Sara Craven - Pagan Adversary

She made herself reach out and release the Yale knob and turn the handle.

There was a man outside, stockily built and swarthy in a chauffeur’s uniform, his cap under one arm, and accompanied by a middle-aged woman with greying black hair who looked nervous.

It was the woman who spoke. ‘Thespinis Masters—I am Yannina. I have come from Kyrios Marcos to fetch his nephew, the little Nicos.’ Her anxious expression splintered into a broad smile as she spied Nicky, who had relapsed into instant shyness at the sight of strangers and who was peering at them from behind Harriet’s skirt.

She crouched down, holding out her arms and murmuring encouragingly in Greek, and slowly Nicky edged towards her.

Harriet picked up his case and handed it to the chauffeur, who nodded respectfully to her.

‘Kyrios Marcos wishes to assure you that the boy will be returned to you on Sunday evening, not later than six o’clock,’ he said in careful heavily accented English.

‘Thank you.’ Harriet hesitated. ‘I—I thought he would be coming to fetch Nicky himself.’

The chauffeur looked surprised. ‘He is waiting below in the car, thespinis . If you have a message for him, I would be glad to convey it.’

Not, Harriet thought, the sort of message I have in mind. She forced a smile and shook her head, and stepped backward as Yannina took Nicky’s hand and began to lead him away. He looked back once and grinned and waved, and Harriet felt a lump rise in her throat as she shut the door between them.

This time, wild horses weren’t going to drag her to the window to watch them go.

So he’d decided to stay downstairs in the car, which was a delicate way of telling her not to read too much into a kiss. Had he sensed something in her untutored, unguarded response to what he would regard as quite a casual caress that had warned him it might be kinder to keep his distance?

The thought shamed her to the core. She felt sick and empty, and although she tried to blame this on Nicky’s carefree departure, she knew she was fooling herself.

The unpalatable truth she had to face was that every nerve, every pulse beat in her body had been counting away the hours, the minutes, the seconds before she saw Alex Marcos again. She knew too that the ache beginning inside her now was deeper and more wounding than mere disappointment or injured pride, and she remembered Manda’s warning, and was frightened.

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