Master of Comus

She was too late to protest. He had tipped some into his pal m and began to smooth it over her back. His long fingers stroked caressingly down her shoulders, following the faint golden line of down along her back to the swell of her hips. He took his time,

arousing pulses in places she had not suspected of possessing them.

'That's enough,' she exclaimed abruptly. 'Thank you.'

His hand halted, spread out against her skin, the long fingers splayed in a caress. 'Did you sleep Well?' he asked without removing his hand.

'Yes, thank you.' She moved restlessly. 'I'll lie down again now. Are you going to Swim?'

He withdrew his hand. 'Yes,' he agreed. He dropped his towel beside hers and sprinted down the beach into the water. Leonie watched as his lean body hit the waves and dived into them. He was more muscled, more athletic than she had expected, his body strongly shaped and lean. I must be careful, she told herself. He's far too attractive. She lay down on her stomach, exposing her back to the relentless sun.

A short while later a towel dropped across her body and Paul flung himself down beside her. 'You must cover up now. Too much sun too soon is dangerous.'

The sun isn't the only thing around here that's dangerous, she thought wryly. She turned her head, her wet hair flicking him across the face, and found him far too close for comfort.

The bright blue eyes mocked her. 'Clyte told me you were down here. An early riser, I gather. How very English!'

'Is Clyte one of the family or a servant?' she asked him, avoiding more personal subjects.

'Neither,' he said briskly, with a hard look. 'She has worked for Argon since she was fourteen years old, but she's far more than a servant, if less than family.' He grinned. 'I suspect they were more than master and servant when they were young, to be honest.'

She felt vaguely shocked, and her expression betrayed the feeling. Paul gave her a sardonic look. 'They're old now, but they had their moments, no doubt. Why should that shock you? They're human beings with ordinary human emotions and human needs.'

Leonie built a tiny wall of sand with her fingers, embedding shells and pieces of wet seaweed in it. Paul lay and watched her, his head cradled on his folded arms. She has a dark, passionate face, he thought, but the passion has been forced down, if not out of sight, and that damned English education of hers has erected a glass wall around her. She was like a sleeping princess in a crystal cavern, and the sight of her created in him a savage desire to hack his way through the ice with brutal disregard for any emotional damage he might do. It would have been better for her, with her hereditary instincts, to be brought up by Argon as a Greek. The lines of that face were all

Greek; stormy, dark with the austere bone structure of an island people accustomed to a hard existence.

At first sight he had been deceived by the cool hauteur of her English mask. Now he saw through the mask to the Greek soul within it.

Her wall crumbled suddenly. He laughed. 'A pointless pastime, building with sand. Time you learnt that.'

She sat up, flicking sand from her fingers. 'I think I'll go back to the house. Argon may be ready to see me.'

Paul rolled over on to his back and surveyed her insolently, a hand shading his eyes from the sun. 'Get dressed first, then. Argon has a very old-fashioned attitude to women. He expects them to be fully clothed.'

'I was not intending to march into his bedroom like this,' she retorted.

'You never know with the English.' 'Chauvinist!'

He laughed. 'Proud of it, too.'

Her dark face lit with an answering smile. 'Yes,' she said. 'I can understand that.'

Paul's eyes narrowed. A gleam shot into them, the sudden delight of the collector who sees a rare object he has long desired. 'You're half Greek yourself, remember.'

She looked vaguely at a loss. 'I'm just beginning to realise it.'

'Had you never realised it before?' she shook her head. 'Not really.'

'But you knew!'

She shrugged. 'Knowing a fact is a very different thing from feeling it in your bones. My mind knew that I had Greek blood, but my heart had never felt it. It was not until I actually got here that I began to feel in any way Greek.' She frowned. 'It began when I looked down from the plane and saw the Aegean, I think. Then when I met Argon...' Her voice broke off and she smiled. 'Blood is thicker than water, we say in England.'

'Ah , but to a Greek the saying has more meaning. The Greek family is a much stronger unit, more cohesive, more powerful. Family loyalties are sacrosanct here.'

'That was not my mother's experience,' she pointed out.

Paul grimaced. 'She broke a tribal law. She married without the consent of the family.'