Follow a Stranger by Charlotte Lamb Read Free Book Online Page A

dark face was suddenly alight with laughter. “That
    surprises you? You thought I was illiterate, I suppose?”
    Kate flushed. “I hadn’t thought about it,” she said
    offhandedly.
    “Well, I left without taking a degree, in fact, because my
    father was ill, and I had to take over the business. Then
    he died, so I carried on. I have often regretted it, but that
    is fate!”
    She watched him curiously. His face had a fatalistic look
    as he said the last words. “Do you believe that?”
    His brows rose. “In fate? Of course.” His tone was
    suddenly brusque, as though he disliked the subject.
    “Why have you never allowed anyone to visit the temple
    before?” she asked him after a long silence.
    “My father would never have strangers on Kianthos. He
    felt that they would spoil it. There are so few roads that it
    would be impossible to bring many cars here, anyway,
    and modern tourists love to go everywhere by car. The life
    of our people would change if we allowed too many
    outsiders on to the island.”
    “It’s such a beautiful place,” she said. “Isn’t that a selfish
    attitude?”
    “The villagers all agree with me. They are happy as they
    are.”
    “Are they? Living on goat’s cheese and olives, with
    occasionally a little fish?”
    “Does the technological society make men any happier?”
    he countered coolly.
    “I think your attitude is too possessive,” she said.

    His eyes flashed across the room at her and she felt oddly
    breathless, as though he had touched her. “But I am
    possessive,” he said softly. “Any man worth his salt must
    be—the desire to possess is the root of love.”
    She was angrily aware of a weakness spreading through
    her body, a trembling and fluttering of the nerves. “That’s
    a very old-fashioned idea,” she said, trying to laugh, but
    too conscious of his masculine presence to be able to carry
    it off. “Nowadays we believe that to love is to be ready to
    let go. People have to be free.”
    “Hence divorce?” he said sarcastically. “And the high
    abortion rate in your country, not to mention the appalling
    tragedies of drug addiction.”
    She was grateful when, at that moment, Sam and Pallas
    came into the room. Sam was still very pale, but the blue
    line around his mouth had vanished, and some of his
    normal cheerfulness had returned.
    “I am afraid you will not meet my mother this evening,”
    Marc said to him. “She has a headache. But I hope she will
    get up for lunch tomorrow.” He looked sharply at Sam’s
    face. “You look ill. Was it a bad flight?”
    Sam grimaced. “I’m the world’s worst traveller. Don’t
    worry, though, I’ll be fine now I’m back on terra firma.”
    They dined quietly, in a very modern room with mosaic
    tiling on the floor and pleasant, yellow walls. Kate ate
    steak and salad, followed by a very sweet dessert made of
    figs and cream, after which black coffee seemed very
    appropriate.
    Sam excused himself early, pleading a headache, and
    Pallas went up to sit and talk to her mother for a while.
    Kate was intending to go to bed early, too, but Marc said
    that she would feel more like sleep when she had walked
    around the garden for a while.
    “The air is so pure here,” he said, draping her cardigan

    around her shoulders, his fingers lingering on the nape of
    her neck for a second longer than was necessary. She
    shivered at his touch, and he glanced down at her, grey
    eyes narrowed.
    They walked round the garden without talking,
    listening to the cicadas and feeling the cool dusk stealing
    over the trees and flowers. The air was, as he had said,
    fresh and sweet, with a faint scent of spring permeating it.
    One tree was covered with purple flowers which Marc said
    were called Judas flowers. High up on the hills the
    mountain furze was in golden bloom and a final shaft from
    the setting sun made the slopes glow like molten gold, then
    the light died and a purple shadow crept over them.
    She was reminded of Peter and