All The Fire Read online

  At the far end of the wharf, Dimitri halted and pointed to a steamer drawn up by the quay. ‘That is the one,’ he indicated brusquely. ‘Come: we will go aboard. I will see that you are accommodated and then I must leave you.’

  ‘Leave me!’ Joanne was horrified. ‘You can’t leave me now!’

  Dimitri’s dark brows ascended. ‘Why not? I have done my duty. You are here - in Greece. This ship will take you to Dionysius where you will be met by some member of your father’s household. My time is not my own, Miss Nicolas. I have an occupation of my own to follow. I am not able to spare the time to come to Dionysius right now.’ He beckoned to his chauffeur to bring her cases, and then added: ‘The ship sails at sunset. You will have a cabin. If you go to bed soon you will wake to find yourself at Dionysius.’

  Joanne’s heart was in her throat. This was a contingency she had not even speculated upon. Somehow she had foolishly imagined he was at her service entirely, and would escort her to her father without question. To find herself about to be abandoned in a strange land was bad enough, but with the prospect of a sleepless night in some tiny cabin on this ship awaiting her when her thoughts would turn continually on the morrow and its implications she felt really frightened.

  ‘Oh, please!’ she exclaimed, grasping his arm impulsively. ‘Don’t leave me!’ Then she realized exactly what she was doing and released her hold immediately. Even so, she was conscious of his expression with every fibre of her being. What thoughts were going on behind that enigmatic facade? Did he imagine she was attempting to detain him for more personal reasons? She felt terribly embarrassed, and her cheeks coloured infuriatingly.

  His eyes narrowed. ‘Can this be the composed Miss Nicolas behaving so hysterically?’ he commented mockingly. ‘What are you afraid of, Miss Nicolas? This is why you are here, remember?’

  ‘I know why I’m here,’ she said tautly, turning away. ‘I’m sorry if I embarrassed you. It was foolish. For a moment I was ridiculously childish!’

  Dimitri walked round to confront her, regarding her with a strange expression in his dark eyes. ‘You didn’t embarrass me,’ he remarked softly. ‘And perhaps I was a little precipitate in my abrupt dismissal of your problems.’ He lifted his shoulders indolently. ‘It is hot here, and it will be hot on the vessel. I suggest we go to a restaurant I know and avail ourselves of its excellent grilled lobster. It is after five and no doubt you are hungry.’

  Joanne was about to deny that she could eat anything, but then she changed her mind. However foolish it might seem, he was her only contact with familiar things in an unfamiliar land, and she dreaded the moment when he would abandon her to her own resources. She wasn’t at all sure she was equal to the occasion.

  Later, sitting at a table overlooking the harbour, shaded by the verandah of the small restaurant, she found she could do justice to the delicious lobster and salad. They drank white wine with the meal, a Greek variety that Francisco, the chef, recommended, and watched the gradual awakening of the quayside as the afternoon’s siesta period ended. Joanne was relaxed and realized that the hectic events of the day had temporarily banished her normal self-confidence. But she had never been abroad before, and it was a disturbing experience.

  Her thoughts turned back to England and in particular to Aunt Emma, pondering again her aunt’s sudden change of heart. Of all of her friends and relations Joanne had expected the most opposition from her, but for some reason she had not raised many objections at all. Joanne could only assume that Dimitri had charmed himself into favour, but whatever he had done it had certainly removed the most stubborn obstacle from her path. She sighed, wondering what Mrs. Lorrimer’s attitude would be to her aunt’s lack of opposition. Perhaps it would strain their friendship or maybe it might help to smooth the way for Joanne’s return.

  She looked across at Dimitri, wondering with reluctant interest how old he was. He could have been any age between thirty and forty, but somehow she thought he was the latter. Maybe it was his experienced manner, or that superb self-assurance, she wasn’t sure, but he was obviously a man of the world. And he was attractive in a purely physical kind of way. His hair was not long like Jimmy’s, but it was thick and inclined to curl, and grew down his neck to his collar. His sideburns were more pronounced than Jimmy’s, though, growing down to his jawline and darkening his skin. He did not look like any scientist she had ever seen, and yet there was intelligence in his face when it was not twisted with cynical amusement. She was beginning to revise her earlier impressions of him, and she half-wished he did work for her father or at least lived on the island.

  ‘What will you do - after I’ve gone?’ she asked tentatively.

  He finished the wine in his glass, and continued to gaze thoughtfully out across the blue and white vista of the harbour. Following his eyes, Joanne could understand why some people sat for hours just gazing at the view. There was a timelessness, an agelessness, about it that imbued a feeling of peace and tranquillity in the participant. The old men who occupied the harbour walls at Piraeus, interminably smoking their pipes and discussing that most favoured of Greek topics, politics, all wore that same faraway expression that Dimitri Kastro wore now.

  With an effort, he drew his gaze back to her flushed face, noticing that the sun was already beginning to touch her creamy skin with a golden glow. ‘After you have gone?’ he echoed lazily. ‘Then, I suppose, I shall go back to my apartment and take a shower!’

  Joanne bent her head. ‘You live in Athens?’

  He shrugged. ‘It is convenient for the laboratory to have an apartment here. But I, too, have a villa on Dionysius.’

  Joanne’s eyes were wide. ‘You have?’ she exclaimed, with obvious pleasure. ‘How marvellous!’

  He studied her animated expression with compelling eyes, and when she looked up, he said quietly: ‘Tell me something, Miss Nicolas. Why should it matter to you where I live?’

  Joanne’s whole body suffused with heat. ‘Well, surely it’s obvious—’ she began awkwardly, but he interrupted her.

  ‘No, it is not obvious!’ he retorted huskily, regarding her intently. ‘I will be honest with you, Miss Nicolas, you are a beautiful woman and in other circumstances I might have considered another kind of relationship with you, but it has never been my practice to attempt to seduce another man’s property!’

  Joanne’s new-found relaxation vanished with his words, and in its place she felt a powerful sense of outrage. ‘Just—just what do you mean by that?’ she exclaimed hotly.

  He lay back in his chair regarding her with some amusement. ‘What do you think I mean by it?’ he queried mockingly. ‘Surely I make myself very clear!’

  ‘I think you are deluding yourself, Mr. Kastro,’ she snapped, trying to quell the tremulous quiver in her voice.

  ‘You think so?’ He shrugged. ‘Well - maybe. In any event my words should not anger you. I was complimenting you, after all!’

  ‘How?’ Joanne got unsteadily to her feet. ‘By suggesting I attract you!’

  He considered her lazily. ‘Why not?’

  Joanne found it difficult to articulate. ‘I - I think - you are the most conceited man I’ve ever had the misfortune to meet!’ she gasped.

  He shrugged. ‘You’re entitled to your opinion, of course,’ he replied annoyingly. ‘However, I will say one thing more—’

  ‘I don’t want to listen!’ Joanne put the palms of her hands over her ears.

  Resignedly, he rose to his feet too and removed her hands forcibly, holding them in his when she would have drawn away.

  ‘I will say one thing,’ he repeated, studying her angry face with cynical eyes. ‘If you have come to Greece with the intention of having a kind of final fling before your marriage, then be careful! Greeks are not Englishmen, nor do they take kindly to teasing women!’

  Joanne wrenched herself free. Holding her head up, she said: ‘You appear to have formed a mistaken impression about me, Mr. Kastro.’ She bit her lip. ‘I love my fiancé and I respect
him.’

  Dimitri shrugged, reaching for his jacket. ‘Poli kala,’ he remarked, uttering the first Greek words she had been able to understand. ‘Very well, Miss Nicolas, it is not of importance to me what you do.’ He looped his jacket over one finger and slung it over his shoulder and then turned back to regard her intently. Her cheeks flushed, her hair a silvery curtain about her shoulders, she looked vastly different from the cool, composed young woman he had met at her mother’s graveside. With an experimental finger he traced the line of her bare arm from shoulder to wrist, and as she drew back, affronted, he smiled. ‘I wish I had the time to discover whether you really believe what you have said,’ he murmured huskily.

  Joanne was at once horrified and excited. Here, in this alien port, under the blazing heat of the hot sun, he was suddenly a stranger again, and one moreover who regarded her with nothing less than contempt. Swallowing hard, she said: ‘Time is unimportant, Mr. Kastro. You do not get involved with engaged women, and I am not interested in you!’

  His smile deepened. ‘I think you are very young and very naive, Miss Nicolas,’ he observed sardonically, and then with a careless hand he indicated that she should precede him down the steps that led back to the quay.

  They walked to the steamer in silence. In their absence the chauffeur had transferred Joanne’s two cases to the ship and was back in the car waiting for Dimitri. At the gangplank, Dimitri halted, waving a casual hand to the seamen who stood at its head.

  ‘So, Miss Nicolas,’ he said smoothly, ‘we must say goodbye.’

  Joanne was eager to escape from the tormenting compulsion of his gaze. ‘Y-yes!’ she said unevenly. Then she held out her hand. ‘I - I’d like to thank you for everything!’

  Dimitri looked at her a trifle impatiently. Then he took her hand but did not immediately release it again. ‘As I am the second cousin of your father, I think we must be kissing kin, do you not?’ he commented, with obvious amusement, and bending his dark head he put his mouth to the side of her neck where a pulse beat rather erratically.

  For a breathtaking moment, Joanne had thought he was going to kiss her mouth and she wanted to draw back before he could do so, but instead his lips were warm and disturbing against her soft skin. He drew back slowly, and she knew he was aware of her trepidation. But the amusement was gone from his face, and there was a strange expression in his eyes.

  ‘Kali andamosi,’ he murmured, bowing his head slightly, and without another word, he left her.

  Joanne awoke to the realization that the steamer’s engines were no longer throbbing as they had been when she went to sleep the night before. Now there was daylight flooding her cabin through the porthole and a delicious perfume of flowers scented the air.

  With eagerness, she slid off the bunk and ran to the port. A dazzling scene met her eyes, and she shaded them to dim the brilliance. Across a narrow expanse of blue water she could see a shoreline, but nothing like the bustling quayside at Piraeus. This shoreline possessed a small jetty only, while the cottages that nestled in the lee of a tall white cliff were pastel painted and quaint. The island rose verdantly to a tree-covered hinterland that was dark and startling against the cloudless sky. There was a predominance of colour, in the people, in the houses and in the vegetation.

  Wondering why no one had troubled to wake her, Joanne hastily sluiced her face in the basin of cold water she had been given the night before and ran a brush through her untidy hair. The previous evening she had changed into slacks and a blouse, adding a thick sweater for sleeping, and she had not undressed but had lain on the top of the narrow bunk. Now she was glad she had done so as she fumbled over thrusting her toiletries into a sponge bag.

  When she was ready she hastened up on deck with eager steps, the beauty of the morning temporarily banishing any anxieties that still remained. On deck the air was like wine and she breathed deeply, appreciating the tang of salt that mingled with the flavour of coffee brewing below decks.

  The Captain, a dour man of uncertain years, approached her. ‘Kalimera, Miss Nicolas,’ he nodded. ‘Ti kanete pos is the?’

  Joanne considered this, and then she said, carefully: ‘Den Katalaveno!’ and shook her head apologetically.

  The Captain nodded pleasantly. ‘No Greek,’ he said in a heavily accented voice.

  ‘No,’ Joanne smiled. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No matter.’ He shrugged. ‘You are early.’ He pointed expressively to his watch.

  Joanne glanced at it and then gasped. It was barely six-thirty. No wonder no one had wakened her! Pointing to the island, she said: ‘Is that Dionysius?’

  The Captain nodded again. It seemed the usual thing for him to do. Extracting a rather smelly pipe from his pocket, he clamped it between his teeth and said: ‘Your father is Matthieu Nicolas?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Joanne smiled.

  Now the Captain shook his head, as he began to light his pipe. ‘Kyrie Nicolas is a sick man,’ he said heavily.

  ‘I know.’ Joanne gripped the ship’s rail tightly with her fingers. ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘Some,’ replied the Captain non-committally. Then he shouted one of his men and when the man appeared at the head of the stairway leading down to the lower deck he gave him an order.

  As Joanne couldn’t understand a word of their swift patois, she contented herself with gazing across the blue water to the beauty of the island shimmering in the early morning sunlight.

  A few moments later, the seaman returned with a tray containing a jug of coffee and two mugs. The Captain offered some to Joanne and she accepted eagerly, standing sipping the strong beverage and savouring the anticipation of the day ahead.

  When she would have no more coffee, the Captain said: ‘Do you wish to go ashore now, or will you wait until later? There may be no one to meet you.’

  Joanne shrugged and then, unable to suppress her excitement, said: ‘May I go now?’

  ‘Of course.’ The captain turned away to make the necessary arrangements, and a few minutes later her cases were brought on deck. She said good-bye to the Captain, climbed down into the dinghy and waved as they began to cover the expanse of water between the ship and the island.

  There were fishing nets on the jetty and yachts and sailing craft nearby. But as they neared land Joanne could see few people about, and she half wished she had remained on the steamer. Then she chided herself. Naturally no one would expect her to arrive so early. She shrugged rather philosophically. She was here now and she might as well make the best of it. The seaman helped her on to the jetty, handed up her cases, and then departed again for the steamer. Obviously she was the only passenger for Dionysius and no doubt they could now get underweigh seeing that she had disembarked.

  Leaving her cases, she walked to the end of the jetty, looking about her with interest. Those people that were about eyed her rather curiously, but no one attempted to speak to her. She sighed. Unless she intended hanging about until someone came down to meet her she would have to ask the way to her father’s house.

  But unfortunately, when she attempted to inquire her whereabouts she merely received some apologetic shakes of the head, and it was obvious that no one understood what she wanted. Their patois too bore no resemblance to the textbook Greek she had been studying at home in England since she had first decided to come to Greece, and not even her efforts at simple phrases seemed to arouse any understanding. They probably thought she was a tourist, come ashore for some local colour, she thought cynically.

  Putting her phrase book away, she bit her lip. Around the small harbourage there were some stores and tavernas, but as yet they were not open. None of the islanders attempted to offer her any assistance and she was beginning to feel quite desperate when she heard the sound of a vehicle approaching. She watched a Land Rover turn on to the quayside and saw a young man vault from his seat and come striding towards her. There was something familiar about the set of his shoulders and the lean grace of his movements, but that was ridiculous really, she kn
ew no one here.

  He smiled as he reached her and said: ‘You must be Miss Joanne Nicolas,’ in perfect English.

  Joanne relaxed with relief. ‘Thank heavens you’ve arrived,’ she exclaimed. ‘I was beginning to think I would have to walk to my father’s villa.’

  The young man glanced round, and then frowned. ‘It’s early yet. I gather no one has come for you.’

  ‘No.’ Joanne frowned. ‘You mean - you haven’t either?’ Her disappointment was obvious.

  He grinned. ‘Don’t look so alarmed, I’ll take you up to the house, but to answer your question, no, I didn’t actually come for you.’

  Joanne sighed. ‘I’m much too early, of course, but I couldn’t wait on the steamer.’ She indicated the vessel that was still anchored some distance out from the island. Then she studied him: ‘Who are you? Do you work for my father?’

  The young man shook his head. ‘No, I don’t work for your father. My name is Constantine Kastro.’

  Kastro! Joanne’s eyes widened. Of course, that was why she had thought there was something familiar about him. He was a younger edition of Dimitri! A thought struck her suddenly. In all her conversations with Dimitri she had never discovered whether or not he was married. Somehow she had imagined from his attitude that he could not be, yet this boy was so like him; he could be his ... son! Her heart plunged.

  ‘You - you are some relation to - to Dimitri?’ she suggested rather faintly.