The Honey Is Bitter

by Violet Winspear

  CHAPTER ONE

  HER wedding dress was made from yards of lovely Greek silk, her headdress was a tiny silver coronet from which cascaded a lace veil patterned with many tiny hearts. No one in the congregation guessed, as Domini came down the aisle on her bridegroom's arm, that she had married him out of fear rather than love.

  They left for the Cornish coast an hour later, and took a taxi from the station to the small beachside villa which Paul Stephanos had rented for a week, before they flew on to Athens. He had always wanted to see something of the west coast, he told Domini, and now his chance had come.

  Paul's Greek manservant and his wife Lita were already installed at the villa, and everything was looking cosy and welcoming. It had been a fairly warm spring day, but with the sinking of the sun a breeze had come in from the sea and Yannis had lit a fire in the lounge.

  Entering this firelit room gave Domini the first warm feeling she had known all day. Paul threw off his top­coat and proceeded to examine the interior of the cock­tail cabinet, where a couple of gold-capped bottles stood waiting to provide the honeymooners with a private toast. "Good, Yannis remembered our champagne!" There was a pleased, almost boyish note in the deep foreign voice

  Domini knelt warming her hands by the fire, in which driftwood burned and threw out little blue flames. Her honey-coloured hair fell in a shining wing down over her profile, hiding the look of terror, almost, that sprang into her eyes at Paul's remark. It would be like drinking hemlock, she told herself wildly.

  "Let me help you off with your coat." Paul lifted her to her feet and his fingers were deft, unbuttoning her cream wool coat and slipping it off her shoulders.

  She pushed her hands through her hair, while he regarded her with amused eyes. "Most women would be busily combing and powdering at the mirror after that long train journey," he said. "I begin to suspect that you are quite without any vanity—or is it a conceit in itself, Domini, your apparent disregard for the fact that you are beautiful?"

  She heard him tiredly and faced him with a com­posure that was going rapidly to shreds. She felt cold to the heart of her, while her mind seemed to be running in all directions to escape from the thought that she was really here in Cornwall and married to this man.

  "Paul, are you really going through with this—this marriage you've forced me into?" The words broke from her; she could hold them in no longer.

  Coolly, deliberately he took out his cigarette case and held it towards her. She shook her head, watching a tiny confetti horseshoe fall from his dark sleeve as he lit a cigarette. "I gave you a choice, my dear," smoke drifted from his nostrils. "I did not force you to the altar at the point of a gun."

  A choice? Domini shuddered at the word. Did he really believe that?

  Her blue eyes were dark with fear and bewilderment as they scanned his face. They finally settled on the scar that jagged into his right temple; the scar alone seemed to make him human. That alone proved that he was at least physically vulnerable. "I-I can't believe that you're made of granite, Paul," she said. "But you act as though you are. As though it doesn't worry you in the slightest degree that you've invaded my life and snatched me away from all I love—just to be your toy! Do you think I can ever forgive you for that—ever like you for it?"

  "You talk like a snatched Sabine woman, my dear." He flicked ash into the fire, and the smile in his tawny eyes was an enigmatic one. "I am well aware of how you regard me, but to be liked is a trivial emotion, and I have no time to spend on trivialities. I have few weak­nesses. Domini, but one of them is a love of the unusual, the rare—you are a very rare creature, I think. You are lovely but unworldly, with a mystique about you that could be hiding anything—ice or flame."

  He lifted his cigarette and drew deeply on it. "I wanted you," he said deliberately, "from the first moment we met at Fairdane."

  He captured her gaze and held it forcibly. "The day I found out about those forgeries of your cousin's," he went on, "I drove down to Fairdane in a black fury, determined to tell your uncle what his wretched son had done--- and you were there. You were still away at school the last time I was in England, but that particular day you had just come in from a walk on the heath and the wind had whipped your mouth to a rose and your eyes to blue gems. I looked at you, but I did not see a schoolgirl and from that moment your cousin's indiscretion was a weapon in my hands.

  “You flinch, Domini, but I was hoping not to use that weapon. I hoped you might—anyway, it became plain that you merely regarded me as the tough Greek who employed your cousin as assistant-manager to one of the Stephanos shipping-line offices—"

  There he paused, and a nerve jarred in Domini's throat as a piece of firewood broke in half and the resin hissed and flared.

  “I wanted you, Domini," Paul's smile was strange, without humour. “At any price."

  She shuddered, hating his brutal honesty, yet also aware that if he had talked about loving her, she would have been filled with contempt. Her glance ran wildly over him, as it had that first day they had met at Fair­dane, when instinct had swiftly warned her that he was a threat to her peace with his pagan face, his smoky-gold tiger's eyes, and his hair that was like the close-curled fleece of a black ram.

  Involuntarily she backed away from the power and danger in his lounging body, there by the mantelpiece. "I-I don't think I can go through with our marriage, Paul," her voice shook, though she tried to keep it steady. "You've forced me into a cruel, uncivilised situation and you're without a scrap of feeling for me."

  "Your own pride forced you to choose me in pre­ference to seeing the name of Dane dragged through the criminal courts," he pointed out. "And why should I pity you, when I would sooner admire you for being one of those who would suffer rack and flame rather than have mud thrown at those you love?" And then he flicked his half-smoked cigarette into the fire and step­ped towards her. Again she backed away from him, right to the edge of the big couch, slim and helpless in his lean hands as they took hold of her.

  "Come, I am not such a monster," he murmured, and she saw the deep golden glow of his eyes between dense black lashes, "I can be quite nice, especially to a lovely thing like you. So lovely, so full of pride—and icy fire."

  With sudden possessiveness he gathered her close to him and laid his lips where her throat was gently hol­lowed and delicately shaded by the white lace of her blouse. His lips were warm, searching, and she felt a tremor run through him as his face touched the softness of her skin. Tears stung the corners of her eyes as he took her lips. Tears for the girl she could never be again. Tears for the bride he had bought.

  His warm, chiselled mouth finally lifted from hers, and she lay passive against his hard shoulder, gazing up at him with the eyes of a child expectant of a punish­ment she had not earned. His kiss had not moved her, but it had shown her how much he wanted her!

  ''My little Anglitha, have you stopped smiling forever?” he asked quizzically. "Are you always going to look at me with such reproachful eyes?"

  "What did you expect," she asked, "eyes full of tenderness?"

  “I wonder how you would look, with eyes full of tenderness?" He ran a finger down the delicate curving of her cheekbone and let it linger at the corner of her mouth, flushed from his kiss and tremulous, as though it wouldn't take much more to make her cry. Suddenly his arms enclosed her with more gentleness. "I am not asking you to love me, Domini," he said, "but don't quite hate me."

  I despise you!" The words sprang fiercely to her lips, and she resented his nearness, the touch of his hands, and the fact that his face was the handsomest she had ever seen, despite that scar above his right eye. Handsome and ruthless!

  “Ah, well," he said, and his lips brushed her temple, and he released her from hi
s arms as tea things jingled on a tray and Yannis came into the room.

  He brought the tray to a low table beside the couch and Domini sat down to pour out, her eyes and mouth alone showing colour in her face. Paul had taken the villa furnished, and she guessed from the look of the place that he must be paying a high rent for it. His money frightened her; it had turned him into a man who thought he could buy everything, a man who didn’t know, or didn't care, that there were some things you could never buy—like the love and honour she had vowed that day to give him.

  “I am pleased you remembered the champagne, Yannis." he said, as the manservant turned from making up the fire. "We will, of course, have it with our wed­ding supper. No doubt Lita is preparing something really memorable for us, eh?"

  Domini, glancing up, saw the rather grave-faced Greek break into a slight smile. He was a man of few words, though obviously devoted to his master, and after assuring his new young mistress that their wedding supper would be ready in an hour, he withdrew quietly from the room.

  Domini handed Paul his cup and saucer. He sipped at the brew, and then said with a laugh: "I wonder if I shall ever get used to English tea?"

  "Why didn't you order coffee?" she asked coldly.

  "I know you prefer tea, my dear." He sat down on the arm of the couch and she had to force herself not to move away from him. The hot sweet tea brought a little life back into her cold body, but she wasn't grate­ful to Paul for providing it. She told herself she would hate the things he would give her, for each item would be displayed on his possession as the white gown today had been, and the veil, ivory with age, which had been sent all the way from his home on the island of Andelos in the Ionian Sea.

  Without looking at him, she said: "Have you burned those forged cheques as you promised to?"

  "Not yet."

  And when she looked quickly up at him, he smiled faintly. "You might take it into your lovely head to run away from me, so those incriminating cheques are staying unburned—until tomorrow."

  She flushed painfully, understanding all too clearly what he meant. "Y-you promise to burn them tomor­row?" She spoke almost inaudibly, while her fair skin seemed to retain her painful blush for at least a minute.

  "I shall burn them in your presence," he assured her.

  A few minutes later they went upstairs to dress for dinner. Their suite was decorated in several shades of lilac and there was a bathroom attached to each bedroom. Domini dallied in her bath until she heard the adjoining door close and she knew Paul had bathed and dressed and gone downstairs. Then she wrapped herself in a big lilac-coloured towel and went into her bedroom. As she approached the dressing-table her glance fell on a jeweller's box that had not been there when she had gone in to bathe. She gazed at it as though at something that could turn on her and bite. Paul had brought it in, and she toyed with the idea of placing it, unopened, on his dressing-table. But the next moment, with a shiver, she realised that he would only force her to wear whatever was in the box.

  She reluctantly lifted the lid and found on a bed of oyster silk an exquisite heart-shaped pearl brooch, with several rubies falling like tears of blood from the in­dentation of the heart. There were earclips to match. Domini stared at the set, which seemed to mock her with its symbolic beauty. Then she dragged the brooch from its bed and threw it blindly across the room. Angry tears choked her and she lay on her bed crying her heart out, hot, bitter tears unlike any she had ever shed before in her life at Fairdane. She had loved the place, and even coping with a limited housekeeping budget had never worried her.

  She had been her own mistress, the adored niece of Martin Dane, who had treated her like a daughter ever since she had come to him as a baby, her parents having drowned in a boating accident...

  Then in the midst of her tears, she sat up. She pushed the tousled hair back from her wet cheeks and stared, heart leaping at the adjoining bedroom door. Paul had said he would destroy those cheques tomorrow, therefore he must have them here at the villa—in his room! She scrambled over her bed, her tears forgotten as she made for his door. If she found the cheques she could destroy them herself and be free of Paul Stephanos! Her heart bounded at the thought; the villa was fairly close to Looe and she would certainly be able to get a room there for the night.

  Her bath-towel was slipping and she hastily adjusted it like a sarong, then she turned the handle of Paul's door and switched on the light. There were masculine toilet articles on the dressing-table, and his dark silk pyjamas and robe lay across the foot of the bed. The smoke of a cheroot lingered in the room and for a moment its sharp tang made Domini feel panicky. Then she crushed down her panic and advanced to the cupboard where his suitcases had probably been put away.

  Her heart was hammering. She hadn't dared to hope that there might be a way of escaping from Paul and of winning back the independence she had always prized so much. It was true that four years ago, when she was seventeen, she had come close to falling in love with a young artist who had drifted into the seaside town where her boarding-school had been situated, but it had been a gay, innocent, fleeting romance. Barry had gone out of her life as he had come into it, and she hadn't heard from him since.

  She opened the door of Paul's cupboard, and gave a nervous jump as her reflection sprang at her from the mirror inside the door. The burning imploration of her own eyes frightened her and she thrust the door back against the wall so that she could no longer see herself. The sleeve of a tweed jacket brushed her cheek as she bent forward to lift out the coachhide cases, and she pushed at the sleeve as though it was an arm reaching out to take hold of her.

  Downstairs in the lounge Paul stood with a black-clad shoulder against the frame of one of the long windows, his gaze on the strip of beach that stretched away from the villa steps to the sea. The wind was getting up and foam-laced breakers were crashing over the rocks at the edge of the beach. The breakers shone, reflecting the light of the moon each time it drifted out from the clouds. The thunder of the sea could be heard plainly, and Paul touched a hand to his right temple, as though that pounding had an echo behind his scar. He dropped his hand as someone came into the room.

  “Excuse me, sir," Yannis spoke in Greek, "there is a long-distance telephone call for Madame. “For my wife?" Paul stepped out from the shadows near the window and there was a frown on his face. "I will take the call, Yannis," he said, and he strode out into the hall. He lifted the telephone receiver and gave his name. Immediately the voice of Martin Dane came on the line, and it shook with agitation.

  “Paul, I must speak to Domini right away," he said. “Please bring her to the phone. It's imperative."

  “What the devil has happened?" Paul's hand clenched on the telephone cord.

  “My son—Douglas. He has told me about that money he took from you—those cheques he forged in your name.” There was a pause, as though even yet Martin Dane could hardly believe that his son would do such a thing. “Paul, my son felt he had to tell me—for Domini’s sake. He believes she has married you—sold herself, in fact, to save our wretched pride."

  "Sold herself—to me?" The words cracked into the receiver. "What an archaic idea, Mr. Dane! It smacks of the Middle Ages."

  “I know Domini, what she's capable of doing for those she loves." A fierceness came into her uncle's voice. “I also know that my niece could never love you, Stephanos. You're not her sort. You come from another world—are you still listening? Then I insist that you bring Domini to the phone so I can speak to her."

  Paul stood silent, his face carved and harsh as he gazed at the wall-etching above the telephone table. His tiger-gold eyes were glinting dangerously. "I am aware that I come from another land, Mr. Dane, and that I speak English with a foreign accent," then accentuating it, he added: "But none of that alters the fact that your lady niece is now my wife."

  "The marriage can be annulled," Martin Dane said triumphantly.

  "On what grounds?" Paul enquired politely. "Non-consummation. That is the law."

/>   “It might be the law, but it is also a fact that Domini and I have been alone here for a couple of hours. She is very desirable, Mr. Dane, and I am not an English gentleman."

  The pause at the other end of the line was pregnant, and Paul gave a brief, unamused smile. Martin Dane was very much an English gentleman who lived his life by set rules. "Stephanos," the edge of his very English voice was torn and ragged, "let Domini go. You don't love her. You only want a lovely woman to dress up as your symbol of success in this jungle of a world. Money, glitter, they aren't important to Domini."

  "But being able to hold up her head so she can look people squarely in the eye is important to her, Mr. Dane." Paul retorted. "Could any of you do that again, if I sent Douglas to prison?"

  "Will you be able to hold up your head," Martin Dane said harshly "knowing all the time that you've forced Domini to become your wife? Why, she must be hating you!"

  "I am a strange man," said Paul. "I would sooner be married to a woman who honestly hates me than to one who dishonestly loves me." With these, words he placed the receiver on the cradle to break the telephone con­nection, then he lifted it again and laid it on its side on the table. It purred emptily as he crossed the small hall to the dining-room where Yannis was putting the finishing touches to the table. Paul told him that he had left the telephone off the cradle and that he wanted it to stay that way. Yannis did not question the order. He was a Greek, and Paul was master in his house.

  "The table looks very festive." Paul fingered the velvety petals of the deep crimson roses in the vase between his place and Domini's. Tapering amber can­dies stood ready to be lighted.

  "I shall be serving dinner in just ten minutes, sir," Yannis informed him.

  "Then I had better go and fetch my wife. What a devil of a time women take to dress, eh?"

  Yannis smiled, and watched with dark eyes as Paul strode out of the room. He too, touched the red roses and his sigh stirred the candle flames as they bloomed under the match he applied to them.