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‘It must have been an oversight.’

‘Which is hardly my fault.’ The strident voice rose to a crescendo. ‘I am not responsible for your staff's tardy service. You are!’

Anna nodded in agreement. ‘I’m sorry, but I can only apologise ’

‘Leave this to me!’

Anna turned at the sound of his voice to find Andreas close behind her. He appeared to be neither angry nor exasperated by the tirade he had evidently overheard.

‘Go and find a suitable vase,’ he said under his breath, ‘and send it up to her room.’

With a bland, placatory smile, he turned to Mrs Pope who appeared to be slightly disconcerted.

‘That young woman has just told me she’s the manageress,’ Anna heard her complain as she rushed off obediently to find the missing vase.

When she came back from the store-room Andreas and Mrs Pope were smiling at each other.

‘Mrs Pope would like some tea taken to her room,’ he told Anna pleasantly. ‘Her sister is a bad traveller and has been air-sick. I think we could find a remedy for that, too. Perhaps a rest before dinner and a little champagne would help.’

Stunned into unbelieving silence, Anna went to get the champagne, coming back with the bottle to find Andreas and her disgruntled guest discussing the relative merits of English hotels both in London and the provinces.

‘We like Bath,’ Mrs Pope was saying. ‘It has an aura which pleases us, but this year we decided to do something different. We have always taken a keen interest in archaeology and my sister is anxious to see your mosaics, I understand they are justifiably famous and very well presented.’

‘We take great pride in them,’ Andreas agreed. ‘Let us arrange a car to take you to Kourion.’ He glanced sideways at Anna, as if reminding her of their recent meeting there. ‘I can assure you it is well worth a visit.’

‘How kind of you,’ Mrs Pope acknowledged. ‘You have gone out of your way to be helpful, Mr. ?’

‘Andreas Phedonos,’ he obliged with the slightest of bows.

‘Ah—you are Greek!’ Mrs Pope exclaimed. ‘But surely you have been away from your native land for a long time.’

‘Too long, I’m afraid,’ Andreas said, glancing once more in Anna’s direction, ‘but perhaps I can remedy that one day.’

‘By settling in Cyprus?’ Mrs Pope enquired. ‘It seems to be a beautiful island from what I could see from the car on our way from the airport.’ She looked at Anna for the first time. ‘That was one point in your favour,’ she allowed. ‘The car you sent to Lamaca to meet us was most comfortable, I must admit.’

Mellowed by Andreas’ flattery, she even smiled.

‘I must put this on ice for you.’ Anna held up the bottle of champagne. ‘Please accept it with our compliments.’ Crossing to the restaurant to find ice and a suitable bucket, she saw Andreas ushering Mrs Pope into the lift with the polished courtesy of the well-trained manager, something which distanced him even more from the tempestuous youth she had once known.

‘Well?’ he enquired when he discovered her crushing the bottle of champagne into ice. ‘That went off all right, don’t you think?'

‘You charmed her completely.’

‘Part of my training,’ he acknowledged. ‘It was rough going for you, I must admit.’

‘I kept my temper!’ she protested.

‘Only just. I thought you were going to blow your top about the tardy service.’ He took the bottle from her, settling it into the ice with expert skill and finding a napkin to lay over it. ‘You were going white round the gills.’

‘Mrs Pope was quite insulting without having much cause for it,’ Anna said, ‘but there was really no excuse for Paris. He knows he shouldn’t wander into the house without a shirt, however hot it is outside! I really did agree about that, and I suppose I was also angry with Elli and Alice who should have been on duty by three o’clock.’

‘It took me back a few years,’ he smiled. ‘You being angry, with that flush in your cheeks and the flash-point in your eyes. Fundamentally, Anna, you haven’t changed. You are your father’s daughter all right.’

She turned to face him. ‘And that condemns me?’ she challenged.

‘Not entirely. You have spirit, which doesn’t always do in an hotel, but I can’t imagine you without it. We have to bite on our tongues half the time to keep the peace, but it isn’t always easy.’

‘You do it very well,’ she assured him, ‘and “my father’s daughter” isn’t always in evidence. It was just— after a long day—I wasn’t ready for unjust criticism. We do try our best here, but sometimes it isn’t enough.’

He put a hand on her arm. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ he said. ‘It happens all the time, even in a five-star hotel. There are Mrs Popes everywhere, you know. I’ll take this up to the dragon’s lair and you can put your feet up for five minutes. You look the worse for wear.’

‘Dishevelled, I suppose you mean?’ Anna smoothed her hair. ‘Well, I’ve been out all day doing a job I’m not trained for and making mistakes. I suppose you thought some of them amusing, especially at Kolossi.’

‘On the contrary.’ He lifted the ice bucket. ‘I thought you were doing your best and there can be no harm in that. You brought the past to life very clearly. You really love this island, Anna, just as much as I do.’

‘Yet you left it in a hurry,’ she accused him, ‘with no thought of the future.’

‘There you are wrong,’ he contradicted her solemnly, his blue eyes steady on hers. ‘It was the future that took me away and it was what I worked for over the intervening years. I always intended to come back, whatever you may think to the contrary, but I wanted to return with something to show for those years. I’ve done that now and I mean to stay.’

Her heart pounded at the revelation.

‘To marry here and settle down?’ she asked sharply.

‘That was the general idea.’ His eyes glinted in the semi-darkness. ‘Not the immediate goal, perhaps, but the eventual one.’

‘Is that why you were looking for a flat at Paphos?’

‘Part of the reason.’ He had evidently no desire to confide in her. ‘At the moment it will be no more than a convenient
pied-a-terre.'

‘Did you find what you wanted?’

‘We looked at two possibilities,’ he said, following her to the door with the ice-bucket. ‘One of them would have intrigued you, I think. While they were digging the foundations for the block they discovered the remains of an old acropolis and they have glassed in an ancient tomb. Quite empty, by the way. It had been pillaged centuries ago, I expect, but the authorities wanted to keep it intact. They didn’t condemn the building—how could they when half our towns are built on the ruins of former civilisations?—but they wanted the tomb kept as it was because it was perfect in every respect.’

‘So—what did they do, in the end?’

‘Built round it. There was plenty of room so it sits there, behind glass, bang in the middle of the new flats and really it is quite a feature of the place.’

‘It hasn’t upset your plans—about the flat, I mean?'

‘No. I think you would approve my choice.’ He paused by the lift. ‘Why don’t you come out and see it for yourself?’

She held her breath. ‘It wouldn’t make the slightest difference whether I approved of it or not,’ she said. ‘I— I’m not at all concerned.’

‘I thought you might be curious.’

‘Curious? How could I be? You have your own life to lead and I have mine. Whether you buy a flat at Paphos or not can’t possibly be my concern.’

Deliberately he pressed the button to summon the lift.

‘It was at one time,' he said. ‘We shared most things remember?’ The lift doors opened and closed behind him and she was left staring at them with a foolish sense of disappointment in her heart. But why should she care what sort of flat he had bought at Paphos or anywhere else?

She found her mother in the small sitting-room recovering from Mrs Walsh.

‘I’ve heard every detail of your busy day,’ Dorothy smiled. ‘How that woman can talk! I don’t think she missed one single thing.’

‘It’s just as well she wrote most of it down in her diary,’ Anna laughed, ‘and I gave her plenty of leaflets to take home with her.’

‘She was most impressed,’ Dorothy said, ‘especially with Andreas. She calls him the Apollo Man!’

‘It’s the sort of thing she would say.’

‘Was he on his own?’

Anna hesitated. ‘No. He had a very beautiful lady with him. Probably Mrs Walsh thought of her as the Aphrodite Woman!’

‘Was she so very beautiful?’

‘Yes. Andreas introduced her as Lara Warrender.’

‘It’s an English-sounding name—the Warrender part, anyway.’

‘I think she is Swedish—Scandinavian, anyway. There was the hint of an accent, although her English was very good. She may have lived in England for some time.’

‘Did Andreas meet her there?’

‘Mama! I don’t know. He didn’t say where they had met or how long ago.’ Anna crossed to the open door leading on to the loggia. ‘Now, suppose you tell me what
you
have been doing all day. Were there any problems?’

‘None at all! I rested, as you said, after lunch and Paris brought me some tea at four o’clock.’ Dorothy smiled at her. ‘I’m leading a much too peaceful existence nowadays, thanks to you, my dear,’ she acknowledged. ‘You carry all the burdens.’

Anna continued to look across the garden to the sea, ‘One of which is a terrible woman called Mrs Pope who was demanding her pound of flesh and an ounce or two over for good measure.’ she said.

‘Oh, dear! Did she upset you? Paris said she had arrived this afternoon demanding everyone’s attention and was displeased with him.’

‘No wonder!’ Anna turned back into the room. ‘I must have a word with Paris. He was wandering about without a shirt when Mrs Pope arrived.’

‘He had one on when he brought my tea,’ Dorothy excused her faithful retainer. ‘We couldn’t do without him, Anna. You know that. He is so very, very loyal.’

‘That’s what makes reprimanding him so difficult,’ Anna allowed, ‘but if we are going to run an hotel—even a small one like this—we must make concessions to people like Mrs Pope and her sister. None of the boys wander about without a shirt over at the Crescent even when they are on beach duty.’

'They have a sort of uniform,’ Dorothy mused. ‘Blue linen trousers and a white T-shirt with a blue crescent on it. All very smart, I must say. Everything matches their blue-and-white motif, even their beach umbrellas and the awnings on the tennis pavillion.’

‘Which reminds me that I’ve asked Nikos to dinner,’ Anna remembered. ‘He was playing tennis at the Crescent Beach and wanted me to have dinner with him, so I invited him to come here instead. I’ve reserved a table for nine o’clock.'

‘You should have gone with him to the Crescent,’ Dorothy said. ‘You might have picked up a few hints.’

‘We’re not running that sort of hotel, Mama, although sometimes I wish we were,’ Anna admitted. ‘Everything seems to run so smoothly over there. Nothing ever seems to go wrong, like forgetting a flower vase or being short of melons when they are already on the menu. It would be a saving on champagne at least!’

‘On champagne?’

‘I’ve just had to send a placatory bottle up to room twenty-three.’ Anna hesitated before the questioning look in her mother’s eyes. ‘Andreas suggested it— pouring oil on troubled waters, or champagne, if you like. He came in while Mrs Pope was haranguing me on our shortcomings. Her sister had some flowers sent and there was no vase to put them in.’

Dorothy turned round in her chair. ‘Andreas?’ she asked. ‘What was he doing here?’

‘Now that you ask, I’m not very sure. He arrived in the middle of the scene and charmed Mrs Pope out of her mind with the utmost aplomb. He has certainly developed the art of pleasing in a big way since he left the island, but I’m sure you must have noticed.’

‘I have seen a difference in him,’ Dorothy agreed. ‘He’s more mature and—I suppose “polished” is the word I want. Where is he now?’

‘Coming down in the lift with a vast smile of satisfaction on his face, I dare say.’ Anna moved towards the door. ‘Do you want to see him, or shall I make your excuses for you?’

‘We can’t be rude,’ Dorothy decided. ‘This was once his home.’

‘But not any more.’ A dark colour rose into Anna’s cheeks. ‘If he hurts you again, Mama--’

‘He won’t do that,’ Dorothy assured her with conviction. ‘It is all over now and he has expressed his sorrow.’

‘Hiding behind letters which perhaps were never sent at all!’

Dorothy looked beyond her to the restless sea. ‘We have to accept his word,’ she said. ‘Letters can go astray.’

Before Anna had time to answer Andreas was at the door.

‘Don’t run away,’ he said when she attempted to pass him. ‘I want to talk to you. I want to talk to you both,’ he added, taking Dorothy’s hands in his. ‘Have you half-an- hour to spare?’

The look in her mother’s eyes made Anna hesitate. Dorothy was asking her to agree to his request. She sat down on the chair nearest the door, waiting for him to speak.

‘I’m wondering if you would like to sell some of your land,’ he said directly. ‘A strip on either side. You have more than you need for such a small hotel and it’s all sea frontage with good sand. It would be easy to extend the breakwater to make a longer harbour for more boats, and I already have the lease of Candy’s Place.’

Anna gasped. ‘You mean—you’ve bought it?’

‘I’m hoping to. It’s entirely wasted as it is. Candy hasn’t done a thing to it in twenty years. He’s a beachcomber and always will be. He’ll move off elsewhere—farther along the coast, I expect—and start again selling pop and sandwiches when he isn’t fishing. He feels that the large hotels are encroaching on his privacy now and he doesn’t like it.’

‘And what do
you
intend to build on Candy’s land?’ Anna asked coldly. ‘Another big hotel?’

‘Not at the moment.’

‘And you would like some of our land to enlarge it when you do decide to build,’ she suggested.

‘More or less. I’m prepared to offer you a very good price for it and I think you would be foolish not to agree. All that scrub area at the side could be landscaped to your own advantage as well as mine.’