PAGAN ADVERSARY (6 page)

thespinis.
If you have a message for him, I would be glad to convey

it.'

Not, Harriet thought, the sort of message I have in mind. She forced a

smile and shook her head, and stepped backward as Yannina took

Nicky's hand and began to lead him away. He looked back once and

grinned and waved, and Harriet felt a lump rise in her throat as she

shut the door between them.

This time, wild horses weren't going to drag her to the window to

watch them go.So he'd decided to stay downstairs in the car, which

was a delicate way of telling her not to read too much into a kiss. Had

he sensed something in her untutored, unguarded response to what he

would regard as quite a casual caress that had warned him it might be

kinder to keep his distance?

The thought shamed her to the core. She felt sick and empty, and

although she tried to blame this on Nicky's carefree departure, she

knew she was fooling herself.

The unpalatable truth she had to face was that every nerve, every

pulse beat in her body had been counting away the hours, the minutes,

the seconds before she saw Alex Marcos again. She knew too that the

ache beginning inside her now was deeper and more wounding than

mere disappointment or injured pride, and she remembered Manda's

warning, and was frightened.

HARRIET felt pleasantly tired as she walked back towards the house

late on Saturday evening. She had done all the things she had

promised herself to do, and had managed to fill her day too full for

thought, even treating herself to the pure luxury of afternoon tea at a

hotel.

When Becca had been carrying Nicky, she had once laughingly

remarked that when you were pregnant, every second person you met

seemed to be in the same condition. Paradoxically, Harriet thought,

when you were alone, everyone else seemed to be. in couples. But

then London had always been a bad place in which to be solitary.

But she didn't have to be alone, she told herself. If and when Nicky

went to Greece, she would find a flat to share with girls of her own

age. There were plenty advertised.

She opened the front door and walked into the hall, to be pounced on

by one of the downstairs tenants, looking severe. 'Three times!' she

announced with a kind of annoyed triumph. 'That's how many times

the phone has rung for you in the past hour and a half, Miss Masters,

and you not here!'

'I'm sorry,' said Harriet in bewilderment. 'Was there a message?'

Mrs Robertson produced a slip of paper. 'You're to ring this number

and ask for this extension. And now if I might get back to my

television programme,' she added aggressively as if she suspected

Harriet of being in league with the unknown caller to keep her from

the last few minutes of 'Dynasty'.

Harriet dialled, and was answered from the switchboard of a famous

London hotel. Faintly she gave the extension number, thinking

frantically, 'Nicky—my God, something's happened to Nicky!'

Alex Marcos answered so promptly that he might have been waiting

by the phone. Her heart gave the oddest bound when she heard his

voice, and then she was aware of something else—background noises

which were quite unmistakably Nicky screaming with temper.

She asked in swift alarm, 'Is he ill?'

'His health is perfect,' Alex Marcos said grimly. 'I wish I could say the

same for his disposition. He seems to have been thoroughly spoilt.

Last night, Yannina managed to get him to sleep with difficulty. This

evening it has been quite impossible. Everything she has tried with

him has failed". He merely screams all the louder and cries for you.'

'He's not at all spoilt,' Harriet said indignantly. 'I really don't know

what else you expected. He's far too young to take such a complete

change in his environment in his stride. He's in a strange room with

strange faces round him, and he's frightened.'

'You have missed your vocation, Miss Masters. You should clearly

have been a child psychologist,' he drawled. 'Did it occur to you to

warn Yannina that he might react in this way?'

Harriet sighed. 'I honestly didn't know. He—he went with her

willingly enough. And I tried to explain that it was a little holiday....'

He said tightly, 'Very well, Miss Masters, you are absolved. He is, as

you say, a very young child, and he is deeply distressed. If I send my

car for you, will you come to him?'

Harriet swallowed. 'Of course.'

She heard his phone go down, and replaced her own receiver.

She went upstairs to the flat and stood looking round rather

helplessly, wondering what she should do. She didn't know whether

or not she should pack a bag with some overnight essentials. Nothing

had been said about her staying the night with Nicky, and perhaps she

would just be expected to get him calm and off to sleep before she

was chauffeured back here again.

In the end, she compromised by tucking some clean undies and her

toothbrush into the bottom of her biggest shoulder bag.

The car was at the door almost before it seemed possible. She would

have preferred to sit in the front with the driver, but she was gravely

ushered into the back, and even offered a rug to put round her, which

she declined.

It had all happened so fast that she hadn't time to be nervous or

consider the implications of what she was doing, or not until now.

Sitting alone in the car's unaccustomed luxury, she tried to compose

her thoughts and emotions, reminding herself over and over again

that she was only seeing Alex Marcos again because Nicky needed

her, and that her concern must be for him.

She even began to wonder whether Alex might be having second

thoughts about taking Nicky to Greece, with the prospect of nightly

scenes to contend with.

The suite Alex occupied was on the second floor of the hotel, and as

soon as Harriet left the lift, she could hear Nicky roaring.

The chauffeur led her along the corridor and knocked deferentially.

Alex opened the door himself. He was casually dressed in

close-fitting dark slacks and a loose sweatshirt, and in spite of his

ill-temper, he looked more attractive than ever, Harriet thought, her

stomach tying itself in knots.

She said insanely, 'We should have called him Macbeth!'

He stared at her. 'What in the name of God are you talking? about?'

'It's the play,' she said quickly. 'By Shakespeare. Macbeth murdered

sleep in it, when he murdered Duncan.'

His mouth twisted. 'I imagine my unfortunate neighbours in the

adjoining suites may well be contemplating the same solution. There

have already been discreet enquiries from the management, you

understand.' He shook her head. 'I never knew a child's lungs could

have such power!'

There was a cot in Nicky's room and he was standing up in it,

gripping the bars with small desperate fists, his face swollen and

blubbered with weeping. Yannina sat on a chair facing him, her

motherly face contorted with a kind of despair as she talked to him in

a swift monotone. A congealing cup of milk on a side table, and

various untouched fruit drinks, bore mute witness to her attempts to

find some form of pacification. As she entered the room, Harriet's

foot turned against something soft and she looked down to see

Nicky's teddy bear. She bent and retrieved it. Hurling his beloved toy

across the room was the ultimate in despairing gestures as far as

Nicky was concerned.

He was quiet as Harriet approached the cot, his whole being indrawn,

intent on producing the next explosion of anguish at the maximum

volume. And then he saw her. He screamed again, but on a different

note, and his arms reached for her imperatively.

As she lifted him, he clutched at her fiercely, clinging like a damp

limpet.

'Thespinis Masters, I am sorry, so sorry.' Yannina was almost

weeping herself. 'He wanted nothing and no one only you.'

Harriet gave her a reassuring smile and began walking up and down

the room with Nicky, holding him tightly and crooning wordlessly to

him, as Becca had done when he was teething. Slowly the convulsive

sobs tearing at his body began to weaken until he was quiet, except

for the occasional hiccup. Gradually one hand relinquished its painful

hold on her neck, and she knew instinctively that his thumb had gone

to his mouth. His weight had altered too. He seemed heavier because

he had relaxed, and Harriet knew that he was probably more than half

asleep.

Confirming this, Yannina whispered 'His eyes are closing.
Thespinis,

may God be praised! Ah, the poor little one!' She moved to the cot

and began straightening and smoothing the sheets and blankets and

shaking up the single pillow.

Harriet turned and began another length of the room, slowing her

pace deliberately. As she did so, she saw Alex standing in the

doorway watching her, his brows drawn together in a thunderous

frown. She bit her lip. Clearly her methods with Nicky did not have

his approval, so why then had he sent for her? She ventured another

glance at the doorway and saw that he had gone.

When she was sure that Nicky had slipped over the edge of

drowsiness into actual slumber, she carried him to the cot and placed

him gently in it, smoothing the covers with care over his small body.

His face was still blotched with tears, she saw with a pang. She

straightened with a sigh, and went to the door where Yannina was

waiting for her, looking round first to make sure that Nicky hadn't

stirred.

She had been too eager to get to his side to take much notice of her

surroundings previously, but now she realised that she was in a large

sitting room, off which the other rooms presumably opened.

A waiter had appeared with a trolley, and Harriet saw to her

astonishment that covers were being whipped deftly off an

assortment of delicious-looking sandwiches and other savouries, and

that there was a bottle of champagne cooling on ice.

Alex was lounging on one of the thickly cushioned sofas, but he rose

as she came rather uncertainly into the room. He had stopped

frowning, she saw, but the rather formal smile he gave her did not

reach his eyes.

'Champagne is the best pick-me-up in the world,' he said. 'I am sure

you are as much in need of it as I am.'

Harriet thought wryly of the other two occasions in her life when she

had drunk champagne—at Becca's wedding, and Nicky's christening.

She had always regarded it as a form of luxurious celebration rather

than a tonic, but she was willing to be convinced.She chose a seat on

the sofa facing the one which Alex was occupying, and pretended she

did not see the expression of derision which flitted across his face.

He tipped the waiter and dismissed him with a nod.

'Please help yourself,' he told Harriet courteously. 'I hope you like

smoked salmon.'

Harriet murmured something evasive. She was damned if she was

going to admit she hadn't the faintest idea whether she liked it or not.

And that bowl full of something black and glistening—surely that

couldn't be caviare? There were vol-au-vents too, filled with chicken

and mushroom in a creamy sauce. It was all a far cry from the

scrambled eggs on toast she had planned for supper. And she was

hungry too. Her tea seemed a very long time ago, but at the same time

she knew that Alex's presence would have an inhibiting effect on her

appetite.

She took the tall slender glass he unsmilingly handed her, and sipped

some of the wine it contained, wishing for the first time in her life

that; she knew enough about wines to appreciate the vintage.

She tasted a little of everything on the trolley, aware all the time of

the sombre scrutiny of the man who sat opposite. He ate nothing, she

noticed, merely drinking his wine and refilling the glasses when it

became necessary.

Alex broke the silence at last. 'I tried several times to telephone you

this evening.' His brow lifted sardonically. 'I began to wonder if you

had taken advantage of Nicky's absence to spend the night with your

lover.'

^Aware that she was being baited, Harriet smiled sweetly and

confined her reply to, 'No.'

'Nevertheless my summons to you must have upset your plans in

some way at least.'

Harriet thought without regret of the scrambled eggs. 'Onl? slightly.'

'You are fortunate. I had to postpone an appointment this evening.'

Another relaxation session with his beautiful redhead? Harriet

wondered.

It was probably the champagne which made her say, 'Never mind, Mr