A Darker God by Barbara Cleverly Read Free Book Online

expatriate society of Athens and planned to while away her summer co-directing the amateur dramatics. She would be deferred to, admired, consulted, busy: a personage on the Athenian scene. His wife wasn’t so happy to see Andrew whiling away his time on his other task: his true magnum opus.
    He calculated he’d be allowed a half an hour to settle, then she’d sidle in with a discreet cough, a placatory smile, and a bunch of flowers for his desk. She’d make a fuss over the placement of the wretched vase, taking care to cast her slanting glances over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of what he was writing. As a variation, she might flutter in with a cascade of apologies, hunting for her spectacles. And, sure enough, she’d find them in whatever improbable place she’d planted them the previous evening. But not today.
    With a grimace, he turned the key in the lock. He’d be made to pay for that defiant gesture later.
    He rebelled less frequently these days against the constant marital surveillance. But he’d played a trick on her last week. Maud knew he’d been in consultation with his man of law here in Athens. Such things always agitated her. On a sheet of his best writing paper, he’d written the address of his lawyer and followed it with a fanciful change to his will:
    Benedict—We spoke of this earlier. I’d like you now to recast my will as agreed, viz: All resources of which I die possessed to be divided between the Home for Lost Dogs, Battersea, London, and the British Museum
.
        Maud hated dogs and had had a row with the Director of the B.M. He’d left the paper for her to find.
    He’d regretted it. Schoolboy humour. Was this to be his last defence against the increasingly suspicious woman he’d married? Was this the pathetic depth to which she’d reduced him? Maud hadn’t been deceived or amused. She’d silently turned up the basilisk stare a notch and doubled her vigilance.
    At least the prospect of the forthcoming visit from her English cousin had raised her spirits. Maud was beginning to grow weary of Greece and talked more and more frequently of her longed-for return to London. The new arrival would provide someone fresh for her to show off to. Someone to hold handcuffed by her skeins of wretched knitting wool, a captive audience for her endless tittle-tattle. Andrew checked his watch. Oh, Lord! Had he left orders for someone to call him in good time to get out the Dodge and motor down to the port to meet the boat? He relaxed as he remembered leaving a note for the housekeeper the previous evening. For a moment he wondered about this London cousin he’d never met. Some mystery there. He’d been introduced to all Maud’s other sane and living relations: appalling chaps, every single one—fellows who had no interests other than golf and making money to spend on building villas next to golf courses in Surrey. If this unknown cousin (at least never spoken of by Maud until very recently) was considered less palatable even than those, then Andrew was in for a miserable summer. But Maud had hinted at some scandal … a court case narrowly avoided … change of scene an absolute requirement until the clouds blew away …Andrew grinned. A scallywag might at least enliven the scene. Ah, well—in the half-hour drive back from Piraeus they’d have time to get acquainted. For better or worse.
    A fly buzzed languorously and irritatingly in the quiet room. Merriman swatted it and walked over to the tall window to dispose of it. Always such a battle to get to the fresh air on the Continent! Impatiently, he dragged back the fine net curtains and opened the two glass panes, then threw back the shutters and stepped out onto the balcony. The temperature was still bearable but in an hour’s time it would be oppressive. For a moment, he longed for the cool silence of the London Library Reading Room. June. He wondered what the temperature was like over there and decided that the English were probably only