her sister,’ she heard him say. ‘She wouldn’t do her any harm.’

  Emily clenched her fists. ‘You’re stupid where Barbara is concerned! Oh yes, I know you say she’s neurotic, but you don’t see that she’d do just about anything to hurt you! You expect her to behave just like anyone else, but, where you’re concerned, I don’t believe she ever has!’

  ‘Our quarrel was over years ago.’

  ‘Was it? Then why did she tell you I’d taken her car without her permission, if that wasn’t to hurt you through me?’

  ‘Oh really, Emily, not that again!’

  ‘Why not? It’s the truth!’

  He looked at her closely, apparently adding something up in his own mind. ‘If we go back to Nauplia, you’ll still be my wife. Nothing can change that now.’

  She found it hard to keep her voice under control. ‘But it’s silly to pretend to something that isn’t really there,’ she objected. ‘It—it was just something that happened.’

  Unexpectedly he smiled. ‘Just as long as you realise that it’s more than liable to happen again,’ he observed. ‘I’ll take you back to Nauplia, yineka mou, but don’t think you’ll escape me for ever. I don’t like having a miserable wife, and I won’t put up with it for long, so I’d advise you to sort out whatever
it is that’s worrying you as quickly as you can. I’ll help, if you’ll let me, but in the end it will be just the same. You’re my wife and sooner or later you’ll take your place in my bed and be the mother of my children, no matter how unhappy the prospect makes you!’ He stroked her cheek with a knowing finger, following the caress with a light kiss. ‘I don’t think you’d be miserable for long in my arms. Even the Aphrodites of this world have to fulfil their destiny in the end!’

  ‘But why me?’ she asked in a rush. ‘There have been so many others, so why me?’

  If he had said he loved her she would have turned to him then and there, but he did not. ‘Because you’re my wife!’ he exclaimed violently. ‘For better or for worse, you’re my wife!’

  Even the yacht had lost much of its romance for Emily. She had thought it the one place where she could safely exclude Hermione’s influence, but now it seemed to be a living reality over which there was no chance of them ever reaching each other.

  ‘I hate Hermione!’ she said out loud to herself as she stood on the deck of the yacht and watched the harbour of Nauplia coming inexorably closer. She had not known how close Demis was to her, and she started visibly when he put a hand on her shoulder, his fingers biting into her flesh.

  ‘Why?’ He shook her, not particularly gently. ‘What has Hermione to do with all this, Emily?’

  ‘N-nothing,’ she stammered.

  ‘I could make you tell me, agape. Have you thought of that?’

  Her eyelashes flickered. She had few doubts about his power over her if he cared to exercise it. ‘But you won’t?’ she whispered.

  ‘I might, if I thought it would, make you any happier, karthia mou. I’m not a patient man, so be warned.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have lied to me,’ she said on a note of desperation. ‘And it isn’t only Hermione. How many other ghosts are going to come up out of your past?’

  ‘Hermione need not worry you, sweetheart. It’s your imagination that allows her to haunt you—if she does. She never did mean very much to me.’

  ‘But you took her with you to Hydra—’

  ‘Never!’

  ‘Oh, Demis, are you sure?’

  He looked grimmer than ever. ‘I have told you so, little one, and I don’t often repeat myself. I assure you that neither Hermione nor any other woman has ever gone with me to Hydra—or set foot on any yacht of mine. Satisfied?’

  Her heart jumped within her. ‘I wish I could believe you!’ she cried out.

  ‘But you don’t. Why not, Emily?’

  ‘Hermione herself told me—’ She broke off, recognising the shape of someone she knew on the quayside. ‘Patrick!’ She jumped up and down in sudden excitement. ‘It’s my brother, Patrick! Whatever can he be doing here?’

  Demis turned her roughly towards him. ‘When did she tell you?’

  ‘Does it matter?’ She shrugged away from him impatiently, anxious to catch her brother’s attention. ‘Patrick!’ she yelled across the water.

  He looked up and waved, almost as though he had been expecting her. ‘Hullo there! Coming ashore?’

  Demis went down the gangway first, turning to help her over the awkward last step on to the concrete wharf. She put her hand in his, thinking to withdraw it immediately her feet were on solid ground, her eyes on her brother’s face, but Demis threaded his fingers through hers, rubbing his thumb across her palm in an intimate gesture that robbed her of all desire to withstand him and to use Patrick as a tool for her own purpose.

  ‘Why are you here?’ she demanded.

  Patrick stood still, his head on one side, watching her critically as she tried to retrieve her hand from her husband’s grasp. He bent his head and touched his lips to her cheek. ‘The Greek air suits you! You’re looking much prettier than you ever did in London.’

  She looked up at him, very conscious of Demis beside her. ‘What happened? I expected to see you at Christmas, we all did. Didn’t she come up to your expectations?’

  Patrick gave her an easy smile. ‘You never did understand the rules of the particular game. Choosing a partner for a brief whirl every now and again is quite different from choosing a partner for the rest of one’s life. Most girls are only worth a dance or two before one passes on elsewhere.’

  ‘You and Margaret both!’ she said.

  ‘But never you,’ he agreed smoothly. He turned to Demis, lifting an eyebrow in amused self-mockery. ‘We had almost despaired of our more prosaic sister before you whirled her into a romantic adventure that quite put our poor efforts in the shade. How did you do it? The Emily we’ve always known ran for cover at the first hint of involvement in an affair of the heart.’

  ‘Oh, shut up!’ Emily declared. ‘I had my moments. Lots of them. I didn’t see the need to talk about them, that’s all!’

  Patrick threw back his head and laughed. ‘I’ve known you far too long to believe that story! And I always thought you such a truthful girl!’

  Emily cast a slanting glance at Demis and was discomfited to see him exchange a look of complete understanding with her brother.

  ‘You have known her—and not known her,’ Demis said, shaking hands with their uninvited guest. ‘Emily is by far the most romantic of the Thornes, and if you found her truthful before it can only have been because she had nothing to fib about. She bends the truth with an ease that would astonish the most accomplished liar—’

  ‘I do not!’ Emily could see nothing funny about her indignation, but both the men began to laugh. ‘Truly, I don’t!’

  Demis squeezed her fingers between his. ‘Cheer up, little one, I’m sure Aphrodite also only told the truth when it suited her. It is something else you share with that goddess. What a pity it is we can’t ask Patrick’s opinion.’

  ‘Demis—’

  Patrick looked from one to the other of them. ‘A certain similarity of form, perhaps?’ he queried. ‘Mind you, I might not have noticed it if Chrisoula hadn’t pointed it out to me.’

  ‘Chrisoula! Patrick, how could you? She’s only sixteen!’

  ‘My dear Emily, she’s years older than you’ll ever be,’ her brother retorted, still smiling.

  She felt Demis squeeze her hand. ‘Chrisoula is mature beyond her years,’ he agreed, ‘but it is true she is only sixteen. She will be in my care for quite a few years yet.’

  ‘Of course,’ Patrick answered calmly. ‘You don’t have to worry, my friend, she herself has already pointed that out to me.’

  Demis released Emily and left the brother and sister alone together, walking away from them across the wharf to where Patrick had parked Barbara’s car beside the cafe.

  Emily watched Chrisoula jump out of the car and greet Demis with her usual exuberant affection. ‘Patrick, why did you come?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ he answered. ‘I think I wanted to see for myself that you were all right. Everybody said you were, but your new husband had pretty well devastated any confidence we might have had in ourselves as a family. I was worried about you.’

  ‘But did you know Demis?’ she demanded.

  Patrick shrugged. ‘Not well. I think if I’d been a girl I would have found marriage to him rather a dismaying prospect, and you’ve always been such a defenceless little thing. I thought I’d come along and see for myself. But he seems different today—much more human, if you know what I mean?’

  But Emily was scarcely listening. ‘Oh, Patrick, thank you! I couldn’t be more pleased to see you’

  ‘Oh, quite,’ he cut her off. ‘We’ll talk about it later, shall we?’ He made an appreciative sound with his lips. ‘That sister-in-law of yours bids fair to be a little beauty, and she’s a darling with it! Now that I’m here, you’ll have your work cut out to get rid of me!’

  Emily raised her eyebrows. ‘Don’t ever change!’ she told him. ‘I think I’d die of shock if you didn’t find some female you could approve of in a monastery. But be careful of Chrisoula, brother of mine, she’s in my care too.’

  They walked
over to the car together, Emily returning Chrisoula’s hug with one of her own.

  ‘We didn’t expect you back so soon,’ the young girl told her. ‘And don’t scold me for coming here alone with Patrick, because there was nothing else to be done. Barbara had one of her headaches. It’s beautiful that you’ve come back, because Patrick has never been to Nauplia before and I want to show him everything. If Demis is still on holiday, we could all go and look at most places together, couldn’t we? Oh, please say we can!’

  Emily didn’t know how to answer that and turned a look of inquiry on her husband. ‘Are you still on holiday?’ she asked him.

  ‘I am.’ He smiled at his young sister. ‘Where do you want to go first?’

  Chrisoula looked confused. ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘Emily shall choose. May we go tomorrow?’

  Demis’s eyes fell on Emily’s face. ‘Well, agape?’

  Her reply came without hesitation. ‘May we go to Epidaurus? Please, Demis?’

  Her husband’s face hardened. ‘Haven’t you been there before?’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t go there without you, you know that. How could I, when your mother was called Coronis, and—and everything else?’

  ‘Then to Epidaurus we’ll go!’ he declared in quite different tones. And there was no mistaking the special ring in his voice.

  ‘You don’t mind?’ she pressed him.

  ‘Mind, koritsi? No, I don’t mind. Epidaurus will be the perfect setting for me to reveal myself as hero, and more than hero, a god to be obeyed by a mortal woman such as yourself. And you know something? I think you’ll be as relieved as I shall be to meet your destiny finally face to face!’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Patrick proved unusually co-operative about moving the statue of Aphrodite from the hall to a secluded part of the garden.

  ‘It’s a bit obvious standing around in the entrance, isn’t it?’ he said to Demis.

  ‘Especially as Emily blushes whenever she looks at it,’ Demis replied. Emily was very conscious of his eyes upon her. ‘When she’s quite grown up I’ll take her to look at the original in Athens.’