Beneath the Cypress Tree Read online

  ‘I’m not going to a function, Sholto. I’m meeting up with two college friends.’

  ‘Then why the devil are we not now in the South of France? If it’s only a lunch with friends you’re going to, surely it wouldn’t have mattered if you hadn’t turned up?’

  ‘It would have mattered to me.’

  They’d reached the wooden building now and, not knowing whether her attitude amused or annoyed him, she saw him open the door.

  ‘I’ll stay out here,’ she said. ‘Will you please tell the cab company it’s an emergency?’

  The door swung shut behind him and she took a cigarette case and lighter from her shoulder-bag. Although Sholto hadn’t said so specifically, he’d strongly indicated that he intended meeting up with her when her reunion with Kate and Ella was over, which was fine by her.

  She lit her cigarette, wondering if the evening would then be spent at Blenheim. As the present duke was middle-aged and had a young family, she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. It could make for a tedious evening. What would be preferable would be if they flew back across the Channel, and Sholto followed up with his first suggestion of flying down to Monte Carlo together.

  A few minutes later the door opened and he rejoined her, saying, ‘The cab will be ten minutes, maybe less.’

  Knowing that he hadn’t taken kindly to her preferring lunch with college friends to their spending time in the Mediterranean sun, Daphne shot him a conciliatory smile. ‘Cigarette?’ she asked, reaching into her bag.

  She was smoking a Sobranie and he shook his head. ‘Thanks, but no thanks.’

  He took a cigarette case out of his inside jacket pocket. ‘Who are your friends?’ he asked, removing a cigarillo from it. ‘Who are their people?’

  Laughter rose in Daphne’s throat.

  ‘Kate’s family home is Canterbury,’ she said, enjoying herself hugely. ‘Her surname is Shelton. Ella is a Tetley. Her family home is Wilsden, in Yorkshire.’

  Sholto blew a plume of blue smoke into the air. ‘Shelton? Are they a branch of the Fox-Strangways?’

  ‘No.’ With growing amusement, Daphne waited for him to move on to Ella’s surname.

  Aware that he was now taking part in some kind of quiz, Sholto obliged her by saying, ‘You’re right in thinking I’m not familiar with the Tetleys. I’m assuming the family is the northern brewing family? Does Wilsden have good shooting?’

  ‘Wilsden isn’t an estate. It’s a village on the outskirts of Bradford. And Ella’s family has no connection at all with the brewing family, although her father and grandfather enjoy a pint of Tetley’s at the local pub, given the chance.’

  He laughed. ‘Okay. I walked straight into that one. I suppose you’re going to tell me Ella’s father and grandfather are coal-miners.’

  ‘I’m not sure there is any mining in that part of Yorkshire. Alfred Tetley, Ella’s father, is a mill worker. A weaver. As is Ella’s mother. Her grandfather used to be Wilsden’s rag-and-bone man.’

  Sholto said, vastly amused, ‘How did you fall in with such a colourful crew?’

  ‘Ella is a grammar-school girl who won a scholarship to St Hugh’s – and, before you think any differently, there’s nothing of the social climber about Ella. She makes friends with people she likes, and not for any other reason.’

  Looking at her cameo-like profile and fashionable bob of ivory-pale hair, Sholto experienced a sharp stab of danger. All he had intended was a few fun-filled days with a girl he found stunningly beautiful and who was, for such a young woman, remarkably sophisticated and worldly. She hadn’t, for instance, made any protest at all when he had suggested they spend time in Monte Carlo getting to know each other better. How the devil she would have accounted for leaving Paris – where she’d been staying with the Seeleys – for Monte Carlo, he had no idea. He could only assume she was well practised in living a private life that her parents were oblivious of.

  What he hadn’t intended was embarking on a serious relationship. He was already in one of those with Francine, Miranda’s mother, and had been for the last four years. Francine was eight years older than he was. She was very French, very elegant and, best of all, safely married to a man who, with a mistress of his own, had no intention of causing waves.

  Daphne was eight years his junior, heart-stopping to look at and very clearly a loose cannon; and for a man in the diplomatic service, loose cannons were best avoided. Most disconcerting of all, she was single and – even for the daughter of an earl – he knew himself to be a very good catch, in the marriage stakes.

  He chewed the corner of his lip. That was, of course, if he allowed himself to be caught.

  Having decided that as he now knew all the dangers, there was no danger, he pulled her tightly against him.

  ‘What explanation will you give for Monte Carlo?’ he asked, knowing that when Francine heard of it, it would be payback for the way she’d so casually told him at the birthday party that she’d once had an affair with his father.

  Uncaring that they could be seen from the windows of the building, Daphne pressed herself closer than ever against Sholto and slid her arms up and around his neck.

  ‘I don’t have to give any explanation. I’m twenty-two, not twelve, and I don’t live at home. I share a flat in Kensington with Lord Crailsford’s daughter.’

  Her lips were only a tantalizing couple of inches away from his, but he resisted the temptation to kiss her in front of what he knew was an audience.

  ‘Was Sandy Crailsford at St Hugh’s with you?’

  ‘Heavens, no. Sandy would think three years at Oxford a complete waste of her time. She went to a finishing school in Switzerland and was Tatler magazine’s debutante of the year two years ago.’

  It occurred to him to wonder what kind of a degree Daphne had left Oxford with. Out of the corner of his eye he could see a cab turning in, by the sign that declared visitors were entering what would one day be a municipal airport.

  ‘What did you read at Oxford? Art history?’

  It was a safe enough guess and his attention was elsewhere; specifically on how he was going to hide his erection, once Daphne stepped away from him to enter the cab.

  ‘No,’ she said, enjoying the surprise she was about to deal him. ‘Classics.’

  He forgot about the fast-approaching cab and his erection. His eyebrows shot nearly into his hair. ‘But you have to be fully competent in Greek and Latin for a Classics degree!’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, her smile dazzling. ‘And I am.’

  Then, as she finally accepted that he wasn’t going to kiss her in front of prurient eyes, and as the cab came to a halt beside them, she took the initiative and kissed him full on the mouth.

  It was an action that did nothing at all to minimize his arousal.

  The cab driver opened the rear passenger door of the cab and cleared his throat.

  Daphne headed towards him.

  Sholto, stunned at the realization that he’d met a woman whose educational achievements were equal to his own, followed her, carrying her Louis Vuitton weekend case at what was a useful, if awkward angle.

  Chapter Four

  The port of Piraeus was busy and chaotic as, in deepening dusk, Kate made her way down the dockside towards the Theseus, which was to take her on an overnight crossing to Heraklion. It was only five days since she had made the decision that she was going to Crete, with or without an invitation and a job waiting for her, and in those five days she’d scarcely had time to draw breath.

  There had been rail tickets through France and the length of Italy to arrange; passage on the Brindisi–Piraeus steamer, and on the steamer she was about to board. Packing had been easy. Even though she intended her stay in Crete to be a long one, she was travelling light and the clothes she had packed were those suitable for working on a dig in a hot climate – shorts and cotton skirts and blouses and, for evening meals at the Villa Ariadne, a couple of pretty cotton dresses. What hadn’t been easy was persuading her parents that she w
asn’t acting rashly.

  ‘You’re leaving for Crete on Thursday?’ her mother had said, bewildered. ‘But why, darling?’

  ‘To see Kit and, hopefully, to be taken on as a member of his excavation team,’ she’d said, avoiding her father’s eye.

  Her father had put his pipe down and had said in measured tones, ‘I didn’t realize you’d had confirmation from Kit about a place on his team.’

  ‘I haven’t had official confirmation, but that would simply be a formality,’ she’d said, uncomfortably aware that Kit would view the matter rather differently. ‘You know how long the mail takes, Daddy. I dare say there’s a letter somewhere in the post urging me to leave immediately for Knossos. My arriving there in three days’ time will be a nice surprise for him.’

  ‘If it isn’t, you are to come straight back to England,’ her father had said. ‘You are not to make a nuisance of yourself to Kit. It wouldn’t be fair to him. Do I have your promise on that, Kate?’

  ‘Of course!’ she’d said indignantly, not promising that if there wasn’t a job for her, she would come straight back to England, and hoping her father wouldn’t notice the omission.

  To her vast relief, he hadn’t.

  News of what she intended doing had been greeted with far more enthusiasm by Ella and Daphne.

  ‘Go for it, Kate,’ Daphne had said, raising a glass to her in The Chequers, a five-hundred-year-old pub in Oxford’s High Street.

  ‘That’s wonderful news!’ Ella’s delicately boned face had shone with delight. ‘It means you’ll be at Knossos on the anniversary of the dedication of Sir Arthur Evans’s bust, in the Palace of Minos’s courtyard. I read in the Archaeological Society’s magazine that he intends being there for it. Wouldn’t it be marvellous if you were to be introduced to him?’

  Thinking about the possibility, as she followed a steward down the companionway to a cabin, Kate’s stomach muscles tightened. To be introduced to the great Sir Arthur Evans at the world-famous site he had excavated would be the experience of a lifetime. As she walked into a tiny cabin, which contained a bunk, a porthole, a cracked and stained washbasin and nothing else, another thought struck her. If Sir Arthur was expected at the Villa within the next week or so, then she might not be able to stay there. It was also possible that her arrival at such a time would exasperate Kit to such an extent that he would be in no mood to look kindly on her reason for being there.

  Being negative wasn’t in her nature, and deciding that any problems she met were problems she would overcome, she stowed her luggage away and hurried back on deck in order to be in a good position by the rails when, as they left port, mainland Greece began sliding from view.

  Half an hour later and by the light of a rising moon, it did so magnificently. In the distance there was a romantic glimpse of the Parthenon, standing high above Athens in ghostly-white splendour.

  She hugged her arms against the chill of the night breeze, wishing she had someone to share the romance of the moment with. Although she’d had boyfriends at Oxford and had indulged in a whole shoal of flirtations, she’d never yet been head-over-heels in love and had never indulged in the kind of full-blown relationship that Daphne had, yet again, seemingly embarked upon.

  ‘Sholto is quite a dish,’ Daphne had said, over the champagne they were celebrating their reunion with, ‘and though he’s a diplomat, he’s not at all stuffy. Rather the reverse. I think the next few weeks are going to be fun.’

  ‘A few weeks?’ Ella had raised her eyebrows. ‘That would mean him lasting longer than most. You were mad about Teddy Rowbotham-Smythe, and you were bored to death by him in less than a month.’

  ‘Teddy thought a pottery sherd was something new by Royal Doulton. Sholto does at least have brains.’

  ‘And an aeroplane,’ Kate had added drily.

  Their laughter had turned the heads of everyone seated near to them.

  Thinking of that moment now, Kate smiled. It had been wonderful spending time with Daphne and Ella again. The only flaw had been that their enjoyment of each other’s company had been so short. By the time they had finished lunch, caught up on each other’s news, walked down the High Street to the bridge, hired a punt, spent a pleasurable couple of hours on the river and enjoyed an early evening glass of wine in The Boar, another of their favourite pubs, it had been time to take Ella to the train station.

  ‘Are you being met at the other end?’ Kate had asked her, aware that it was going to be midnight when the train arrived in Bradford.

  ‘Yes.’ Ella had hitched her shoulder-bag a little higher on her shoulder. ‘Sam is meeting me.’

  Kate had exchanged a quick glance with Daphne. Neither of them had met Sam, but Ella had spoken of him often enough for them to have formed the opinion that his and Ella’s friendship was a romance in the making.

  Before she had stepped on to the train, Ella had said to her, ‘If you get taken on as a team member at a Knossos tomb dig, put in a word for me. I’ve a job waiting for me on a Roman dig in Somerset, but I’d far rather be part of a Cretan Bronze Age team.’

  ‘I promise,’ she had said and, wanting Ella’s companionship on a dig just as much as Ella wanted hers, the promise was one she intended keeping.

  With mainland Greece no longer discernible in the darkness and the chill breeze now ice-cold, Kate gave the heaving waves a last look and began making her way back to her cabin.

  Twenty minutes later she was lying in her bunk, euphoric that she would be at Knossos in the morning and, with luck, would soon be a member of one of the outlying digs.

  The crossing to Crete was nearly always turbulent, and as the Theseus pitched and rolled she closed her eyes in an effort to sleep through the unpleasantness. Her dreams, when they came, were not of retrieving precious artefacts buried for thousands of years. Instead, they were of a man with hair as thick and curly as a ram’s fleece, and of a girl she had never met; a girl recognizable to her only because her hands were across her mouth, smothering her laughter – laughter that, for some indecipherable reason, Kate was sure had been at her expense.

  ‘Taxi, Kyria! Taxi here! Taxi!’

  The shouts by drivers trying to attract her attention came from all sides and, attempting to remember if Kyria meant ‘Lady’ or ‘Miss’, Kate good-naturedly ignored them and, having no need of help with her suitcase, crossed the road to where the buses left for Knossos. There were a cluster of tourists at the bus stop and she joined them, aware that as it was a Sunday the wait could possibly be a long one.

  It wasn’t.

  Fifteen minutes later she was not only aboard a bus, but the vehicle was already rumbling through Heraklion’s outskirts. Watching a grubby-faced urchin on a bicycle trying to keep up with them, she wondered if Kit would be at the Villa when she arrived. She hoped he would, because otherwise she would have to explain her arrival to Mrs Hutchinson or, trickier still, to the Squire.

  Now they were clear of Heraklion, flat fields were giving way to arid hills hazed with lavender and dotted with Judas trees. Blue sage and pale-lilac mallow grew thickly at the roadside, and beyond the village of Fortetsa she had her first glimpse of wild tulips. Spectacular as the blaze of flowers was, Kate’s mind wasn’t on them. Now that she was almost at Knossos, she was belatedly wondering what kind of a reception she was going to get.

  Initially, of course, Kit’s reaction would be one of total surprise, but what would it be when she told him she wasn’t in Crete for a few days’ unexpected holiday? That she was there in the expectation of being employed as a member of his excavation team? The two of them had always had a good relationship, but he was five years her senior and those five years meant there had always been a certain constraint between them.

  When she had been at junior school in Canterbury, Kit had been at Harrow. Even during vacations the five-year difference meant they had spent little time together. Kit hadn’t wanted her trailing at his heels, and so Kate hadn’t trailed. He’d had his friends, and she’d had hers. There were
times when she’d even thought he would have preferred it if she had chosen a different subject at university, rather than following in his footsteps by studying archaeology, and though he could surely have arranged for her to come out to Crete as a member of his team the instant she’d asked it of him, he hadn’t done so. That being the case, it wasn’t very likely he was going to be over the moon at her unexpected arrival.

  ‘Knossos!’ the driver shouted, breaking into her thoughts. ‘Knossos.’

  The tourists picked up rucksacks and guidebooks and thronged to the front of the bus. Kate, hampered by her suitcase, brought up the rear. Once off the bus, she didn’t follow everyone else towards the sandy path that led through trees to the ticket booth and the huge area of the excavated palace. Instead she walked fifty yards or so back down the road, until she came to the Villa Ariadne’s lodge gates.

  The lodge keeper nodded his head in recognition and Kate continued up the familiar path and through the gate leading into Sir Arthur Evans’s stylized Greek-Edwardian garden. Large palm trees gave it shade. Pomegranate flowers gleamed a silky scarlet. Flanking a wrought-iron seat were terracotta pots massed with blue irises. Even though it was Sunday and she doubted if anyone would be working on the outlying sites, there was no one about, nor could she hear the distant sound of talking.

  In the hot stillness she walked up the flight of wide stone steps leading to a door that she remembered always being open, and which was now ominously closed. Putting her suitcase down, she took a deep breath and, fiercely hoping for the best, dropped a bull-headed knocker against the door.

  It was opened by a maid she had never seen before.

  Whenever she had thought of this moment, she had always imagined herself speaking to someone who knew her, and knew of her relationship to Kit. Now, faced with someone who didn’t, it suddenly felt bad manners to be asking for Kit before she had met up with Mrs Hutchinson or the Squire.

  ‘Mrs Hutchinson, please,’ she said, trying to sound certain of her welcome.