Devil in Disguise

by Jessica Steele

  Perhaps he discerned that to have him so close, so tall above her was unnerving her further, because without waiting to see whether she was obeying him, he strolled back to his position by the window.

  Clare took a sip of the brandy, felt the fire of the liquid as it went down. Then knowing it was sacrilege and would have her father who fancied he knew a good brandy frowning in horror, she gulped the rest down in one go. If Lazar said she would feel better for drinking it she was prepared to believe him. It was worth trying anything if it would make her feel better than she did right now.

  She set the glass down on a low table nearby, the small sound it made causing Lazar to look her way. An expression of satisfaction crossed his features to see the glass empty, but when she would have got to her feet and disappeared back to her room his voice stopped her.

  `Don't go, Clare,' he said, and for all his voice was quiet, she sensed an order behind his words.

  `I—th-thought you ... I only came for—b-because you said I should have a drink,' she said, standing up.

  `Sit down,' he commanded, coming up close, but making no attempt to push her down to her seat or in any way touch her.

  The brandy was warming her insides, and quite suddenly her world didn't seem anywhere near as topsy-turvy as it had. She sat down without further protest. Only to have her nerves jumping again when Lazar elected to occupy part of the same couch. Her nerves quietened when she observed there was room enough for a third person to take a seat in between them, and that Lazar was making no effort to close the gap.

  For countless seconds silence reigned, and for the life of her she couldn't be the one to break it. Lazar was studying the glass in his hand as though it held the key to anything he might have to say to her, giving her the oddest impression that he was choosing his words very carefully.

  She flinched when he moved, the suddenness of his movement as he bent to place his glass on the table next to hers telling her he had decided on what he was going to say.

  Fully expecting him to tear her apart for leading him on by asking him to kiss her—she blushed at the memory—and then running away, she received yet another shock that however hard he had tried to dress it up, his words came out bluntly, and tore at her shredded nerve ends.

  `Tell me, Clare,' he said, his voice not unkind. `Why is it that you are so afraid of men?'

  Her gasp was audible, though little else left her throat as she stared at him in horror. 'I ...' she managed to choke, but couldn't carry on.

  `Do not be alarmed,' he gentled her. 'I'm not going to harm you, but ...' he paused, then looking straight into her eyes he added softly, `But it is important to me that I should know.'

  'I ...' she began again, nothing coming through from her grey matter to tell her why it should be so important to him. `I'm not afraid...' was as far as she managed, getting more confused as the thought visited her that she wasn't afraid of men any longer—well, not of Lazar, not in a physical context anyway.

  `Oh, Clare,' he sighed, regretfully, she thought, that she should lie to him, `I have witnessed too many things about you for that to be true. I apologise now for being too late with my conclusions and subjecting you to more than you could handle out there.'

  Her nerves settled as curiosity stirred, for all her face went pink at his reminder of the intimacies that had taken place on the beach. What was it he had witnessed prior to her bolting just now that had him taking this line of thinking? She had up until a couple of hours ago been no different, she thought, from the way she had always been; less afraid if anything, she mused, remembering her happy day yesterday.

  'I don't know why you should think—th-that about me,' she 'said bravely, wondering how much courage came from her and how much from the generous brandy she had downed. `But ...'

  'Clare, Clare,' he shushed her. `Everything points to it, only I have been too occupied with other thoughts to see it.' Incapable of replying, she stared at him and he continued, `I have eyes in my head, have seen the way you attempt to hide your—femininity in shapeless garments, seen the way you tremble whenever the subject of your coming to my room has been mentioned. I have had you faint in my arms when you thought I was going to kiss you, have seen you run away terrified when that kiss happened and I let that kiss take its natural course.'

  Her cheeks bright crimson, wishing he would get off the subject, Clare realised it would be the utmost folly at this juncture to reveal that it had been that `natural course' that had her running away, but not because his touch had been loathsome. She studied the pattern of her dress covering her knees, her throat locked, and Lazar went on persuasively.

  'You were in shock when I came to bring your clothes,' he said, still talking to her in a low gentle voice. 'I think maybe you still are a little, though the brandy has helped your colour. But I think for your own good, little Clare, we have to talk this out.'

  'Lazar, I ...' Clare found her voice. If he was going to start dissecting what had happened down on the beach she knew she just wasn't going to be able to take it. 'Please, Lazar, I don't want to talk about it.'

  'We have to, Clare,' he said, his voice taking on an uncompromising note as again he told her, 'It is important to me—to both of us.'

  She tried to think why it was so important, then suddenly realised why. Lazar's family code of honour demanded. that he took from her what her brother was said to have taken from Sophronia, and he had been ready to carry out without mercy the intent of his threat. Had she not seen a different side to him yesterday she would have said he was still ready to carry out that threat. Yet he had been a pleasing companion yesterday; considerate to her welfare—he needn't have bought her that sun hat, needn't have taken her out at all, for that matter, either. But he had. And that spoke of something in him, a sensitivity perhaps. A sensitivity that now said as great as his family honour was, if it was true that she was afraid of men—if there was good cause for her fear—then maybe he would not be able to bring himself to carry out that revenge. Hope surged within her. Her natural reserve having returned, the passionate-natured girl she had discovered on the beach relegated to her proper place.

  'Lazar ...' she said, her voice quick, her mood anxious, wanting to tell him now what she had thought would never be dragged from her to tell anybody. But the words were sticking in her throat and wouldn't come. They had been walled up inside her for too long.

  And it was then, as though he could see she was on the brink of telling him what he wanted to know, as though he knew the struggle she was having to get the words out, that Lazar narrowed the gap between them. He moved to sit close to her, to encourage her, his hands taking hers in a warm loose hold.

  'Why is it, Clare,' he asked very softly, 'that you, an Englishwoman, have passed your nineteenth birthday and had not until this afternoon received your first kiss?'

  Her face working, seeing yet not seeing the gentle understanding in him, she struggled to release the words. He waited patiently, not hurrying her.

  And suddenly, like the deadly dark secret she felt it to be, it wouldn't stay buried any longer. As if held down these last five years by a tightly coiled spring held fast by a very stout unbreakable lock, that lock broke, the spring was released, and one sentence came rocketing into the air, sounding loud and discordant as it bounced round the room and came back to reverberate deafeningly in her ears.

  'I was attacked when I-was fourteen,' she said, and it was too late to try and dress it up when she saw and heard his shocked reaction.

  An explosive stream of Greek shot from him, giving her an impression that even if she did know the language then that string of invective would not be found in any Greek dictionary. Then all she was aware of was a numbing pain in her hands as Lazar's grip tightened, threatening to fracture every bone.

  He gained control after a moment, and the bruising as a feeling of dizziness came over her. She fought her way out of it, some inner self telling her she had to finish it. 'I was being punched, beaten,' a separate part of her registere
d that Lazar's colour had gone, her voice rising higher she saw his face whiten, 'thrown ...' she said, gulping for air as she came to the end, 'thrown to the ground.'

  Near to fainting, having spoken her nightmare as she relived the experience, she clutched at the man beside her, seeing only greyness. She came to her full self to find she was lying on the couch with Lazar stooped on the floor beside her stroking the hair back from her forehead with a gentle hand.

  'So that is why your brother was screaming abuse down the phone to me. Why Aeneas is having such a hard time with him,' Lazar said absently, there being just one more question he wanted the answer to. Clare felt weak, as though the stuffing had been taken out of her. She must get to her room, she thought. She wanted to be by herself. She was only half aware that she had told Lazar everything, yet knowing she must have done. Though she couldn't understand why he was looking at her as though he had more he wanted to know—how could there be? He had stripped her bare of all there was to know !

  'Clare.' His hand left her forehead to take hold of hers, to grip them tightly when he saw she was looking at him wanting to know what that 'Clare' had been about. 'Did he rape you, pethi?'

  Somehow she seemed to know that pethi was Greek for child, maybe because he had called her that once before, just before he had instructed her in the water to 'Be brave, child.' Perhaps she did seem like a child to him, she thought tiredly, then as the grip on her hands tightened the longer he waited for her answer, she shook her head and told him wearily:

  'No.' Some of the force went out of those fingers. 'B-because I was late home my father came to look for me. He must have heard me screaming before he turned the lane, because suddenly I couldn't scream at all. I remember I tried all I could to scream when I saw the searching light from his torch, but no sound would come. And then my father w-was pulling the man away from me. I was free and ... and my father was half killing him.'

  'Only half killing him!' The gentle air which had been with Lazar ever since she had got started evaporated, leaving her in no doubt that he would have done a full job of it. 'He was prosecuted—this nothos?'

  Nothos was probably right whatever it meant, Clare thought dully. 'No,' she replied, a shuddering breath leaving her. 'I w-was ill for a time. My Aunt Katy is a doctor, so she looked after me. My parents decided not to call in the police because they were afraid it would retard my recovery. B-besides, I wouldn't have been able to give evidence anyway.'

  'You were so long in shock!'

  'I couldn't speak for over twelve months. It was awful,' she understated.

  Lazar looked at though he was going to take her in his arms to comfort her—she saw his arms move. But he checked their movement, not knowing that she no longer had any fear of being in his arms.

  'So this—this apology for a man got away with only a hiding from your father he wouldn't forget?' 'Yes,' she whispered. 'I overheard my parents talking and knew they were worried in case he did the same again to another girl. He was a man who worked on one of the farms, so we all knew who he was. And then about a year later I read in the local paper that he had overturned a tractor and had been killed. My voice started to come back then.'

  Feeling drained, absolutely nothing more she could tell him, Clare moved to sit up. 'I'd like to go to my room now, Lazar,' she said, sounding as exhausted as she looked. He would have to move to allow her to get by. Her legs felt too weak to have her scrambling to the other end of the couch.

  He smiled, a smile that was compassionate and warmed her heart. `Yes,' he agreed, 'I think it will be as well for you to rest until it is time for dinner.'

  Standing up, he allowed her the space she needed. Getting to her feet, her legs wobbly, Clare would have stumbled, but Lazar was there holding her steady. Then giving her a look that was at once reassuring, he picked her up in his arms, commenting in case she hadn't read his look:

  'You have nothing to fear from me, Clare. I just think you will get to your room more quickly if I carry you there.'

  Impersonally he took her to her room, gently setting her down on the bed, taking off her sandals and pulling a light cover up around her.

  'Rest now, pethi,' he said softly, and left her.

  Sleep was a million miles away when he had gone. But as she lay there strength gradually returned to her limbs and her mind slowly cleared of the remembrance of that terrible ordeal.

  Her thoughts drifted on to how gentle Lazar had been with her, and recalling the way he had been she could not regret she had told him what she had, even though part of her mind registered astonishment that she had done so.

  Not understanding quite how Lazar had changed-in her thoughts from devil to near saint, Clare got up from the bed and found momentary respite from her thoughts in going to the bathroom and shampooing the sea water from her hair. She towelled it vigorously, but found as she brushed the air through her long tresses in order for it to dry so she should appear looking respectable at dinner, that there was no easy way to get Lazar out of her mind.

  In the middle of pleasant thoughts about him, of how, now that he knew about her, she was fairly certain he would not keep her to the price he had said she must pay if Kit was to be saved, she woke up with a start to the thought that it had been ages since she had given Kit any thought.

  Dear God, what had happened to her in this beautiful part of the world? How could she have pushed the danger Kit was in so easily to the back of her mind? What had happened to her that not only should she have put her worries for her brother to one side but that here in these lovely surroundings so many of her indelibly held beliefs about herself should have been stood on their heads and she should turn out not at all the sort of person she had thought herself to be?

  How could she have forgotten about Kit? How could she have been so complimenting herself that she need not have to go to Lazar to offer herself—her brow puckered at the feeling that tripped her up that she wanted to feel that warm mobile mouth Aver hers again. She forced herself to concentrate on Kit, albeit belatedly. What had she been thinking of not to see that if she didn't go to Lazar, then that still left Kit to take the punishment she should have stood proxy for? She checked her watch. There was another hour to go before dinner. She wanted to see Lazar straight away, wanted to know what was going to happen to Kit—to plead if necessary that he shouldn't harm him. And yet everything she had babbled out to him having come back to her, she experienced embarrassment at having to face him again. There was only an hour to wait, she told herself, shyness making her buck the issue. It would take her half that time to shower and dress.

  Her hair looked pretty, she thought, when she stood surveying her image after completing her ablutions. On an impulse to look more grown up than the pethi Lazar had called her, she found the lipstick he had given her and lightly coloured her mouth.

  The girl who looked back at her wasn't at all the girl who had stepped on to that plane—was it only Monday night? The faintest shade of tan was beginning to touch her skin, taking away that pale look that had deadened the vitality of her silvery tresses. Her mouth too seemed to have come alive. Was it just the lipstick that had done that? Or was it that being thoroughly kissed by Lazar had brought her lips to ripeness?

  Blushing at her thoughts, dragging her mind away from the wonder of those kisses, Clare could no longer stand looking at herself. She sat in one of the two chairs in her room to wait until it was time to join Lazar for dinner. She must forget about herself, of how, only now she was beginning to face, Lazar Vardakas had brought a dormant Clare Harper to life. She must concentrate all her thoughts on Kit. Lazar must be made to see that he couldn't carry out his intention that Kit should be physically assaulted.

  With a fast beating heart she realised the time had come when she had to face Lazar. She found herself accepting the new thinking Clare who, as she got up from the bed, wished she had something better to wear to grace his table than what she had on. His description of `bell tent' was very apt, she thought, as she left her room.
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br />   She saw Lazar as she turned into the hall. He looked tall and magnificent, she couldn't help thinking, as he stood by the dining room door waiting for her so she should enter in front of him. He was wearing dark trousers and another of his fine, polo-necked black body shirts that showed the strength of his muscles.

  Aware of his scrutiny as she approached, she saw his eyes linger on her cloud of newly washed hair. Then she was up to him, a shy smile on her mouth. She thought perhaps he might ask her how she was or possibly say something to ease the situation if he guessed this was an awkward moment for her. But her smile faded into nothing as she saw his eyes on her mouth, saw his lips firm as his eyes met hers—and then found herself on the receiving end of the coldest look she had so far received from him.

  Rooted, she stared at him. What was wrong? Where was the kind considerate man who not too many hours before had carried her to lay her gently down on her bed?

  `Lazar, what ...?' she began, only to feel a fool to have said anything, when over the top of her he said coolly: `After you,' letting her know he was more interested in having his dinner than in having a conversation with her in the hall, and since she was now blocking the doorway, she was holding up the proceedings.