Читать книгу Pagan Adversary - Сара Крейвен, Sara Craven - Страница 7

HARRIET felt pleasantly tired as she walked back towards the house late on Saturday evening. She had done all the things she had promised herself to do, and had managed to fill her day too full for thought, even treating herself to the pure luxury of afternoon tea at a hotel.

When Becca had been carrying Nicky, she had once laughingly remarked that when you were pregnant, every second person you met seemed to be in the same condition. Paradoxically, Harriet thought, when you were alone, everyone else seemed to be in couples. But then London had always been a bad place in which to be solitary.

But she didn’t have to be alone, she told herself. If and when Nicky went to Greece, she would find a flat to share with girls of her own age. There were plenty advertised.

She opened the front door and walked into the hall, to be pounced on by one of the downstairs tenants, looking severe. ‘Three times!’ she announced with a kind of annoyed triumph. ‘That’s how many times the phone has rung for you in the past hour and a half, Miss Masters, and you not here!’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Harriet in bewilderment. ‘Was there a message?’

Mrs Robertson produced a slip of paper. ‘You’re to ring this number and ask for this extension. And now if I might get back to my television programme,’ she added aggressively as if she suspected Harriet of being in league with the unknown caller to keep her from the last few minutes of ‘Dynasty’.

Harriet dialled, and was answered from the switchboard of a famous London hotel. Faintly she gave the extension number, thinking frantically, ‘Nicky—my God, something’s happened to Nicky!’

Alex Marcos answered so promptly that he might have been waiting by the phone. Her heart gave the oddest bound when she heard his voice, and then she was aware of something else—background noises which were quite unmistakably Nicky screaming with temper.

She asked in swift alarm, ‘Is he ill?’

‘His health is perfect,’ Alex Marcos said grimly. ‘I wish I could say the same for his disposition. He seems to have been thoroughly spoilt. Last night, Yannina managed to get him to sleep with difficulty. This evening it has been quite impossible. Everything she has tried with him has failed. He merely screams all the louder and cries for you.’

‘He’s not at all spoilt,’ Harriet said indignantly. ‘I really don’t know what else you expected. He’s far too young to take such a complete change in his environment in his stride. He’s in a strange room with strange faces round him, and he’s frightened.’

‘You have missed your vocation, Miss Masters. You should clearly have been a child psychologist,’ he drawled. ‘Did it occur to you to warn Yannina that he might react in this way?’

Harriet sighed. ‘I honestly didn’t know. He—he went with her willingly enough. And I tried to explain that it was a little holiday….’

He said tightly, ‘Very well, Miss Masters, you are absolved. He is, as you say, a very young child, and he is deeply distressed. If I send my car for you, will you come to him?’

Harriet swallowed. ‘Of course.’

She heard his phone go down, and replaced her own receiver.

She went upstairs to the flat and stood looking round rather helplessly, wondering what she should do. She didn’t know whether or not she should pack a bag with some overnight essentials. Nothing had been said about her staying the night with Nicky, and perhaps she would just be expected to get him calm and off to sleep before she was chauffeured back here again.

In the end, she compromised by tucking some clean undies and her toothbrush into the bottom of her biggest shoulder bag.

The car was at the door almost before it seemed possible. She would have preferred to sit in the front with the driver, but she was gravely ushered into the back, and even offered a rug to put round her, which she declined.

It had all happened so fast that she hadn’t time to be nervous or consider the implications of what she was doing, or not until now. Sitting alone in the car’s unaccustomed luxury, she tried to compose her thoughts and emotions, reminding herself over and over again that she was only seeing Alex Marcos again because Nicky needed her, and that her concern must be for him.

She even began to wonder whether Alex might be having second thoughts about taking Nicky to Greece, with the prospect of nightly scenes to contend with.

The suite Alex occupied was on the second floor of the hotel, and as soon as Harriet left the lift, she could hear Nicky roaring.

The chauffeur led her along the corridor and knocked deferentially. Alex opened the door himself. He was casually dressed in close-fitting dark slacks and a loose sweatshirt, and in spite of his ill-temper, he looked more attractive than ever, Harriet thought, her stomach tying itself in knots.

She said insanely, ‘We should have called him Macbeth!’

He stared at her. ‘What in the name of God are you talking about?’

‘It’s the play,’ she said quickly. ‘By Shakespeare. Macbeth murdered sleep in it, when he murdered Duncan.’

His mouth twisted. ‘I imagine my unfortunate neighbours in the adjoining suites may well be contemplating the same solution. There have already been discreet enquiries from the management, you understand.’ He shook her head. ‘I never knew a child’s lungs could have such power!’

There was a cot in Nicky’s room and he was standing up in it, gripping the bars with small desperate fists, his face swollen and blubbered with weeping. Yannina sat on a chair facing him, her motherly face contorted with a kind of despair as she talked to him in a swift monotone. A congealing cup of milk on a side table, and various untouched fruit drinks, bore mute witness to her attempts to find some form of pacification. As she entered the room, Harriet’s foot turned against something soft and she looked down to see Nicky’s teddy bear. She bent and retrieved it. Hurling his beloved toy across the room was the ultimate in despairing gestures as far as Nicky was concerned.

He was quiet as Harriet approached the cot, his whole being indrawn, intent on producing the next explosion of anguish at the maximum volume. And then he saw her. He screamed again, but on a different note, and his arms reached for her imperatively.

As she lifted him, he clutched at her fiercely, clinging like a damp limpet.

‘Thespinis Masters, I am sorry, so sorry.’ Yannina was almost weeping herself. ‘He wanted nothing and no one only you.’

Harriet gave her a reassuring smile and began walking up and down the room with Nicky, holding him tightly and crooning wordlessly to him, as Becca had done when he was teething. Slowly the convulsive sobs tearing at his body began to weaken until he was quiet, except for the occasional hiccup. Gradually one hand relinquished its painful hold on her neck, and she knew instinctively that his thumb had gone to his mouth. His weight had altered too. He seemed heavier because he had relaxed, and Harriet knew that he was probably more than half asleep.

Confirming this, Yannina whispered ‘His eyes are closing. Thespinis, may God be praised! Ah, the poor little one!’ She moved to the cot and began straightening and smoothing the sheets and blankets and shaking up the single pillow.

Harriet turned and began another length of the room, slowing her pace deliberately. As she did so, she saw Alex standing in the doorway watching her, his brows drawn together in a thunderous frown. She bit her lip. Clearly her methods with Nicky did not have his approval, so why then had he sent for her? She ventured another glance at the doorway and saw that he had gone.

When she was sure that Nicky had slipped over the edge of drowsiness into actual slumber, she carried him to the cot and placed him gently in it, smoothing the covers with care over his small body His face was still blotched with tears, she saw with a pang. She straightened with a sigh, and went to the door where Yannina was waiting for her, looking round first to make sure that Nicky hadn’t stirred.

She had been too eager to get to his side to take much notice of her surroundings previously, but now she realised that she was in a large sitting room, off which the other rooms presumably opened.

A waiter had appeared with a trolley, and Harriet saw to her astonishment that covers were being whipped deftly off an assortment of delicious-looking sandwiches and other savouries, and that there was a bottle of champagne cooling on ice.

Alex was lounging on one of the thickly cushioned sofas, but he rose as she came rather uncertainly into the room. He had stopped frowning, she saw, but the rather formal smile he gave her did not reach his eyes.

‘Champagne is the best pick-me-up in the world,’ he said. ‘I am sure you are as much in need of it as I am.’

Harriet thought wryly of the other two occasions in her life when she had drunk champagne—at Becca’s wedding, and Nicky’s christening. She had always regarded it as a form of luxurious celebration rather than a tonic, but she was willing to be convinced.

She chose a seat on the sofa facing the one which Alex was occupying, and pretended she did not see the expression of derision which flitted across his face.

He tipped the waiter and dismissed him with a nod.

‘Please help yourself,’ he told Harriet courteously. ‘I hope you like smoked salmon.’

Harriet murmured something evasive. She was damned if she was going to admit she hadn’t the faintest idea whether she liked it or not. And that bowl full of something black and glistening—surely that couldn’t be caviare? There were vol-au-vents too, filled with chicken and mushroom in a creamy sauce. It was all a far cry from the scrambled eggs on toast she had planned for supper. And she was hungry too. Her tea seemed a very long time ago, but at the same time she knew that Alex’s presence would have an inhibiting effect on her appetite.

She took the tall slender glass he unsmilingly handed her, and sipped some of the wine it contained, wishing for the first time in her life that she knew enough about wines to appreciate the vintage.

She tasted a little of everything on the trolley, aware all the time of the sombre scrutiny of the man who sat opposite. He ate nothing, she noticed, merely drinking his wine and refilling the glasses when it became necessary.

Alex broke the silence at last. ‘I tried several times to telephone you this evening.’ His brow lifted sardonically. ‘I began to wonder if you had taken advantage of Nicky’s absence to spend the night with your lover.’

Aware that she was being baited, Harriet smiled sweetly and confined her reply to, ‘No.’

‘Nevertheless my summons to you must have upset your plans in some way at least.’

Harriet thought without regret of the scrambled eggs. ‘Only slightly.’

‘You are fortunate. I had to postpone an appointment this evening.’

Another relaxation session with his beautiful redhead? Harriet wondered.

It was probably the champagne which made her say, ‘Never mind, Mr Marcos. I’m sure she’ll forgive you.’

A faint smile touched the corners of his mouth. ‘Now what makes you think my appointment was with a woman? You should not believe everything you read in the papers.’

‘I don’t,’ she denied with more haste than dignity. ‘Read the papers, I mean—or at least read about you in them.’

‘You surprise me. Judging by some of your remarks to Philippides, I imagined you had made a lifelong study of my way of life through their columns.’ Narrowing his eyes, he held up his glass, studying with apparent fascination the bubbles rising to its rim.

‘Eavesdroppers,’ Harriet said sedately, taking another smoked salmon sandwich, ‘rarely hear any good of themselves. How did you know my telephone number anyway?’

He sighed. ‘I made a note of it as I was leaving yesterday—in case of just such an emergency as this.’

‘Well, I hardly imagined it would be for any other reason,’ Harriet snapped.

‘Have some more champagne.’ He refilled her glass. ‘Perhaps it will sweeten your disposition.’

‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Nicky gets his temper from my side of the family.’

‘You alarm me. The Marcos temper is also supposed to be formidable.’

‘Poor Nicky. He may never smile again,’ Harriet said cheerfully.

‘That is what I am afraid of,’ he murmured. ‘Will he sleep now until morning, do you suppose?’

‘I think he will.’ She looked round for her bag. ‘I—I really ought to be going.’

‘I think not,’ said Alex. ‘In my opinion it would be far better if you were here when the child awakes.’

Harriet didn’t meet his gaze. ‘You mean—you’d like me to come back first thing in the morning.’

‘I mean nothing of the kind,’ he said irritably. ‘I am suggesting that you stay the night here.’

Harriet continued to stare at the carpet. ‘I really think it would be better if I went home.’

‘And I cannot formulate one good reason why you should do so.’ The dark eyes glittered wickedly. ‘Why so reluctant, Harriet mou? Are you perhaps afraid that the bed I’m offering you is my own?’

She decided prudently that she had had enough champagne and put the glass down.

She said, ‘No, I’m not, but I admit that remarks like that aren’t very reassuring.’

His mouth twisted. ‘Is that what you want—reassurance?’

She said wearily, ‘I don’t want anything from you, Mr Marcos. I came here tonight because Nicky needs me, not to indulge in verbal or any other kind of battles with you. I think I’d better go home.’

‘No, stay,’ he said, and there was the authentic note of the autocrat in his voice. ‘I admit it amuses me to make you blush, but I have no designs on your virtue. And if I was in the mood for a woman tonight, I would choose a willing partner, and not a frightened virgin,’ he added, the dark eyes flicking cruelly over her.

Harriet hadn’t the slightest wish to afford him any more amusement, but she could do nothing to prevent the betraying colour rising in her face. He made being a virgin sound like an insult, she thought fiercely, and knew a momentary impulse to categorically deny she was any such thing which she hastily subdued. He was in a strange mood tonight, and she already knew to her cost how unpredictable he could be.

Trying to sound composed, she said, ‘Thank you. Do I share Nicky’s room? I saw there was a bed in there and….’

‘No,’ he said. ‘Yannina sleeps there. Your room is there.’ He nodded at a door on the opposite side of the room.

Harriet was taken aback. ‘But if Nicky wakes up….’ she began.

‘Then Yannina will no doubt call you,’ he said impatiently. ‘Why make difficulties where there are none? Everything has been prepared for you in there.’

Harriet suppressed a sigh. ‘Very well. Goodnight, Mr Marcos.’

He gave her a sardonic look. ‘As we shall be sharing a bathroom, perhaps you had better call me Alex.’ He laughed at her startled expression. ‘Don’t look so stricken,’ he mocked. ‘There is a bolt on the inside of the door which you may use. Do you make all this fuss at your house where every day you share a bathroom with half a dozen other people or more?’

That, Harriet thought, was a different matter entirely, and he knew it.

She said calmly, ‘My only concern, Mr Marcos, is that I seem to be putting you to a great deal of inconvenience.’

‘I am becoming accustomed to that.’ As Harriet rose to her feet, he got up too. ‘And I told you to call me Alex.’

‘I see no need for that,’ Harriet said quietly. ‘After all, we—we are strangers—or comparatively so,’ she added as she began to laugh again.

‘Strangers?’ he queried. ‘You have a short memory, little one. Adversaries, perhaps, but hardly strangers.’ For a moment the dark eyes rested almost speculatively on her mouth, and Harriet felt herself quiver inwardly.

‘Yes, well,’ she said idiotically, ‘I think I’ll go to bed.’

He grinned and moved forward, and Harriet made herself stand her ground. She was thankful she had done so, and not jumped away like a fool, because he was only reaching for more champagne, and not for her at all.

She gave him a meaningless smile and walked across to the door he had indicated, aware that he was watching her every step of the way. It was a relief to close the door between them.

It was a large room, luxuriously and efficiently furnished in shades of beige and chocolate, but anonymous just the same in the way that so many hotels rooms are. The bathroom wasn’t much smaller, with a shower cubicle and a sunken bath hidden behind smoked glass doors, and basins sunk in a vanitory unit which ran the length of one wall, with mirrors above lit like a film star’s dressing room. There was an abundance of towels, and in one of the cupboards of the unit, Harriet found tissues, shampoos, heated rollers and a hair-dryer.

She caught a glimpse of herself in one of the mirrors as she straightened, and bit her lip. She wasn’t just slim, she was thin, and her face looked pale and strained. Her navy shirtwaister was clean and reasonably becoming, but it wouldn’t knock anyone’s eye out either.