"I am sorry," Athena began again.
"You will have to tell me all about it later," Lady Beatrice added. "But hurry now and put on your best gown and make yourself look presentable."
"Why?" Athena asked in surprise.
"Why?" Lady Beatrice echoed. "Because the Prince is here! Luckily I shall not have to make any explanation for your absence. That would have been embarrassing, to say the least of it."
"The ... Prince is ... here?" Athena repeated almost stupidly.
"Yes, at last!" Lady Beatrice said. "Goodness knows, we have been waiting for him long enough! Now come along, Mary. There is no point in keeping him waiting, despite the manner in which he has behaved to us".
She hurried across the room as she spoke to pull open the wardrobe doors.
"You had better put on your blue grenadine," she said. "That is the gown your grandmother thought you should wear when you first met him. It is certainly one of the most becoming creations we have brought with us."
"Y ... yes ... I will wear the blue," Athena said.
She was thinking as she spoke that it did not matter what the Prince thought, but she would like Orion to see her in the blue grenadine.
It was a very elaborate gown with a huge skirt of wide frills each one trimmed at the edge with real lace. It had the very becoming off-the-shoulder, boat-shaped neckline which had been made so fashionable by Queen Victoria.
"No jewellery, I think—no—perhaps your pearls," Lady Beatrice was saying. "You do not want to look ostentatious. At the same time it is important that he should admire you."
"Aunt Beatrice ... I have something to tell you ..." Athena began hesitatingly.
She knew the maid who was doing up her gown could not understand English, and she felt she must tell her Aunt now what she was going to say when she met the Prince.
"You can tell me later, Mary," Lady Beatrice said quickly. "There is really no time now. Just hurry! I know Colonel Stefanatis is waiting for us in the hall."
There was nothing Athena could do but clasp the pearls round her neck, slip her lace mittens over her hands and pick up a handkerchief.
"Come along! Come along!" Lady Beatrice was saying impatiently. "First impressions are very important, as I have told you often enough, and to be late is always inexcusable."
She went ahead of Athena down the stairs at such a pace that her niece almost had to run to keep up with her.
"When they reached the hall Colonel Stefanatis bowed to Lady Beatrice, then to Athena, giving her at the same time a look that she thought was both curious and reproachful.
She was quite sure that he had worried over her disappearance perhaps more than her Aunt had done.
"This way, ladies, please," he said in his most pompous manner.
He led the way down a broad corridor towards a room which Athena knew she had hitherto not seen.
"How shall I ... begin?" she thought frantically. "What shall I ... say?"
She wondered if it would be easier to speak to the Prince in English or Greek, and she decided that having greeted him she would ask if she could speak to him alone.
Everybody would think it very forward and unconventional but after all what did it matter?
They were moving through a part of the Palace which she thought must be exclusively the Prince's because now there were sporting pictures on the walls, ancient guns and several portraits.
There was one which she felt sure must be the Prince himself as it was of a young man with a short dark beard.
She would have liked to stop to look at it and prepare herself for the man she was to meet. But her Aunt and the Colonel were walking so quickly that she could only give the picture a cursory glance as she was forced to keep up with them.
Ahead she saw two liveried servants, one on either side of a pair of mahogany doors and the Colonel looked back to make sure that she was still there.
Then the doors were opened and he stepped through them. Athena drew a deep breath.
"Lady Beatrice Wade, Your Highness," she heard Colonel Stefanatis announce, "and Lady Mary Wade!"
Athena realised that her heart was beating violently in her breast.
"There is no need to be frightened," she thought, "Orion will look after me! Help me, oh my darling, help me to be brave!"
She said his name over and over to herself as if it was a talisman.
She realised that her Aunt was curtseying in front of her and heard a man's voice say:
"You must forgive me, Lady Beatrice, I am more apologetic than I can possibly convey that I have been delayed and that you should have arrived here sooner than I expected."
Athena raised her eyes.
Somehow the voice seemed curiously familiar.
Then she saw standing at her Aunt's side raising her gloved hand perfunctorily to his lips was a man wearing a white uniform coat with gold epaulettes.
For a moment it was difficult to focus her eyes, until as he straightened himself after bowing over her Aunt's hand he turned to face her and the whole world seemed to stand still.
It was impossible to think—impossible to breathe and it seemed as if he too had been turned to stone.
Then as their eyes met it was as if they reached out and touched each other and everybody and everything else vanished.
"Athena my precious!" Orion exclaimed. "What are you doing here ? "
Chapter Seven
Athena walked out onto the balcony and stood looking at the last glimmer of the sun as it sank into the blue of the sea.
It turned the hills and the coastline to every kind of gold; gold fading to russet brown, gold shot through with black, green and purple in the fading light.
And the gold patterns on the sea shimmered against the golden outline of the shore.
She leant over the balustrade thinking she had not seen this view of the sea from the room she had previously occupied in the Palace.
Now she was in the Prince's Suite and the room behind her was so magnificent and at the same time so artistically beautiful that she felt as if it belonged to a fairy-tale.
But then nothing had seemed real, nothing since that moment when she discovered that Orion was the Prince, and regardless of everybody else in the room he had held her close in his arms and she had known that she need no longer be afraid.
They had dined very early because he had thought she must be tired, and now her maids had arrayed her in one of the lovely gauze negligees which she had brought from London in her trousseau.
It barely concealed the curves of her figure as she stood staring at the last glimpse of Apollo before he vanished into the sable of the night.
She heard a footstep behind her but she did not turn her head, and after a moment's pause Orion came and stood beside her.
It was the first time they had been alone since he had left her early in the afternoon to go to the Hotel Poseidon.
He did not speak, but she knew his eyes were on her face and after a moment she said:
"How ... could I have known ... how could I have even suspected for ... one moment that you might be the ... Prince? I was told he had a beard."
"A beard can prove to be a very effective disguise," he said with laughter in his voice, "but to remove it can be equally effective."
"You have done that before?"
"Several times when I wanted to go to Delphi," he admitted. "It was fascinating the way I could walk out of the Palace and nobody gave me a second glance."
There was a moment's silence, before she said:
"Colonel Stefanatis ... looked for... you at the ... Villa of... Madame Helena."
She thought Orion might stiffen at the name, but instead he leant over the balustrade beside her and said:
"I low do you know that?
"The Colonel did not realise that I could speak Greek," Athena answered, "and I ... overheard what he was saying to the officer who had been looking for you."
"Do you want me to explain?"
"No."
It
was the truth, Athena thought. There were really no explanations needed between them.
Of course there had been women in his life before they met, but she knew now without his telling her that if they had mattered to him once they were pale shadows beside what he felt for her.
"Then I will tell you," he said with a faint smile. "The affection I had for Helena, who is an extremely intelligent and cultured woman, was over before I reluctantly accepted, the suggestion that for the sake of my people I should marry an English heiress."
He paused, then added:
"I was not hiding in her Villa for the simple reason that she is leaving Greece and building house for herself in the South of France."
Athena did not speak and after a moment he said:
"If you were surprised at learning my identity, how do you think I could have imagined that the cold-blooded, stiff, awe-inspiring heiress from England should prove to be my own little goddess, warm, loving and with a fire within her which echoes the fire in me?"
Athena felt herself tremble at the passion in his words. Then he asked:
"Why did you not tell me?"
"I ... meant to," Athena said, "I tried to when we were having luncheon together ... but then you ... kissed me and nothing else ... seemed to matter."
"Nothing else will ever matter."
He did not touch her but moved a little nearer to her before he said:
"I went to Delphi because at the last moment I panicked into thinking that even to help my poor people—and they are very poor—I could not saddle myself with a woman I did not love."
Athena turned to look at him.
"I went there for the same ... reason. When I came to Greece I expected the Prince would be a man like you but I was terrified when I met the gossiping, pleasure-seeking Courtiers at the Palace in Athens."
"I loathe the place—that is why I never go there."
"You are not... angry with me for having ... kept my secret? I was preparing to tell the Prince I could not marry him ... and the thought that... Orion was waiting for me ... gave me the courage to do so."
"I am still waiting, my darling."
She looked in his eyes and made a little movement as if she would go closer to him. But then she said:
"Our marriage is ... legal? We will not have to he married again?"
"It is completely legal," he replied," and I knew that like me you could not hear to repeat what to both of us was an unforgettable experience."
"I loved becoming your ... wife in that dear little Church with only the ... people who ... love you present," Athena said in a low voice.
"I have learnt from your Aunt that you were christened 'Athena Mayville'," Orion said, "and Count Theodoros is actually one of my titles."
"Then I am really your wife!"
"Do you want me to prove it?"
He would have taken her in his arms but with a faint gesture Athena stopped him.
"I want you to know one thing," she said. "Even if you had been quite poor and of no social consequence, I would still have been happy ... wildly, crazily happy with you ... even if you refused to touch my money."
"You anticipated that I might do that?" Athena looked away from him a little shyly.
"I was sure you were very proud," she said, "and I was afraid that the Prince might ... revenge himself on you in ... some manner, in which case we should have been obliged to use my fortune to leave Greece! Otherwise I anticipated that you might feel it a ... humiliation to live on your wife's ... wealth."
"You would have cooked for me and looked after me?" Orion asked.
"I would have tried to be as good a cook as Madame Argeros," Athena answered.
Orion gave a laugh of sheer happiness.
"My darling! Was there ever anyone like you?" he asked. "I said you were perfect, but there are degrees of perfection of which even I was not aware. You are everything Athena should be."
He touched her cheek with his hand as he went on:
"You have her beauty, her clear-sighted intelligence and, having put her armour away, like her you cultivate the feminine graces and of course the olive groves."
He was half-serious, half-teasing, and now Athena moved close against him.
"Shall we cultivate the ... olive groves together?" she whispered.
His arms went round her and his lips were on her hair as he said:
"There are so many things I want to do with you and as the goddess of wisdom I know that you will guide, inspire and help my people—they need you desperately!"
"And ... you?" Athena enquired.
He looked down at her, his eyes searching her face as he said: "I cannot live without you—does that answer your question?"
"I love you, Orion ! I love you and I am afraid that … this Is a . .. dream from which we might both ... awaken."
"It is a dream that will stay with us all the days of our lives," he answered, "and every moment, every second that I am with you, my darling little goddess, I fall more deeply, more overwhelmingly in love."
He felt a quiver run through her at his words and his arms tightened around the softness of her body which seemed to melt into his.
The last golden finger of the sun touched them both and illuminated them with a golden aura.
Orion looked down into Athena's eyes shining in the light that came not only from the sun but also from the glory within herself.
"You are tired, my precious," he said, "but if you look at me like that it will be hard for me to let you rest and not make love to you as I want to do."
"I ... want your love," Athena said. "I want to make sure that I am really your ... wife and that I need no longer be afraid of ... losing you."
"You will never do that," he answered, "and I think you realise as I do, my dearest love, that we have been joined together not only by the Church but also by the power of Apollo and Athena goddess of love."
He paused and his voice deepened as he said:
"I believe with all my heart that they brought us together. We were meant for each other since the beginning of time, and an instinct which was part of the divine took us both to Delphi."
"I think that too," Athena said. "In fact I am sure of it."
"Fate moves in strange ways, and there is always a pattern behind everything," Orion went on. "There is a reason for us meeting and loving each other, which will affect the lives and the future of all those with whom we come in contact."
"You mean that ... together we can do something for ... Greece?" Athena asked.
"Nothing ever really happens by chance, and nothing is ever wasted," Orion replied. "That is why, my darling, there are gods who plan our destiny."
"As long as I am with you," Athena whispered, "and as long as we can do what is right and good ... that is all I ask of the future."
She had been moved by the solemnity of his tone, and now he turned towards the sea and the mountains in the distance, which were bathed in the pale transparent limpid grey of the dusk.
"Once this country gave to the world the power to think," he said quietly. "Men's minds moved quicker here and their hearts were lifted in a manner which has never been forgotten."
He paused before he continued:
"That should be the goal of all Greeks today, to find again the vision of perfect beauty and clear thinking which was our contribution to the world."
There was a radiance in Orion's expression and his voice seemed to have a special vibrance as he said:
"Once the Greeks saw holiness wherever they walked and they translated it into beauty."
Athena thought of Delphi and of the Parthenon, and understood what he was trying to say, as he went on:
"That holiness and beauty must come again for it has been too long from the earth. That is the ideal, my darling, to which we in our way must dedicate ourselves."
"I will do that ... if you will ... help me," Athena said.
"We will do it together," he answered. "You and I will try to find the light of the gods and brin
g it to those who need it desperately."
As he spoke the grey of the sky deepened to sable and the mystery of the darkening night enfolded them.
And yet it seemed to Athena that some light within themselves remained. It came from their hearts and was in fact some of the the splendour that had once belonged to Greece.
Because she was a little over-awed and at the same time deeply moved by the way Orion had spoken, she moved closer to him as if for protection, half afraid of the greatness of his vision and all he asked of her.
Because he understood he held her very close and his lips were against the softness of her cheek.
"Such ideals lie in our souls and cannot be shown to ordinary people because they would not understand," he said quietly, "but our love and happiness in each other is different."
His mouth moved over her skin before he went on:
"I believe that, in itself, will bring happiness to others, as you, my beautiful one, gave happiness yesterday to the simple friends I have in Delphi."
"They have no idea who you are?"
"To them I am Orion, someone they love because I love them. I like to keep it that way so that there is always somewhere I can go and just be myself, and there are no demands made on me except as a man."
"I love you as a ... man," Athena said, her voice deepening on the word, "but I also love you as Orion and last night when you ... made me your ... wife I thought that the ... constellation of stars shone ... around you."
"We were enchanted," he said, "and I think that the light of Apollo brought us both an ecstasy that is only given to those favoured by the gods."
His lips found her mouth.
At first it was a kiss without passion, but something more perfect, more sacred, like the moonlight on the Sanctuary at Delphi.
Then the closeness of him and his lips awakened the fire that had burnt within Athena the night before and she lelt it rise in him.
They thing together feeling the flames of love uniting their bodies and exciting their minds.
"I love you ! I love you, Orion," Athena whispered.
Now his kiss became more demanding, fiercely, insistently passionate and with it an exaltation and a rapture which made her feel that once again he would carry her up into the sky until they reached the stars that were just appearing in the velvet darkness above them.
Kiss the Moonlight Page 14
