Sara Craven - Her Greek Groom

From now on, she promised herself, she’d confine her activities to the grounds of the Hellenic Imperial.

She’d limped on for another quarter of a mile when she heard the sound of a vehicle on the road behind her.

‘More dust,’ she muttered, dragging herself and the bicycle on to the stony verge.

A battered pick-up truck roared past, but not before Cressy had managed to catch a glimpse of the driver.

She said a despairing, ‘Oh, no—it can’t be…’ as the truck braked sharply and began to reverse back to where she was standing.

He said, ‘How good to meet again so soon. I did not expect it.’

She said crisply, ‘Nor I. You were on board a boat, kyrie. Now you’re driving a truck. What next, I wonder?’

‘Probably my own two feet, thespinis—like you.’ Draco slanted a smile at her through the open window. ‘Get in, and I will drive you back to the port.’

‘I’m enjoying the walk,’ Cressy said regally, and he sighed.

‘More lies, matia mou. When will you learn?’ He swung himself down from the truck, picked up the bicycle and tossed it onto a pile of sacks in the back of the vehicle, then gave Cressy a measuring look. ‘You wish to travel like that, or with me?’

Glaring at him, Cressy scrambled into the passenger seat. ‘Do you always get your own way?’

He shrugged. ‘Why not?’

She could think of a hundred reasons without repeating herself, but she said nothing, sitting beside him in mutinous silence as the pick-up lurched down the track.

At least he’d changed out of those appalling shorts, she thought, stealing a lightning glance from under her lashes. He was now wearing clean but faded jeans and a white shirt, open at the neck with the sleeves turned back over his tanned forearms. And he seemed to have shaved.

All ready for the evening conquests, no doubt.

After a while, he said, ‘You are not in a very good mood after your day on the beach.’

Cressy shrugged. ‘It started well,’ she said stonily. ‘Then went downhill fast.’

‘As you tried to do on Yannis’s bicycle?’ He was grinning. ‘Not wise.’

‘So I discovered,’ she admitted tautly. ‘Now all I want is to get back to Alakos.’

‘You don’t like my island?’

‘It isn’t that at all,’ she denied swiftly. ‘But I’m hot, dusty, and my hair’s full of salt. I need a shower, a cold drink and a meal.’

‘Katavaleno. I understand.’ He swerved to avoid a major pothole. ‘So, tell me what you think of Myros?’

‘I like what I’ve seen.’ Cressy paused. ‘But some of it seems to be cordoned off.’

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You have been to the north of the island. Some rich people have their houses there.’

‘They clearly like their privacy.’ She frowned. ‘Don’t the islanders mind?’

‘There is enough room for all of us.’ He shrugged. ‘If they wish to stay behind high walls, that is their problem.’

There was a silence, then he said, ‘When I saw you, you were limping. Why?’

Cressy fought back a gasp.

She said curtly, ‘You don’t miss much, do you? My foot’s a little sore, that’s all.’

‘You have sprained your ankle?’

‘No—nothing like that.’

‘What, then?’

Cressy hesitated. ‘It’s just a small blister.’ She forced a smile. ‘I seem to have lost the knack of walking.’

He nodded. ‘And also of living, I think.’

Cressy flushed. ‘So you keep saying. But it’s not true. I have a terrific life. I’m very successful, and very happy. And you have no right to imply otherwise,’ she added hotly. ‘You don’t know me, or anything about me.’

‘I am trying,’ he said. ‘But you don’t make it easy.’

‘Then perhaps you should take the hint,’ she flashed. ‘Find a more willing subject to analyse.’

She was suddenly thrown across the seat as Draco swung the wheel, turning his ramshackle vehicle on to the verge, where he stopped.

‘What are you doing?’ Cressy struggled to regain her balance, feeling her breath quicken as Draco turned slowly to face her.

‘You think you are unwilling?’ The agate eyes glittered at her. ‘But you are wrong. You are only unaware.’

He allowed that to sink in, nodding slightly at her indrawn breath, then went on, ‘As for the happiness and the success you speak of, I see no such things in you. A woman who is fulfilled has an inner light. Her eyes shine, her skin blooms. But when I look into your eyes I see sadness and fear, matia mou.’

He paused. ‘And not all high walls are made of stone. Remember that.’

Cressy’s back was rigid. She said raggedly, ‘I’m sure this chat-up line works with some people, but not with me, kyrie. You’re insolent, and arrogant, and I’d prefer to walk the rest of the way.’

Draco restarted the truck. ‘You will hurt no one but yourself, thespinis. And you will walk nowhere until that blister has received attention,’ he added curtly. ‘So don’t be a fool.’

She had never been so angry. She sat with her arms wrapped round her body, damming back the words of fury and condemnation that threatened to choke her. Fighting back tears, too, unexpected and inexplicable.

She didn’t move until the truck stopped outside Yannis’s taverna, and she turned to make a measured and final exit, only to find herself fighting with the recalcitrant door catch.

Draco had no such problems, she realised with gritted teeth as he jumped out of the driving seat and appeared beside her. In a second the door was open, and Cressy found herself being lifted out of the passenger side and carried round the side of the taverna to a flight of white-painted stone steps.

Gasping, she began to struggle, trying vainly to get her arms free so that she could hit him. ‘How dare you? You bastard. Put me down—put me down now.’

She saw Yannis in a doorway with a plump, pretty woman in a faded red dress standing beside him, their faces masks of astonishment. Heard Draco bark some kind of command in his own language as he started up the steps with Cressy still pinned helplessly against his chest.

The door at the top of the stairs was standing open, and Cressy was carried through it into a corridor lined by half a dozen doors in dark, carved wood.

Draco opened the nearest and shouldered his way in. It was a large room, its pale walls tinged with the glow of sunset from the half-open shutters at the window.

The floor was tiled and there was a chest of drawers, a clothes cupboard and a large bed covered in immaculate white linen, towards which she was being relentlessly carried.

And her anger gave way to swift, nerve-shredding panic.

As Draco put her down on the coverlet, she heard herself whisper, ‘No—please…’ and hated the note of pleading in her voice.

Draco straightened, his face cold, his mouth a thin line. ‘Do not insult me. I have told Maria to come to you. Now, wait there.’

As he reached the door, he was met by the plump woman carrying towels, a basket containing soap and shampoo, and, most welcome of all, a bottle of drinking water.

She rounded on Draco, her voice shrill and scolding, and he grinned down at her, lifting his hands in mock surrender as he went out, closing the door behind him.

Maria looked at Cressy, her dark eyes unwelcoming. She said in slow, strongly accented English, ‘Who are you, kyria, and what are you doing here?’

Cressy said wearily, ‘I don’t think I know any more.’ And at last her precarious self-control slipped, and she burst into a flood of tears.

SHE hadn’t intended it, but it was probably the best thing she could have done. Because next moment she’d been swept into Maria’s embrace and was being cooed at in Greek, while a surprisingly gentle hand stroked her hair.