Paul bounded up the stairs and walked along the landing to the door of Domini's room. He tapped upon it. There was no answer, so he turned the handle and entered the room ... his glance going at once to the door standing ajar between their rooms. He frowned and the thick bedroom carpet silenced his footfalls as he crossed over to that open door.
"What do you think you are doing?"
The question lashed out behind Domini, who had all the drawers of the tallboy and the dressing-table wide open, while his shirts, underclothing and ties were strewn all over the bed. She had ransacked the room very thoroughly and at the moment was sorting through the contents of the briefcase he had brought to the villa. It fell from her hands as she swung round, startled, to face Paul, and his business papers rained in confusion to the floor.
They stood staring at one another, and the mirthless coldness of her husband's eyes chilled Domini from head to foot. He came across to her with long, hard steps, and his hands caught at her bare shoulders. The lilac towel was still draped around her like a sarong and she stumbled over the trailing end of it as Paul jerked her to him.
"What are you looking for, those cheques of your cousin's?" His mouth curled; a dark scroll of hair lay against the lividity of his scar. "My lovely, brainless idiot, do you really think I would be fool enough to keep them here, where you might get your hands on them? They are safely locked in a safety deposit box in a Looe bank. I brought them with me when I came to see about renting the villa."
CHAPTER TWO
THE cheques were safe at a bank in Looe!
With these words he quenched the spark of hope in Domini's heart, and she stood there without feeling the bruising anger of his hands. She might have guessed that he would not leave a loophole through which she could escape. He had paid too high a price for her, and he had not yet collected his due.
She stood there while his glance travelled over her, taking in the marks of tears on her pale cheeks, the way her wild-honey hair curled damply at the edges from her bath and contrasted with the milky skin of her neck and shoulders. A tiny pulse flickered beside Paul's mouth and its minute, hurrying life caught Domini's attention. Then her lashes swept down over her eyes as Paul lifted her into his arms with easy strength and carried her into her own room. He did not set her down immediately, but stood gazing down at her face. "How a look of simplicity can conceal a maze of complexities," he murmured. "You must dislike me very much, my little piece of femininity, to dare the devil in me by scattering my belongings all over my bedroom. You deserve a spanking for that."
"Ι-I’ll tidy them up," she offered, lips quivering but chin tilted.
You will get dressed," he said, and as he set her upon her feet she heard him catch his breath on a quiet laugh. "Domini, never try to run away from me. I shall always catch up with you and I shall hold you as long as it—pleases me."
The threat seemed to leap from his fingertips into her very bones as his hands gripped her. Then he let her go, went into his room and quietly closed the door behind him.
He had gone in to refold his clothing and to rearrange the business papers she had dropped to the floor as though they were so much litter. He had succeeded in making her feel ashamed, and it was added fuel to the resentment burning within her as she started to dress.
It shimmered, that dress, fashioned of deep blue lace over white organza, a wedding gift from a friend who ran a gown shop in the West End of London. It was exquisitely styled, and Domini knew in her shrinking heart that fear of Paul made her put it on for her wedding supper with him. Her ransacking of his room had deeply angered him, and only by looking fragile in blue and white did she feel she could protect herself against the anger that might make him a terrible lover.
The ruby and pearl earclips still reposed in the box on the dressing-table, but when she finally located the brooch in a corner by the bed she found she couldn't pin it on. She couldn't wear the taunting, lovely thing, not tonight, and she clipped on instead the string of pearls she had worn with her wedding gown. They had belonged to her mother, and they seemed to give her a little courage.
She sprayed on Vers Toi perfume, then gazed for a long moment into her own unhappy eyes, face to face with the alarming burden she had taken on in marrying, a man to save her family's pride. There would be none of the closeness and subtle communication of a true marriage. None of the joy, or the tender understanding.
With her nerves quivering like roots plucked out of protective soil, Domini made her way out of her room, on her way to a wedding supper that would seem like a victim's mock-merry meal. Paul caught her up as she reached the head of the staircase. She shot a side glance up at him, to see whether he was still furious with her, and his smile mocked the apprehension she couldn't hide. She felt his arm encircle her waist as they went downstairs together, and she endured its intimacy with a quick-beating heart. "You look like a moon-maiden in your blue and white gown," he said. "I almost feel that you will vanish behind a cloud quite suddenly and leave me all alone."
She glanced at him curiously as they entered the dining-room, and for the first time she wondered if he married her for her company as much as her looks.
In evening wear he was more overwhelming than ever, she decided. His dark, Grecian looks were thrown into prominence rather than tempered down by the silk shirt and the black dinner-jacket. She wasn't a small girl, but his height made her feel one, and suddenly she was sensing that lonely aura some people carry about with them. Wealthy, good-looking in his own formidable way, this man was yet a lonely one—a lonely enigma whom she had married today, and whose wife she would become tonight!
Domini had not touched a morsel of food all day, and she was suddenly hungry as Yannis set an oyster cocktail in front of her. "Mmm, this looks delicious," she said, and she gave him her sweet, flashing smile. It was a smile she had never given Paul, and she was unaware that he was looking at her as he stood opening the iced bottle of champagne. The cork popped loudly and the golden liquid bubbled down the side of the bottle. Paul dipped a finger in the champagne and dabbed a little behind Domini's ears, smiling quizzically at the tensing of her slender body. "Just for luck, Domini," he said half-mockingly, tipping the champagne bottle and filling her wine glass.
He seated himself opposite her at the table and filled his own glass. Then he raised it and murmured a toast in Greek.
Domini had started on her oyster cocktail. "May I know what you said?" she asked, without looking up at him.
"I merely said that in all the wedding cake, hope is the sweetest plum," he drawled.
Then she did look up and saw the candle flames move their shadows across his high cheekbones and his scarred temple. "It is a pity we could not have got to know each other better," he said. "To have had the dining, dancing and driving trysts which might have helped you to be—less shy with me. But that could not be helped. I had some important private business here in England which has taken up most of my time. It was this business that brought me here so unexpectedly."
She felt a chilliness steal over her, for his unexpected arrival in England had woven the first strands of the web she was now entrapped in. There had been no time for Douglas to recoup his gambling losses and so make good the substantial sum of money he had stolen from his employer. And she had not had the heart to see her cousin—weak but charming—go to prison for his folly. She could only hope that he had learned his lesson at her expense.
Roast lamb was brought in with rowan jelly, and then they had a liqueur soufflé that melted on the tongue. Yannis' wife served coffee in the lounge. She was a swarthy, intensely reserved woman with Romany blood in her veins. She handed Domini a small gift, which gave the girl so much genuine delight that for the ' moment she forgot that she wasn't a bride of love, as Lita and her husband thought. The wedding gift was a little chrome and glass basket filled with marzipan apples. "It's so pretty and unusual," Domini smiled. "Oh, how nice of you both!"
There was a grave, searching smile in Lita's eyes as
they travelled over the upraised loveliness of Domini's young face. In the candleglow her face was delicately moulded, her eyes as deeply blue as the sapphire swirled in diamonds on her left hand. The wings of her wild-honey hair fell softly to her pale, bared shoulders. May joy be with you," Lita said. "And may you be blessed with a chavo."
An intense silence fell on the room as the door closed on Lita's dark-clad figure, then Domini could not keep eyes from Paul's face. Her face was suddenly wiped of pleasure, and her blue eyes were tormented. What is a chavo?” she whispered. A boy child," Paul said quietly, the scar at his temple livid as fear leapt into her eyes before she could veil it. She bent quickly over the coffee tray and filled the little cups with the dark, aromatic Turkish coffee which Lita had made. When she handed Paul his cup her face was again composed into an expressionless mask.
They drank several cups of coffee, then Paul poured out some fragrant old brandy as a chasse. But Domini left hers untouched on the couchside table while she wandered restlessly about the room, looking at the paintings, picking up ornaments and putting them down again. At last she stood by the damask curtains at the long windows.
Throughout dinner she had maintained a certain measure of calm, but now it had faded and taken with it her transient interest in the island of Andelos, about which Paul had talked. His alien gestures had even fascinated her a little as he described the unspoilt charm of the island, and told her about his home high on a headland above a wild stretch of private beach. The house on the eagle's crag, the" islanders called it.
"Let me go, Paul!" she spoke suddenly in a tortured voice. "Let me go if you have any heart at all. You know I don't love you . . ." there her breath caught in her throat and one hand clenched the curtain as Paul rose from the couch and came across the room towards her. She saw all the leashed power in him, the tiger-like grace, and the autocracy that surely crushed all obstacles that barred his way to what he wanted.
She stood framed by the ivory-silk curtain, drawn back against it as though defying him to touch her. "And what am I supposed to do if I let you go?" he asked. "Do you expect me to burn those cheques just the same, and be satisfied with nothing but the ashes?"
"What can our marriage bring but the taste of ashes?" Desperation was a dry, bright glitter in her eyes as they dwelt on his face. The face of Apollo, dark and strange, every feature stamped with the unyielding Greek iron in him. "Force me to stay with you, Paul, and I shall hate you," she warned.
"Hatred and love are akin, my little Sabine," and as he spoke he laughed softly. "They are both blind emotions."
"There is no love between us." Her eyes flashed and rejected the very thought. "There never could be."
"Ah, but you speak about romantic love." He came a step closer and his hands rested warm at either side of her face, he held them there as she tensed, and searched her eyes. "What other love could you know about but the kind you read in the books of romance? What other love has been offered you but that of shy young men with stumbling tongues?" Her pulse raced when he said that, and she thought of Barry. Barry had fluttered her heart and made her wonder about love and its secrets.
“No man has ever told you that you have blue-into-purple eyes."' Paul murmured. "They are like southern skies, with at the moment all the stars in hiding." He bent his dark head and laid his lips in the soft join between her neck and shoulder. "You must understand, my Domini, that when I make a deal with anyone, I abide by my side of the bargain and I see to it that the other party abides by his."
"But that’s business," she whispered, shocked. "This is our lives, our happiness. Paul, are you such a cynic that you don't believe in happiness? Are you so hard that you can't be hurt?"
"I cannot be hurt by what other people think of me," his voice had slightly hardened. "I am Greek and it is my own self-disapproval I must live with. Be that as it may, we made a bargain, Domini, and we sealed it in church this morning. You are my wife—and I am not letting you go."
And she could see that he meant every word. It was written all over his face, merciless, handsome face, with little flames beginning to leap in his tawny eyes as they travelled over her. Fear was a coiled spring inside her, quite suddenly it snapped and she wrenched out of his arms, twisted out of the long windows behind her and sped madly to the steps that led down to the beach.
The cold sea wind whipped through the lace and silk of her dress as she stumbled through the sand in her high heels. Overhead the moon floated behind a cloud and as deep shadow fell down about Domini, she cast a frightened glance over her shoulder. Paul was pursuing her like some avenging night-god ... in the shifting light of the moon his face seemed satanic.
So strangely desperate was she to get away from him that she didn't realise how close she was to the water, and the rocks at the edge of the beach. The breakers were thundering in, great dark glistening wings of water, and Domini gave a cry as in her high-heeled slippers she suddenly stumbled over a rock and felt a great wave break over her. It lifted her and like a sand-limbed doll she was taken and carried out. The cold shock of the water took her breath, blocked her nostrils, and as she tumbled helplessly in the mill of the sea there was a roaring in her brain and ears.
"Domini!" a voice cried out, and her name was followed by a Greek word that was lost in the rage of the waves.
The storm clouds above the beach broke asunder as Paul dragged off his shoes and plunged into the foaming water. Lightning ripped as he swam strongly towards the pathetic uplift of one of his wife's slender arms, and he saw the pallor and desperation of her face in yet another flicker of harsh white lightning. A moment later his arms enclosed her in the water and she clung wildly, mindlessly to him, as to a life-spar. He held her head above the water and as her senses cleared a little, she realised who he was—Paul, her husband, into whose keep she gave her frightened body without another murmur.
He held her and fought his way back to the beach with her. He trudged up the sandy slopes, water streaming from his black evening suit, his arms tight about Domini, a shivering bundle of cold and fright, whose blue and white gown clung drenched and ruined on her body. Sand churned beneath Paul's urgent strides, then he was mounting the side steps of the villa and swinging into the lounge through the long windows.
Domini stirred in his arms, coughed a little, and trembled. When Paul glanced down at her, water spattered from his black hair on to her face, and her blue eyes shot wide open. Her lips moved, soundlessly, forming his name, and he said gently enough: "It is all right, my foolish child. You are safe now."
He made swiftly for the fireplace and uncaring of the water that streamed from both of them he laid her on the oyster-white couch and rang the bell insistently for Yannis. When Yannis hurried into the room, Paul was on his knees beside the couch and holding a tot of neat whisky to Domini's chattering teeth. She sipped and gave a cough at the raw bite of the spirit, and saw the grave mask slip off Yannis's face as he gaped at her and Paul. "We took a stroll along the beach and my wife fell into the water," Paul said, in a crisp, dry voice, "Yannis, tell Lita I want hot-water bottles put into my wife's bed right away, also a hot bath run for her. And bring that thick bath-robe of mine down here. Hurry, now!”
Yannis ran all the way to the kitchen and in rapid Greek he explained to Lita what had happened. Her sharp, dark eyes flicked his face. "That is not good, Yannis, that such an accident should happen," she said. They say that if you sing before breakfast you will cry before the night is over."
"What are you talking about, woman?" Yannis stared at her as she turned on the tap and filled a big kettle with water.
“Was he not singing before breakfast this morning?" Lita shook her head and frowned. "And for a bride and her husband to be walking on the beach with a storm coming on is curious."
“You think they had a quarrel—already?" Yannis exclaimed.
"I think you had better hurry and get that robe for him,” his wife rejoined. "Hurry, or he will be shouting down the house."
/> After Yannis had fetched and delivered the robe, Paul said to Domini: "I am going to get you out of these sopping clothes—don't fight me or you will make yourself more exhausted than you are already."
She was exhausted, physically and mentally, and she shivered like a half-drowned kitten as Paul stripped off her ruined dress and underwear, his gaze quite impersonal now, his touch almost paternal as he enfolded her in the warm roughness of his bathrobe.
His solicitude was strangely comforting, and it seemed dose to impossible that his manner had been so demanding such a short while ago. As he lifted her from the couch she let her arm encircle his neck and stay there as he carried her from the lounge and up the stairs to the lilac suite, where he handed her over to Lita.
“Ensure that my wife has a good warm soak," he requested, "then put her to bed and give her a hot milk drink—plain milk will be best. A malt drink will not settle too well on whisky."
Lita inclined her head, and did not miss the faintly derisive way he smiled as he bade his bride goodnight.
"Goodnight, Paul." Domini looked a sorry, waif-like figure in the trailing folds of his bathrobe, with her damp hair clinging to her neck. "I-I'm sorry for running out into the storm and getting us both into such a state."
"I am sorry also," he drawled, significantly.. "Anyway, forget about it and have a good sleep. I will see you in the morning."
He strode into his own room, closing the door very firmly behind him and flicking the wet hair back off his forehead. A few minutes later Yannis joined him. "I have run a hot bath for you, sir," he said diffidently.
"What do you say, Yannis?" Paul glanced up from a moody gaze at the carpet.
"You are wet through, sir." Yannis tried not to look as though he was fussing, for Paul did not like a lot of fuss. "A bath is ready for you."
"Thank you, Yannis." Paul smiled briefly and lightly pressed his manservant's arm as he walked past him into the bathroom.
Domini fell into a dreamless sleep almost as soon as she finished her milk and turned out the bedside light. It was slumber that lasted about an hour, then suddenly it was no longer dreamless. She was running along cold seashore, and she could hear the thunder of the waves and feel the sand dragging at the heels of her slippers. The moon watched her from behind a cloud like a staring face, and something was chasing her. She cast a quick glance over her shoulder and saw that it is a great cat, making absolutely no sound as it pursued her, its eyes glowing golden and fearful. A sob of terror broke from her. She was sure that if the beast caught her, it would rend her to pieces.
The Honey Is Bitter Page 2
