No Mistress But Love

‘Because you’re not a poor defenceless woman who’s been used as a poker chip—that’s why!’ she instantly obliged, anger flashing in her eyes as she spun round to face him. ‘You wouldn’t find it nearly amusing if you were me, I can assure you!’

The expression on his face proclaimed all too clearly his undoubted amusement and the struggle he was having concealing it, which made her suspect that her ‘poor defenceless woman’ claim might have been overdoing it a little.

‘If I happened to be you I suspect I’d be thanking my lucky stars I’d been won by a man with whom I’m so obviously sexually compatible.’

Lindy was stunned into stupefied silence…she couldn’t possibly have heard him correctly!

‘And I’d be shuddering at the thought of all the other men who could have won me—none of them, admittedly, as grossly disfigured as I am, but several of them old enough to be your grandfather.’

‘You liar! You——’ She bit back the words with a ferocity that could have amputated her tongue. She had just been about to let slip she knew it had been a game between himself and Tim alone!

‘You were saying?’ he drawled, the anger blazing in his eyes a startling contrast to the total lack of expression on his face.

‘I was saying you were a liar,’ croaked Lindy, suddenly very frightened. ‘You…you wouldn’t be thinking any of those things if you were me, you’d just be terrified and…and nervously exhausted,’ she finished off lamely.

‘I’d say you were the liar,’ he informed her in chillingly quiet tones, ‘because you’re not in the least terrified of me…something that could turn out to be a dangerous error of judgement on your part.’ He turned and walked to the door. ‘There are some matters I should like to discuss with you later, so I’ll have food brought up for us in half an hour and I shall expect you to join me then. There’s a bathroom leading off the dressing-room—and, if there’s anything you find you need, just ask and it will be provided.’

His head dropped in the most minimal of bows before he closed the door behind him.

That bow was typical of him, thought Lindy dazedly, taking leaden steps towards the bed; it was the sort of gesture that only the super-confident—and usually abundantly wealthy—could afford to make. In the lowly, a bow was an act of obeisance—in men such as Niko Leandros it was a none too subtle statement of their feelings of total superiority.

She gazed down at the bed, on which she had been about to sit, and decided its coverings were far too grand for such treatment; instead she made her way over to the dainty gondola chair in front of the dressing-table and sat down.

The sight of her own possessions neatly arranged before her sent a small frisson of alarmed awareness winging through her. She opened a couple of the drawers and again found her own possessions neatly stacked inside.

With a groaned sigh she propped her elbows on the dressing-table top, cupping her chin in her hands and gazing despondently at her reflection. Her hair was a mess, she noted half-heartedly—but the streaks of sun in it and the tan she had acquired definitely suited her, she realised with a twinge of surprise. She straightened, picking up a hairbrush and trying to bring some order to her hair.

Suddenly she flung down the hairbrush—was she completely out of her mind? She must be, to be sitting here, twittering away to herself about her appearance and behaving like some sort of concubine in a gilded cage. She shook her head furiously, as though trying to dispel the confusing mixture of emotions the very thought was evoking in her, then glanced down at her watch and leapt to her feet.

Niko Leandros might have a few matters to discuss with her—but so had she one or two she intended discussing with him!

She made a rapid examination of her surroundings and found her rather meagre wardrobe hung neatly away in a spacious dressing-room. What summer clothes she had were several years old and looking decidedly shapeless, but, having lent Tim all her money, she had had no option but to make do with them. She had actually had hopes of a shopping spree in Athens once he had paid her back, she reminded herself resentfully—a resentment that somehow struck her as peculiarly mild, given the mind-boggling thoroughness with which he had deceived her. Probably because she now had so much else to occupy her mind, she decided somewhat irrationally as she entered the bathroom.

Ruthlessly closing her mind to the breathtaking opulence of her surroundings as she took her bath, she concentrated on what she would say to Niko. It was pointless going over the top and frightening herself with thoughts of concubines, she told herself firmly. Moving her into his apartment like this obviously had to be some sort of warped joke on his part, she reasoned calmly—a joke directed at Tim, who was no longer around to respond to it.

‘…you’re not in the least terrified of me…something that could turn out to be a dangerous error of judgement on your part.’

With those words ringing in her ears, she leapt from the bath and began drying herself vigorously. And, despite the glow of warmth burnishing her skin, she felt herself shiver as she remembered Tim’s claim that Niko would be quite likely to have the pair of them slapped in gaol.

‘Damn you, Tim Russell!’ she groaned frustratedly into a huge, fluffy white towel.

The chances were that Tim had only said that to frighten her…and he had succeeded. And there was no getting away from the fact that Niko Leandros too had frightened her—something for which she should be thankful, because now there was no way she would be tempted to risk telling him the truth.

She entered the dressing-room, a luxury she had heard of but never before experienced, and began riffling through her clothes, vague plans beginning to form in her mind. She would simply suggest that, as Tim was gone…

‘For heaven’s sake, Lindy, you’re not supposed to know he’s gone!’ she groaned aloud. What she would simply suggest was that if he was right, and Tim had gone, she would work whatever notice was required of her and then return to England.

It was only when she had finished dressing that she became aware of the almost obsessive care she had taken over it—and it was an awareness that had an acutely depressing effect on her already flagging spirits.

She might as well accept the fact that she was attracted to Niko Leandros in a way she had never been attracted to any other man, she told herself despondently. And another fact she might as well face, she informed herself ruthlessly, was that, even had they met under the most ideal of circumstances, he wouldn’t have given her even so much as a passing glance.

Having notched the belt of her sea-blue dress as far as it would go, she then dragged her fingers angrily through her hair and undid all the painstaking taming to which she had so assiduously subjected it.

Niko was nowhere to be seen when she reached the drawing-room, and she was gazing anxiously around, wondering if the apartment included a dining-room, when he stepped through the gently billowing curtains now drawn across the balcony doors.

‘I usually eat outside,’ he announced, his eyes flickering over her in a manner Lindy found deflatingly noncommittal.

And obviously he had no intention of making any concession to her preferences, she thought, having to force her legs to do the necessary to propel her across the room. Because her preference would have been to eat under the stars anyway she began dredging her mind for some other aspect of him with which to find fault…and came up with nothing. It was just that he was the most disgustingly attractive man imaginable, she admitted defeatedly, giving up refusing to acknowledge the painfully breathtaking surge of excitement that had started up in her at the mere sight of him and which seemed to be getting worse the nearer she drew to him.

‘I had no idea what you like to eat,’ he said, holding aside the curtain for her as she stepped out on to the balcony. ‘So I asked for a selection of dishes you’ve shown a preference for to be sent up.’

He drew out a chair, on which Lindy seated herself with all the aplomb she could muster—which was precious little, given that her every instinct was to cry out in childlike wonderment at the perfection of her surroundings.

The balcony was large and paved with jewel-like mosaics: huge earthenware and marble urns spilled out a profusion of flowering plants, the delicate scents of which had mingled to float in the air with a softly heady fragrance.

The white pedestal table at which she was seated was set for two, crystal wine goblets and heavy silver cutlery glittering and gleaming in the soft light cast by clusters of candles in marble holders of varying heights and positioned in such a way as to enable the two diners to face one another, unimpeded by their presence. To the side of the table was a white trolley, on which sat several silver-canopied dishes and a napkin-wrapped opened bottle of red wine.

‘The chef seemed to have no knowledge of your preferences in wine,’ he said, taking the seat opposite her, ‘so I selected something that should blend in with your culinary tastes…though I wouldn’t necessarily bet money on that,’ he murmured drily, reaching over and removing the covers from some of the dishes.

Unsettled by his tone, Lindy glanced nervously across the table at him. He was laughing at her, she thought uncomfortably, suddenly acutely conscious of how completely out of her depth she was in such exotic surroundings and in such sophisticated company.

‘It’s just that you have such…how can I put it?…unusual tastes in Greek food,’ he murmured, obviously having intercepted her look of discomfort and feeling obliged to offer a token panacea. ‘Anyway, do help yourself.’

Feeling about as at ease as a peasant might, having been invited to dine at a king’s table, Lindy helped herself to small portions from a few of the dishes. Her tastes in Greek food probably did add up to the equivalent of steak and kidney pie and custard, she thought self-consciously, but that was only because she had never had anyone to guide her. In a fit of petty vindictiveness soon after their arrival Tim had informed her she was not to mingle with the guests, so she had only twice eaten in the hotel’s superb dining-room. She had taken to selecting her meals from whatever took her fancy in the kitchen—the cosy, paternalistic chef giving her little tasters from one dish or another and often chuckling with undisguised mirth at the selections she made…had he been able to speak even a few words of English he would no doubt have explained what he had so frequently found amusing about her selections. Far from finding her ignorance amusing, Niko Leandros plainly found it repellently primitive!

‘I’m sorry—I’ve been unforgivably rude,’ he said, cutting across her mortified thoughts and startling her with the genuine contrition in his tone. ‘Greek food isn’t necessarily to everyone’s taste.’

‘Oh, but I love it!’ exclaimed Lindy. ‘It’s just that…well, anyway…I enjoy the dishes I’ve tried very much.’

‘It’s just that what?’ he probed, frowning when she explained her sorties into the kitchen. ‘I can’t understand why you haven’t been eating in the dining-room,’ he said. ‘There you’d have been served conventionally balanced meals.’

‘I…I just preferred not to,’ she stammered.

Every time she opened her mouth she seemed to be stepping into a potential minefield, she thought wearily, wondering how long it would be before she tripped herself up irrevocably.

It wasn’t the most relaxed of meals she had ever participated in, and certainly not in the remotest way romantic, despite the fairy-tale surroundings and her princely companion…probably because of him, she thought morosely, for her Adonis of a companion had lapsed into a decidedly uncompanionable silence which had lasted throughout a meal patently not to his taste.

It was when two of the waiters arrived to clear things away and place a tray of coffee inside for them that Lindy began to see things with a troubling clarity. She began wondering what the waiters were making of all this—the manager nowhere to be seen, and his wife now ensconced in the private suite of a member of the Leandros family. The only shred of consolation she managed to derive from her tortured thoughts was that true friendship with any other member of staff had been denied her…and that was hardly any consolation at all, because all she wanted to do was curl up and die from the humiliation of it all.

‘Are you familiar with Greek coffee?’ he asked, having escorted her inside as the waiters had bustled out and now reaching over to pour the coffee.

Lindy nodded. ‘Though I’m afraid I learned the hard way,’ she admitted, remembering the mouthful of coffee grounds she had almost swallowed as she had attempted to drain that first cup she had sampled—needless to say, Tim hadn’t warned her and had been waiting for her to do just that.

He smiled as he handed her a cup, a smile that turned her heart over violently, then filled it with an aching sadness as it suddenly recognised this man’s total unattainability.

‘Mr Leandros——’ she broke off as he pulled a comically protesting face and felt the sadness embed itself deeper into her heart ‘—Niko,’ she conceded with the ghost of a smile, ‘if…if you’re right and Tim doesn’t show up——’

‘I’d say the likelihood of his showing up is extremely remote now—wouldn’t you?’ he enquired, his eyes, usually so alert and watchful, trained on the coffee-cup in his hand.