‘The water is quite untainted,’ Andreas said quietly. ‘Most of the villages have their own water supply plumbed in these days, but still the women prefer to come to the meeting place and chat and gather the water for their families in the time-old tradition. I think maybe very few people have the need to see the doctor for this epidemic called stress which is so prevalent in the cities, eh?’ he added a touch cynically.
‘Will I be able to drink from a stream like that?’ Michael asked hopefully, ‘at my grandparents’s home?’
All attention drawn back inside the car, Sophy saw Andreas was smiling indulgently, his voice faintly rueful as he said, ‘I’m afraid not, Michael. Your grandparents have all the conveniences of the twenty-first century, which includes water coming out of taps. However, if that were not so you would not be able to enjoy your own pool during your stay, so maybe it is not so bad?’
The village passed, the car took a winding road where the occasional stone house set among lemon, fig and olive groves broke the vastness of green fields baking under a clear blue sky.
‘Why are those ladies wearing big boots?’ Michael asked his uncle a few minutes later, pointing to where sturdy women were busy working in the fields, their legs encased in enormous neutral-coloured leather knee boots and big straw hats on their heads. ‘Aren’t they too hot?’
‘It is for protection against the bite of snakes,’ Andreas said soberly. ‘It is not wise to work in the fields without them. This is Greece, little one. It is very different from England.’
He was very different too. Andreas was giving his attention to his small nephew, and it gave Sophy the chance to watch him surreptitiously. And she dared bet he was just as dangerous as any snake. How old would he be? She looked at the uncompromisingly hard handsome face, at the firm carved lips and chiselled cheekbones, the straight thin nose and black eyebrows. He could be any age from his late twenties right up to forty; it was that sort of face. A face that would hardly change with the years.
Theodore, at thirty-six years of age, had been eight years older than she and Jill, and in the last couple of years before his death had put on a considerable amount of weight and lost some of his hair. His brother was as different from him as chalk to cheese. But that happened in some families.
And then Sophy came to sharply as she realised he had finished talking to Michael and that he was looking straight at her, his eyes like polished stone and his eyebrows raised in mocking enquiry.
She flushed hotly, turning away and staring out of the window as her heart thumped fit to burst. He might look different, she qualified testily, but inside he was certainly a one hundred per cent Karydis, all right. Arrogant, cold, self-opinionated and dominating.
She had never understood what had drawn her sister to Theodore and how she could have remained married to him all these years, although once Michael had been on the way perhaps there had been little choice about the matter. Whatever, she couldn’t have lasted a week, a day—an hour with him! And, although she was sure Jill was unaware of it, her sister was already beginning to lighten up a bit and show more evidence of the old Jill who had become buried under the authoritative weight of her husband.
This might be exactly what it was purported to be—a pleasant holiday for Jill and Michael to meet their in-laws and establish a long distance relationship for the future, but for herself she wasn’t so sure about the purity of the Karydises’s motives. And there was no way, no way she would stand by and see her sister come under the oppression of another dictator, be it Theodore’s parents or his brother or the whole jam pack lot of them.
She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin as though she was already doing battle. She would keep her eyes and ears open whilst she was here. She had always been far better than Jill at picking up any undercurrents, and she was doubly glad she had made the effort and accompanied Jill out here.
The Karydises might find Jill accommodating to a fault and somewhat naive, but they would discover her sister was a different kettle of fish if they tried to pull any fast ones!
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS another half an hour before Andreas announced they were close to his parents’s home, but the journey through the Greek countryside where the vivid blue backdrop of the sky had provided a perfect setting for small square whitewashed houses with red tiled roofs, pretty villages and countless olive groves, and the odd dome-shaped spire dazzling in the sunshine, could have continued for much longer as far as Sophy was concerned. Apart from one factor, that was—the proximity of Andreas in the close confines of the car.
Since the moment he had caught her watching him she had been very careful to avoid any eye contact, but she knew without looking at him every time the grey gaze was levelled in her direction and it was unnerving. He was unnerving.
She hadn’t met a man who exuded such a stark, virile masculinity before, and the open-necked shirt he was wearing had enabled her to catch a glimpse of the bronzed, hair-roughened flesh beneath which had caused her stomach muscles to tighten. And she liked that reaction even less than her earlier irritation and dislike because it suggested a kind of weakness.
It wasn’t as though she liked the caveman type, she told herself crossly. Matthew had had the sort of looks she was drawn to: thick fair hair and blue eyes, a slim, almost boyish frame and classical fine features in an academic sort of face. Matthew had been gentle and mild, non-threatening, and that was her ideal man. Matthew. Poor, dear Matthew.
As the car turned off the main road into what was virtually a narrow lane, Sophy’s thoughts w
ere far away. She and Matthew had met at university and she had liked him right away. He had been funny and warm and easy to be with and, although at uni they had just been friends, once she had moved up to London—Matthew’s home territory—their relationship had moved up a gear, and they had slowly begun to get to know each other better.
They had been married for just eight months before Matthew had fallen ill, and it had been a happy time. He had been her first lover and their sex life had been tender and comfortable, which had summed up their life together really, Sophy silently reflected, as the car came to a halt outside a pair of eight-foot-high wrought-iron gates set in a gleaming white wall.
And then, within two months of the liver cancer being diagnosed, Matthew had died, leaving her alone and utterly devastated.
Friends had rallied round and her job had helped, but it had been a full twelve months before she had felt she was beginning to enjoy life once again. And she hadn’t dated since, in spite of several offers; shallow affairs weren’t her style, and whether she had just been unlucky or men as a whole assumed a young widow was fair game she didn’t know, but certainly the ones of her acquaintance seemed to assume a dinner and a bottle of wine meant a bed partner. And the married ones were the worst of the lot. It had been quite a disillusioning time, if she thought about it. She frowned to herself, oblivious of her surroundings.
‘…Aunty Sophy?’
She came out of her reminiscences to the realisation that Michael’s chatter had been directed at her for the last few moments and she hadn’t heard a word. ‘I’m sorry, darling,’ she said quickly. ‘I was day-dreaming. What did you say?’
But Michael was talking to his mother now, and it was left to Andreas to say quietly, ‘He was merely pointing out the gates opened by themselves, courtesy of Paul’s remote control of course.’
Sophy nodded, forcing herself to meet the level gaze without blinking. She noticed his grey eyes had turned almost silvery in the blinding white sunlight, throwing the darkness of his thick black lashes into startling prominence and yet earlier, at the airport, the grey had been nearly black. A human chameleon, she thought drily, and no doubt his nature was as enigmatic as his appearance. Some men liked to project an air of mystery.
More in an effort to show she was not intimidated than anything else, she said politely—the car having passed through the gates and into the spectacular gardens beyond—‘It must be wonderful to live in such beautiful surroundings. Have your parents always lived here?’
‘For the last thirty-two years,’ Andreas said softly. ‘I was actually born here twelve months after they first moved in.’