'Who was she, Zoe!'
is,' Zoe corrected her with relentless accuracy. 'Like Iole, her family would not let her break her betrothal to marry the man she loves and who loves her. Oh, she is so beautiful—cultured, wealthy, charming and passionate; everything a man like Gregori wants and needs, especially when he knows he cannot have her. No wonder he could not bear to marry another Greek woman—a Greek would have reminded him constantly of Persephone! Would you not think,' Zoe mused, 'that having suffered himself he would show more compassion for Iole? But no! He does not deserve to be happy!'
Persephone! The name raced round and round in Corinne's head and for a moment she felt physically sick. Just thinking of Gregori wishing day after day that he could have married another woman, having her always in his mind
'But he loves me!' She said it aloud, shrill in her anguish, and she realised that Zoe only now recognised how deeply she had hurt. To impress it on her own, mind she repeated it. 'He loves me, he's said so many times that he loves me!'
Zoe used her hands, spreading them wide and refusing to meet her eyes. She opened her bedroom door and this time Corinne made no move to keep her. 'It is possible
that he does,' she allowed. 'In a way, he loves you.' But Corinne scarcely heard her, her whole world seemed suddenly to have been turned upside down. 'Because he cannot have Persephone, and he needs to love someone.'
CHAPTER SEVEN
CORINNE wished with all her heart that she could forget what Zoe had told her, but she found it impossible. Something in Zoe's manner suggested that she was telling the truth, although possibly exaggerating a little, and the memory of it nagged Corinne unrelentingly as she lay there in the darkness.
To make matters worse, when Gregori had tried to coax her into the loving mood she was usually so willing to enjoy, she had found it impossible to be as responsive as she normally was, and for the first time he had turned from her, puzzled and angry, but yielding to her obvious unwillingness. Now, instead of being cradled in his arms, she gazed up at the shadowy ceiling, trying to forget the woman whom Zoe claimed he loved; whom he had always loved.
She knew nothing about her, other than that she was rich, beautiful and married, but as the night lengthened she began to hate the conjured-up vision of a classical Greek beauty with an intensity that startled her. When she had hesitated about coming to Greece in the first place, Robert had tried to persuade her to let .Gregori
take second-best as he called it, and marry someone more acceptable to his family. Suddenly discovering that she was second-best was a bitter pill indeed to swallow, and she brushed an impatient hand across her eyes when she realised there were tears in them.
The movement, however slight, must have disturbed Gregori, for he turned towards her and she felt her flesh tingle when she sensed him watching her in the soft darkness of the moonlit room. But when a tentative hand reached over and touched her she flinched from it and turned her head away. 'Corinne?' Her body ached to respond to that soft-voiced enquiry, but she found it too easy to imagine that in the darkness he pretended to himself that she was Persephone, his real love, and she kept her head turned away from him.
Murmuring something softly in Greek, he moved the familiar warmth of his body nearer, pressing close against her and arousing her senses while she fought to subdue them. While she tried to drown them in what she saw as righteous anger at his deception. Maybe she could have forgiven him if he had told her, but to remember how he had snatched her from Robert and made such a fuss about her friendship with him, made her angry as well as hurt.
A hand on her cheek turned her gently to face him. `My love,' he whispered, 'what is the matter, eh?' Corinne stayed silent, unable to speak without screaming at him that his love for another woman was the matter, and he raised himself slightly so that he looked down into her face, his mouth only a breath away and already brushing softly against her lips. `Agapitikos, please tell me what is troubling you. Why do you turn away from me?'
A light kiss tempted her to yield, but Corinne tried once more to turn her head away, and the sudden fierce
pressure of his mouth was a determined effort to prevent it, like the strong fingers that curved into her cheek. Unable to help herself, she yielded for just a moment to the clamour of her senses, but the persistent ghost that Zoe had raised once more hovered between them and she jerked her head aside, breathing hard, and angry because there were tears still in her eyes.
Gregori was growing angry too, she could feel the tautness of the lean body beside her and the tightening of his hands. But the shadow of his beautiful Persephone loomed too large now to be dismissed, and the name was torn from her as she spun over on to her side and turned her back to him, her voice muffled and unsteady.
`Persephone! Who is Persephone?'
To Corinne his very silence seemed to confirm her worst fears, but he remained as he was in the taut, quiet seconds that followed. Just out of touch but close enough to make her aware of his nearness and the turbulence of his mood.
`She is someone I have known for a very long time—someone we have all known for a long time.' His deep quiet voice was well under control as it always was. 'Why do you ask, Corinne? Why do you question me about her now, in the small hours of the morning?'
`But who is she?'
In her desperation her voice was a strangled whisper, and Gregori was silent once more for several seconds before he answered. When he did his voice was still perfectly controlled; quiet as the hour demanded, but controlled. 'If you wish to know her name it is Persephone Chambi, but why should she concern you? And particularly at this moment!' He gripped her hard suddenly and pulled her back to face him, holding her with bruising force while she struggled in vain to be free. In
the diffused moonlight his eyes glittered darkly and she turned her head back and forth to try and shut out the hovering shadow of his face. 'Why, Corinne?'
want to sleep,' she panted breathlessly. 'Let me go, you can't '
am entitled to know why my wife suddenly behaves as if she finds my lovemaking repellent to her,' he insisted remorselessly. 'And why she chooses the small hours of the morning to question me about another woman!'
`Why didn't you tell me about her?'
She made the demand in a harsh whisper, for she was almost out of breath. She had given up struggling against him, but she tried to cope with such a tangle of emotions that her head was spinning. She loved him and she desperately wanted him to love her, but not if he saw her only as second best to a woman he had loved even before he knew her. Whom he still loved, according to Zoe.
`Why should I tell you about her?' Gregori asked, and the quietness of his voice contrasted so strongly with the physical passion she knew possessed his body that she shuddered. 'There is nothing you need to know; nothing that need concern you. I owe you no excuses, no explanations—and certainly not at this hour!'
'I'm only your wife!' She sounded so bitter that Gregori frowned.
`You would do well to remember it, kopéla mou!'
`Is that what you mean to do?' Corinne whispered. 'Remind me that I'm your wife and you need me, even though you're lusting after another man's wife!'
`You dare to say that!'
He resorted to his own tongue as he most often did in moments of stress, and lying there in the half-dark with
him Corinne trembled, half afraid of the fury she had unleashed. With his strong fingers Gregori pressed her hands into the pillows, pinning her body down with the broad, bronze smoothness of his chest. Every dark contour of his face was deepened and intensified by the shadowy light, and she could not tear her eyes away from it.
'I married you!' he rasped in a voice that sent shudders through her trembling body. 'You are my wife and that is all that concerns me; it is all that should concern you!'
Her eyes had a shimmering mistiness as she looked up into that mask of darkness hovering over her, and the lateness of the hour as well as the turmoil of her emotions had taken their toll. As she lay
there sleepless, Zoe's words had come back to her again and again, growing in importance until the desire to be revenged on that shadowy lover he coveted and could not have was a very real and urgent need.
'I thought it was all that mattered,' she whispered, 'but I can't make love with a man who sees me only as a substitute for a woman he can't have!'
He said something in his own tongue, bringing his face with its gleaming dark eyes closer to hers. His mouth touched hers, just lightly for a second and then suddenly with more force, as he sought to arouse her usual response. When she lay there determinedly unresponsive and with tears pricking her eyes, he kissed her again; a fierce, violent kiss, using not just his mouth but his whole body.
'We shall see what you will do, my love!' he whispered harshly. 'We shall see!'
Gregori left for the office rather earlier than usual the
following morning, and rather than risk questions about
her behaviour last night, Corinne feigned sleep. By morning the question of Persephone Chambi seemed to have taken on more reasonable proportions; maybe Zoe had, if not actually lied, at least exaggerated Gregori's interest in the woman.
Corinne was not naive enough to suppose that a man of Gregori's temperament had lived for thirty-five years without having known a fair number of women, some of them probably quite intimately. Maybe Persephone Chambi had been an affair that had lasted for longer than most. Nevertheless, rather than have the matter raised again this morning, she had deliberately curled herself over on to her side and kept her eyes tightly shut.
She so very nearly betrayed herself, though, when Gregori bent and gently kissed the side of her neck, brushing aside a tumble of auburn hair to do it, for she was tempted to turn and kiss him as she would normally have done. Instead, the memory of last night, when he had forcibly demanded of her what she usually gave so willingly, kept her stubbornly inert, and only when he had quietly left her did she turn and gaze thoughtfully at the closed door.
She breakfasted in near silence and was so preoccupied that Madame Kolianos commented upon it. Just as later the same day her mother-in-law's shrewd dark eyes watched her from across the room when she received a telephone call.
`It is a man, but not Gregori,' Zoe told her, and a gleam in her eyes mocked Corinne's puzzled frown. 'Perhaps you would prefer to use the telephone in the hall?'
Clearly Zoe was just as sure as Corinne herself who the caller was, and knowing the speculation it must be causing she set her chin at a defiant angle when she did as Zoe suggested and took it in the hall. 'Hello, Robert?'
`Yes, it's me, Corinne.' He sounded rather unsure of himself. 'I hope I didn't put my foot in it by asking for you.'
`Of course you didn't!' She dismissed the possibility lightly. `I'd forgotten for the moment that you were still in Greece. Are you enjoying your long holiday?'
She felt a little mean for sounding so offhand, especially when he hesitated for a moment, for she could too easily imagine his rather earnest face looking downcast and disappointed. 'Not as much as I might have done,' he told her. 'But I love the place and the people; they're not all as inhospitable as your Greek, I'm glad to say!' He laughed a little awkwardly, going on before she could answer him. `I'm sorry, love! What I really rang for was to see how you're getting on; is married life suiting you?'
In the circumstances it was a difficult question to answer, but not for anything would Corinne have let him know that things were anything other than perfect between her and Gregori at the moment, and she laughed. `Fine, thank you, Robert.'
But Robert had known her for a long time and it was almost as if he detected something behind her laughter. 'I just wondered,' he went on after a second or two, `if it would be possible for me to see you again. I'm writing to my folks and I'd like to be able to tell them that I've seen you and that you're looking as beautiful as ever and in blooming health. I'd like to see for myself.'
'I've written to Ann and Clifford,' Corinne told him, playing for time before she gave him an answer he was not going to like. 'I've written twice, as a matter of fact, and—'
`You needn't worry, I haven't told them anything about the—the differences I've had with your lord and master,' Robert told her dryly. 'I said I saw you on the day you
were married and that you looked out of this world, that's all. But—couldn't you see me for just a minute or two, Corinne?'
Corinne hesitated. It was a long time since she had last seen him, on the day she was married, and she could not pretend that in other circumstances she would have agreed without stopping to think. But Gregori had been adamant and she was reluctant to make matters any worse between them at the moment. 'I'm sorry, Robert.' Her voice must have told him how reluctant she was to refuse. 'But I don't think it would be a very good idea at the moment. I know it's been a while now, but Gregori was quite adamant—'
'What have you married there?' Robert demanded. 'A full-blooded tyrant? He hasn't still got you on a leash, has he? What does he do—lock you up each day before he leaves for the office?'
`You're being offensive, Robert!' Her defence of Gregori was instinctive and automatic and she could sense Robert's surprise, so that she made an immediate attempt to appease him. 'Maybe I could meet you for a coffee one day : you don't go back just yet, do you?'
'Very soon,' he told her. 'I wish you'd make the effort, love, I've been very disappointed at not seeing you at all when you were the main reason I scratched together all this leave.'
`I know, Robert, and I'm truly sorry it worked out as it did, but—well, you did rather make a rod for your own back by being so aggressive each time you and Gregori met, didn't you?' She did not wait for his reply, but hurried on. 'There's been a bit of family upheaval lately, so I'd rather not commit myself right off, but later—'
'O.K.' She heard his resigned sigh and could imagine the slight stoop of his shoulders that always betrayed
his disappointment. 'But believe me, I've no intention of leaving for home without seeing you again, you can tell your arrogant Greek that!'
`I promise I'll see you before you leave.' She could see no alternative but to make him the promise, and even Gregori could not be so unreasonable as to forbid her to say goodbye to Robert. 'Actually I've written and told your folks; Gregori has to go to England at the end of the year and he's promised to take me with him. So I shall be seeing you all then.'
'Nice of him!' Robert declared tartly. 'Can I ring you there when I want to let you know I'm leaving?'
Corinne hesitated. There was no point in preventing him calling and she was not, as Robert suggested, a prisoner even though Gregori would probably be furious if he knew about this call. 'I don't see why not,' she told Robert. 'But your little fisherman's cottage doesn't have a phone, does it?'
`I'm in the taverna on the quay,' Robert informed her. `Nikos Thelassi has the only telephone on the island and I have an audience.'
She heard a shout go up behind him and she could visualise the spartan comfort of the tiny taverna with its all male customers. Robert had settled so well into the life of an islander that it was a pity he could not have got on as well with her particular Greek. Not that anyone could remain aloof for very long from the determined hospitality of the Greek islanders.
`Let me know when you're leaving,' she told him, 'and we'll arrange something.'
`Oh well, I suppose half a loaf is better than no bread at all,' Robert quoted ruefully. 'I'll have to be content with the prospect of at least being able to say goodbye to you.'
'I'm sorry.'
There seemed little else she could say, and Corinne felt strangely in need of a friendly face while she was at odds with Gregori. It would have been nice to see Robert again, but she was not taking any chances. For a second or two there was nothing at the other end of the line but the faint buzz of voices in the background, and then Robert spoke again, his mouth obviously very close to the instrument and his voice kept low so as not to be overheard.
`I love you, Corinne!'
The line went dead almost at once and she stood for a moment staring at the telephone and not quite sure why she felt so suddenly tearful. It was curious how she had always taken Robert for granted until the day he drove her to the airport to catch the plane to Greece. Probably being married to Robert would have been much less emotionally traumatic, but she doubted if she would have known so many wildly exciting moments as she had with Gregori. And sin clung to those memories like a lifeline as she replaced the receiver.
Iole was home. Looking slightly pale and with a large bruise on her chin, but none the worse otherwise, and Corinne considered that both she and her companion in the car had been very fortunate to get off as lightly as they had. She looked so young that Corinne's heart went out to her, and she wondered what was going to happen to her now that marriage to Costas Menelus was almost certainly out of the question.
Irine had told her that Costas had worshipped Iole ever since he was a schoolboy—he was only nineteen now—and at one time Iole had seethed of the same mind about him. Only the advent of Takis Lemou, older
and more confident of his prowess as a ladies' man, had made her change her mind, but Costas had never changed his. If it was at all possible for him to marry Iole, even now, she believed he still would.
Corinne looked across at Iole now and wondered if she was as troubled by her uncertain future as Irine was. Since she came home she had been treated with a gentle consideration and not one word of reproach, but it was quite evident to Corinne that she was under constant supervision from one or another member of the family. Whether Iole herself realised it, she could not tell, but if she did she showed no sign that it troubled her.
Now that she was more at home in her new country, Corinne sometimes went shopping alone and this morning she was tempted to ask if Iole would like to come with her, for the change of scene. What stopped her offering was the possibility that Iole might be nervous about riding in a car after the accident, otherwise she might have enjoyed her company.
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