She stared at him as she sank down on to the seat he indicated, aware that this must be something very serious from his tense expression but finding it difficult to concentrate on anything at all with the lemony masculine fragrance of him all about her. But the robe was warm and the night air distinctly nippy, she told herself silently, ignoring the tingling heat that was spreading through her and which had nothing to do with the texture of the material and all to do with Andreas Karydis.
Andreas sat down again, pulling the towel tighter round his thighs—for which small mercy Sophy was very grateful—and then remained looking at her for a moment or two without speaking.
The shadowed darkness was quite silent, apart from the odd call from the numerous insects and night-life in the vegetation surrounding the pool, and the scent of magnolia was heavy on the air when at last Andreas began to speak.
‘You have to understand what I am going to tell you from a background of the Greek way of life,’ Andreas said quietly. ‘And especially how it was some forty or fifty years ago. It was a man’s world, then; maybe it still is, especially in the smaller villages where the family is very patriarchal and a woman’s role is very clearly defined. My mother was born in just such a village, a fishing village far away from here in the south.’
He paused, looking away from her and across the pool, and Sophy realised he was finding this very hard. ‘Andreas, you really don’t have to explain anything,’ she said quickly, negating everything she had thought earlier in the house.
‘Unfortunately, that is not so,’ he contradicted quietly. ‘My father has asked me to tell you it all. Jill is Theodore’s wife and there can be no secrets within the family, although it is up to her exactly what she tells her son.’
He paused again, and then said, ‘My mother is a very beautiful woman even now; when she was younger she was quite exceptionally lovely. In the village where she lived there was a man. He wanted her but she did not want him, so in order to make sure she married him he waited his opportunity and, when she was separated from her friends one night, he raped her. She was fifteen years old.’
‘Oh, Andreas.’ Whatever she had expected it wasn’t this and her shocked face spoke for itself.
‘This man had two fishing boats and was considered good husband material by my mother’s family. When he went to my mother’s father and told him what he had done—my mother had been too ashamed to tell anyone—it was agreed he would marry her immediately. The shame, you see, was all on my mother’s side, according to her family; this man was just acting as a man must.’
The bitterness was tangible and now Sophy didn’t say a word, but she realised that in the telling of his mother’s story she was seeing a side to this big, ruthless, hard individual she hadn’t realised existed. A tender, softer side that could feel hurt.
‘The day after the marriage had been agreed, a storm sprang up whilst the fishing boats were out. Two were lost. This man was on one of them. My mother was glad he had died—she hated him—but a few weeks later she realised he had not left her after all; his seed had taken root and was growing inside her.’
‘Theodore?’ Sophy whispered in horror, drawing the folds of the robe more closely around her.
‘Yes, Theodore, my big brother,’ Andreas said so harshly she winced. ‘It was three years before my father’s yacht made an unscheduled stop at the village harbour one evening, three years of hell for my mother at the hands of her so-called family and neighbours. She was made to suffer in a hundred different ways for the “sin” she had committed.’
He drew in a deep breath and when he spoke again he had control of his voice. ‘My father’s yacht had engine trouble and he noticed my mother helping pack fish from the night’s catch. Without a man of her own, she was expected to do most things herself. For my father it was love at first sight and he did not rest until he had persuaded her to marry him and leave all the past behind her—except Theodore, of course. She loved her son in spite of the way he had been conceived. And so he brought her and the boy north—he was rich enough to buy her a new beginning in a place where she was respected as his wife—and brought up Theodore as his own son.’
‘And he found out,’ Sophy said half to herself, the heady sweet smell of the magnolia flowers suddenly a mockery in view of the painful story she was hearing. ‘Theodore found out.’
‘Yes, he found out,’ Andreas said flatly, ‘and, being his father’s son, he vented his spleen on my mother. You think I am unfair?’ he added tightly as she looked at him with wide eyes. ‘I am not, Sophy. We never got on, I and Theodore, and when I was informed of the reason he had taken off for England I could see why. His father’s blood ran hot and strong in his veins. He was an aggressive youth, given to fits of temper and with a streak of pure malice for those who crossed him. Maybe those first three years stayed somewhere in his subconscious, I don’t know, but he was fiercely proud and possessive.’
‘He blamed Dimitra?’
‘Oh, yes, and one night he and my father rowed violently and came to blows. My mother tried to separate them and he said the most unforgivable things to her; she has never been the same since. In spite of everything she had gone through before she married my father she had never been crushed, not until that night. My father gave Theodore a sum of money, enough to start the restaurant business in England and so on, and Theodore left with my mother’s pleas for him to forgive her ringing in his ears. Forgive her! Her! He was not worthy to lick her boots.’
‘I’m sorry, Andreas. I don’t know what to say.’
‘You did not like him, did you, Sophy? You could not have liked him,’ he said in response to her soft, shocked voice.
He was looking straight into her eyes now and for a moment the virile masculinity that was an essential part of him made her breathless. ‘No, I didn’t like him,’ she agreed faintly.
‘I have thanked God there is nothing of Theodore in his son,’ Andreas said grimly. ‘When I first saw the boy it was a shock; he is the physical image of his father, but that is all. Here inside, where it counts, Michael is free of the curse.’
He had placed his clenched fist on his chest as he spoke and as her eyes followed the gesture the maleness of him was again paramount. She shivered slightly, pulling the robe closer.
‘You might think me hard towards my own brother,’ Andreas said very quietly, ‘but I learnt as a young child you do not extend the hand of love and comradeship to a rabid dog unless you want it bitten off. We never liked each other; long before Theodore discovered his parentage this was so. Part of his fury when he found out he was not my father’s son was that he felt I had taken his place within the family.’
Sophy could find it within herself to feel sorry for Theodore but she was wise enough not to say so. Whatever Jill’
s husband had said and done before he had left his homeland had affected Dimitra badly, and it was clear Andreas would never forgive his half-sibling for the agony and grief he had caused their mother.
‘Theodore said—’ She stopped abruptly, not sure if she should go on—whether it was the right time to ask questions.
‘Yes?’ Andreas said a touch impatiently. ‘What did he say?’
‘He said the family cut him off for good when he married Jill,’ Sophy said hesitantly. ‘Obviously you’d all quarrelled before then, but he insinuated to Jill that his marriage was the final straw as far as his family in Greece was concerned.’
‘That is not true.’ Glittering grey eyes searched her face grimly. ‘You have seen my mother, Sophy; do you really think she is capable of such bigotry? And my father worships the ground she walks on; he would have done anything to heal the breach between Theodore and my mother. For himself…’ Andreas paused before continuing, ‘I will not lie to you; he was bitterly angry with Theodore’s attitude towards her, and his feelings are the same as mine, but neither of us have betrayed this to my mother. Theodore made her very ill—she had a nervous breakdown with the strain of it all after he had gone to England. My father could never have forgotten this if Theodore had lived, not even if the future had brought some kind of reconciliation.’