CHAPTER TWELVE
RHEA drove them back to the vineyard in the late afternoon. Surprisingly, Melissa had fallen asleep after lunch and although Helen would have woken her, Rhea had persuaded her to change her mind.
‘She’s tired,’ she said. ‘She’s had a strenuous morning. Let her rest.’
In the circumstances, Helen decided not to argue. And it was true, Melissa was probably worn out. But she suspected Rhea’s motives for wanting them to stay had more to do with wanting to know about her brother’s apparent interest in herself and what it might mean to his family.
Leaving her daughter drowsing in the shade of the terrace, Helen accepted Rhea’s invitation to walk with her in the gardens. Despite the bare hillside that fell away below the villa, within its walls someone had created an oasis of colour. Terraces of exotic blooms and flowering shrubs hid a tumbling waterfall, and on the lowest level a stone bench was set beneath an arching pergola that was covered with purple bougainvillea.
‘Shall we sit?’ suggested Rhea, but it was hardly a question. She seated herself without waiting for her guest’s acquiescence, and Helen had little choice but to join her.
‘So,’ Rhea continued, immediately getting to the point, ‘how long have you known my brother?’
Despite her suspicions, Helen was taken aback. ‘I—beg your pardon?’
Rhea arched a dark brow. ‘I asked how long—’
‘Yes, I know what you said.’ Helen took a moment to gather herself. ‘I—just wonder why you feel you have to ask such a question?’
‘Oh …’ Rhea was thoughtful. ‘Put it down to sibling curiosity. I can’t remember the last time Milos invited a woman to his home.’
‘He didn’t exactly invite me to his home.’
‘Oh, he did.’ Rhea was very sure of that. ‘I was left in no doubt that he wanted to talk to you. Alone.’
Helen felt the heat rising up her face. ‘Then why didn’t he invite me himself?’ she countered stiffly, and Rhea shrugged.
‘Perhaps he didn’t believe you’d accept his invitation.’
Helen tried to be dismissive. ‘I can’t believe that.’
‘Can’t you?’ Rhea’s eyes were almost as direct as her brother’s, which was disconcerting in itself. ‘Helen, I know my brother. I know him very well, actually. He was very definite about what he wanted me to do.’
‘Well, I’m sorry if you feel he was using you to get to me—’
‘I didn’t say that.’ Though they both knew she had. ‘I don’t want to offend you, Helen. I’d just like to know how the two of you met. That’s not so difficult to understand, is it?’
‘No.’ Helen moistened her lips. ‘But your brother’s a—a very attractive man, Rhea. I imagine he meets lots of women in the course of his travels.’
‘I imagine he does.’ Rhea sighed. ‘But Milos is not a—what is that word?—a womaniser, okhi? I think I can count on one hand the number of women he has introduced to me.’
Helen didn’t have an answer for that, so instead she decided to be honest. Well, as honest as it was necessary to be, anyway. ‘He—we—I met him—oh—’ she mustn’t be too definite ‘—perhaps a dozen years ago. In England.’
Rhea’s eyes widened. ‘Psemata? Really?’
‘Yes, really.’ Helen tried to sound casual about it. ‘My—er—my father had asked him to look me up.’
‘Katalava. I see.’ Rhea absorbed this with interest. ‘I wonder why he didn’t tell me that?’
‘I don’t suppose he considered it important.’
‘But—you must have been very young at that time.’
‘Not so young,’ said Helen, hurriedly trying to calculate how old she’d have been twelve years ago. ‘I—er—I was about twenty.’
‘Ah.’ Rhea’s eyebrows lifted even further, and Helen realised that by exaggerating her age, she had inadvertently given Rhea a reason to think there might have been more than friendship between them.
‘Anyway,’ she said, hoping to divert her, ‘I suppose you’d still have been in primary school then.’
‘I guess.’ But Rhea wasn’t interested in her own past now. ‘Imagine,’ she said reflectively. ‘You and Milos have known one another since almost before Melissa was born. Were you married when you met? Of course, you must have been.’
This was getting more and more complicated and Helen strove desperately for a lifeline. ‘You must love coming here,’ she said, gesturing at the view. ‘Who looks after the garden? Your mother?’
‘Hardly.’ Rhea giggled a little at that. ‘If you ever meet my mother you’ll understand how unlikely that scenario is. Athene is an ornament, not a worker. She considers giving my father five children was quite enough.’
Helen managed a polite smile and she was relieved when Rhea went on in a different vein. ‘But, yes, I do love coming here. It’s so much more appealing than the college apartment I share with a girlfriend in Athens.’
‘Oh, but surely you could—’
Helen broke off and Rhea finished the sentence for her. ‘Live at home?’ she queried. ‘Well, yes, I could. But I wanted to be independent. To prove I could—what do you say?—hack it, ne, with my fellow students? Unfortunately Papa was right. I would have been more comfortable living with them.’
‘So you come here when you can?’ Helen breathed a little more easily. ‘I don’t blame you. It’s very beautiful.’
‘You like it?’ Rhea stared at her and Helen could almost see the cogs of her brain turning.
‘Very much,’ she said.
Rhea frowned. ‘Melissa must just have been a baby when you met Milos,’ she said, returning to her previous theme, and Helen suppressed a groan.
‘I—suppose she must have been,’ she said, hating the lie, but unable to do anything about it. She got determinedly to her feet. ‘I really think we ought to be going now.’
Rhea squinted in the sunlight as she looked up at her. ‘I’ve embarrassed you.’
‘No.’ Helen spoke sharply. ‘Why—?’
‘Talking about Milos,’ broke in Rhea softly. ‘I get the feeling there was more to your relationship than just a casual encounter.’
‘You’re wrong.’ But Helen was breathing faster now and she knew the other girl had noticed.
‘I’m not suggesting you had an affair,’ Rhea continued lightly. ‘After all, you were married, as you say. But I know how attractive my brother is. And he was obviously quite—intrigued—by you.’
‘No.’
It was all Helen could think of, but Rhea wasn’t to be put off. ‘There is some history there, I know it,’ she said. ‘And if you will not tell me, then I will just have to ask Milos. Then pirazi, it doesn’t matter. Shall we go and see if Melissa is awake?’
Conversely, Helen was loath to leave the subject now. She dreaded to think what Milos would say if Rhea asked him how they’d met. And if he gave her different dates, she was bound to be suspicious. Oh, what a tangled web she’d woven for herself.
But there was nothing she could do or say to change things now and she was grateful that Melissa’s chatter meant there were no awkward silences on the journey