Pagan Adversary

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.

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