'I'm not in the habit of swimming naked,* Bethany insisted. 'And no one saw me I'
'You're wrong,' Nikolas corrected her sharply. *I saw you!'
Bethany had never felt quite as she did at that moment, although she had come close to it that day at Kamiros, when she had found the need to challenge him irresistible. 'Then I'm lucky it wasn't Theo,' she countered huskily. 'You're much less susceptible to temptation than he is, aren't you, Niko?' She rarely used the affectionate abbreviation of his name, and she was vaguely shocked to realise that she did so now quite deliberately.
'Stop it, Bethany!'
'But of course it wouldn't do for you to try taking
advantage of the woman you're training to be '
She bit back hastily before she betrayed the fact that Alexia had been indiscreet about his plans for her. She did not want to upset relations between him and Alexia, for Alexia's sake. 'Not,' she went on anxious to conceal her original meaning, 'that I really believe what Theo said about your liking for women—^you're not the type!' ~
'Will you be quiet!' He turned her about roughly and began the climb up the steep hill; dark and lonely where the trees clustered, and starkly shadowed away from them. Nikolas's hand gripped her arm so hard that his strong hard fingers dug into her flesh and betrayed his anger as surely as the harshness of his voice
did. 'You provoke me beyond endurance at times, and I shan't warn you again, Bethany! You don't realise the kind of situation your teasing could give rise to.' Turning his head suddenly he looked down at her, his eyes raking the pale oval of her face. 'I hope you don't realise it; if I thought you did '
Bethany turned up her face to him and her eyes were two huge shiny orbs between smudges of darker lashes, her lips parted and half smiling in defiance of his anger. A strange new excitement drove her on, making her forget how she had hated him when she fled from the house earlier. It tingled through her whole body, a sense of power that she could neither explain nor wished to at the moment.
'If I did, Niko?' she prompted, and the sound of his breath came in a great shuddering sigh as he reached out for her.
She was drawn against him with a hard fierce pull that almost knocked the breath from her, and bound to him with arms that made no allowances for the soft vulnerability of her body. One hand gripped the nape of her neck, twisting painfuly in her damp hair, and her head was forced back by the violence of his mouth on hers. For several moments it seemed she had stopped breathing, and although her body shrank from the bruising force of him, her senses clamoured for the wild excitement of his mouth.
He raised his head and looked down into her eyes for a long moment, the hand on her neck sliding down to press into the small of her back as its mate did, and he was breathing fast and unevenly with his lips slightly apart. Then he thrust her from him suddenly, and moved away, running both hands over his hair and keeping his face averted when he spoke.
'Did I hurt you?' Too shaken to reply, Bethany merely shook her head, and he turned, looking at her with narrowed eyes for a moment before he spoke again. 'You see how dangerous it is to—behave as you do?'
She shook her head. Her mouth tingled still and it
was quite unconscious when she put her fingers to her lips and lightly brushed them. But there was one point she had to put him right on, and it did not yet occur to her what the implication of her words were. *I don't behave—like that/ she denied. 'Not with anyone else, Nikolas.*
It was so difficult to see what his reaction was, for he still stood away from her a little, and the dimness of moonlight made shadows on his face when he turned it in profile to her again. She was growing cool in her wet clothes, even though the wind was warm, and she shivered slightly; a small enough gesture but one that Nikolas noticed.
'You're cold?' He scanned her slender shape with the thin cotton dress clinging to damp skin, and he extended a hand to her. 'Come, let's go home and you can change into dry clothes.'
He was the authoritative guardian again, and Bethany did not like the reversion. 'I'm all right,' she told him, ignoring the hand he held out. 'And I'm not cold, it's just the '
She had been about to say it was because he had been holding her in his arms, inducing a glowing warmth in her that she missed now that he again kept his distance, but she shook her head. Nikolas was not so easily denied, however, and he still held his hand out to her, the long brown fingers curved invitingly.
'Come home,' he said, soft-voiced, and without further hesitation Bethany succumbed to their persuasion and took his hand. Neither of them noticed for the moment that her shoes had once more been abandoned and forgotten somewhere on the hillside.
CHAPTER SIX
It was nearly two weeks after Bethany had taken her moonlight swim and ended the evening with startling unexpectedness in Nikolas's arms, but she was still plagued by an inexplicable restlessness. A curious sense of anticipation that persisted even though nothing had changed superficially. It was simply that she found it much harder to sit at table with him, or to be in the same room for any length of time without feeling a strange sense of unrest she had never known before.
Apolidus had provided her with everything she needed for as long as she could remember, but now suddenly she felt a need for something more, without having the least idea what it was she wanted. It was that same restlessness that sent her in search of isolation one morning after she and Alexia had finished the baking, and it was quite unplanned when she found herself once more by the dig that had been abandoned ever since Papa died.
She sat for a while gazing down at the bright dazzle of the ocean and thinking about the last time she was there, when she had been joined by the man who called himself Apollo, and suddenly something clicked into place. She thought she knew why those classically handsome features had struck her as so persistently familiar, and she could scarcely wait to prove it to herself.
The problem was that the evidence she needed was once more covered over by the debris of a minor landslide that had happened since their last visit. It had brought down a heap of sandy red earth and small boulders that she found impossible to move with her bare hands, which was why she had returned to the house by a shorter back way that took her past the studio window.
Since Nikolas needed to keep in touch with his business concerns, he occasionally used the studio as an office, and Bethany scarcely noticed if he was there or not as she went hurrying by the open window. But she was not left long in doubt when her name was called in a voice there was no mistaking.
'Bethany!'
She came to a halt and heaved a massive sigh of resignation that he could hardly have missed, as she swung round to face him. He stood at the open window looking vaguely menacing, as he sometimes did to her prejudiced eye, and he took swift note of the dust liberally spattered over her dark blue dress and clinging to her hands. He was frowning, which was inevitable, she supposed, but lately she had felt rather less disposed towards coming into open conflict with him, which was why she' simply stood and waited for him to make the first move.
'What on earth happened to you?'
She shook her head, optimistically denying anything had happened because she was unwilling to confide in him at the moment. 'Nothing's happened, Nikolas. We've finished baking and Aunt Alex didn't need me for anything else just yet, so I went for a walk.' It dawned on her then how meticulously she was spelling it out for him and she shook herself impatiently. When she looked at him again, it was a quite deliberately provocative glance. 'You don't mind my going for a walk, do you, Nikolas?'
'Not in the least,' he answered coolly but there was an edge of harshness on his voice that she took heed of. 'I'm your guardian, Bethany, not your jailor.'
'Then if you'll excuse me '
'Have you had an accident? You can't expect me to believe you got into that state simply by going for a walk,' he pointed out impatiently. 'What happened to you? Did you have an accident?'
'No, I'm all right.'
She should have be
en grateful for his concern, she told herself. If it had been her stepfather showing such
consideration she would have reacted quite differently, but it wasn't the same at all with Nikolas. She retraced a couple of steps until she stood by the window, wishing she did not again experience those discomfiting variations in her heartbeat when she caught his eye for a moment.
'I went as far as the dig,' she explained, 'and I've got a bit dirty, but I need some tools, so I had tOr '
'Tools?' Telling him that had been a mistake, she realised, but it was too late to retract, and she stepped back hastily when he suddenly swung his long legs over the sill. As he stood beside her on the path, his eyes narrowed slightly. 'Bethany, what exactly are you doing?'
'Nothing!'
She was insistent, but obviously not very convincing, for Nikolas gave an exasperated sigh that somehow turned into a snort of disbelief, and he placed both hands on his hips as he stood facing her. 'Don't lie to me, you maddening little wretch!' he ordered sternly. 'What do you need tools for? You're not trying to excavate that dig of yours again, are you? I've told you it's illegal without a permit, and I know you don't have one.'
'But it could take weeks, months, even years for an official party to come here,' Bethany protested, and her face was warmly flushed as she fought against his logic as well as his authority. 'You know it would, Nikolas!'
'And you're in a hurry?'
She lifted her shouWers, uneasy about trying to explain her reasons. 'I just don't want to wait until some fuddy-duddy old professor decides to come and find it, that's all.'
'It?'
She shrugged again uneasily, seeing herself led inexorably in a direction she would much rather not go. 'Takis and I found a bust of Apollo,' she told him reluctantly. 'It isn't enough to make a lot of fuss about, Nikolas.'
'Tell me about it!'
Bethany took a sideways glance at him, almost believing that she might have convinced him. His expression gave little away, except that he was growing impatient, and she passed a moist tongue over her lips before she began. 'ou remember that man I told you
I'd spoken with at the dig the night you ' She
broke off, unwilling to remind him of the way that evening had ended. *You remember?'
*I remember,' Nikolas assured her quietly, but his eyes were narrowed and his mouth had that tight look she so disliked. *I understood the man had left the island that night. If he's back, Bethany, and '
'He isn't,' she interrupted swiftly. I'm trying to explain, Nikolas, if only you'll listen 1' He nodded abruptly, though obviously he was already biased, and Bethany wished she had a more sympathetic listener. 'When we arrived in Rodos,' she went on, *I noticed a man standing over by the market and looking at— he seemed to be looking at us. Then I saw him again at Kamiros, although Theo was convinced I was seeing things. He's—^haunted me.'
She chose the word with care, and realised it was the only one that aptly described the feeling the man's uncanny familiarity had given her. But Nikolas was frowning again. 'And it was the same man you saw that evening—the one you spoke with?'
Bethany nodded. 'The one who told Takis where I was, or rather where he'd seen me last. I told you he called himself Apollo, if you remember.' He nodded, still impatient for her to come to the point. 'Well, he is Apollo, Nikolas.' She laughed a little unsteadily because she still found it a little hard to believe in the uncanny resemblance herself. 'That's why I want to dig out the bust of the marble Apollo; to make sure I haven't made a mistake. I know I haven't made a mistake, but it's so incredible I can still hardly believe it. That man is exactly like the marble head, it's—it's uncanny!'
'Bethany '
He seemed uncertain, and that in itself was encour-
agement enough where Nikolas was concerned, so that Bethany took it as a sign of weakening and hastened to reinforce her argument. *I can't wait for all the official red tape to set things in motion,' she pleaded. 'It's nothing I can't move quite easily myself, Nikolas, there's been a slight landslide inside the dig, but '
'Then leave it alone!' he instructed. 'Apart from anything else it's too dangerous to go excavating, you'll probably bring down more if you start disturbing the lower slope.'
'Oh, but I'm sure it wouldn't!'
'Leave it alone, Bethany!' His dark eyes had a narrowed intensity that was hard to defy, and after a second or two she lowered her own eyes, but her hands were clenched and she felt bitterly frustrated at being so firmly forbidden. 'If you really think this sculpture is worth recovering,' Nikolas went on, 'I'll notify the proper authorities and they can do whatever they think necessary.' Bethany said nothing, there was nothing she could say that she would not regret later. 'You surely don't really believe this?' he asked after a moment or two. *A man the exact image of an Apollo carved—heaven knows how many years ago? You must know it doesn't make sense, Bethany/
'If you'd seen him, you'd know,' Bethany insisted, but he was shaking his head impatiently.
'For heaven's sake, child, the gods don't walk the earth, whatever the old myths say! I allow that there might be a passing resemblance between the man you saw and the bust of Apollo you found, but the rest is fancy.'
Bethany clenched her hands and glared at him, ignoring the colloquial use and taking the word child in its literal sense. 'I'm not a child,' she informed him clearly and distinctly, 'and I'm not making this up, Nikolas. When I've recovered the Apollo you'll see, Takis will bear me out; he spoke to him.'
'That dig will not be touched again,' Nikolas declared with equal clarity, 'until someone more quali-
fied comes to unearth whatever it is you've found. And that is final, Bethany!'
He stressed the last few words in a firm, hard voice when she opened her mouth to argue with him, and Bethany heaved a loud and very elaborate sigh when she yielded. But as she walked away from him she felt a curious sense of hurt because he had failed to understand how she felt. She had once told him that he would never understand her, and despite the hope she had nurtured lately that she might be wrong, this latest gesture made it all too clear that she had been right.
She did not even bother to see what he did or where he went, but went on through the garden, an unaccustomed stiffness in her stance and clenching her hands tightly. She could so easily uncover the thing herself without causing further falls of earth and rocks, and he had been quite unreasonable about it. By the time she had made her way to the little stone outhouse where the tools were kept, she had convinced herself it was worth a try, and that he couldn't really do anything about stopping her.
Only a few minutes later she set oft for the dig once more, with the necessary tools, and taking the long, way around so that she need not pass the studio window again, for she didn't think she had the necessary nerve to defy him openly. If necessary she could cover the Apollo up again and with luck Nikolas need never know. It was annoying to realise that she felt guilty about deceiving him, but she consoled her uneasy conscience with the thought that if he never found out it wouldn't matter.
Nevertheless she glanced quite frequently over her shoulder on the return journey, and she supposed her conscience was less easily quieted than she had hoped. Climbing the western slope of the hill again the dig loomed like a dark scar in the hillside, lower on the ocean side and soaring steeply on the landward side, a long red gash of loose earth and stones that occasionally shifted and slid downwards into the hollow.
But a further slide was not even in her mind as she approached the dig, for she could see below her the beach where Nikolas had found her nearly two weeks before, and the sight of it gave her another moment of regret at deceiving him. It was much too easy to remember how she had stood on this same hillside in the moonlight while Nikolas kissed her in such a way that she had not even known what time it was. Nikolas, she thought with a sigh, was too much on her mind lately.
She climbed down into the dig from the lowest point, her interest fixed on the heap of tumbled earth and rocks that covered t
he spot she knew the sculpture to be, and her heart was thudding hard at her ribs as she contemplated it. Down on her knees a few moments later she carefully scraped away the dry soil and peered closely for a first sight of her prize.
A smooth rounded glimpse of marble renewed her optimism and her energy, for it stood out in contrast to the rougher red rocks that buried it, and she began again, scraping with her trowel and scarcely daring to breathe as she restrained her impatience. She was completely engrossed and unaware of anything, until a voice called down from the rim of the hollow and she jerked her head up swiftly.
'Bethany I'
The rest of the words were drowned in the crackling rumble of slipping earth and rocks, and a minor avalanche rolled downwards in the same moment that she was swept off her feet and bowled sideways, over and over, with a pair of strong arms wrapped tightly around her. Then for a few seconds the air was uncannily still and quiet, and red dust obscured her hazy glimpse of the sky.
She wasn't hurt; perhaps bruised a little from being rolled over on the ground, but surprise and alarm at the unexpectedness of it were not the prime cause of her wildly erratic heartbeat. It was realising that the arms wrapped so tightly and protectively around her belonged to Nikolas. The burning heat of a masculine body lay on top of her and completely smothered her
except for a minute glimpse of sky she had between his head and one broad shoulder, and the hard fierce thudding of his heart pulsed heavily against her breast.
He raised his head after what seemed like an eternity and looked down at her, his face immediately above hers so that she could see every line and angle of those stern features and the blazing fierceness in his eyes. The sun beating down on her face made her half-close her eyes against its glare and she breathed fast and unevenly through parted lips, stunningly conscious of the muscular weight that pinned her down. Niko-las*s mouth was hard, set in a straight line that betrayed his fury as surely as did the glitter in his eyes, and Bethany felt herself shaking despite the pressure that held her on the ground.
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