Lark in an Alien Sky

by Rebecca Stratton

  Yet she still hesitated; too unsure about committing herself to the role he had allotted her. The thought of flying off to Greece with him and becoming his bride filled her with a strange sense of alarm, and she knew that her hesitation angered him. It showed in the sudden, barely perceptible tightening of his mouth and the brighter gleam in his eyes as he looked down at her.

  `The fact that I admit my desire for you does not touch you at all?' he asked, and she was tempted to tell hint just how closely it touched her, but he gave her no time to say anything. Instead he let go her hands and turned himself round to sit straight-backed on the hard bench seat with his hands thrust into his pockets. 'I can see that it does not,' he declared. 'But if I cannot touch your heart, Corinne, consider the more practical side of the question. If you have no concern for my emotions, at least consider my pride!'

  `Your pride?'

  Briefly puzzled, Corinne frowned up at him, and he nodded his head firmly. 'You once told me that it was

  no small part of my character,' he reminded her with a touch of bitterness, and Corinne recalled the instance with a faintly rueful smile.

  `You thought it amusing,' she remembered.

  He no longer thought it amusing, it seemed, and he pressed on with his purpose relentlessly. 'Acting upon your promise and your attitude when I saw you last.' he said, 'I have announced to my family and friends that I am bringing home an English bride who loves me, and will make me a very able and suitable wife!'

  'There was some opposition?' Corinne asked.

  She felt pretty sure there had been, for something in his manner suggested it. Perhaps his family wished him to take a bride from his own people and disliked the idea of a foreign wife. If that was so it was not a thought to encourage her, but Gregori did not answer at once, instead he sat watching a group of children who were running along beside the low railing that surrounded the lake, and shouting at the ducks.

  'Was there opposition, Gregori?'

  He turned the steady gaze back to her and he had never before seemed so autocratic, so that she wondered at anyone having the temerity to challenge his choice. 'I choose my own wife,' he informed her, 'but in the circumstances you will understand that I am not of a mind to be jilted!'

  It had not in fact occurred to Corinne that she was proposing to jilt him, and she caught her bottom lip between her teeth as she glanced at his face. His eyes were concealed for the moment, but she hastily looked away again before he raised them.

  'I'm sorry.'

  Obviously her repetitious apology annoyed him, for he was frowning. 'If you cannot give me some practical

  reason for your attitude,' he told her firmly, 'I shall assume that your extraordinary behaviour is attributable to premarital nerves, and insist our betrothal stands!'

  Corinne was between indignation and apprehension and she sat twisting her hands together while she looked at him and frowned. 'You can't insist, if I refuse to marry you,' she told him, but wondered even as she said it whether it was less the truth than she believed.

  Gregori looked at her steadily for a moment, and the familiar shivers of excitement ran through her body once more, weakening her sense of purpose and bringing back remembered kisses on cool moonlit boulevards. 'You think not?' he enquired.

  For the moment there was no one else in their immediate vicinity, but Corinne wondered vaguely if he would have done what he did next, whether or not they were observed. Taking her hands, he pulled her to her feet and stepped back into the shelter of the neatly trimmed privet screen that housed the bench they had been sitting on.

  Held tightly by those inescapable hands there was little she could have done to resist, and she trembled when the move brought her into contact with the hard tenseness of his body. He had taken her by surprise and she could all too easily recall the excitement of being in his arms. Looking down into her face, his eyes had the deep dark look she remembered so well; a look that seemed to strip her soul bare.

  'Corinne?'

  She was bound to react to that soft, enquiring use of her name, and she could not deny that he could still arouse her senses as no one else had ever done. But she had steeled herself to make the break, and she was still

  unconvinced that those halcyon days in Paris could be recaptured.

  `Gregori ' He was too close, and the lean, hard

  pressure of him was heart-stopping. 'I—I can see that you have cause to think I'm behaving badly—'

  `Very badly, my lark!'

  `But I'm doing it for both our sakes, I—'

  Her mouth was effectively stopped, suddenly and breathtakingly, and the memories it stirred to life smothered for a moment her good intentions. Lifting her arms, she yielded her mouth to his and the softness of her body to the hard pressure of his arms. When he let her go she was already wavering and weakening, and his gleaming dark eyes suggested he knew it.

  `Had you forgotten how it was, my lark?' he asked, and his voice was as soothing as the touch of silk.

  Corinne swallowed hard and shook her head. All her instincts wanted her to say she would go with him after all, that she had been wrong to suppose anything had changed. But still a small voice of reason cautioned her, and she made conditions even as she yielded to her instincts.

  `I'll go through with it,' she whispered. `But—' `There can be no buts, my love, I am leaving in a very short time and I wish to take you with me!'

  `But I can't!' She avoided his eyes, tried to ignore the hands that pressed her close to him, and gave her mind to the practical aspects of the situation. I—you must allow me more time, Gregori. I came to meet you to tell you that it was finished, that I wouldn't come with you. I still think it's possible I'm making a mistake, but at least I'll agree to come out to Greece. You can send for me or come for me, but when I've had more time to get

  used to the idea. I can't just go dashing off with you today.'

  His hands pressed her more firmly and she looked up into his face, at the fierce gleaming darkness of his eyes and the firm set of his mouth. 'That was not how you felt in Paris, Corinne,' he said in a deeply husky whisper that shivered with the passion she was all too familiar with. 'Then you would have come to the ends of the earth with me if I had asked it of you.' It was true, and Corinne's hastily lowered eyes confirmed it. His hands tightened and shook her lightly as he brought his face closer to hers. 'I do not like to be tossed this way and that by the fickleness of a woman, kopela mou! Why can you not come as we arranged? You have resigned from your employment?'

  Corinne nodded. She had done that in the first exciting days of anticipation, when she came back from Paris, and she had felt too embarrassed to ask for her job back again. For a week now she had been without a job and she needed to make up her mind exactly what she was going to do. Gregori, it seemed, had decided that for her.

  'Then what is the problem?' he demanded.

  She shrugged, shaking her head vaguely and wondering why, in the circumstances, she was being so obstructive. 'There are other things to consider before I go dashing off to Greece with you!'

  Briefly his eyes narrowed and she thought she knew what he was thinking. 'Other things or other people?' he asked, and she was so certain he meant other men that she shook her head in denial.

  'I have things to do before I leave. I haven't even packed, and that will take me quite a time.'

  She shivered when his gaze swept down to her mouth

  and lingered there, and she tried desperately to do something about the trembling weakness in her legs. Her heart beat more wildly than ever when he pulled her closer and she lifted her mouth to the warmth of his breath on her lips. A light searching kiss coaxed them apart and she saw it as inevitable when she lifted her arms and twined them about his neck. Then he buried his mouth in hers with the same burning ardour she could never forget, no matter how long they were parted.

  'Not too long, hmm?' he queried softly when he raised his head for a moment, and Corinne shook her head.

  The sun through
the branches overhead was warmly caressing, but she was conscious only of her own turbulent desires and the fierce hard passion of his kiss. Whether or not they were observed in the little arbour behind the bench did not trouble her as she wound her arms more tightly about his neck to bring him closer, taking strength from his passion and responding with a lack of inhibition that came to her only when she was with him.

  He released her mouth with lingering slowness and it was as if someone had suddenly once more turned on the birdsong and the sound of childish voices. 'I'll come out to you,' she promised huskily, and despaired for a moment of her original determination to be firm and practical.

  'Of course you will, my lark.' He smiled down at her with such confidence that she knew he had never doubted it. 'I never for one moment doubted that you would ! '

  His confidence amounted almost to arrogance and aroused another reaction in her so that she looked up at him with her chin angled and a gleam of warning in her eyes. 'But not today,' she told him. 'I still have to pack, for one thing.'

  She felt him stiffen and the dark eyes narrowed once more. It was a moment or two before he replied and it occurred to Corinne as she waited for his reaction that quite possibly it was a new experience for Gregori Kolianos to meet resistance of any sort, either from the men he did business with or from women. His words, when he eventually did reply, were totally unexpected.

  'I do not trust you, Corinne! You prevaricate still!'

  For the moment she could not see that he had every reason to say what he did, and she was indignant at his lack of trust. 'But I've promised,' she told him. 'I shan't break a promise.'

  Brown hands slid beneath the rich auburn cascade of her hair and rested on her neck, his thumbs gently stroking at the corners of her mouth, and his eyes glowed with promise as he told her, 'If you do, my lark, I shall come for you, make no mistake!'

  A young woman wheeling a push-chair and keeping pace with a toddler glanced briefly in their direction, then quickly looked away again. But Corinne knew nothing but the firm insistent pressure of Gregori's kiss and the seductive caress of his hands.

  As she quite often did at weekends, Corinne stayed with the Morgans. Although she was independent and shared a flat with another girl, it was almost like going home to go to the Morgans, for five years before, Ann and Clifford Morgan had taken her under their wing and seen her through the traumatic time after the death of both her parents in a car crash. They had known her parents, Clifford had gone to school with her father, and they had gladly come to her aid when she was left alone.

  Robert was their only child and a couple of years older than she was, and he always treated her with a gentle

  consideration that was just what she needed in the first lonely months without her parents. He, far more than his parents, was against her going out to Greece and especially against her marrying Gregori. Now that it had come down to firmly making up her mind about it, Robert made no secret of the fact that he would influence her against it if he possibly could. His parents had said little, they allowed their son the privilege of making his own life and they conceded Corinne the same right, but it had become increasingly clear to her that they had hopes of her and Robert making a match, and that added to her discomfiture.

  `It's an awful long way, dear,' Ann Morgan reminded her, her voice soft with the ghost of a Welsh accent, and Robert tutted impatiently, giving his opinion before Corinne could reply.

  `It's the most crazy scheme I've ever heard ! ' he declared flatly. 'Going to a strange country to marry a man you scarcely know on the strength of a holiday romance! You must be mad ! '

  Ann gave her son a warning glance, but Corinne, remembering her own doubts, merely smiled ruefully at him and shook her head. 'I probably am,' she conceded, `but I'm committed now, Robert, and I can't go back on my word.'

  `I disagree,' Robert insisted firmly, his eyes bright with anger. 'With something as important as your whole future at stake, you're allowed to change your mind, even at the altar if need be!'

  'I couldn't do that,' she said, but wondered if changing her mind at the altar, as Robert said, would make much difference. Gregori was not the man to let things go so far and then allow her to jilt him. I promised,' she added, and once more Robert left his opinion in no doubt.

  'Then break the promise!' he said, but Corinne shook her head at him.

  'It isn't as easy as you seem to think,' she told him. 'There's a lot involved, not least a certain amount of opposition from his family. Not that Gregori admitted it,' she added hastily, 'but I could tell from his manner. I know him well enough to tell that.'

  She had added the last with a touch of defiance when she caught Robert's eye. 'You mean they've got someone lined up for him?' he asked. 'An arranged marriage?' He pursed his lips in a silent whistle. 'If that's how it is, Corinne, you're not going to be a very welcome alternative, are you?'

  'I'm only guessing that's what was in his mind,' she told him. 'He's told his family and friends that he's bringing home an English bride and '

  'He doesn't want to lose face,' Robert suggested softly, and laughed in a way that brought a swift flush of colour to her cheeks. 'Oh, Corinne love, you can't marry a man just because he'll look a fool in front of his neighbours if you change your mind!'

  'There's more to it than that,' she objected, and remembered then that Gregori had said he would come for her if she did not keep her promise and fly out to him very soon. 'You wouldn't understand, Robert, and—well. Gregori threatened that if I don't go to him, he'll be here to find out why.'

  'Will he?' said Robert, his eyes gleaming. 'Well, let him come! I'll tell him you've had second thoughts and he can go off back to Greece and his family's choice of a bride, and forget about you! Not,' he added with a wry smile, 'that he'll find it easy to do; no man would. But he'll just have to put up with second best and marry his Greek lady!'

  'Obviously he isn't in love with her,' Corinne said, and felt a curious sense of resentment at the idea of Gregori settling for second best with his Greek bride.

  'And you can't possibly be in love with him after—how long is it?'

  'It's a little over two months since we met,' Corinne replied, and he laughed shortly.

  'There you are! And you've known him for barely more than three weeks out of that two months,' he reminded her, his mouth set firmly. 'You can't love him, Corinne, it just isn't possible!'

  'It's possible,' Corinne argued confidently, and smiled across at Ann Morgan, seeking her support. 'Mama and Daddy were married when they'd known one another for only a few weeks, and they were wonderfully happy for more than twenty years. Mama never regretted being impulsive.'

  'But they knew each other for quite a lot longer than you've known this—this Greek,' Robert insisted. 'Impulsive or not, she knew him for longer than three weeks before she married him!'

  'She was so very much in love, I remember,' Ann Morgan recalled with a reminiscent smile, and her son frowned at her despairingly.

  'But Corinne admits that isn't so in her case,' he reminded her.

  'I thought I was, when I knew him in Paris,' Corinne mused, a small frown drawing her brows together as she recalled those cool spring evenings with Gregori. Long walks along the banks of the Seine with his arm about her and his voice close to her ear saying words in Greek that she did not always understand but could easily enough interpret from the warmth in his dark eyes. 'I very definitely was in love with him then and—' She

  shrugged uneasily, trying to shrug off ghosts of whispers and kisses and the magic of Paris. 'I don't know—I just wish I was more certain.'

  'It was the atmosphere of Paris, dear,' Ann Morgan told her, giving substance to her own thoughts. 'It's such a very romantic place; I remember Clifford and I went there once and it had a kind of magic.'

  'That's just my point,' Robert intervened swiftly. 'There's a special feeling about Paris, it's well known. You just let it go to your head, Corinne, you weren't serious, just—influenced.'

/>   'At the time I was serious,' Corinne told him, 'and so was Gregori. He still is; I wish I knew for certain whether I am or not.'

  'You'd better make haste and decide,' Robert said with a touch of asperity. 'You haven't got long to make up your mind!'

  Robert had brought her to the airport, but he was reluctant to let her go, even now. He held both her hands and his eyes had a bright gleaming look that made her distinctly uneasy. 'Corinne!'

  She glanced over her shoulder at the glass doors leading into the terminal building. 'I'd better go, Robert, I haven't much time if I'm to be there half an hour before take-off, as they say. It was nice of you to bring me, much better than having a taxi, though I'm glad your folks didn't come or I might have cried.'

  'I brought you because I hoped all the way here that you'd say to turn round and take you back home,' he told her. 'I would never have so willingly wasted a journey as I would this one, and you must know it.' He too glanced at the glass doors as they slid open automatically to admit another passenger. 'It still isn't too late, Corinne.'

  `No, Robert!'

  She would have freed her hands, but he held them too tightly and when she turned he did too, walking with her through the departure lounge without once taking his eyes off her face. It was fairly quiet, although there were people going to and fro, and no one had time to notice them standing there with Robert's hands holding hers, as he brought them to a standstill again.

  'I love you, Corinne.' She looked up at him swiftly, her eyes wide and, for the moment, slightly stunned. 'I always have,' he went on, speaking quietly but with a nervous urgency that was oddly affecting in the circumstances. 'I want you to stay and marry me, Corinne! I love you and always have!'

  It was so ironic that Corinne almost laughed aloud. How different it might have been if only he had made his declaration earlier. 'Why didn't you say so before?' she asked with a hint of bitterness, and he frowned briefly as if it was not the answer he expected.