Innocent Obsession. Anne Mather
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with the Petronides name spelt out in letters of gold. Andreas brought a handful of keys out of his pocket and inserted one in the lock, then urged Sylvie forward into the apartment.
Her first impression was of light and space, but almost immediately following on these thoughts was her breathless reaction to the view. She could see the Acropolis, the milky-white columns of the Parthenon towering over the city, and viewed over the rooftops of Athens, it had an almost fairytale beauty. She was drawn to the long windows, as if by a magnet, and for several seconds she was unaware that Andreas had left her to find the housekeeper.
When she eventually dragged her eyes away and looked about her immediate surroundings, she felt an uneasy sense of disorientation. Her experiences so far had not prepared her for the luxurious appointments of the apartment, and she drew her skirts aside from bronze miniatures on narrow plinths, and furnishings with the unmistakable veneer of age and antiquity.
It was a spacious room she was in, the floor softly tiled in russet and gold mosaic, and strewn with Bokhara rugs. A copper-shaded lamp was suspended over velvet-soft hide sofas, dotted with jewel-bright cushions, and a custom-built unit housed books and television set, stereo, and radio equipment. Strangely enough, the accoutrements to contemporary living blended well with their latter-day counterparts, and the atmosphere was one of comfortable prosperity—and understated opulence.
The door behind her opened, and she turned to find Andreas re-entering the room, accompanied by a woman, plump, and black-clad, who regarded Sylvie with some suspicion.
‘This is Madame Kuriakis,’ Andreas introduced them briefly, his dark eyes lingering longer than necessary, Sylvie thought, on hers. ‘Apo dho i Thespinis Scott, kiria.’
‘Hero poli, thespinis,’ Madame Kuriakis murmured politely, and then turning to her employer, she evidently asked him some question concerning Sylvie’s presence there.
‘Mia stighmi,’ Andreas responded, with a quelling gesture, before continuing in English: ‘My housekeeper wishes to know whether you would like something to eat or drink. And then, I am afraid, I must leave you. I shall endeavour not to be too long.’
Sylvie shook her head. ‘Perhaps some coffee,’ she ventured, unwilling to admit that she felt too churned up inside to eat anything. Then: ‘Are you sure I should stay here?. Your wife—–’
‘I have no wife, Miss Scott,’ he advised her, with a wry look. ‘Fere ligho kafe, kiria,’ this to Madame Kuriakis. ‘Herete, thespinis. Sto espanidhin!’
He left her with a faint smile, and after indicating that Sylvie should take a seat, Madame Kuriakis left her also. It was slightly unnerving being left in such magnificent isolation, and Sylvie felt a growing awareness of her own incongruity in being here. Margot had done this, she thought angrily. Margot had sent her here, to be insulted and humiliated, and the temptation to get to her feet again and escape from this luxurious confinement was almost more than she could bear.
The return of Madame Kuriakis, with a tray on which reposed a silver coffee pot and cream jug, a silver sugar bowl, and a dish of sticky sweetmeats, steadied her. The Greek woman put the tray down on the low table in front of Sylvie’s sandal-clad feet, and then knelt to pour the thick black beverage.
‘Krema, thespinis?’ she suggested, pointing to the jug, ‘zahari?’
‘No, no, nothing, thank you,’ answered Sylvie, waving her hand in negation, and with a little bob of her head the woman rose to her feet again and left the room.
The coffee was treacly-rich, and very strong, and after tasting it Sylvie was glad to resort to the cream and sugar. She added several spoonfuls of sugar to hide the bitter taste, and still grimaced behind her hand after swallowing a mouthful. Still, it was something to do, and she toyed with the tiny silver spoon, and admired the fragile china cup and saucer.
The sweetmeats were more to her liking, although their cloying texture stuck to her teeth. They were probably extremely fattening, too, she reflected, although Andreas didn’t appear to have suffered by it.
Thinking of Andreas brought her up from her seat again, and across to the windows. She didn’t know why, but she was curiously loath to allow him to occupy her thoughts, and she could only assume it was his attitude towards her which aroused such strong feelings. Margot had been right about one thing, Greek men were not like Englishmen, and she was not altogether sure she liked the distinction.
She wondered now what Leon’s letter to Margot had really said. She doubted her mother knew that Leon had been in hospital. Mrs Scott might be partisan in some things, but if she had suspected Leon was ill, surely she would have urged her daughter to return to Greece.
As for herself, Sylvie was still too disturbed to know how she felt. Caring for Nikos while his father was going about his normal business pursuits was one thing; becoming nurse, as well as nursemaid, for his father, too, was quite another. Besides, Leon would not want her there. It was Margot he wanted, Margot he had expected, Margot who should be here.
The time passed slowly, or perhaps it was that Sylvie was too conscious of the minutes, the hands on the ormolu clock crawling painfully towards six o’clock. At fifteen minutes past, the silver-grey telephone rang, and while Sylvie froze in anticipation Madame Kuriakis came to answer it.
She expected it to be Andreas, summoning her to the phone, explaining without the embarrassment of another confrontation, that Leon and his parents refused to see her. But Madame Kuriakis scarcely looked at her, speaking into the receiver with evident animation, reassuring, if it was possible to identify her tone, whoever was on the line that Andreas’s absence was regrettable.
When she replaced the receiver again, she glanced at Sylvie with reluctant courtesy. ‘Thespinis Eleni,’ she said, as if that should mean something, and Sylvie forced a smile even though she had no idea who Thespinis Eleni might be.
Left to herself again, she speculated about the caller. Eleni! That was a woman’s name, of course. But what woman? Not his wife; he had said he had no wife. His sister, perhaps. Or a cousin. Or more likely, a girl-friend, she reflected resignedly, realising that whatever else Andreas Petronides might be, he was not without attraction for the opposite sex.
The sound of a key in the lock brought her round with a start, to gaze apprehensively across the room. In the fading light there were shadows casting pools of darkness over the mellow floor, but the lean muscular figure of her host was unmistakable.
He came into the room economically, moving with the lithe easy grace she had noticed earlier. He closed the door, dropped his keys into his pocket, and then surveyed her position by the windows with wry contemplation.
‘I am sorry I have been so long,’ he said at once, unbuttoning his jacket to reveal the tailored lines of his waistcoat. ‘But there was much to discuss, as you may imagine. Arrangements to be made.’
‘Arrangements?’ echoed Sylvie faintly, touching the slender chain about her throat, which was all the jewellery she wore. ‘You—you mean, I’m to stay here? In Greece. I mean. But what did your brother say?’
Before he could reply, however, Madame Kuriakis appeared, eager to give him the message she had taken. Sylvie heard the woman’s name, Eleni, mentioned several times in their conversation, but apart from that she understood none of it, and stood there in silence, feeling unutterably de trop.
Eventually, however, Andreas silenced the housekeeper, and after he had given her some instruction, she disappeared again, leaving Sylvie to face whatever was to come.
‘So.’ Andreas expelled his breath noisily. ‘Now we can continue. And yes, you are to remain in Greece.’
Sylvie found her legs were strangely shaky and moving away from the windows, she sought the refuge of one of the sofas. Somehow she had convinced herself she would be returning to London, and now that she wasn’t, she felt curiously weak.
‘Your—your brother,’ she began, aware of his eyes upon her, and needing to say something to divert him, ‘what did he say?’