скачать книгу бесплатно
She hadn’t seen Mrs Arnold since that day, not even when she’d taken the cottage keys round to the house and dropped them through the letterbox. Her aunt had probably been at home, but there had seemed little point in another confrontation, whatever its purpose.
And she’d been frantically busy. In addition to the usual end of term workload, she’d managed to find herself temporary accommodation in a top-floor flat in an old Victorian house within walking distance of the college. It was furnished and the rent was reasonable, enabling her to put her mother’s cherished pieces in store for the future.
Which was something else she hadn’t mentioned to George—the fact that she’d given in her notice at the college and would be leaving at Christmas. Finding another job in a different area. A challenge that awaited her when she got back from Greece.
‘Ah, well, “sufficient unto the day”,’ she told herself silently.
She took a bottle of water from her shoulder bag, and drank thirstily. As she replaced the bottle she heard the crackle of paper, reminding her of the purpose of her visit. She’d brought the Greek deed of gift, together with the translation, and the photographs. But she had no intention of barging in and making a claim straight away.
First, she told herself, I need to find out how the land lies. For all I know, the villa’s original owner may have had second thoughts and revoked the gift years ago.
So I’ll find the house, and see who’s living there now. And if it’s obvious that giving it away was just a temporary aberration on someone’s part a long time ago, then I’ll just enjoy my holiday, and no harm done.
After all, it is a little bit too much like a fairy tale.
The Villa Dana?, she thought. She’d checked in a book of Greek myths and discovered that Dana? had been one of the many loved by Zeus, who had visited her in a stream of golden light. She’d subsequently given birth to Perseus and been set adrift on the ocean with her baby in a locked chest, but they’d both survived and Perseus had gone on to cut off the head of the Gorgon Medusa, and win the hand of Andromeda.
This is my own quest, she thought. My private odyssey. And decapitation will probably not be involved.
The harbour at Thania was only small, and occupied mainly by caiques rather than expensive yachts. The town itself was built on the side of a steep hill, with serried ranks of red-roofed houses looking as if they might tumble forward into the sea. On the quayside ahead, Zoe could see the striped awnings of tavernas, and among them a larger building, three storeys high, its white paint gleaming in the sunlight, which she knew from the picture in the Argonaut brochure was the Hotel Stavros.
It was mid-afternoon, by this time, and the heat was intense. Zoe had dressed for coolness in white cut-off trousers, and a sleeveless navy top, knotted at the midriff. She’d covered her exposed skin in high-factor sunblock, and braided her hair into one thick plait, cramming over it a wide-brimmed linen hat.
Ready for anything, she thought, briskly swinging up her travel bag as the ferry moved into its allotted place on the dock. There were few other passengers, and those, she guessed, were locals rather than tourists.
Zoe was aware she was being surveyed with friendly interest, and as she went ashore, treading gingerly down the rickety gangplank, the captain gave her a gap-toothed smile and a hoarse grunt of appreciation.
No point trying to hide herself in the crowd, then, she decided, amused.
She made straight for the hotel, climbing two steps to the terrace with its tables and chairs, and tubs planted cheerfully with pelargoniums. Inside the double glass doors, the tiled reception area was apparently deserted, but Zoe was glad to stand and catch her breath for a moment, in its air-conditioned coolness.
And, as if on cue, the fringed curtain at the rear of the desk stirred, and a girl, plump, red-haired and smiling, emerged to meet her.
‘Hi,’ she greeted Zoe casually. ‘You must be Miss Lambert. I’m Sherry.’
‘And you’re British.’ Zoe shook hands with her, smiling back. ‘I didn’t expect that.’
‘And I didn’t expect to meet and marry a Greek hotel owner two years ago,’ the other girl admitted candidly. ‘So, it’s a bit of a novelty for me, too.’ She handed Zoe a registration card and a pen.
‘I’ll show you your room,’ she went on, taking down a key from a rack on the wall behind her. ‘Leave your bag, and Stavros will bring it up in a minute.’
‘The Stavros for whom the hotel was named?’ Zoe asked, trying to do mental sums about his possible age.
Sherry shook her head, leading the way up a marble staircase. ‘That was his uncle—a real character. Great eye for the ladies even now. Never married because he thought it would cramp his style,’ she added with a rich chuckle. ‘My Stavros took over the hotel when he decided to retire a few years ago. Now he sits under the trees in the square, playing lethal games of backgammon.’
‘Sounds a marvellous life,’ Zoe said, committing all this information to memory.
‘Here we are.’ Sherry threw open a door, allowing Zoe to precede her into a cool, shadowy room, its shutters closed against the glare of the sun. Sherry pulled back the thin drapes and unlatched the shutters, revealing spotless cream walls to match the tiled floor. There was a cupboard built into one wall with a hanging rail, and a modest chest of drawers beside the low bed, with its crisp, snowy linen, and terracotta coverlet folded back across the foot.
‘It’s lovely,’ Zoe said with total sincerity.
‘If you need a blanket, which I doubt, just ask.’ Sherry opened another door. ‘And this is your shower room. It’s pretty basic—you sit on that little wooden bench to wash, and all the water goes down that drain in the middle, as you see—but you can generally have a warm shower when you want one.’ She paused. ‘I’ll leave you to look round. Can I get you a drink—a cold beer, maybe—or some lemon tea?’
‘Tea would be wonderful,’ Zoe accepted gratefully. Left to herself, she stepped out onto the balcony, finding to her pleasure that her room overlooked the harbour.
She could quite see why her mother had loved it here, no matter what might or might not have befallen her.
A tap on the door, signalling the arrival of her luggage, brought her back into the room.
Stavros was dark and swarthy, with a quiet, courteous manner. ‘My wife wishes to know if you would like your tea in your room, kyria, or downstairs in our courtyard?’
‘Oh, downstairs, I think. I only need a few minutes to unpack.’
The courtyard was at the rear of the hotel, shaded by a massive vine. Zoe sat at a corner, sipping her tea and considering her immediate options. At some point she would have to seek out Uncle Stavros of the roving eye, she thought, and see if, by some remote chance, he remembered her mother. Any information she could glean would be welcome, she acknowledged with a faint sigh.
A large hairy dog, resembling a moving hearthrug, came sauntering out of the hotel and ambled up to her, panting amiably, and clearly waiting to have his head scratched and his floppy ears gently pulled.
‘You’re a good boy,’ Zoe told him softly as she complied. She would have a dog, she thought, when she found a place of her own to live. Her mother had wanted one at the cottage, but Aunt Megan had instantly vetoed the idea.
‘Don’t let Archimedes be a nuisance,’ Sherry warned when she came to collect the tray.
‘Why on earth did you call him that?’ Zoe asked, intrigued.
‘Because he once climbed in the bath with Stavros and nearly flooded the place.’ Sherry stroked the untidy head. ‘He’s now barred for life from all bathrooms.’
‘While we’re on the subject of water,’ Zoe said, laughing, ‘where’s the best place to swim from?’
Sherry considered. ‘There’s the town beach,’ she said. ‘Turn left out of the hotel, and keep walking. It’s not bad, but it can get pretty crowded. There are some good beaches on the other side of the island, but you can only reach them by boat, and Stavros sometimes gets up a trip for guests if enough are interested.
‘Apart from that…’ She pulled a face, and took a swift look round. ‘Not all the villa owners are here the whole time, and we occasionally take advantage of that, and use their beaches when they’re away. What the eye don’t see,’ she added cheerfully. ‘But don’t tell Stavros I said so, because he gets twitchy.’
She lowered her voice confidentially. ‘As a matter of fact, one villa overlooks a really pretty cove, but it’s not used because the place has never been lived in. I go down there sometimes, although Stavros isn’t very happy about it. He has a real thing about privacy, and upsetting the owners.’
Zoe swallowed. ‘But if it’s not used, it sounds ideal,’ she said huskily. ‘Maybe you could give me directions.’ She paused. ‘Does it have a name—this house?’
‘Mmm.’ Sherry nodded as she prepared to depart. ‘The Villa Dana?. You could walk there,’ she added over her shoulder.
I not only could, Zoe thought exultantly, when she was alone. I will. Tomorrow.
Half-buried in long grass, the small wooden board was shaped like an arrow and pointed down a narrow dusty track. The faded words ‘Villa Dana?’ were only just legible, as Sherry had quietly warned her as Zoe had eaten her breakfast of warm rolls, flower-scented honey, and thick, creamy yoghurt.
Now she paused, hitching the cream canvas bag that held her towel, sun lotion and paperback novel into a more comfortable position on her shoulder.
Even though she’d been waiting for this moment, she was sorely tempted to walk on. To let the past rest in peace. To go with the flow, and let herself be absorbed effortlessly into Thania’s languorous charm. To simply have a much-needed vacation.
But that would not quell the wondering, she told herself. And when she got back, and saw Gina’s picture newly framed and hanging in her bedroom, she might kick herself for wasting a golden opportunity.
She turned with renewed determination, and plunged down the rutted track. It led down through a grove of olive trees, and, although it was still comparatively early in the day, she was grateful for their silvery shade. The air was very still, and the cloudless sky had a faintly misty look that promised soaring temperatures to come.
She was wearing a thin, floating sundress, sleeveless and scoop-necked, in gentian-blue, over a matching bikini, and her hair was piled up in a loose knot on top of her head.
She rounded a steep bend in the track, and saw, beyond the shelter of the olive grove, the more vivid green of grass and colourful splashes of flowers. Not the desolate wilderness she’d half expected. And a little further on, set like a jewel in the encircling garden, was the house, all immaculate white walls and terracotta roof.
Zoe paused, her hand tightening unconsciously round the strap of her bag. Immediately in front of her was the turquoise gleam of a swimming pool, from which a flight of broad, shallow steps led up to sliding glass doors. Behind these was a low, pillared room like an atrium, cool with marble and towering green plants, and furnished with comfortable white chairs and loungers.
Trying not to feel too much like an intruder, Zoe skirted the pool, climbed the steps and tried the doors, but they were securely locked.
It’s like looking into a showcase, she thought as she walked on. You can admire, but not touch.
And halted abruptly, her heart jolting as she reached the foot of another flight of steps, so immediately familiar she could have climbed them in her sleep. Pale steps, she recognised breathlessly, dusty with the faded blossoms of the bougainvillea that cascaded down the side of the house. Steps that led up to a terrace, its balustrade supporting a large stone urn, heavy with clustering flowers. As she’d known there would be. And beyond that the dreamy azure of the sea.
She steadied herself, then, quietly and cautiously, she climbed up to the terrace. She found herself standing on a broad sweep of creamy marble that ran the entire length of the house. Stone troughs massed with more flowers marked the length of the waist-high balustrade, while below it, from a gated opening, another curved flight of steps led down through cypress trees standing like sentries to a perfect horseshoe of pale sand, and the vivid blue ripple of the sea.
Behind her, shuttered glass doors masked the ground floor rooms completely. But what had she expected? The place laid open for her inspection, and a welcome mat waiting?
I should have gone to see a lawyer, she told herself restively, walking along the terrace. Had the whole legal situation checked out. Approaches made.
She found the main entrance round the corner, a solid wooden door, heavily carved, and growing beside it, in festoons of blooms that softened the dark wood and white walls, an exquisite climbing rose, its petals shading from creamy yellow to deep gold.
Zoe found herself thinking of the shower of radiance in which Zeus had come to Dana? in the legend, then told herself she was being fanciful. Whoever had planted the garden had simply loved roses, that was all. The troughs and urns along the terrace had been fragrant with them, and she could see even more in the beds that bordered the lawn. And sexual predators in Greek mythology had nothing to do with it.
Without knowing why, she stretched out a hand and touched one of the heavy golden heads, almost as if it were a lucky charm. Then she reached for the heavy iron door handle and tried it.
To her amazement, it yielded, and the door opened silently on well-oiled hinges. The Villa Dana? was welcoming her, after all.
She stepped inside and closed the door behind her, standing for a moment, listening intently for a footfall, a door closing, a cough. The sound of a human presence to explain the unlocked door. But there was nothing.
She found herself in a wide hall, confronted by a sweep of staircase leading up to a galleried landing. On one side of it was the glass wall of the atrium. On the other were more conventional doors leading to a long living room, where chairs and sofas were grouped round an empty fireplace. A deep alcove at the far end of the room contained a dining table and chairs.
Everything was in pristine condition. No one had ever lounged on those cushions, she thought, or lit a fire in that hearth, or eaten a meal at the table.
On the atrium side, she found a tiled and fully fitted kitchen, with a walk-in food store, and a laundry room leading off it, all of them bare as if they’d been somehow frozen in time, and were waiting for the spell to be broken.
Taking a deep breath, Zoe went upstairs, annoyed to find she was tiptoeing.
The first room she came to was the master bedroom, dim and cool behind its shutters. She trod across the floor, unlatched the heavy wooden slats and pulled them open, then turned, catching her breath.
It was a vast and luxurious room, with apricot walls and an ivory tiled floor. The silk bed covering was ivory, too, as were the voile drapes that hung at the windows.
There was a bathroom with a screened-off shower cubicle, and a sunken bath with taps like smiling dolphins, and a dressing room as well. There were toiletries on the tiled surfaces, and fluffy towels on the rails. Everything in its place—an enchanted palace waiting for its princess. But for how long?
Zoe walked slowly back to the window, and slid it open with care, then stepped out onto the balcony, lifting her face to the slight breeze. Before her were the misty shapes of other islands rising out of the unruffled blue of the Ionian sea.
More roses here, too, she saw, spilling over the balcony rail from their pottery tubs in a cascade of cream and gold. Their scent reached her softly, and she breathed it in, feeling herself become part of the enchantment.
She thought, Can this really be mine?
And in the same heartbeat, realised she was not alone after all. That there was someone below her on the terrace.
She froze, then peered with infinite caution over the balcony rail.
A man, she registered, with his back to her, moving unhurriedly along the terrace, removing the dead heads from the blossoms in the stone troughs.
The gardener, she thought with relief. Only the gardener. One of the support team employed to keep Villa Dana?in this immaculate condition.
He was tall, with a mane of curling black hair that gleamed like silk in the sunlight, his skin like burnished bronze against the brief pair of elderly white shorts that were all he was wearing. She saw broad shoulders, and a muscular back, narrowing to lean hips, and long, sinewy legs.
The kind of Adonis, she thought, with a faint catch of the breath, that Adele had warned her about.
Of course, she could only see his back view, so he might well have a squint, a crooked nose, and dribble. But somehow she didn’t think so.
And anyway, his looks were not her concern. What she needed to do was get out of here before he looked up and saw her.
With infinite caution, she backed away into the room. She dragged at the windows, tugging them together. They came with a whisper, but, to Zoe’s overwrought imagination, it seemed like a rumble of thunder in the stillness of the morning. She waited for a shout from below. The sound of an alarm being given, but there was nothing, and, biting her lip, she closed the shutters, too. So far, so good, she thought with a tiny sigh of relief.
His work seemed to be taking him to the far end of the terrace, away from the main door, so if she was quick she could be out of the villa and back into the shelter of the olive grove before she ran any real risk of discovery.
And she would content herself with just this one visit, she promised herself silently as she let herself out of the bedroom and closed the door quietly behind her. After all, she had seen everything she needed to see.
From now on she would stick firmly to the town beach, and let her lawyer investigate whether or not the Villa Dana? was her inheritance.
Well, she thought, smiling. I can dream, I suppose.
She had taken three steps down the stairs before she realised she was not alone. And just who was standing at the bottom of the flight, leaning casually on the polished rail, watching her—waiting for her, a faint grim smile playing round his mouth.
She checked with a gasp, turned to stone at the sight of him. Her instinct was to turn and run back the way she’d come, but common sense prevented her. This staircase was the only way out, and the last thing she wanted was to find herself trapped in a bedroom with this half-naked stranger in pursuit.
She was frightened, but at the same time—incredibly—her senses were registering other things. Telling her that the man confronting her with such cool arrogance was as seriously attractive as her instinct had suggested. Not conventionally handsome, maybe. His high-bridged nose was too thin, and his mouth and chin too hard for that. And his eyes were darkness. Meeting his gaze was like staring into impenetrable night, she thought, tension tautening her throat.
But, at the same time, she knew instinctively that there wasn’t a woman in the world who would take one glance and not want to look again—and again. Because he was totally and compellingly male.
He said quietly, ‘Kalimera.’
Maybe, she thought breathlessly. Maybe there was a way she could bluff her way out of this.
She spread her hands. Tried an apologetic laugh. ‘I’m sorry—I don’t understand. I don’t speak Greek.’
He shrugged. ‘Then we will speak in English. It’s not a problem,’ he added drily as her face fell. ‘Tell me what you are doing here.’
She said swiftly, ‘I’m not a thief.’
‘No,’ he agreed thoughtfully. ‘Because there is nothing here that you could conveniently steal.’ The dark glance swept her, assessing the flimsy blue dress, the canvas beach bag. ‘Or hide,’ he added.
He looked her over again, more searchingly. ‘So, I ask again—what is your reason for being here?’
‘Someone mentioned there was a house for sale round here,’ Zoe improvised swiftly. ‘I thought it might be this one, as it’s obviously empty.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It is not this house.’ He paused, his gaze steady and ironic. ‘And no one would have told you that it was.’ His voice was low-pitched but crisp.
