more likely to be a fishing boat,’ remarked Alex drily, unable to completely hide his amusement. ‘We are not so low, you know. From this height a dolphin would hardly be visible.’
‘Oh!’ Martha pulled a rueful face, and for a moment Alex shared her disappointment. Then, quickly, he looked away again, but not before Martha had felt a slight uplift in her spirits. Given time, she was sure she could change Alex’s opinion of her, and it was good to know that he still had a sense of humour.
There were sails below them now, white sails, pristine pure against the aquamarine water. They reminded Martha of the ketch Dion had sailed, and of weekends spent cruising these waters, far, in spirit at least, from the problems their marriage was facing.
‘You’re not married, Alex?’ she enquired now, turning to look at her brother-in-law, and he shook his head.
‘No,’ he conceded, his voice almost inaudible beneath the throbbing of the propellers, and Martha guessed he was regretting his momentary lapse.
They were descending now, coming in low over the rocky contours of a headland, below which a narrow thread of sand glinted with burnished grains. There was a wooded hinterland rising to a barren summit, and then falling again more shallowly to a sheltered bay and a small harbour. The village, the island’s only community, nestled round the bay, colour-washed cottages set in gardens bright with hibiscus and oleander. Martha could see the windmill that had once irrigated the terraces, where grapes grew with such profusion, and the deserted monastery of St Demetrius, high on the hillside. It was all so real and familiar, despite the absence of years, and once more she wondered how she could justify depriving Josy of this.
The Myconos villa was of typically Greek design. Palatial terraces, set about with gardens and fountains, and lily pools, thick with blossom. Marble pillars supported a first floor balcony, and shadowed the Italian tiles that covered the floor of the hall, and urns of flowering shrubs spilled scarlet petals across the veined mosaic of the entrance. Built on several levels, it sprawled among its pools and arbours, with all the elegant abandon of a reclining naiad.
A car took Martha and Alex from the landing field near the harbour, up the winding road to the villa. The chauffeur was another of the household staff, and like the pilot of the helicopter, he recognised his employer’s daughter-in-law. Martha seemed to recall that his name was Spiros or Spiro, she wasn’t certain which, but there had been so many names to remember, so many employees, who seemed to count it an honour to work for the Myconos family. And it was a family, in every sense of the word, a close-knit family, welded together by Aristotle Myconos’ influence, where sons—and daughters-in-law, daughters—and sons-in-law, all came within the suffocating circle of his omnipotence. Maybe, if she and Dion had had a home of their own, things would have been different, she mused, and then squashed the thought. Aristotle had not been to blame for Dion’s possessiveness, his absurd jealousy, his desire to confine his wife within the web of his family, and destroy all connections with her own …
Nothing could prevent her nerves from tightening as the limousine turned between the stone gateposts of the villa. There were no iron fortifications here, as there were at the villa in Athens. No visible guards, no burglar-proof locks to keep out intruders. The main access to the island was through the harbour, but just in case, Aristotle had the coastline patrolled both day and night.
Thick shrubs hid all but the roof of the villa as the car followed the winding curve of the drive, but eventually they emerged before its white-painted façade, and Martha saw again the imposing entrance of Dion’s island home. She remembered the first time she had seen it. She had been enchanted then—enchanted and bemused, that a man like Dionysus Myconos should want her for his wife.
The car stopped, and Alex thrust open his door to get out. The chauffeur alighted and opened Martha’s door, and with a feeling of unease she stepped out on to the gravelled forecourt.
It was slightly cooler here than in Rhodes, the soft breeze bringing a pleasant relief in the heat of the day. Yet the smell was the same, that tangy citrus smell, that mingled here with the salty taste of the sea. And it was quiet, so quiet after the noisy harbour at Rhodes, without even the peal of voices to disturb the stillness. She had thought Dion’s older sister, Helene, might be there, with her two sons, but there were no voices echoing from the pool as there would have been if there were children about.
‘My father is in his study,’ Alex said, at her elbow, and she looked up at him anxiously.
‘Is no one else here?’
‘You forget—I told you, my sister is getting married on Friday. The family are gathering in Athens for the celebrations.’
‘Oh, yes.’ Martha had forgotten. ‘Well, shall we get it over with?’
Alex raised his dark eyebrows, but he made no comment, merely led the way beneath the marble pillars, and into the cool, spacious hall.
Martha had forgotten the long windows at the back of the hall, which gave a magnificent view of the curve of the hillside, stretching up to the mellowed walls of the monastery. The hall itself was on two levels, with an iron-railed balcony providing an oasis of plants in the heart of the building. Alabaster balusters supported the rail of the staircase, that curved to the upper storey, and overhead a crystal chandelier glinted dully below the arch of the ceiling.
Aristotle’s study was some distance from the entrance hall, along corridors that gave tantalising glimpses of the sea between stone panels. The Aegean lay below them, somnolent in the noonday sun, a deeper blue than the sky above. It was so beautiful here, she thought with a pang. If only people were like places!
Her knees were knocking as they reached the leather-studded door, and in a spurt of panic she decided to dismiss any other motive she might have had for coming here. She would speak to Dion’s father on Roger’s behalf, and that was all. If he refused, she had done her best, and no one could do more. So far as her feelings towards Josy were concerned, they would have to wait. Maybe back in England, with the journey behind her, she would be able to view things less emotionally, but right now she wanted to turn and run, and that was not the frame of mind in which to come to a rational decision.
Alex knocked, and then gave her a faintly appealing look. It was as if for a moment he regretted their estrangement as much as she did, and impulsively, she put her fingers on his arm taut beneath the fine material of his suit.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, with a little rush of nostalgia. ‘I did miss you, Alex—honestly!’
His lips were parting to make some response, when the door beside them opened. In that moment they were frozen in their adopted attitudes, caught for that fleeting split second in time, like two lovers planning an assignation. Then Martha’s head turned, her hand dropped away, and her eyes widened in chilling disbelief as she gazed up at the man confronting them. This was not Aristotle Myconos, not this tall man, with thin, slightly haggard features, and a lean, loose-limbed body. Aristotle was more like Alex, shorter, stockier, greyer—although this man’s dark hair was liberally sprinkled with that betraying filament. Besides, this man was younger, too young to have sired four grown sons and two daughters, yet like Alex, he too had suffered badly from the passage of years. His eyes seemed darker, deeper-set, his cheeks hollower, his frame more angular, thinner. This man was Dionysus Myconos, her husband, yet not her husband, but the man she had least wanted to meet.
SHE had misunderstood Alex’s appealing look, she thought bitterly, trying to maintain some semblance
