Innocent Obsession Read online

‘Leon,’ she appealed, ‘if you—if you feel anything for me at all, promise me you’ll never mention this to another living soul!’

  Leon sighed. ‘You ask the impossible, Sylvie.’

  ‘Why? Why do I? Isn’t it my affair? Not yours?’

  Leon hunched his shoulders. ‘I cannot understand any of this. It is not like Andreas to show disrespect to any of the female members of his family.’

  ‘But I’m not of his family, am I?’ Sylvie pointed out unsteadily. ‘Leon, when you do want me to leave?’

  ‘I do not want you to leave,’ he replied simply. ‘But if that is what you want, then you must do as you wish.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Sylvie expelled her breath heavily. ‘I—I’ll go on Monday, the day after tomorrow. Could you arrange for my flight from Athens?’

  ‘Of course.’ Leon inclined his head. ‘My father will do it. I suppose you would rather it were he, and not Andreas?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Sylvie nodded. ‘I’d rather Andreas knew nothing about it. I’d like to be gone before he finds out.’

  Leon showed his understanding, and impulsively, Sylvie reached up and kissed his cheek. ‘Margot is a fool,’ she declared huskily, and hurried into the villa.

  She was awakened once again by the sound of the helicopter, and she lay for several minutes listening to the whirring blades, wondering if Leon had betrayed her and telephoned his brother. But it was precipitate at least to imagine that Andreas could simply drop what he was doing and take a flight out to the island, even if he had some reason for objecting to her departure.

  Realising she would have to find out, Sylvie slid hurriedly out of bed, and after a skimpy wash she dressed in shorts and a tee-shirt and went downstairs.

  The landing pad was perhaps half a mile from the villa, but she couldn’t imagine anyone’s having driven out to meet the aircraft at this hour of the morning. It was barely eight o’clock, and even Nikos had not yet put in an appearance.

  Irene appeared as she was faltering on the patio, wondering what she should do, and she turned to the Greek woman eagerly, using her small knowledge of the language, combined with certain miming actions, to ascertain the reasons for the helicopter’s arrival.

  ‘Not know, kyria,’ Irene exclaimed apologetically, spreading her hands in evident confusion. ‘Perhaps doctor?’ she suggested, with an expressive grimace, and Sylvie nodded her agreement as her own thoughts ran along the same lines. ‘You like—kafes?’

  ‘Coffee? Oh, yes, please, Irene.’ Sylvie smiled. ‘Parakalo.’

  ‘Poli kala, kyria.’

  The Greek woman left her, and Sylvie moved impatiently to the low wall surrounding the patio, where the blossoms spilled their scarlet petals. The doctor would be here directly. Surely her talk with Leon last evening had not produced a crisis. Yet what other reason could the doctor have for arriving at this early hour, when on that other occasion it had been almost noon?

  ‘My God, this climate! How did I stand it?’

  The drawling words and the sudden throbbing of the helicopter’s propellers overhead occurred simultaneously. Sylvie’s eyes were automatically drawn upwards, but she swung round on her heels towards the sound of that voice, and as her gaze lowered she caught her breath. A woman was standing at the top of the steps leading from the courtyard at the back of the building, slim and exotic in a scarlet jumpsuit, fanning herself with a navy clutch bag.

  ‘Margot!’ Sylvie’s lips framed the word as her sister caught sight of her, and the older girl’s lips compressed impatiently as she took in Sylvie’s astonishment.

  ‘Couldn’t you have sent the car to meet me?’ she exclaimed, advancing across the terrace. ‘Even at this hour of the morning I could have done without a ten-mile hike! What on earth were you thinking of? Dreaming, as usual!’

  Sylvie tried to gather her scattered senses. ‘It’s not a ten-mile hike, Margot. It’s barely half a mile. And how was I to know you were in the helicopter? I—I thought it was the doctor.’

  ‘Why?’ Margot’s thin brows ascended. ‘Oh, don’t tell me Leon’s sick again. I couldn’t bear it, not after everything else.’

  ‘You couldn’t bear it?’ Sylvie could feel her voice rising, but she controlled it abruptly, realising it was not up to her to criticise Margot. She was here—that was the important thing. At least it would make her departure that much easier when the time came.

  ‘Is there anything to drink? I’m parched!’

  Margot lounged into a chair just as Irene reappeared with Sylvie’s coffee, and the Greek woman stared at the newcomer with unconcealed admiration. ‘Er—this is Kyrios Leon’s wife—–’ began Sylvie, only to have Margot interrupt her rudely, saying: ‘Pour me some coffee, there’s a love. And ask her to fetch another cup, would you?’

  Irene did not seem to notice the snub, and with a gesture of helplessness Sylvie gave Margot her cup and filled it with coffee. ‘Thanks,’ said Margot, sipping it eagerly. ‘Oh, well, at least I’ve got here, which is something, I suppose.’

  ‘You’ve come—to stay?’ Sylvie was loath to ask the question, but Margot merely nodded.

  ‘Regrettably,’ she drawled, her lips twisting sardonically. ‘I’m out of the play, darling, isn’t it a drag? And Mummy simply refused to support me any longer.’

  Sylvie stared at her. ‘You’re—out of the play?’

  ‘That’s what I said.’ Margot sniffed discontentedly. ‘So now I suppose I’ve got to get used to this place again.’

  Sylvie blinked. ‘I don’t understand. You mean the play has folded?’

  ‘No, darling, I mean I’m out.’ Margot’s tone was brittle. ‘Don’t you understand perfect English any more? I’m out! Sacked! Fired! Give it any definition you will. My acting career is over.’

  Sylvie gulped. ‘But why?’

  Margot sighed. ‘I suppose you could call it a conflict of personalities.’

  ‘You—and who else?’

  ‘The director, darling.’ Margot expelled her breath impatiently. ‘Oh, well, I suppose you won’t be satisfied until you know all the sordid details. He thought he had control of me, as well as the play. I—disillusioned him.’

  Sylvie shook her head. ‘He made a pass at you?’

  ‘Your vocabulary!’ Margot laughed rather scornfully. ‘My child, directors don’t make “passes”. They—well, they have much more subtle ways than that. But of course you wouldn’t know.’

  ‘No.’ Sylvie bent her head. ‘So you decided to come back.’

  ‘Yes. I’m sorry to give you the bunk, darling, but you know how it is. Beggars can’t be choosers!’

  Sylvie bit her lip. ‘I’d have thought you’d do anything to keep that part.’

  ‘Sylvie!’ Margot looked genuinely shocked. ‘What has Leon been teaching you?’

  ‘I simply meant that if you were so keen to become a successful actress you might have considered adulterating your principles now and then,’ declared Sylvie flatly. ‘Or do you love Leon, after all?’

  ‘Adulterating my principles!’ Margot gasped. ‘Heavens, Sylvie, what do you know about such things?’

  Syvie shrugged. ‘Not a lot. But sleeping with somebody—that doesn’t seem such a great price to pay.’

  Margot gazed at her as if she had never seen her before. ‘How would you know? You’ve never slept with anybody. And let me tell you, it’s not all that it’s cracked up to be!’

  Sylvie felt the hot colour invade her cheeks. ‘Isn’t it?’

  Margot frowned. ‘Leon hasn’t—you didn’t—–’

  ‘No, of course not, Margot!’ Sylvie was contemptuous. ‘But you couldn’t have blamed us if we had. You obviously cared nothing for his illness.’

  ‘My, my!’ Margot shook her head. ‘You have grown up, haven’t you, Sylvie? And lost weight, too, if I’m not mistaken. Who is it? Some lusty Greek fisherman, all brawn and no brains?’

  ‘It is Andreas, actually,’ declared Leon’s quiet voice behind them, and Sylvie’s lips parted in pained disbelie
f. ‘I am sorry, little one,’ he added apologetically, ‘but somehow I do not think Margot will betray your secret.’ He turned to his wife who was gazing at Sylvie incredulously. ‘It was Andreas you wanted in the first place, was it not, Margot? Only he was too shrewd to be taken in by your selfish wiles. And it must be said, he would never have allowed you to make a fool of him, as you have made of me!’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘SYLVANA, I am sorry to have to say this, but—well, we have been disappointed in you. Your results this far have been quite deplorable, and I am told you have developed the habit of absenting yourself from lectures mentally, if not physically. This is not what we expected of someone with your academic record, Sylvana. Not what we expected at all.’

  ‘I am sorry.’ Sylvie wriggled up a little higher in her chair, facing her tutor across his desk with wide-eyed candour, yet revealing nothing of her inner feelings.

  ‘Is that all you have to say?’ Professor Hutchins was being very patient. ‘No words of mitigation, no reasons for this sudden lack of communication?’

  Sylvie shook her head.

  ‘But you must have.’ The elderly tutor was trying to pierce the shell that this particular student seemed to have built around herself. ‘Is it a personal problem? Do you have difficulties at home? Is it money?’

  ‘I don’t have any personal problems, sir,’ Sylvie shrugged. ‘Perhaps you should send me down.’

  Professor Hutchins was aghast. ‘Is that what you want? To be sent down?’

  Sylvie shook her head again. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Sylvana!’ He made a sound of frustration. ‘I will not accept that there is no reason for your behaviour. Why, the headmaster at your last school couldn’t speak too highly of you, and your results in your ‘O’ and ‘A’ level examinations more than justified the faith he had in you.’ He sighed. ‘Something has happened, hasn’t it? Something that has nothing to do with school or university. But what? What?’

  ‘Can I go now?’ Sylvie slid off her chair, standing before him, slim and fragile in jeans and sweat-shirt. She looked like the quintessential student, he thought ruefully, but she was no use to him.

  ‘I think we must leave this for now,’ he declared, shifting her papers together. ‘After Christmas we’ll pursue this again. But for the present, have a good holiday, and try and come back to us in a different frame of mind.’

  Sylvie smiled, but as she let herself out of the Professor’s room her smile disappeared. She had tried, she thought, unshed tears burning at the backs of her eyes. But whatever she did, she couldn’t concentrate. Even after more than four months Andreas still filled her thoughts to the exclusion of all else, and the idea of continuing with her education was ludicrous. She didn’t feel like a student any longer, she felt like a woman, and the things she wanted could not be found in a lecture hall.

  Conversely, they could not be found anywhere else either. She had neither seen nor heard anything of Andreas since she left Monastiros, and so far as she knew he could well be married to Eleni by now. Margot had not mentioned him in any of her letters, and Sylvie could hardly write and ask her sister for information. Now that she and Leon seemed to have settled their differences, and Nikos had a stable home life again, communication between the two families had reverted to its previous irregularity, and she knew her mother was simply delighted that all their problems seemed to be over.

  There were a couple of letters waiting for her when she got back to the building where she had a room to herself. Taking them out of the rack, she turned them over uninterestedly in her hands, recognising her mother’s handwriting on one, and unable to identify the sprawl on the other. Then her heart skipped a beat. The stamp on the strange letter was Greek, and so, too, was the postmark. Athens! Athens! She tore open the envelope.

  It wasn’t a long letter, just a dozen lines, but the signature was Andreas’s. Dry-mouthed, she scanned the words he had written, and then had to read them again because she didn’t take them in the first time.

  Apparently he was in London, for a conference, and he wondered if she would like to have dinner with him on Friday evening. He was staying at the Savoy, and she could leave a message there, any time during the day or night.

  Realising she was shaking quite badly now, Sylvie stumbled up the stairs to her room, and once inside, leant back weakly against the door. She must not, she simply must not read more into this than he was implying, she told herself severely. It was a friendly letter, that was all. He was simply asking her to have dinner with him. Why, for all she knew, Eleni might be with him.

  The remembrance of Eleni sobered her. Even if he was alone, he could still be married, and she had to ensure that she did not make a fool of herself and ruin a perfectly innocent invitation.

  Today was Wednesday. That left two whole days between now and Friday evening. She didn’t know how she was going to survive that long. After all these weeks and months, forty-eight hours seemed an interminable sentence.

  She straightened away from the door and studied the letter again, held between her shaking fingers. She could take the afternoon train to London on Friday. That would save the necessity of going home first. She had no lectures on Friday afternoon, and besides, most of the students were preparing to go home the following Wednesday. Apart from the carol service on Monday evening, and various end-of-term concerts, she was going to be free for five or six weeks, and she wondered whether Andreas knew this, and how long he proposed to stay.

  Such speculations were not conducive to relaxation, and pulling on her navy blue duffel coat over her jeans, she left the building again, in search of a callbox. She could have called from the pay-phone in the building, but the idea of anyone overhearing their conversation made her seek a more private method of communication.

  She had a pocket full of change, but when the pips sounded the connection, and she spoke to the receptionist at the Savoy, it was to be told that Andreas was not in the hotel.

  ‘Is this Miss Scott?’ she asked, after Sylvie had made her inquiry. ‘Miss Sylvana Scott?’ And after Sylvie had confirmed that it was, she explained: ‘Mr Petronides left you a message, Miss Scott. If you are agreeable, he will meet you in the foyer, at seven o’clock on Friday evening. Does that meet with your approval?’

  Sylvie was feeling a little breathless, but she managed to acknowledge that it did. ‘Seven o’clock,’ she agreed, a little faintly, and put down the receiver again with accurate precision.

  She met one of her fellow students, walking back to her room. Martin Elliot was reading English and History, just as she was, and he grinned in a friendly fashion and fell into step beside her.

  ‘You look—odd,’ he remarked, causing the colour to deepen in Sylvie’s cheeks. ‘Is something wrong? Did old Hutchins give you a grilling?’

  Sylvie’s lips tilted. ‘Well, yes, he did, actually.’

  ‘You don’t seem very concerned about it.’

  Sylvie sighed. ‘Well, I am. But—oh, Martin, I don’t think I’m cut out for an academic career.’

  Martin frowned. ‘What do you mean—you’d rather get a job, get married, what?’ Sylvie bent her head. ‘I’d rather get married, yes.’

  Martin sighed. ‘I guess there’s some bloke, isn’t there?’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘The way you act, the way you look. Besides, a girl like you need never be short of male companionship, need she?’

  Sylvie laughed. ‘Thank you.’

  Martin grimaced. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know. I’ve seen the way you’ve dealt with my friends. There had to be a reason for all that aloofness. I could tell at a glance you weren’t frigid.’

  ‘Could you?’ Sylvie laughed again, excitement bubbling up inside her. ‘Oh, well, here we are.’

  She looked up at the tall ivy-clad building, thrusting her hands more deeply into the pockets of her duffel coat. It was a cold evening, but she didn’t feel it. There was a warm glow inside her, which would not be extingui
shed, and the shell she had built around her was melting in its heat.

  She arrived at the Savoy at five minutes to seven, having spent at least half an hour in the ladies’ waiting room at Paddington, fretting over her appearance. At the university, she wore mostly jeans and sweaters, with an occasional skirt for light relief. Her supply of suits and dresses, therefore, the kind of things one would wear to go out to dinner, was limited, and although she had been told that the outfit she was wearing looked sensational, she had definite doubts about its suitability.

  It was a dress, a simple tawny-brown dress, that relied on its rather daring lines to attract the unwary eye. It was a dress Margot had bought and never worn, and Sylvie had taken it to the university, in the hope that she might find some use for it. She hadn’t. This was its first outing; and the wrap-over bodice, with its deep cleavage and narrow bootlace straps, made her abysmally aware of her lack of curves. Once it had fitted her, but now it hung loosely on her over-slender figure, accentuating her youth, and the hollows around her neck. Even the magnificent tan she had acquired in the summer had faded, and she kept her grey sheepskin jacket wrapped closely about her as she entered the glittering foyer of the Savoy.

  It was quite busy at that hour of the evening, with men and women in evening dress greeting friends and ordering taxis, or simply seated comfortably, watching the colourful tableau. Sylvie wasn’t quite sure how to proceed, and she was sure the doorman suspected she was some kind of interloper. Even with her hair swept up, she was obviously out of place in such a sophisticated gathering, and she knew a sudden impulse to turn tail and run.

  ‘Hello.’

  The greeting caught her unawares, and she swung round anxiously to find the man she had come to meet right behind her. But this was Andreas as she had not seen him before—in a black velvet suit and waistcoat, the frilled shirt above in pristine contrast to the dark texture of his skin.

  ‘Andreas!’ Her lips parted nervously, revealing her even white teeth. ‘I—it’s good to see you again. Th-thank you for your letter.’

  Andreas looked down at her intently, but although he inclined his head in acknowledgement of her stumbling introduction, he did not smile. His face seemed thinner than she remembered, but just as disturbing to her peace of mind, and she stood there irresolutely, wondering how she could have imagined he required anything more than her company at dinner.