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‘But—you’re different—not the same person.’
‘I should hope not, after all this time. I’m the same in some ways, not others. You’re different too, but you’re easier to spot. I was longing for you to recognise me, but you didn’t.’ She
sighed theatrically. ‘Hey ho! What a disappointment!’
‘You didn’t care if I recognised you or not,’ he said flatly.
‘Well, maybe just a little.’
An orchestra was getting into place and the dancing area was being cleared, so that they had to move to the side.
He was possessed by a strange feeling, of having wandered into an alien world where nothing was quite as it looked. She had sprung out of the past, landing in his path, challenging him with memories and fears.
‘Even now I can’t believe that it’s you,’ he said. ‘Your hair’s different—it was cut very short—’
‘Functional,’ she said at once. ‘I was surrounded by film people making the best of themselves, so I made the least of myself as an act of adolescent defiance.’
‘Was that all you could think of?’
‘Consider my problem,’ she said with an expansive gesture. ‘The average teenager goes wild, indulges herself with wine, late nights, lovers—but everyone around me was doing that. I’d never have been noticed. So I cut my hair as badly as possible, bought cheap clothes, studied my school books and had early nights. Heavens, was I virtuous! Boring but virtuous.’
‘And what happened?’ he asked, fascinated.
She chuckled. ‘My mother started to get very worried about my “strange behaviour”. It took her a while to accept the fact that I was heading for the academic life.’
‘Doing what?’
‘I’ve made my career out of ancient Greece. I write books, I give lectures. I pretend to know a lot more than I actually do—’
‘Like most of them,’ he couldn’t resist saying.
‘Like most of them,’ she agreed at once.
‘Is your mother reconciled?’
‘Oh, yes, she’s terribly impressed now. She came to one of my lectures and afterwards she said, “Darling that was wonderful! I didn’t understand a word.” That’s her yardstick, bless her. And in the end it was me who introduced her to Homer.’ She looked around. ‘So you could say I’m to blame for all this.’
It was time for the dancing. Homer and Estelle took the floor, gliding about in each other’s arms until the photographers had all had their fill.
‘Aren’t you taking any pictures?’ he asked.
‘No, mine’s just the personal family stuff. What they’re doing now is for the public.’
Nikator waved as he danced past with Debra in his arms. Petra sighed.
‘He may be in his late thirties but he’s just a silly kid at heart. What it’ll be like when he takes over the firm I can’t—’ She broke off guiltily, her hand over her mouth. ‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Don’t worry. You didn’t say anything the whole world doesn’t already know. It’s interesting that you’re learning already.’
There was a sardonic edge to his voice, and she didn’t have to ask what he meant. The two great families of Greek shipbuilding survived by getting the edge on each other, and inevitably that included spying. The kind of casual comment that others could risk might be dangerous.
The dance ended and another one began. Debra vanished in the arms of a powerful producer, and Nikator made his way in Petra’s direction.
‘Oh, heavens, dance with me!’ she breathed, seizing Lysandros and drawing him onto the floor.
‘What are you—?’ Somehow he found his arms around her.
‘Yes, I know, in polite society I’m supposed to wait for you to ask me,’ she muttered, ‘but this isn’t polite society, it’s a goldfish bowl.’
He felt she couldn’t have put it better.
‘But your fears may be misplaced,’ he pointed out. ‘With you being so boring and virtuous he probably wasn’t going to ask you at all.’
‘He has peculiar tastes.’ She added hurriedly, ‘And I didn’t say that, either.’
She was like quicksilver in his arms, twisting and turning against him, leading him on so that he moved in perfect time with her and had to fight an impulse to tighten his grip, draw her against his body and let things happen as they would. Not here. Not now. Not yet.
Petra read him fairly accurately, and something thrilled in her blood.
‘Don’t you like dancing?’ she asked after a while.
‘This isn’t dancing. It’s swimming around that goldfish bowl.’
‘True. But we annoyed Nikator, which is something gained.’
She was right. Nikator’s expression was that of a child whose toys had been snatched away. Then Lysandros forgot everything except Petra. Her face was close to his and the smile in her eyes reached him directly.
‘What will you do after this?’ he asked.
‘Stay here for a few days, or weeks. It’s a chance for me to do some research. Homer has great contacts. There’s a museum vault that’s never opened for anyone, but he’s fixing it for me.’
He glanced down at the slender, sensual body moving in his arms, at the charming face that seemed to smile more naturally than any other expression, and the blue eyes with their mysterious, tantalising depths, and he knew a sense of outrage. What was this woman doing in museums, investigating the dead, when everything in her spoke of life? She belonged not in tombs but in sunlight, not turning dusty pages but caressing a man’s face and pressing her naked body against his.
The mere thought of her nakedness made him draw a sharp breath. The dress fitted her closely enough to give him a good idea of her contours, but it only tempted him to want more. He controlled his thoughts by force.
‘Is visiting museums really your idea of being lucky?’ he asked slowly.
‘I’m going to see things that other scholars have been struggling to see for years. I’ll be ahead of the game.’
‘But isn’t there anything else you want to do?’ he asked.
‘You mean, what’s a woman doing worrying her little head about such things? Women are made for pleasure; serious matters should be left to men.’
Since this came dangerously near to his actual thoughts he was left floundering for a moment. He wished she hadn’t used the word ‘pleasure’. It was a distraction he could do without.
‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ he managed to say at last, ‘but when life offers you so many more avenues—’
‘Like Nikator? Yes, I could throw myself into his arms, or anything else he wanted me to throw myself into—careful!’
‘Sorry,’ he said hastily, loosing his fingers, which he’d tightened against her instinctively.
‘Where was I? Ah, yes, exploring avenues.’
‘Forget Nikator,’ he snapped. ‘He’s not an avenue, he’s a dead end.’
‘Yes, I’d managed to work that out for myself. I’m not seventeen any more. I’m thirty-two, in my dotage.’
In her dotage, he thought ironically, with skin like soft peach, hair like silk and eyes that teased, inviting him just so far and warning him against going any further. But she was right about one thing. She was no child. She’d been around long enough to discover a good deal about men, and he had an uneasy feeling that she could read more about him than he wanted her—or anyone—to know.
‘If you’re fishing for compliments you picked the wrong man,’ he said.
‘Oh, sure, I’d never come to you for sweet nothings, or for anything except—yes, that would be something—’ She hesitated, as though trying to phrase it carefully. ‘Something you could give me better than any other man,’ she whispered at last.
He struggled not to say the words, but they came out anyway. ‘And what’s that?’
‘Good financial advice,’ she declared. ‘Aha! There, I did it.’
‘Did what?’
‘I made you laugh.’
‘I’m not laughing,’ he said through twitching lips.
‘You would be if you weren’t trying so hard not to. I bet myself I could make you laugh. Be nice. Give me my little victory.’
‘I’m never nice. But I’ll let you have it this once.’
‘Only this once?’ she asked, raising her eyebrows.
‘I prefer to claim victory for myself.’
‘I could take that as a challenge.’
Then there was silence as their bodies moved in perfect time, and she thought that yes, he was a challenge, and what a challenge he would be; so different from the easy-going men with whom she’d mostly spent her life. There was a darkness about him that he made little attempt to hide, and which tempted her, although she knew she was probably crazy.
‘Do your challenges usually work out as you plan?’ he asked.
‘Oh, yes,’ she assured him. ‘I won’t settle for anything less than my own way.’
‘I’m exactly the same. What a terrible battle looms ahead.’
‘True,’ she said. ‘I’m trembling in fear of you.’
He didn’t speak, but a slow smile overtook his face—the smile of a man who didn’t believe her and was planning a clever move.
Petra had a strange feeling that the other women on the dance floor were staring at her. Most of them had slept with Lysandros, she’d been warned, and suddenly she knew it was true. Their eyes were feverish, full of memories, hot, sweet and glorious, followed by anguish. Mentally they raked her, undressed her, trying to imagine whether she would please him.
And that was really unnerving because she was trying to decide the same thing.
They spoke to her, those nameless women, telling her that he was a lover of phenomenal energy, who could last all night, untiring, driving her on to heights she’d never reached before, heights she wanted to discover.
There was one woman in particular whose greedy gaze caught her attention. Something about the extravagantly dressed, petulant creature made Petra wonder if this was the most recent of Lysandros’s conquests—and his rejections. Her eyes were like the others, but a thousand times more bitter, more murderous.
Then Lysandros turned her in the dance, faster and faster, taking her to a distant place where there was only the whirling movement that shut out the rest of the world. She gave herself up to it completely, wanting nothing else.
Would she too lie in his arms in a fever of passion? And would she end up like the others, yearning wretchedly from a distance?
But something told her that their path together wouldn’t be as simple as that.
Suddenly they were interrupted by a shout from a few yards off. Everyone stopped dancing and backed away, revealing the bride and groom locked in a passionate embrace. As befitted a glamorous couple, the kiss went on and on as the crowd cheered and applauded. Then some of the others began to embrace. More and more followed suit until it seemed as though the whole place was filled with lingering kisses.
Lysandros stood motionless, his arm still around her waist, the other hand holding hers. The space between them remained barely a centimetre. It would take only the slightest movement for him to cover that last tiny distance and lay his lips on hers. She looked up at him, her heart beating.
‘What a performance!’ he exclaimed, looking around and speaking in disapproving tones. ‘I won’t insult you by subjecting you to it.’
He released her, stepping back and giving her no choice but to do the same.
‘Thank you,’ she said formally. ‘It’s delightful to meet a man with a sense of propriety.’
She could have hit him.
‘I’m afraid I must be going,’ he said. ‘I’ve neglected my affairs for too long. It’s been a pleasure meeting you again.’
‘And you,’ she said crisply.
He inclined his head courteously, and in a moment he was gone.
Thunderstruck, she watched him, barely believing what had happened, and so suddenly. He was as deep in desire as herself. All her instincts told her that beyond a shadow of doubt. Yet he’d denied that desire, fought it, overcome it, because that was what he had decided to do.
This was a man of steely will, which he would impose no matter what the cost to himself or anyone else. He’d left her without even a glance back. It was like a blow in the stomach.
‘Don’t worry. Just be patient.’
Petra looked up to see the woman who’d caught her attention while they’d danced. Now she recalled seeing her arrive at the wedding with one of the city’s most wealthy and powerful men. She was regarding Petra with a mixture of contempt and pity.
‘I couldn’t help watching you—and Lysandros,’ she said, moving nearer. ‘It’s his way, you see. He’ll come just so close, and then withdraw to consider the matter. When he’s decided that he can fit you in with his other commitments he’ll return and take his pleasure at his own time and his own convenience.’
‘If I agree,’ Petra managed to say.
The woman gave a cold, tinkly laugh.
‘Don’t be absurd, of course you’ll agree. It’s written all over you. He could walk back right this minute and you’d agree.’
‘I guess you know what you’re talking about,’ Petra said softly.
‘Oh, yes, I know. I’ve been there. I know what’s going through your head because it went through mine. “Who does he think he is to imagine he can just walk back and I’ll yield to him on command?” But then he looks at you as if you’re the only woman in the world, and you do yield on his command. And it’ll be wonderful—for a while. In his arms, in his bed, you’ll discover a universe you never knew existed.
‘But one day you’ll wake up and find yourself back on earth. It will be cold because he’s gone. He’s done with you. You no longer exist. You’ll weep and refuse to believe it, but he won’t answer the phone, so after a while you’ll have to believe it.’
