The Daughter of Night (13 page)

'How long will you be away?' Hester pushed her chair back from the table and watched her husband dunk another roll in his coffee. They had been up early, but not as early as the Greek woman, Anna, who seemed to be the chief and only head cook and bottle washer. The rolls they were eating were of her baking, and from the warmth and crispness of them, they were fresh that morning.

'You're afraid to be left here on your own?' Demetrios shook his head. 'I thought you'd appreciate the solitude, and you'll have Katy for company. You and she can get to know each other, you'll do that better if I'm not here.'

Hester gave a grunt of discontent. 'The plumbing's archaic,' she complained, 'and the water supply's niggardly. I wouldn't have liked to be here when the monastery was fully occupied—the whole place must have stunk of unwashed bodies! It's not my idea of a holiday villa.'

'Did I promise you that?' He raised his eyebrows and the lift of his lip was disdainful.

'How the hell should I know?' Hester snapped savagely. 'I can't recall what you promised…'

'Twenty thousand pounds, a wedding ring and a life free from monetary worries,' he reminded her. There was a chill in his voice—the man who had teased her last night had vanished.

'And for that, you could have had the best,' she snapped, 'so why make do with me? Oh hell, I'm fed up with being a pawn on a chessboard, moved from square to square as though I'd no mind or will of my own! You never tell me anything—any bit of information I've had from you, I've had to dig out with a chisel.' She harked back to a grievance, one she had almost forgotten. 'You could have married your "distant cousin", the one I met in the hotel—the one called Athene. From her behaviour, I should have said she was slightly more than willing to fill the empty niche in your life.'

'What do you want me to say?' Demetrios leaned back lazily in his chair and looked at her through half shut eyes that gave nothing away. 'That I fancied you, or perhaps that I thought you'd suit my purpose better? Choose whichever reason you like! You
do
suit my purpose, and when you've got over your desire to be the richest woman in the world without working for it…'

'Ha!' she interrupted. 'We're back to that again, are we? I'm surprised you trust me here alone with your daughter… As a matter of fact, I'm surprised you trust me at all!'

'There are times when I surprise myself,' the humour crept back into his eyes, 'but you'll have to get out of this habit of being bad-tempered in the morning. You should try for a good night's sleep!' His fingers on her lips controlled her howl of wrath as Katy came bouncing into the room.

'The boat's coming!' she announced excitedly. 'May we come down to the landing with you, Papa?'

'Ask Hester,' he grinned. 'I don't think your new stepmama likes the thought of coming back up. Yesterday she said "Never again"!'

Hester chose to be contrary. 'Of course we will,' she announced firmly. 'It's just what I need, a spot of mountaineering. It'll set me up for the day,' she glanced down at her cotton trousers and flat, comfortable sandals, 'and I'm dressed for it!'

During the next two days, Hester learned about Katy and was pleasantly surprised by what she found. The child was happy without being boisterous. Apart from her ability with languages, she was pleasantly average—Hester was in no mood to cope with a budding genius—and Katy was very well behaved although a trifle old-fashioned.

Hester put this down to the effect of Miss Mungo, with whom Katy had lived for the past three years and who had been called back to Scotland less than a month ago to care for an invalid mother. Of course, Katy had desires, the main ones being to live in a house and go to a proper school with other girls.

'We've always lived in the hotels, you see,' Katy sighed tragically, 'and Miss Mungo said it's no place for a growing girl and I should meet people of my own age.' Miss Mungo had apparently said a number of things and Hester couldn't fault any of them. 'I'd like to have a dog and wear school uniform.'

'I believe your papa has a few plans in that direction.' Hester watched a smile light Katy's dark eyes. 'I'm almost sure there'll be a house, and a school. As for a dog,' she grinned, 'a house isn't a house without one!' And she left the child deep in a book of dogs, scrutinising breeds in order that the dog should be exactly right and just what was wanted.

Meanwhile, Hester wandered out into the courtyard, hoisted herself up on to the wall and peered out to sea. Over to her left loomed the dark shadow of Naxos, nearly on the skyline; Rhodes was much farther away, and she wondered what Demetrios was doing—was he stuck in an office with a desktop computer and a set of ledgers or was he decorating the side of the hotel swimming pool? Knowing Demetrios, it would be the former, and yet—she became practical—she didn't
know
Demetrios; he was merely her husband and that didn't mean she knew him.

He was the most aggravating creature, one she couldn't pin down, alternating as he did between the complete male chauvinist, a satyr and a puckish faun who teased unmercifully. He ought to be labelled, she decided drearily, 'I am a male chauvinist pig' or 'this is my humorous side'; perhaps then she'd know how to treat him! But something would have to be done about their relationship, and that soon. She was fighting for self-preservation—not to become a cypher, to retain her individuality… Maybe that was what was wrong, perhaps she should just slump, give the appearance of acquiescence—be boring. It was worth a try!

Demetrios returned to the island at half past seven on Monday evening. Katy, who had spent the greater part of the day with her eye glued to the telescope which was mounted on the wall of the courtyard, came rushing in with the news.

'Papa's coming back, I can see the boat! He should be here in half an hour.'

'Big deal,' Hester said gloomily. In an effort not to think about the future, she had decided to read, but the only books were those belonging to her new stepdaughter—specially chosen, she guessed, by Miss Mungo with the aim of improving both Katy's mind and her knowledge of Scotland. Hester had dipped into
Redgauntlet
and swiftly withdrawn to seek for something a bit less convoluted and verbose.
Kidnapped
was to hand, and she sighed with relief. Robert Louis Stevenson was easier to read, but she couldn't keep her mind on it. Images of Flo, Mia and Vilma constantly came to mind, but as soon as she concentrated on one or the other of them, they turned into Demetrios…

'I'm going down to the landing to meet Papa!' That was Katy, almost dancing with excitement, and Hester thought she could understand that. After two days on this rock, a visit from the arch-fiend himself would have been welcome, if only to break the monotony. 'Are you coming with me?' Katy sounded anxious as though she thought the welcoming committee should be as large as possible. Hester closed
Kidnapped
, set it down on the table with a thump and rose to her feet.

'I'm dressed for the part,' she indicated her tee-shirt and trousers. 'But don't blame me if somebody has to send for that donkey to get me back here!'

Katy laughed aloud at the thought of somebody not wanting to climb six hundred steps, and when, on the way down, Hester made a bright comment about how fortunate it was that somebody had installed a handrail over the worst bits, the child nodded sagely.

'It was for the old men in the monastery. They were all old at the end, you know. Miss Mungo said they were hermits and then people didn't want to be hermits any more, so when the very old ones died, no new ones came.'

'That's reasonable and quite understandable.' Hester tempered her grimness with a smile and went on down, each step jolting her, but at the bottom, they went down the few steps from the landing, sat down and took off their sandals. She dipped her hot feet into the cool water with a feeling of bliss, wishing she had brought a swimsuit. There was a skimpy bikini in her case, but for some inexplicable reason she felt shy of wearing it. It didn't seem to go with monasteries!

From where they were sitting they could see the cabin cruiser, only a faint white speck in the distance to start with, but as it drew nearer they could make out the bow wave and the creamy wake of it, together with the two dark blobs which were Demetrios and the pilot. Hester scrambled to her feet and wiping them on her handkerchief, put her sandals back on. That was something else it was hard to explain, this desire to be fully clothed, even shod, when she was with Demetrios—a sort of armour? Perhaps!

The white boat came alongside the landing slowly and Demetrios, with a lithe leap, jumped ashore and Hester, watching as Katy hurled herself on her father, approved of him, in fact she felt a little curl of excitement deep in the pit of her stomach. He certainly looked good, the sort of man any right-minded girl would be glad to be married to—for sheer, animal magnificence, she awarded him top marks.

The wind had whipped his normally smoothly dressed hair into curls, his thin cotton open-necked white shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, made his olive skin look dark and satiny, and the pants he was wearing, thin dark blue ones, clung to his hips and thighs as though he'd been poured into them, and his face as he bent over his young daughter was full of laughter and gentleness.

Hester's own face grew shadowed as she straightened out the soft line of her mouth and masked the admiration in her eyes behind the fringe of her lashes. That way lay madness—she would become personally involved—she would be a pushover and it would all end in more hurt than she could take.

Determinedly she painted a bright smile on her face—remembering that Vilma had said she would get hurt; but the thing was not to let it show, so that when it came her turn to be greeted, she was cool, self-contained and strictly practical.

'Did you by any chance bring some milk back with you?' she murmured as soon as his arms closed about her. She made no attempt to evade the embrace— Katy was watching, and what her new stepdaughter thought was important to her; Katy must find everything normal.

'Milk?' Demetrios stopped with his mouth less than an inch away from hers, she could feel the warmth of his breath on her lips. 'I've been away for two days and you ask me about milk?'

'Mmm.' She stood quietly in the curve of his arm, raising clear, cool eyes to his. 'First things first, that's what I was taught. Olive oil I can take in small quantities, but goat's milk, no! And it's either that or the dried stuff reconstituted.' She turned her head slightly at the critical moment and his mouth brushed her cheek. 'If I ever come here again,' she continued serenely, 'I shall bring my own cow!'

They arrived back at Heathrow to find the English summer was behaving normally; it was raining. It had been another rushed journey. Hester felt as though her feet hadn't touched the ground since they had arrived at Piraeus, and she leaned back thankfully against the squabs of the car which had come to meet them and take them straight to the hotel. The shortest distance between two points, she mused, was a straight line, and Demetrios evidently moved only in straight lines.

'I thought we were going to have a house.' That was Katy being a bit disappointed as she looked around the immaculate suite. 'Somewhere I could have a dog.'

'I'm sure we will,' Hester consoled as she unpacked Katy's suitcases and began to hang things away in the wardrobe. 'But finding the right house takes time. Your papa will arrange it.' If there was a slight note of bitterness in her voice, Katy didn't notice. 'He's very good at arranging things.'

Demetrios didn't work in the hotel. 'Work,' he murmured as he slid reluctantly out of bed, 'and I'm a bit late. Ring down and have breakfast sent up, like a good girl.'

'Ring yourself,' Hester muttered as she rolled over and buried her head in the pillows. 'This last week's been like being on a very fast merry-go-round! Everything's been a blur until it was time to get off and hey presto, we were right back where we started. I'm suffering from jet-lag. Where are you going anyway?'

'To the offices.' A well-aimed slap connected with her rear and jerked her into life. 'I can't work here, there are no facilities and too many distractions.'

'You need facilities?' She raised her eyebrows and pushed her hair out of her eyes. 'I thought all you tycoons snoozed in your padded chairs until lunchtime and played golf all afternoon.' While she said it, her mind was busy. In his absence, she could ring Crispin's to see if there was a message from Mia. Her foster-sister would have returned from Switzerland by now—they might even be able to arrange a meeting if Mia was on night duty or had a split shift—but there was Katy. She sighed. Problems, problems! Nothing was clean and clear-cut any more.

Demetrios took the sigh to mean disappointment. 'Sorry, sweetheart—I'll meet you for lunch, that place off Shaftesbury Avenue where we first ate. You and Katy take a taxi and I'll book a table for half-past one.'

Hester was disgruntled. She took a quick shower and dressed before breakfast arrived and contemplated, without enthusiasm, a morning with nothing to do except help Katy with the enormous jigsaw puzzle they had bought in the duty-free shop at the airport. Never before in her life—except when she had been on holiday, but that was different—had she been idle. Flo had always found work for idle hands— bedmaking, dusting, polishing, washing up and as a last resort, scrubbing something, but here—Hester gazed around the immaculate rooms and heaved a sigh of despair. There was nothing here, not even a decent book to read, unless she went back to Katy's store of Scottish period pieces.

Demetrios picked up her discontent. 'Try shopping,' he advised, holding out his coffee cup for a refill. 'That's what most women seem to do when they find time hanging heavy. You can spend some of your ill-gotten gains…'

'Hard-earned money,' she corrected, 'and when I think of it—do you realise what it works out at? You mentioned a period of ten to fourteen years—that's only just over a thousand a year. I think you've bought me cheap, considering most of it wasn't your money anyway.'

'Put like that,' he smiled at her mockingly over the rim of his cup, 'you've got right on your side.' He drew out his wallet and selected a small sheaf of notes. 'Buy what you want, and there's some small change for taxis and the odd coffee and cake.'