Lark in an Alien Sky

by Rebecca Stratton

  Sometimes Corinne wondered still whether she was doing the right thing, and yet she had done nothing to try and call it off and go back home. One reason, she told herself, was because she simply did not have enough money for the fare home, and she refused to be indebted

  to the Kolianos family for that. Restlessly she turned back into the room and on the spur of the moment made up her mind to go out alone. So far she had never gone anywhere alone; she had always had either Gregori or Irine with her, although it had never been suggested that they were there to ensure her return.

  It was fresh outside despite the warmth of the sun, and it did something to soothe her mood as she strolled on down through the gardens and into the surrounding pines. They smelled delicious and the air was delightfully cool under the trees with only the occasional sound of a bird to disturb the quiet, and the faint shush of the ocean on the far side of the road.

  There were no fences and the trees ran almost to the edge of the road, giving free access to anyone who had the wish to walk through them, and Corinne was nearing the road when she noticed a car parked only a short distance off to her left. It was because there was something vaguely familiar about it that it held her interest, and she was looking at it with a curious prickling sensation running across her scalp when someone called her.

  `Corinne!'

  She turned sharply, her eyes wide, when she recognised the voice, realising at once why the car had looked so familiar. Robert came through the trees almost running in his haste, and took her hands, looking into her face for a moment before he said anything. The familiarity of him caught at her breath for a moment and she felt a slight mistiness in her eyes.

  'You're all right?' he asked anxiously, and she nodded hastily.

  `Yes, of course I'm all right, Robert!' She laughed a little breathlessly. 'I'm just so staggered to see you here,

  that's all. Are you all here? Clifford and Ann too?'

  'No, I came alone. I took every scrap of leave I could get!' He held her hands tightly and for a moment did nothing more. But there was something in his eyes that she took heed of and she tried to free her hands and move away slightly. He kept hold of her, gripping her fingers more tightly, then raising them to his lips he kissed their tips. 'I had to see you, Corinne!'

  She was still too startled to know exactly what to say or do, but she had a very good idea of what was in his mind, and another declaration of love from Robert was something she felt she could not cope with at the moment. 'Where are you staying?' she asked, desperately trying to avert the inevitable. 'There aren't any hotels very near here.'

  'Oh, I'm fixed up; not on the mainland. I haven't sorted myself out yet, but I've got the car with me and —well, to be quite honest I drove in this direction first to see if I could find the place. I've come straight from the airport. Mad, I know, but I had to try and see you!'

  'It was rather impulsive of you,' Corinne told him, but felt a certain gentleness because he so obviously had her welfare in mind.

  'The car ferry that's to take me across to the island wasn't due for a couple of hours, so I had plenty of time.' He made the explanation as if he already regretted his impulsiveness. 'I don't know what the island roads are like, or how often I'll be able to get over again, or even if there are any roads, but

  ' He stopped short and stood looking at her for a moment or two with his earnest grey eyes. 'Oh hell, Corinne love, you know why I'm here! You must be in absolutely no doubt.'

  Corinne managed to free her hands and she walked off just a short step, enough to put distance between them

  before she turned and looked at him. 'I have a very good idea,' she agreed, and desperately sought the right words for what she had to say next. 'And although it's lovely to see you again, Robert

  'You wish I hadn't come!'

  `I'm being married in four days' time,' she told him, and Robert stared at her, then took her hands again, gripping them even more tightly.

  'Four days?' he echoed. 'Oh no, Corinne, you can't, not that soon! Oh, my poor silly darling!'

  'It isn't as terrible as you seem to think,' she told him. She had her own doubts, heaven knew, any amount of them, but she was not prepared to have Robert add his to them, and she shook her head at him. 'And anyway, it is more or less a fait accompli now. The wedding gown, all the arrangements—everything. Only an earthquake can stop it now.'

  `Then damn it, stop it!' Robert declared fiercely.

  He drew her to him so that she was conscious of the tense urgency of his body when he put his arms around her and held her close. 'I love you. Corinne, and I'm damned if I'll stand by and see you throw yourself away. on a stranger! I realise how hard it is for you to get away, I should never have let you come here, but I can get you out of it and I will! You're coming back to England with me!'

  Feeling rather as if she had been plunged out of the frying pan and into the fire, Corinne had no time to state her own feelings before Robert gathered her even closer in his arms and sought her mouth with a hungry eagerness. Her struggles stemmed more from instinct than desperation and she broke away, breathing heavily, when she recognised the voice that cut suddenly across Robert's whispered endearments.

  `You are Robert Morgan, I suspect,' Gregori said clearly and distinctly, and the quietness of his voice carried the cutting edge of steel. A veritable furnace of anger burned behind the dark eyes that regarded them so steadily. 'Won't you introduce me, Corinne?'

  How he was managing to control a so obviously violent temper amazed Corinne and she moistened her own dry lips anxiously before she did as he said. 'Robert is the son of Ann and Clifford Morgan who I told you about, Gregori,' she said. 'Robert, this is Gregori Kolianos.'

  `Soon to be Corinne's husband,' Gregori informed him with an unmistakable threat in his voice. 'Are you perhaps in Greece for our wedding, Mr Morgan?'

  Their handshake was merely a concession to formality. Robert was angry and also outfaced, for he had allowed himself to behave as he would never have done in normal circumstances. He disliked being found in the situation that Gregori had found him in, Corinne suspected, almost as much as he disliked the idea of her marrying, no matter how defiant he looked.

  'If I have my way there won't be any wedding!' he declared, and Corinne pressed a hand to his arm before he could say more.

  `Please, Robert,' she begged, 'don't say any more! Don't make a scene, please!'

  He said nothing, responding to her plea or perhaps deterred by the look in Gregori's eyes. For a second or two he watched her face, as if he tried unsuccessfully to determine what her feelings were, then he turned abruptly, muttering something that she did not catch, and walked back to his car with a curiously stiff-legged gait that expressed his anger better than words could have done.

  Corinne watched him go with undeniable regret as well as relief, for she liked Robert, she was even fond of him. If only she could have loved him it would probably have made everything so much more simple. As the sound of his car receded into the distance, she turned and found Gregori right behind her, making any hope of escape unlikely.

  A firm hand on her arm added to the thudding beat of her heart and she looked up into his face with a strange feeling of mingled fear and excitement. 'Why did you not tell me that there was another man, Corinne?' he asked, and his voice betrayed just how angry he was, no matter how well he had managed to control it so far. Then his fingers tightened suddenly and his eyes blazed in the rugged darkness of his face. 'Oh, kolasizi, Corinne! Are you never to be honest with me?'

  `There is no other man!' She made the denial swiftly and without hesitation and believed it had the desired effect. Shaking free of him, she walked off, rubbing at the marks his fingers had left on her arm. As she turned to face him her eyes seemed dark, shadowed by the pines that kept out the sun. 'I've known Robert ever since I was a little girl, all my life practically! I had no idea that he felt the way he does until I was on the point of leaving to come here; he drove me to the airport. He tried to stop m
e coming; he said he loved me, that he'd always loved me, but until then I didn't know! I didn't know!'

  It was difficult to avoid his eyes when he watched her so steadily and she turned away after a moment and stood with her back half to him. 'You went out with him? In those weeks while I was away?'

  His voice followed her, deep and insistent, and she looked at him with a spark of defiance in her eyes. 'Yes.

  of course I went out with him, I saw no reason not to! Robert is good company and when it was so long—I thought you'd forgotten all about our—affair!'

  'An affair?' Gregori managed somehow to convey reproach without changing the pitch of his voice and she stirred uneasily. 'Is that how you think of it. Corinne? Is that how easily you can dismiss that very special thing we had in Paris?'

  It was dangerous ground and she recognised it, turning her shoulder to him defensively. 'I haven't forgotten, it's just that it's—it's different. I had time to think in those five weeks when I didn't see you and I began to realise that the whole situation had been vaguely unreal.' There was a kind of appeal in the glance she gave him while she rubbed a hand absently over the shoulder she kept so firmly turned against him. 'You know as well as I do what a reputation Paris has for romance, and especially in the springtime. It went to my head—I believe it went to both our heads, Gregori.'

  But not to our hearts?' She glanced at him quickly and caught the deep dark gleam in his eyes. 'You really believe that, Corinne?'

  He was beside her and she felt herself trembling when he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her towards him. There was the same burning desire in his eyes and the same wild excitement in his nearness that there always was. His hands had the same gentle, persuasive touch, his lean body the thrilling touch of fire that she knew so well and she shook her head only halfheartedly when he lifted her face to him and sought her mouth.

  What seemed like an eternity ago in Paris, he had put his brand on her, seared it into her senses until she knew she would never be free of it. no matter how often she

  doubted or how often she shied away from the day that was much too close for comfort now. His mouth touched her lips lightly, coaxing them apart, then crushing them with a bruising fierceness that aroused every nerve in her body.

  His passion kindled her own, as it had always done, and she looked at him with eyes that were glowingly soft and shining when he raised his head for a moment to look at her. 'Is it so very different from Paris, my lark?' he whispered.

  Her thoughts only lightly touching on Madame Kolianos's dark watchful eyes and Zoe's defiant antagonism, Corinne shook her head, then lifted her mouth once more to his kiss. She knew in her heart that she was too easily persuaded, that tomorrow she would still have the doubts that plagued her, but at the moment nothing seemed to matter very much except being in Gregori's arms, and she yielded as she always did.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  IT was when Corinne was driving back from Athens the following day with Trine that she spotted someone just as they turned into the approach road to the house; just a glimpse of someone half hidden among the close-standing trees. She glanced hastily at her companion to see if she had noticed anything, but apparently Irine was oblivious, although the chauffeur turned his head briefly, as if he

  too might have noticed it.

  Almost inevitably Corinne thought of Robert, and all the time she and Irine were unpacking their purchases she kept thinking of his unexpected appearance yesterday in the same spot. Suppose he had come to try and see her again; could she find it in her heart to pretend he wasn't there? It was a question that plagued her all the time they chattered happily about the things they had bought, and showed them off to the other three women in the family.

  It was another half-hour before she eventually succumbed to temptation and took another stroll down through the gardens as she had the day before, and on towards the road, through the pine wood. It was possible she had been mistaken, but she did not think so; it was Robert waiting down there, she felt almost sure, and she simply could not find it in her heart to ignore him.

  She had walked almost as far as the road and seen no sign of him when she caught sight of a sudden movement further back in the trees and swung round quickly. It was almost a relief when Robert stepped out from the shadows and came towards her, walking slowly as if he was a little less sure of his welcome today. And she guessed the quick darting glance he gave behind her was to check that Gregori was not following on her heels.

  `I've been here for ages,' he told her before she had time to say anything, and eyed her with obvious anxiety. `I came over early and caught a bus—I can't get the car in the boat I've borrowed.' He half-smiled and she found it so touchingly familiar that she was glad she had followed her instincts and not simply left him waiting there. 'Am I forgiven, Corinne?'

  Smiling, she allowed him to take her hands but skilfully evaded the kiss he would have pressed on her lips,

  receiving it instead on her cheek. 'There's nothing to forgive,' she told him, 'but I'll forgive you if it makes you feel better, Robert.'

  `You knew I was here?' He eyed her curiously. 'I saw a car go up to the house more than an hour ago and I thought it looked like you in the back with another woman.'

  Corinne nodded. 'That was Irine, Gregori's sister-in-law; we'd been shopping. I saw you as we turned in.' `And you slipped out to see me again?'

  He obviously read some significance into it, and Corinne shook her head. 'I could hardly leave you standing around out here all day,' she told him. 'Although you're not being very wise roaming about among the trees, Robert, you could be mistaken for a prowler. Yorgo, the chauffeur, saw you as well, I think, and if he says anything '

  `They'll set the dogs on me!'

  `Nothing as dramatic as that,' Corinne denied. But it is necessary to be a bit security-minded in a place like this, Robert.'

  She found him difficult to understand in this mood, he made her uneasy. He gave a brief and unmistakably baleful look in the direction of the house and shrugged. Quite obviously he had something to say and having given him the encouragement of coming out to see him, Corinne supposed she had little option but to hear what it was. At her suggestion they walked along under the trees, just a little way in from the edge where they could not be seen from the road, although she had not consciously sought to hide away.

  Reaching for her hand suddenly, Robert squeezed her fingers tightly. 'I'm here for a long time, Corinne; I've taken every day due to me, in one go! It wasn't easy, but

  I managed it, and I've rented a house on Damos, one of the smaller islands. The natives are very friendly there, and I've borrowed a boat from one of them.'

  `Oh, but that's lovely for you, Robert!' Corinne was doubtful about the effect of his presence on her own situation, but she did not want to appear as if she took it for granted he was there for her sake alone. 'You'll love the islands, they're beautiful!'

  `So I believe.' The hand that held hers tightened its grip, and a glance at his face showed him frowning deeply. Then he brought them to a standstill and turned to face her so that she could see how darkly serious his eyes were. 'I haven't just come to enjoy myself, my sweet, you must realise that. I've come to try and persuade you to come home with me. No, no, no, don't turn me down out of hand, listen to my plan first! I'm willing to give up the holiday if you'll just let me help you out of this—this trap you're in. I can, I have an idea and I know it will work, but I need your co-operation.'

  `Robert, please—I'm not in any trap.'

  `It's a trap!' Robert insisted stubbornly. `Mink-lined and very luxurious, no doubt, but you're trapped, my sweet, and I know how to spring it. By getting at Kolianos through his precious pride! With What I have in mind he'll be only too glad to let you go!' He smiled and raised a brow. 'You don't actually dislike me, do you, love?'

  He knew very well that she did not dislike him, but nor did she want to become involved with him in the way he so obviously intimated. It was staggering to discover
that Robert was capable of planning some kind of scheme to force Gregori to let her go, and she felt a moment of dismay that he had become so unfamiliar suddenly.

  `I don't know what you have in mind,' she told him, `but I'm not interested in any scheme to free me, as you call it. I'm not looking for a way out that's likely to cause Gregori or his family any kind of embarrassment—I'm not sure I'm looking for a way out at all. I may not be absolutely sure that I love him as I thought at first, but —well, I definitely don't want to hurt or embarrass him either.'

  Robert's face was flushed and earnest and there was a smouldering look of resentment in his eyes that made them appear shifty; a fact that was another disturbing change for the worse. She placed a hand on his arm and shook her head, seeking to placate him without yielding to his suggestion concerning Gregori.

  'I know how you feel. Robert,' she told him. 'You know I'm still unsure at times, and you dislike Gregori

  'I hate his guts!'

  His vehemence startled her so much that she blinked. `Well, you shouldn't,' she insisted. 'After all, I did agree to marry him quite willingly in the first place, and you can't blame him for making sure I don't jilt him!'

  Clearly he did not understand her, but after a moment or two he apparently resigned himself to the fact that she was not going to change her mind, and he shrugged. 'O.K., I won't mention it again! I accept that you're prepared to go like a lamb to the slaughter and there's nothing I can do about it! We're still friends?'

  Corinne smiled her relief. 'Yes, of course!'

  He took her arm and together they strolled back through the trees. 'Good! But if you won't let me rescue you, will you at least find time to spend an hour or two with an old friend before you become the lady of the manor?'