Free The Tomb of Zeus by Barbara Cleverly Page A

could be. She inherited a fortune from her maternal grandmother before her marriage to Theo and another one from a doting old uncle last year.”
    “How do you know all this, William? Oh, don't tell me!” she added quickly. “You put on your confessional face and make sympathetic noises.”
    He grinned. “I can fool anyone but you, Letty. But I don't feel in the least bit guilty—Phoebe really needs someone to listen to her. Someone to be frivolous with. Someone to confide in. Though she's stubbornly loyal and I can only guess at her thoughts through her silences sometimes. I have the highest regard for her, Letty. She's a lovely girl. She could have chosen anyone. Theo can be charming, though he grows less so over time, I suspect. But five years ago, Phoebe married him and that, for me, silences all criticism. He was her choice and she's by no means a silly woman.”
    “The most intelligent of my sex are occasionally capable of making a disastrous error of judgement,” observed Letty lightly.
    He ignored her. “So—one has to conclude that she loves the old blighter and not only provides the wherewithal for his hobby but presents to the world the flummery that he is the one with the moneybags.”
    “Well, it seems to me that if what you say is true, all concerned are getting exactly what they want out of the situation,” said Letty. “I think you can come off watch, William, put your knitting away and stop worrying.”
    Gunning exclaimed with exasperation, “You silly girl! You walk headfirst into a hornets' nest and say: ‘What a pretty buzzing!’ There's something alive and growing here, something malicious, and I don't want
you
to be involved with it. You know what you're like, Letty! ‘Nasty, forward minx!’ You meddle. Tragedy follows you around, and you won't need to whistle to find it snapping at your heels in this house. I'm anxious for you, can't you understand that?”
    He held out his hands to her in some kind of appeal and, responding to words he had left unspoken, she moved forward to take them in hers.
    “William, I haven't forgotten your concerns for me last year. I'll always be grateful. Truly. But,” she squeezed his hands encouragingly and released them, “you're off duty now. Free of me. No need to worry.”
    “Listen, Letty.
No—really
listen! I want you to promise me to take up at once and with no argument the offer Theo will make you very shortly. Whatever it is and wherever it is—just go off and get on with it. He's got several excavations on the go all over the island, and if I read him right he'll pick out one of little importance for you—a site that you can't possibly make a mess of—and send you off to it with a map clutched in your hand. Just pack your trowel and go. Distance yourself.”
    Letty peered at him, searching his face in the glimmering candlelight. Why was he here, stirring up emotions she thought she had buried? This intrusion into her evening was trumped-up…unnecessary. And then the reason for his anxiety struck her. “Ah! What you're really trying to say is, ‘Stay out of
my
hair,’ isn't it? ‘Distance yourself from
me
.’ Well, that presents no difficulty, as far as I'm concerned, but there's something else, I'm guessing…Are you going to tell me what's troubling you, William?”
    “Not yet. No. I'm not about to voice suspicions that I can't back up with evidence. I'll just say, for the moment, that I'm uneasy, and the source of my unease is the volatile nature of the relationships between the characters in this house. There's a sort of tense balance at the moment—a balance that could be broken by someone stepping in with a clumsy insouciance.”
    “Ah. Do I recognise myself entering, stage left?”
    “Sorry! You're actually a breath of fresh, familiar air and I welcome it. But I'm not sure the troubled souls that flit about this place can take the glare of your sunny common sense.”
    A banging door and the sound of laughter below alerted