"Beware the beast" كيف احيا معك بالانكليزية Anne Mather

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHARLOTTE lay drowsily on the lounger, gazing up at the arc of blue sky

through the trailing leaves of the vine which had entwined itself round the

pillars on the patio. She felt sleepy and lethargic, and it was only a couple of

hours since she got up. She had been feeling this way for over a week, and as

the temperature was much cooler now than it had been on her arrival, it could

not be that which was upsetting her.

Yawning, she glanced at her watch, and as she did so she noticed with

satisfaction how attractive was the light tan she had acquired. Several weeks of

walking across the island to see Alex's grandmother, bathing in the sea which

was still warmer than the English Channel in summer, and her earlier basking in

the sun had burnished her hair and skin alike, and the added advantage of good

wholesome food had covered her bones with a layer of much needed flesh. She

knew she had never looked or felt so good in her life.

But these weeks of lazy self-contemplation were beginning to arouse certain

anxieties inside her. It was more than six weeks since Alex's departure, and apart

from that one visit from George Constandis, she had had no word to say how

he was or when he would be coming back. She had told herself a hundred times

that she didn't care, that she didn't want him to come back, but deep down she

knew she was only delaying the inevitable. Sooner or later, he would come, or

the reasons for her being here would never be fulfilled, and until they were...

All the same, there were times when she recalled what his grandmother had

said, about his not wanting to come back. Those were difficult words to

contemplate. She did not altogether understand why they should trouble her

so, except perhaps that as time was a great healer, it had cast a concealing veil

over the most terrifying aspects of that fateful morning. It could not really be so

bad, she had told herself angrily, or people would not go on reproducing

themselves with such enthusiasm. Even so, she shuddered when she

remembered what he had done.

Footsteps on the patio caused her to turn her head and she saw Tina

approaching with a jug of hot coffee. .Lately, Charlotte had taken an aversion to

coffee, but the milky chocolate smelled delicious.

Smiling, she swung her legs to the ground and sat up, only to grasp the

back of the lounger sharply as her head swam dizzily. For a moment the bile of

sickness surged into her throat, and she turned quite pale.

"Kyria!" Tina set down the jug on the nearby table, and came to bend

towards her. "Kyria, are you feeling unwell?"

Charlotte felt the dizziness recede, and managed to look up into Tina's