The Beads of Nemesis, Page 2

  “I loved him.”

  “I don’t believe you!”

  “You don’t have to!” she retorted. Her eyes fell before his. “We were both in love with him, only it was me he asked to marry him!”

  “What a triumph for you!” His sarcasm made her flush with anger. It hadn’t been like that! “Well?” he shouted at her.

  “He went out with us both,” she said.

  “I’ll bet!”

  She sighed. Nothing could stop the flood of words that she knew was about to break out of her. She had kept silent for so long, but she couldn’t resist the look in this man’s eyes. If he had been one of the men who had questioned her and questioned her as to what had happened on that awful night, she would have been quite unable to keep silent.

  “I did it for David. I knew he was regretting that he had asked me to marry him.”

  “Just as you were regretting having accepted him?” Pericles put in dryly.

  “I don’t know! I never thought of it like that. All I knew was that he was unhappy and that he didn’t love me. If we went on as we were, he wouldn’t even like me, and I didn’t want that. I knew he wanted Delia. That was the hard part because Delia will never love anyone very much. But he wanted her, so I made up my mind that he should have her.”

  Pericles shook his head at her. “Now that Nemesis could not approve. That, my dear, is the sin of hubris, of thinking that you can manage your own life and other people’s without any help from anyone else.” He paused to allow her to take in the glorious view from the fallen stones of the temple, pointing out a handy piece of masonry in the shade of a pine-tree where they could sit and stare to their hearts’ content at the deep blue of the sea, enclosed by harsh, barren mountains slashed by purple shadows and, in the foreground, the ruined walls of the ancient town that had once had its own fort to defend it, and the dark green of the pine-trees the scent of which vied with the thyme at their feet to give flavour to the refreshing breeze.

  “Were you driving the car?” he asked when the silence had begun to bother her.

  Morag gave him a quick glance. “How did you know?” He shrugged. “I could say you don’t look capable of driving dangerously, but I think you are,” he said slowly, “But then your sense of justice wouldn’t be outraged. I think you might be silly enough to shield someone else, and feminine enough to resent it when you are believed.”

  “I’m not a complete fool!” she protested.

  “Are you not?”

  She was silent for a long moment. “I suppose I am,” she

  admitted. “But if David loved her, the least I could do was to protect her - or so I thought. Delia was going to say David had been driving anyway and he had been drinking - they both had! Imagine how his parents would have felt if they’d blamed their dead son for the crash. I think I was right to spare them that.”

  “No matter what the cost to yourself?”

  She blinked. “I thought the price would be worth it.”

  He pulled down the corner of his mouth. “My dear girl, you haven’t begun to pay it. You’d better hurry up and pay your curtsey to Nemesis before you succeed in ruining your whole life! Come on and I’ll introduce you.”

  He made no attempt to help her as she clambered on to the floor of the larger of the two temples, the one nearer to the sea, which was whiter and looked as if it had been built at a later date than the smaller ruin that clung to its side. She had expected some word of sympathy from him, a pat on the back because she had chosen such a hard path and had suffered because of it. But he merely thought her a fool, and that hurt more than it should.

  “Mr. Holmes, I don’t know what it has to do with you, but I’d do the same again. I heard them crash. It was just below our garden - and it was so easy to change places with Delia. Nothing mattered very much to me just then, with David dead. There didn’t seem to be any future for me anyway.”

  “And what about your parents. Miss Grant? Didn’t it matter that they would suffer on your behalf?”

  She shook her head. “It would have been worse if they’d known it was Delia. It was all that they expected of me.” “That sounds as though you’re feeling sorry for yourself,” he observed, bending down to take a closer look at one of the fallen Doric columns.

  “I suppose I am,” she admitted. “I thought coming to Greece would solve all my problems. That I’d feel differently about things - about being me! But I don’t. My father doesn’t want me home and I don’t know where else to go.” “Then that’s one problem solved,” Pericles told her. “You can tag along with us for a while “But you don’t know anything about me!” she said. “What

  do you want me to know?”

  She tried to marshal her thoughts into some sort of order. “I’m good with children,” she said finally. “But I can’t give you any references. And how will you explain me to your mother? And supposing the children don’t want to have me tagging along? You’d do far better to let me go on by myself.”

  “Camping on your own in Greece? My dear girl, try and have a little sense! I meant to take you back to Athens with us anyway. It’ll suit me very well to have you along.” “You mean the children might settle better if someone else was there?”

  He looked up, smiling. “Something like that.”

  She sat down on a base of a column, made uncertain by the swift turn of events. Her heart hammered within her, the fountain of excitement within her exploding into a new delight. “I’ll try to act as a buffer between them and their grandmother,” she found herself saying. “I’ll do everything I can.”

  “I’m sure you will!” he cut her off. He stood up straight, standing over her in a way that made her look hastily away from him. “You don’t have to be grateful,” he drawled, sounding amused. “As far as I’m concerned you’re the answer to a prayer and I mean to take advantage of you and the situation your crazy stupidity has landed you in to make use of you entirely for my own ends. I can’t offer you any references either, you know.”

  “Oh, but you have the children!” she protested.

  “And that’s enough for you to trust me to look after you as well?”

  She bit her lip aware that he was teasing her. Then she nodded her head. “Yes,” she said.

  “God help you!” he grinned. “Someone ought to!” He held out his hand to her. “All right, Morag Grant, welcome to the Holmes family.”

  She put her hand in his and was immediately aware of the strength of his fingers and the smooth warmth of his skin. “Thank you,” she said.

  He bent his head and kissed her lightly on the lips. “That’s to seal the bargain,” he told her.

  Her colour came and went and she swallowed hard, trying to control her trembling mouth. But he had already turned away, striding across the marble floor of the temple to take a closer look at the smaller one that stood by its side. There was no doubt, she thought, that she was mad to go with him, but how lovely it was to be totally mad for once and to follow her own inclinations, without a thought for anyone else! David she had loved, but David hadn’t scared her, nor had he made her feel as though she had run a long race and had finally come home. This one could hurt her as she had not been hurt before. The knowledge came to her as if someone outside herself had spoken the words. A warning from Nemesis? She smiled at the fancy. Hadn’t David hurt her by preferring someone else, by preferring Delia whom she had never been able to bring herself to like? Why then should she be afraid of Pericles Holmes?

  The boy who had let them into the site whistled to his goats to follow him across the rough ground to where his family kept their hives, weighted down with rocks on the top against the wind. The bells round the goats’ necks set off a carillon of sound, deep and melodious, and the cicadas set up their shrill love-song from the other side of a clump of bushes. It was very peaceful there, like an unexpected benison after the turbulent events of the last few months. It was a new beginning and she was glad. She was even more glad that she had taken it into her head to visi
t Rhamous.

  Kimon and Pericles went down to the headland to look at the fort. Peggy refused point blank to go with them.

  “I want to stay with Morag,” she muttered defiantly to her father. “I like Morag.”

  “I like Morag too,” Kimon chimed in. “But I’d like to see the fort. The view from down there must be terrific!” “Do you want to go?” Peggy demanded, tugging at Morag’s jeans. “Wouldn’t you rather

  sit here quietly with me?”

  Morag abandoned the strong desire that she felt to run as fast as she could to the headland - to get there before Pericles and to have him show her the ruins of the ancient town that had once made such an impact on the local life round about. “I’d love to stay with you!” she claimed warmly, smiling at Peggy. “Where

  shall we sit?”

  Pericles cast a quizzical look. “Peggy misses Susan every now and then,” he said.

  Peggy frowned at him. “I don’t. Not really. But I don’t like looking at forts. People were killed there - and I don’t like that.”

  “Animals were killed outside the temples as sacrifices,” Kimon put in. “I like that even less!”

  “But not nowadays,” his sister retorted. “Nowadays we get things. If Morag’s and my necklaces were a gift from Nemesis—”

  “Daddy paid for them!” Kimon pointed out.

  “He did not!” Peggy tore the shells loose and scattered them over the ground. “If he did, it’s a cheat, and I don’t want them!”

  Pericles took a long, level look at his daughter and, without a word, strode away from her towards the fort with a rather hesitant Kimon at his heels.

  “Now I’ve made him cross again,” Peggy sighed. “He thinks it’s because I can’t get used to Mummy being dead, but it isn’t that. Did you know your mother?” she asked, picking up one of the shells and playing With it between her fingers. “Did you, Morag?” Morag shook her head. “Sometimes I think I can remember her, but sometimes I know I can’t. There was a photograph of her once, but my stepmother got rid of it.” She saw that Peggy’s eyes were wet. “Did your father love your stepmother more than your

  mother?”

  “I don’t know,” Morag answered. “Perhaps. My stepsister is very like her mother and he loves her very much.” The child sighed. “I can’t always remember Mummy,” she confessed. “I tried not to remember her because Grandma chose her to marry Daddy. Only Kimon says it’s wicked. Are you wicked too, Morag?”

  “Often and often,” Morag agreed, smiling. “Would you like my necklace in place of yours? You could think of it as a present from your mother, if you don’t like to have it as a gift from Nemesis.”

  Peggy accepted the shell necklace and put it round her neck. “Don’t tell Daddy,” she said solemnly. “Nobody ever understood before. I hate Grandma!”

  “Why?” Morag asked curiously.

  Peggy pursed up her lips, looking far older than her ten or eleven years. “You’ll find out! She’s all right with Daddy. She’s even all right with Kimon. But if you’re a girl, she’s horrid!”

  CHAPTER TWO

  Pericles took one look at his daughter’s face and said something to her in Greek. The child looked gratified and smiled and nodded. “Morag says she prefers being a girl,” she said in English. Pericles looked amused. His glance swept over Morag’s heightened colour. “I expect she does,” he agreed, his eyes inscrutable. “Give her back her necklace, Peggy. Being given that sort of thing is one of the perks “She said I could have them!” Peggy protested. “But I gave them to her,” her father insisted quietly. “If you want another necklace yourself I’ll buy you another one. But that one was specially for Morag. Hand it over, there’s a love!”

  Peggy drew the shell necklace over her head and held it out with a reluctance that made Morag feel sympathetic. “It’s true, I did give it to her. I can buy another necklace for myself. I’ll go and find the boy.”

  “No, you won’t,” Pericles muttered. He held her firmly by the wrist, still smiling. Morag wasn’t even sure that he knew how tightly his grasp was, or even that he was touching her at all. “That necklace was for you. Those frightful plastic beads that spoil the shells go with the colour of your eyes. It was the only one he had with green beads and those pretty, curving shells, and you’re going to keep it. If Peggy’s isn’t as nice, it’s her own fault. No one else broke the one she had.”

  “I didn’t get one at all!” Kimon complained in an aggrieved voice.

  “You aren’t a girl!” Peggy retorted, somewhat smugly. “Only girls get necklaces.”

  “Grandma will give me something else,” Kimon answered, completely put out.

  Peggy gave Morag a speaking look that told its own story. Morag looked straight back at her. “I’d rather have my shells,” she said with a firmness that surprised even herself.

  “Grandma will give me a coin for my collection!” Kimon went on belligerently.

  “I don’t care!” Peggy decided.

  Morag smiled at her and the child smiled cheerfully back. “What is this?” Pericles asked. “Feminine collusion? A fine thing! Kimon and I will have to watch out to see that you don’t get the better of us!”

  Peggy blinked. “Not of you, Daddy,” she said carefully, “but it will be nice to get the better of Grandma. She’s always giving Kimon things, and it isn’t fair. Morag will be on my side!”

  “Is that so?” her father drawled. “Grandma does her best for you, Peggy. You need a woman on hand when you’re growing up.”

  “Then I choose Morag. I like Morag!”

  “But I can’t be there all the time,” Morag said, embarrassed.

  “Why not?” said Peggy. “Why can’t she stay with us, Daddy?”

  Pericles shrugged his shoulders. “Why not?” he echoed. “Let’s kidnap her and take her home with us -”

  “And keep her forever and ever!” Peggy finished for him.

  “Yes,” agreed Kimon. “I’d like that too.”

  “But not forever,”Morag said firmly. “I can’t stay forever. I have to go back to England at the end of the holidays.”

  “Why?” said Pericles.

  “Why?” said Kimon and Peggy in unison.

  Morag’s eyes widened as she faced the three of them. Why not indeed? What was to stop her? “I have my own family,” she began, sounding so unconvinced that Pericles laughed.

  “You have now,” he murmured, and, sweeping aside any further objections she might have, he went on, “The Holmes family - at least for a while, until you’re quite sure that you don’t want us anymore.”

  And that was likely to be never, she thought in a bemused way. Her heart had always been far too swift to love and to hate, and she knew herself to be helplessly enmeshed with this family despite only just having met them. They seemed familiar to her, as if she had known them for years instead of minutes. Besides, there was the strange elation she felt whenever she looked at

  Pericles - an emotion she had never experienced before and which she didn’t know now how to handle. It was a far remove from the quiet devotion she had felt for David, if devotion it had been. Perhaps he had been no more than a handy receptacle for her to pour her feelings into, and neither of them had really loved each other. She gave Pericles an oblique look from under her lashes and wondered what it would be like to be loved by him. It was a thought that couldn’t help but dismay her.

  Her feelings must have shown clearly on her face, for he laughed suddenly and said, “You’d already decided to come with us, remember? I’m not going to let you get out of it now!”

  He opened the door of the car for her and pushed her on to the seat with a rough gallantry that brought a smile to her lips. “Where does your mother live?” she asked.

  “Lagonissi. It’s on the Apollon coast, on the way to Sounion. She used to live in Glyfada, but when they developed the international airport there, she found the noise a bit much and moved a bit further out of Athens. It’s mostly hotels and tourist apartments an
d villas, and it’s quite near where the President has his villa. The swimming is good, but the life is a bit unreal.”

  “You don’t care for it very much?” she hazarded.

  “No, my dear, I do not. But I can’t persuade my mother to move, and as the object of the exercise was for us to live with her, we were landed with it.” He gave her an amused look. “With your advent, if you last, we may find somewhere else for ourselves and leave my poor mother in peace.”

  “Oh yes, please, Daddy,” the children exhorted him. “You can see why my mother doesn’t enjoy their company much,” he added dryly. “They have a distressing honesty.”

  “Is that bad?” she interrupted him.

  “Not when mixed with a rudiment of good manners, but it can be rather devastating when naked and unadorned.” Morag laughed, “I can imagine!”

  His mouth twitched. “I suppose you’ve seen the results of a like honesty yourself, being the same sort of person?” he said, “Am I?” She was surprised first and then nettled. “I rather

  pride myself on my manners!” she objected.

  “I’ll remind you of that when you’ve coped with all three of us yelling at one another. We try to keep to a laid down pecking order. The children can yell at each other, you can yell at them, and I yell at you! Okay?”

  “Do we have to yell at all?” she countered. She wasn’t sure that she liked the idea of being yelled at by him.

  “There’s nothing wrong with your lungs, is there?” he asked with pretended concern. “We all yell, Morag. Perhaps you never yelled enough as a child.”

  “It wasn’t the approved method of expression!”

  “How forbidding you sound,” he teased her. “I didn’t know you were ever so disapproving!”

  She lifted her chin. “But then you don’t know me at all, Mr. Holmes!”

  “You can call me Perry, if you like,” he invited her.

  “I don’t like!”

  “Then you’d better make it Pericles.”

  “I don’t like that either!”