Follow a Stranger (14 page)

perhaps, merely to own the lovely French girl? Did he

want to be certain of her fidelity? Perhaps he took her

boasts of conquests too seriously, not seeing them for

what they were—a blatant attempt to make him declare

himself jealously.

After dinner Marie-Louise put a sleepy record on the

turntable and she and Marc danced in the lounge, her

black head upon his shoulder, leaning close to him.

Jean-Paul leaned over and asked Kate to dance. She

smiled and stood up, going into his arms. She caught the

exchange of looks between Pallas and Sam, her brother’s

raised eyebrows and grin. But Pallas was not looking as

triumphant as she ought to do if she was really

indifferent to Jean-Paul. She was, interestingly,

frowning.

Jean-Paul looked down at Kate. “How am I doing?” he

asked, with a mischievous grin.

“Is this part of your plan?” she asked, laughing. “To

use me as a tease for Pallas?”

“You object?” he asked anxiously. “Your fiancé will

mind, perhaps?”

“No,” she said quickly, smiling, “he won’t mind. And

neither do I. It’s in a good cause.”

Jean-Paul looked relieved, and pulled her closer,

bending his head to whisper in her ear, “You are a most

unusual girl, Kate.”

She smiled, then met Marc’s glance over Jean-Paul’s

shoulder. Marc was not smiling. He was looking savagely

angry again, the arrogant features dark and saturnine,

the grey eyes biting.

Kate looked away. He was angry with her, of course,

for flirting with his sister’s promised husband. He

probably thought her contemptible for attempting to

steal Pallas’s lover. She felt chilled, but tilted her chin

defiantly. Let him think what he liked. She and Jean-

Paul were going to set Pallas free to choose for herself.

Later, Jean-Paul spoke discreetly to Marc, who looked

a little surprised, but gestured politely towards the part

of the house in which his office lay. They walked out, in

quiet conversation. Jean-Paul returned alone. He spoke

softly to Kate, his face grave. “I have done it. I told Marc

I had changed my mind.”

“What did he say?” she asked involuntarily.

He shrugged. “He said very little—I was rather

surprised. But he seemed displeased. Of course, there

had been no official announcement. It was just an

understanding between us, so there can be no gossip.”

“Did he ask you why?” she queried, wondering what

Marc had thought of Jean-Paul’s unexpected change of

heart. She could imagine him being very angry,

particularly after the savage way he had looked at her

while she was dancing with Jean-Paul.

“No, he seemed very thoughtful. Perhaps he has some

business worry on his mind. Marc and I are old friends,

but I felt a certain ... how shall I put it? ... distance,

between us. I did not explain my motives to him, since I

know he would try to persuade me to change my mind.”

Jean-Paul grinned at her. “He is an autocrat, as you

must have realised. The Lillitos family obey him without

question. And his business interests are so vast ...” he

lifted his shoulders in a Gallic gesture, “it is not

surprising he is so dictatorial at times.”

“It is irritating, though,” she said, “and I don’t think

one should pander to his god complex. He isn’t a tinpot

little divinity, whatever he thinks.”

Jean-Paul looked both astounded and deeply amused.

“A tinpot little divinity? Is that how you see him?” He

stared into her blue eyes, smiling. “As I said before, you

are a most unusual girl.”

Next morning the sky was a little overcast and Kate

decided to take the opportunity of sitting out on the

beach again, while the sun was not so hot. Pallas and

Sam walked down with her, carrying vast sun umbrellas,

beach balls and towels, and they spread themselves out

in luxury on the deserted sand of the little bay.

There was a pearly mist on the water, hiding the sun,

but there was no wind, and Kate stretched out on a

towel, gingerly lowering herself in case her back began to

hurt again.

Her peeling skin was well coated with the doctor’s

soothing lotion. She slipped sunglasses on and lay with

her face in the shade of a multi-hued umbrella, a plastic

air cushion under her shoulders.

The sea murmured soothingly, flinging white-capped

fingers upwards towards them, then falling back again in

little ripples, leaving the sand ribbed and pale.

Pallas was reading the life of Beethoven, Sam was

playing chess with himself and occasionally commenting

rudely on his own weak moves. Kate did nothing at all,

feeling her whole body limp and relaxed in the soft air.

She felt Pallas stiffening beside her, and looked up to

see Jean-Paul and Marc coming down the beach.

“You look very comfortable there,” Jean-Paul told

Kate, lowering himself beside her, “but should you be out

here in the sun so soon?”

She peered up at the sky. “The sun is still hidden in

cloud,” she pointed out. “I have to venture forth

sometimes, you know. I can’t live in a tunnel like a

mole.”

He laughed and picked up her lotion. “Let me rub

some of this into your arms before the sun comes out,

then.”

She had already done so, but she meekly allowed him

to do as he pleased.

“Your skin is so fair,"’ he murmured, his hand slowly

stroking up to her shoulder. “It is like peaches and

cream—I always thought that a silly expression, but now

I know what it means.”

Pallas leapt impatiently to her feet, sending up a

shower of sand. “Sam, come and play beach ball!”

Obediently, Sam closed his pocket chess game and

followed her down the beach.

Marc was leaning on one elbow, watching Kate and

Jean-Paul like a cat at a mouse-hole, his grey eyes

narrowed. She found his unmoving, unreadable gaze

disconcerting. What was he thinking?

Pallas and Sam were running closer to them, shouting

as they threw the ball from one to the other. Suddenly

the ball landed with a thud on Jean-Paul’s back, sending

him sprawling over Kate. He landed, a hand on either

side of her, almost knocking the breath out of her body,

and they both began to laugh, after the initial shock.

“I’m so sorry,” Jean-Paul apologised. “I hope I did not

hurt you.”

“Not at all,” she smiled.

He withdrew slowly, looking down at her with a

crooked smile. Over his shoulder Kate saw Pallas’s

sullen face as she took back the ball. Jean-Paul was

about to lie down again when Sam said cheerfully, “Care

to join us, Jean-Paul? Beach ball is more fun with three.”

Pallas turned away, her dark hair swinging as she

tossed her head, as though to emphasise her indifference

as to whether Jean-Paul played or not.

He hesitated, his face uncertain. Kate smiled at him,

“Yes, do play—I mustn’t because of my back. I think I’ll

go to sleep for a while.”

He stood up and slowly joined the other two. Pallas

flung the ball at him, very hard, and it hit him in the

stomach. Kate knew that Pallas had done it deliberately

and felt like shaking the girl. But Jean-Paul

straightened, looking steadily at her, and threw the ball

back without a word.

Kate pulled her straw hat over her face and let her

body relax. The sound of the sea, the balmy air, made her

drowsy. Vaguely she heard the high voices of the ball

players drifting away. The sea murmured on, gulls cried

overhead and the sun came out mildly, caressing her

skin. Behind her closed lids a warm orange flood of light

seemed to focus, spreading through her like wine. She

was lazy and content. Even the silent presence of Marc

seemed distant.

Then she heard a movement beside her. Sand

scattered over her bare legs. She opened her eyes and

saw Marc, lying on one elbow still, but casually ladling

handfuls of sand over her, like a child.

“What are you doing?” she asked resentfully, lifting

her leg so that the sand fell away.

“What are
you
doing?” he asked, with an odd

emphasis.

“Trying to sleep,” she snapped. Was it impossible to

stand still in any relationship? she wondered. One

always seemed to move either forward or back, certainly

in a friendship with the opposite sex. With Marc she

moved between hostility and attraction. Were the two

interchangeable? Like two sides of one coin? Today,

again, she did not like him.

“Last night,” he said conversationally, “I had a rather

startling discussion with Jean-Paul.”

Kate closed her eyes, straightening her leg again.

“Oh?” She tried to sound bored, even indifferent.

“He was unofficially betrothed to Pallas,” Marc said

softly, “but last night he told me he had changed his

mind.”

“Really?” Kate yawned, flapping her hand over her

mouth in a lazy gesture, her body stretching pleasantly

with the movement. “Well,” she went on, “Pallas is

rather young for a man like Jean-Paul, I suppose.”

Marc moved like a spring uncoiling, a hand on each

side of her, bending to whisper forcefully. “What do you

know of a man like Jean-Paul—you only met him

yesterday!”

She could not pretend to be sleepy now. She lay

staring up at him with a suddenly dry mouth. He was

very close to her, his dark face tense and menacing, the

strong muscles in his brown shoulders rippling as he

pressed his hands down on the sand. He looked very

handsome, very dangerous, and more attractive than she

could bear.

“What does any woman know of any man she meets?”

she countered warily, grateful for the sun glasses which

helped mask her expression. “I just made a snap

judgement, I suppose.”

“You walked in the garden with him for an hour,” he

said bitingly. “I saw you from my office window. He

kissed your hands. Rather fast work on his part—he was

never the wolf type. You must have given him a lot of

encouragement.”

He was furious because Jean-Paul had broken his

engagement to Pallas, she thought. But why take it out

on me? He’s looking for a scapegoat, but I’m not a

volunteer.

Aloud, she said, “He is a Frenchman, isn’t he? They

kiss hands to be polite.”

“He hasn’t been able to take his eyes off you since he

arrived,” Marc said tightly, his lips curling at the edges.

“Is that my fault?” she retorted. “What am I supposed

to do? Hang out a sign saying don’t look?”

“You put up one saying don’t touch,” he sneered.

“That was only for your benefit,” she flung, suddenly

too angry to care, and then realised, with a sinking

heart, that she had gone too far, and made him blazingly

angry.

His dark face tightened as though she had struck him.

He glared down at her, eyes glittering like points of steel,

and his mouth swooped, closing on hers savagely, his

hands gripping her sore shoulders.

For a second her heart seemed to stop, then it

thundered into life again, pounding in her ears. Her eyes

seemed darkened and aching. Her fingers curled

imploringly, held rigid at her sides, as she fought the

impulse to reach up and touch him.

Whatever happened, she must not let him guess what

that cruel, punishing kiss had done to her. As he drew

away, breathing hard, she kept her eyes and lips tightly

closed. After a moment she heard him walking away, his

feet crunching on the sand.

Tears began to trickle down her face. So now she

knew—what she had always known since their first

meeting. She loved him. But now she had been forced, by

her body’s treachery, to admit it to herself.

When the others came back she pretended to be asleep, and

let them wake her, so that her silence could be put down to

the drowsiness of someone suddenly dragged back to a

wakeful condition. She trailed after them, back to the villa,

dreading the first meeting with Marc, but when they

arrived they found Sophia busily supervising the laying of

the table, and she told them that Marc had taken Marie-

Louise to Epilison to visit Pyrakis.

Kate felt a pang of unbearable jealousy at the news. She