The Right Path Part 14

Whose footsteps were on the beach steps that first night? a smal voice insisted.

Who was Nick hiding from? Or waiting for? That man hadn't been kil ed in a vil age quarrel, her thoughts ran on. She hadn't believed it for a moment, any more than she'd real y believed the man had died accidental y. Murder ...

smuggling. Morgan closed her eyes and shuddered.

Who was coming in from the sea when Nick had held her in the shadow of the cypress? Nick had ordered Stephanos to fol ow him. Alex? Dorian? The dead man perhaps? She jolted when Dorian offered her the snifter.

"Morgan, you're stil so pale. You should sit."

"No ... I guess I'm stil a little jumpy, that's al ." Morgan cupped the snifter in both hands but didn't drink. She would ask him, that was al . She would simply ask him if he'd been to the inlet. But when her eyes met his, so calm, so concerned, she felt an icy tremor of fear. "The inlet-" Morgan hesitated, then continued before her courage failed her. "The inlet was so beautiful. It seemed so undisturbed." But so many shel s had been crushed underfoot, she remembered abruptly. Why hadn't she thought of that before? "Do you-do a lot of people go there?"

"I can't speak for the vil agers," Dorian began, watching as she perched on the arm of a divan. "But I'd think most of them would be too busy with their fis.h.i.+ng or in the olive groves to spend much time gathering shel s."

"Yes." She moistened dry lips. "But stil , it's a lovely spot, isn't it?"

Morgan kept her eyes on his. Was it her imagination, or had his eyes narrowed? A trick of the smoke that wafted between them? Her own nerves? "I've never been there," Dorian said lightly. "I suppose it's a bit like a native New Yorker never going to the top of the Empire State Building."

Morgan's gaze fol owed his fingers as he crushed out the cigarette in a cut-gla.s.s ashtray. "Is there something else, Morgan?" "Something-no." Hastily, she looked back up to meet his eyes. "No, nothing. I suppose like Iona, the atmosphere's getting to me, that's al ." "Smal wonder."

Sympathetic, he crossed to her. "You've been through too much today, Morgan.

Too much talk of death. Come out in the garden,"

he suggested. "We'l talk of something else."

Refusal was on the tip of her tongue. She didn't know why, only that she didn't want to be with him. Not then. Not alone. Even as she cast around for a reasonable excuse, Liz joined them.

"Morgan, I'd hoped you were resting."

Grateful for the interruption, Morgan set down her untouched brandy and rose. "I rested long enough." A quick scan of Liz's face showed subtle signs of strain.

"You look like you should lie down awhile." "No, but I could use some air."

"I was just taking Morgan out to the garden." Dorian touched a hand to Liz's shoulder. "You two go out and relax. Alex and I have some business we should clear up."

"Yes." Liz lifted her hand to his. "Thank you, Dorian. I don't know what Alex or I would have done without you today." "Nonsense." He brushed her cheek with his lips. "Go, take your mind off this business."

"I wil . See if you can get Alex to do the same." The plea was light, but unmistakable before Liz hooked her arm through Morgan's. "Dorian." Morgan felt a flush of shame. He'd been nothing but kind to her, and she'd let her imagination run wild. "Thank you."

He lifted a brow at the grat.i.tude, then smiled and kissed her cheek in turn. He smelt of citrus groves and suns.h.i.+ne. "Sit with the flowers for a while, and enjoy."

As he walked into the hal , Liz turned and headed toward the garden doors.

"Should I order us some tea?" "Not for me. And stop treating me like a guest."

"Good Lord, was I doing that?" "Yes, ever since-"

Liz shot Morgan a quick look as she broke off, then grimaced. "This whole business real y stinks," Liz stated inelegantly, and plopped down on a marble bench.

Surrounded by the colors and scents of the garden, isolated from the house and the outside world by vines, Morgan and Liz frowned at each other. "d.a.m.n, Morgan, I'm so sorry that you had to be the one. No, don't shrug and try to look casual," she ordered as Morgan did just that. "We've known each other too long and too wel . I know what it must have been like for you this morning. And I know how you must be feeling right now."

"I'm al right, Liz." She chose a smal padded glider and curled her legs under her.

"Though I'l admit I won't be admiring seashel s for a while. Please," she continued as Liz's frown deepened. "Don't do this. I can see that you and Alex are blaming yourselves. It was just-just a horrible coincidence that I happened to take a tour of that inlet this morning. A man was kil ed; someone had to find him."

"It didn't have to be you."

"You and Alex aren't responsible."

Liz sighed. "My practical American side knows that, but ..." She shrugged, then managed to smile. "But I think I'm becoming a bit Greek. You're staying in my house." Liz lit a cigarette resignedly as she rose to pace the tiny courtyard.

A black cigarette, Morgan noticed with a tremor of anxiety-slim and black.

She'd forgotten Liz had picked up the habit of occasional y smoking one of Alex's brand.

She stared up into Liz's oval, cla.s.sic face, then shut her eyes. She must be going mad if she could conceive, even for an instant, that Liz was mixed up in smuggling and back-stabbing. This was a woman she'd known for years-lived with. Certainly if there was one person she knew as wel as she knew herself, it was Liz.

But how far-how far would Liz go to protect the man she loved?

"And I have to admit," Liz went on as she continued to pace, "though it sticks me in the same category as Iona, that policeman made me nervous. He was just too"-she searched for an adjective-"respectful," she decided. "Give me a good old American gril ing."

"I know what you mean," Morgan murmured. She had to stop thinking, she told herself. If she could just stop thinking, everything would be al right again.

"I don't know what he expected to find out, questioning us that way." Liz took a quick, jerky puff, making her wedding ring flash with cold, dazzling light.

"It was just routine, I suppose." Morgan couldn't take her eyes from the ring-the light, the stones. Love, honor, and obey-forsaking al others. "And creepy," Liz added. "Besides, none of us even knew this Anthony Stevos."

"The captain said he was a fisherman." "So is every second man in the vil age." Morgan al owed the silence to hang. Careful y, she reconstructed the earlier scene in the salon. What were the reactions? If she hadn't been so dimmed with brandy and shock, would she have noticed something? There was one more person she'd seen lighting one of the expensive cigarettes. "Liz," she began slowly, "don't you think Iona went a little overboard? Didn't she get a bit melodramatic about a few routine questions?"

"Iona thrives on melodrama," Liz returned with grim relish. "Did you see the way she fawned al over Nick? I don't see how he could bear it." "He didn't seem to mind," Morgan muttered. No, not yet, she warned herself. You're not ready to deal with that yet. "She's a strange woman,"

Morgan continued. "But this morning ..." And yesterday, she remembered.

"Yesterday when I spoke of smuggling ... I think she was real y afraid."

"I don't think Iona has any genuine feelings," Liz said stubbornly. "I wish Alex would just cross her off as a bad bet and be done with it. He's so infuriatingly conscientious."

"Strange, Dorian said almost the same thing." Morgan plucked absently at an overblown rose. It was Iona she should concentrate on. If anyone could do something deadly and vile, it was Iona. "I don't see her that way."

"What do you mean?"

"Iona." Morgan stopped plucking at the rose and gave Liz her attention. "I see her as a woman of too many feelings rather than none at al . Not al healthy certainly, perhaps even destructive-but strong, very strong emotions."

"I can't abide her," Liz said with such unexpected venom, Morgan stared. "She upsets Alex constantly. I can't tel you how much time and trouble and money he's put into that woman. And he gets nothing back but ingrat.i.tude, rudeness."

"Alex has very strong family feelings," Morgan began. "You can't protect him from-"

"I'd protect him from anything," Liz interrupted pa.s.sionately. "Anything and anyone." Whirling, she hurled her cigarette into the bushes where it lay smoldering. Morgan found herself staring at it with dread. "d.a.m.n," Liz said in a calmer tone. "I'm letting al this get to me."

"We al are." Morgan shook off the sensation of unease and rose. "It hasn't been an easy morning."

"I'm sorry, Morgan, it's just that Alex is so upset by al this. And as much as he loves me, he just isn't the kind of man to share certain areas with me. His trouble-his business. He's too d.a.m.n Greek." With a quick laugh, she shook her head. "Come on, sit down. I've vented my spleen."

"Liz, if there were something wrong-I mean, something real y troubling you, you'd tel me, wouldn't you?"

"Oh, don't start worrying about me now." Liz nudged Morgan back down on the glider. "It's just frustrating when you love someone to distraction and they won't let you help. Sometimes it drives me crazy that Alex insists on trying to keep the less-pleasant aspects of his life away from me."

"He loves you," Morgan murmured and found she was gripping her hands together. "And I love him."

"Liz ..." Morgan took a deep breath and plunged. "Do you and Alex walk through the inlet often?"

"Hmmm?" Obviously distracted, Liz looked back over her shoulder as she walked toward her bench. "Oh, no, actual y, we usual y walk on the cliffs -if I can drag him away from his office. I can't think when's the last time I've been near there. I only wish," she added in a gentler tone, "I'd been with you this morning."

Abruptly and acutely ashamed at the direction her thoughts had taken, Morgan looked away. "I'm glad you weren't. Alex had his hands ful enough with one hysterical female."

"You weren't hysterical," Liz corrected in a quiet voice. "You were almost too calm by the time Andrew brought you in."

"I never even thanked him." Morgan forced herself to push doubts and suspicions aside. They were as ugly as they were ridiculous. "What did you think of Andrew?"

"He's a very sweet man." Sensing Morgan's changing mood, Liz adjusted her own thoughts. "He appeared to put himself in the role of your champion today."

She smiled, deliberately looking wise and matronly. "I'd say he was in the first stages of infatuation."

"How smug one becomes after three years of marriage."