Beneath the Cypress Tree Read online

  Her father made a right turn towards the station car park.

  ‘Then not the British Museum,’ he said, bringing the Riley to a halt and switching off the engine, ‘but what about the museum here in Canterbury? Or a museum somewhere else locally?’

  ‘I wouldn’t stand a chance and even if, in another dozen years or so I did, curatorship doesn’t interest me.’

  He looked so disappointed that she kissed him on the cheek. ‘Darling Daddy,’ she said gently, ‘it’s very sweet of you to try and be so helpful, but there’s absolutely no need for you to worry about me – my plans are already made.’

  He drew breath to make a concerned response and, before he could do so, she stepped out of the car, saying firmly before closing the car door, ‘I want to specialize in Bronze Age Greek pottery, and with Kit’s help I’m going to do so, and I’m going to do so in Crete.’

  With her bombshell dropped, she waved him goodbye and strode swiftly into the station, knowing guiltily that she had made it sound as if Kit securing her a place on his team in Crete was a done deal, when all he had actually said was: ‘I’ll give it some thought, Sis, but it’s a bit too much like nepotism for comfort and I’m not promising anything.’

  Kate hadn’t cared about the nepotism. On his retirement Sir Arthur Evans had handed the Knossos site over to the British School of Archaeology. As a postgraduate of the school, she was a legitimate candidate for a place on one of the tomb digs and her hopes were high.

  It was early April and a new season of excavation work wasn’t due to start until mid-May. She had dug her nails into the palms of her hands. She had to be on one of the digs. She had to be.

  Even before her year in Athens she’d set her sights on working in Greece, and preferably in Crete. It would have been hard not to have had Crete at the forefront of her mind, when Kit was there and he had such wonderful contacts. It was her year in Athens, though, that had turned Greece from being a rational choice of country in which to look for work into being the only country in which she wanted to work, for from the moment she had arrived in Greece, she had fallen in love with it.

  The British School was on the city’s outskirts. Trams ran down the steep streets into the centre of Athens, but as they were always uncomfortably crowded she had got into the habit of walking everywhere. Walking was never boring. In Greece, life took place in the open air and there had always been something interesting to see. Women did household tasks in the doorways of their homes: peeling potatoes, shelling peas, sewing and darning. Closer to the city centre, shop frontages opened on to the street, so that in barber shops it seemed as if men were being shaved and having their hair cut on the pavement. At outdoor cafes men sat over glasses of ouzo, watching her with curious eyes.

  Kate understood the curiosity. Long years of political chaos in Greece meant there were fewer tourists in Athens than at other classical sites in Europe; and her clothes, and the fact that she was taller than most Greek women, meant that she stood out distinctively.

  In the heart of the city the hustle and bustle was incredible, and she had loved feeling a part of it. At the end of almost every turning there was a view of the Acropolis and whenever she wasn’t in class, or working on an essay, she had climbed up to it, spending hour after hour making notes and taking photographs and then, totally exhausted, sitting on the steps of the Parthenon, looking out in blissful contentment over the sun-glazed city towards the sea.

  During the long midsummer vacation she hadn’t returned home. Instead she had made the seven-hour crossing from Piraeus to Crete and spent the hottest weeks of the summer at Knossos with Kit. She had arrived at the end of one excavating season and before the beginning of the next one; and Kit, who was taking advantage of the break between seasons to work on a book, had not had much time to give her.

  It hadn’t mattered. The curator at Knossos, Mr Hutchinson – known to everyone as the Squire – had made her very welcome, as had his elderly mother, who acted as his housekeeper. Also in residence at the Villa Ariadne were a handful of students and she’d joined them under the supervision of their professor in sorting excavated pottery sherds. Other days she’d visited the remains of two smaller Minoan palaces at Phaistos and Mallia, and she’d spent hours and hours in the museum at Heraklion.

  An archaeologist who didn’t stay at the Villa Ariadne, but who occasionally joined them for dinner, was Lewis Sinclair, a Scot from Sutherland. He was excavating on a site some twenty miles south-west of Knossos where, eight years earlier, a shepherd boy had unearthed a gold Minoan hair comb.

  At the dining table Professor Cottingley had said bluntly that he thought Lewis Sinclair was wasting his time.

  ‘The geographical position is all wrong,’ he’d said, helping himself to moussaka. ‘It has no strategic importance. It doesn’t overlook a plain, as Phaistos does, nor does it look out to sea and have the convenience of a nearby harbour, as Mallia does. The hair-comb find was a fluke, nothing more.’

  ‘I disagree.’ Lewis Sinclair had been flatly dismissive.

  Professor Cottingley hadn’t allowed the subject to drop and had proceeded to list lots of other reasons why Lewis’s excavation work would, in his opinion, yield nothing.

  Lewis Sinclair had listened stony-faced, a nerve throbbing at the corner of his jaw indicating how unhappy he was at having his judgement publicly doubted, especially when the doubter was someone so eminent.

  The Squire had turned the conversation to other things and although Kate had tried hard to concentrate on what was being said, her attention had kept straying in Lewis Sinclair’s direction. Like Kit, he was in his late twenties, but unlike Kit he wasn’t academic-looking, nor did he look remotely Scottish. His hair was dark and as thick and curly as a Greek’s, and his skin was tanned from years of working outdoors beneath a hot sun.

  There was always a nod towards formality at the Villa and the men were all wearing jackets, shirts and ties. Lewis Sinclair’s jacket was of cream linen and he had long ago dragged his tie loose and opened his shirt at the throat. He was not very tall, an inch or two under six foot, but he was toughly built, and when he moved it was with the kind of easy strength more typical of a champion boxer than a classicist obsessed with Minoan history.

  From the moment she had first been introduced to him, Kate had found him devastatingly attractive. His manner, though, had been off-putting.

  After dinner when, with everyone else, they were seated outside on the terrace, she had asked him under whose authority and whose funding the dig that he was director of was being carried out.

  ‘It’s taking place under Greek government authority,’ he had said, a glass of raki in one hand, a half-smoked cigarette in the other, ‘and it’s privately sponsored,’ he had added, his voice unnecessarily curt.

  She’d been about to ask what kind of a team he had assembled and if there was room on it for another member when, from the garden, there came the sound of a gate creaking. Abruptly he had put his glass down and risen to his feet.

  ‘Excuse me,’ he’d said, without looking towards her. Dropping his cigarette to the ground, he’d crushed it beneath his heel and, without saying a word to anyone else seated on the terrace, had walked swiftly across it and down the steps that led into the unlit garden.

  Kate had stared after him, not knowing which emotion was uppermost: disbelief that he hadn’t had the manners to continue their conversation, or exasperation that she hadn’t had the chance to ask the question she’d been intending to ask.

  As everyone around her continued laughing and talking, she had risen to her feet and walked across to the top of the steps.

  ‘Careful, Kate,’ Kit had called across to her. ‘The paths down there are so uneven they’re only safe at night when the lanterns are lit.’

  She was appreciative of his warning, but it hadn’t been necessary, for she hadn’t had the slightest intention of following Lewis Sinclair into the garden. She had, though, been curious as to what had taken him there so abruptly.
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  A second later she’d found out.

  The conversation on the terrace had fallen into a lull and from the garden had come the sound of a girl’s hastily smothered laughter.

  On the terrace one of the students had sniggered.

  ‘I believe Sinclair has met up with a girl!’ Professor Cottingley had spluttered, outraged. ‘Surely the wall gate should be locked?’

  ‘Locked?’ the Squire had said vaguely, as if the concept of a locked gate was entirely new to him. ‘Oh, I think not, Cottingley. There’s absolutely no need, dear chap. And the girl will be Nikoleta, Christos Kourakis’s sister.’

  ‘Christos is Lewis’s site supervisor,’ Mrs Hutchinson had said helpfully. ‘The family live nearby and when Lewis visits Knossos, Nikoleta, who is seventeen and has a young girl’s crush on him, is never far away.’ She had been knitting and she laid her work down, saying reminiscently, ‘When I was her age I had a most desperate crush on the local vicar. Naturally he gave me no encouragement, just as Lewis gives Nikoleta no encouragement.’

  Professor Cottingley hadn’t looked convinced as to Lewis Sinclair’s lack of encouragement and, remembering the smothered laughter, Kate hadn’t been convinced, either.

  Comfortably seated on the London train now, and reflecting on her experiences of the last twelve months, she was more relieved than disappointed by Lewis Sinclair’s lack of interest in her. If he’d been interested in her, he would have offered her a place on his team and then Kit would be making no effort to secure her a place on the dig on which he was field director. On her CV the name Knossos would be a thousand times more impressive than Lewis Sinclair’s dig – especially if Professor Cottingley was right and that dig proved to be void, with nothing of Minoan value found there.

  As the train sped through the Kentish countryside she couldn’t help but think how wonderful the Cretan countryside would be looking. ‘The wild flowers,’ Mrs Hutchinson had said to her, ‘are at their best in April. All over the island the air is full of the scent of lemon blossom and jasmine, and there are great swathes of achingly beautiful wild tulips.’

  Determination flooded through her. Kit may not yet have secured her a place on one of the tomb digs, but she was going to return to Crete anyway. She was going to see the wild tulips before their flowering time was over, and if Kit didn’t organize a place for her on one of the digs, then she was sure the kindly Mr Hutchinson would.

  Chapter Three

  Daphne St Maur was high above the English Channel in a two-seater plane being piloted by a man she had met only thirty-six hours earlier.

  ‘This is spiffing!’ she shouted from behind him, ‘How long would it take me to get a pilot’s licence?’ Above the roar of the engine, Sholto Hertford shouted back, ‘I’ve heard about your car-driving, Daphne! You don’t stand a hope of ever getting a pilot’s licence.’

  Only the thought that if she jolted him he might lose control of the plane and send it into a spin prevented Daphne from punching him hard on the shoulder. Instead, she laughed, knowing she could achieve anything she wanted, if she set her mind to it. At the moment she rather thought she wanted Sholto Hertford.

  They had met at a twenty-first birthday party that had taken place in Paris. Daphne had struck up a friendship with Miranda Seeley, whose birthday it was, when the two of them had been next to each other in line, on being presented to King George and Queen Mary. Sholto, twenty-eight and a diplomat at the Foreign Office, was a family friend of Miranda’s French-born mother.

  That he was older than her usual run of boyfriends was, for Daphne, a point in his favour. Other points in his favour were that his light-brown hair wasn’t heavily brilliantined to a glassy shine and that he wore it longer than was normal for men of his class and profession. To Daphne, it indicated a strong bohemian streak – and she liked people who weren’t afraid of breaking a few of society’s rules.

  ‘Sholto Hertford,’ he’d said, handing her a glass of champagne. ‘I don’t believe we’ve met.’

  ‘Daphne St Maur,’ she’d said, liking the fact that he was over six foot tall and looked like a man who could take care of himself in a crisis.

  ‘I don’t want to rush you,’ he’d said, indicating the champagne he’d just given her, ‘but would you like to dance?’

  The band was playing Cole Porter’s ‘Anything Goes’. Unhesitatingly Daphne had put the glass of champagne down.

  ‘I’d love to,’ she had said, and hadn’t been remotely surprised when, seconds later, she’d discovered that Sholto Hertford danced like a dream.

  Not too much later she’d discovered that he kissed like a dream, too.

  All in all, Daphne had counted the party a huge success and was glad she’d overcome her hesitation about attending it. The hesitation had been because of her long-standing arrangement to meet up in Oxford with Kate and Ella two days afterwards – which meant no enjoyable lingering in Paris, for she would need to cross the Channel again the next day, in order to drive from London to Oxford the following morning.

  This also meant she couldn’t now take Sholto Hertford up on his suggestion that they spend a few days together in Monte Carlo.

  ‘I can’t,’ she’d said, her head leaning against his chest. ‘I have to travel back to London to be at an engagement in Oxford the day after.’

  ‘Cancel Oxford,’ he’d said in a deep, rich voice that made her dizzy with desire.

  She’d pulled away from him a little. ‘I can’t. Sorry, but there it is. I need to be on the boat train tomorrow evening at the very latest.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’

  For a second she’d thought he was going to spoil everything by proving himself to be the kind of man who expected a woman to fall in with his every wish and always overrode any objections to the contrary. If he was, then despite the spine-tingling kisses, she was going to walk away from him very smartly.

  ‘You don’t,’ he had continued, ‘because we can spend all day together. It’s four in the morning, in case you hadn’t noticed, and tomorrow morning I can have you in Oxford for whatever the engagement is that is so important to you.’

  ‘It’s a lunch engagement, not a dinner engagement,’ she had said, ‘and I don’t fancy a crack-of-dawn Channel crossing and then a rushed dash to Oxford, without having had the chance to change clothes.’

  He’d quirked an eyebrow and for the first time she’d noticed that his grey eyes had flecks of gold in the iris. ‘I flew myself here,’ he’d said. ‘And I can fly you back to Oxford tomorrow morning in time for lunch.’

  ‘Wonderful.’ She’d stepped back into the circle of his arms, saying in blissful contentment, ‘I knew you were a man who could handle a crisis.’

  The next morning at a late breakfast Miranda had said, ‘You made a killing last night, Daphne. Sholto never left your side. He’s scrumptious, isn’t he? And he’s a viscount. His father is the Marquess of Knotley. My mother once had an affair with Knotley.’ She’d collapsed into giggles. ‘Wouldn’t it be hysterical if Sholto was my half-brother? D’you think I should suggest it to him? D’you think we look at all alike?’

  ‘You’re five foot two,’ Daphne had said in response. ‘Sholto is six foot – probably an inch or two over. Your eyes are brown. His are grey. All in all, it isn’t very likely, is it? And no, I wouldn’t suggest it to him, although if you did, I rather think he’d take it in his stride.’

  As the white cliffs of Dover came into view, Sholto shouted over the wind and engine noise, ‘Marvellous sight, aren’t they? I never get tired of flying over them!’

  Daphne thought the cliffs spellbinding, especially when seen from a two-seater Leopard Moth. It occurred to her to wonder where they would land. She couldn’t think of an airport conveniently close to Oxford.

  ‘Where are we going to put down?’ she shouted. ‘It’s half-eleven. If you’re going to land near London, I’m going to be late!’

  ‘Don’t fuss,’ he shouted back. ‘We’re not going to land in London and you won�
��t be late.’

  Daphne looked out of the cockpit window. Below them were grassy fields with sheep grazing in them.

  ‘You’re not going to land in a field, are you? Because if you are, the farmer won’t like it! And what about the sheep? They aren’t going to be too happy.’

  He hadn’t answered, merely laughed, and twenty minutes later the plane banked, turning in a long, smooth curve as it began its descent. Below them, in the middle of a grand estate of rolling acres, Daphne saw what was perhaps the most magnificent stately home in England.

  ‘That’s Blenheim Palace!’ she shrieked. ‘You can’t land in front of it. You’ll be arrested. We’ll both be arrested!’

  He was too busy concentrating on what he was doing to answer her.

  Several minutes later, as the Leopard Moth rolled to a halt on a makeshift runway out of sight of the palace, Sholto said reassuringly, ‘A couple of farmers bought this land from the Blenheim estate a few months ago and they’re turning it into an aerodrome to service Oxford.’

  He opened the cockpit door, put a foot on one of the wing struts for balance and then jumped down on to grass.

  ‘So far things are pretty rough-and-ready,’ he continued, as she threw her weekend case down to him, ‘but it’s hellishly convenient when visiting Blenheim – which is what I shall be doing while you’re at your thrash.’

  As she jumped, he broke her fall by catching her in his arms, saying as he set her on her feet, ‘The duke is a friend of mine.’

  This came as no surprise to Daphne.

  He looked down at his watch, a lock of hair falling low over his forehead. ‘We’re tight for time, but we’ll be able to do it. Things are still pretty basic here, but there’s a phone in the office,’ he indicated a wooden building on the edge of the field, ‘and I’ll be able to ring for a cab.’

  ‘We’ll be able to do it?’

  ‘I thought I’d drop you off at your function.’