Betrothed: To the People’s Prince

CHAPTER NINE

THEY took the limousine again, only this time Nikos was driving. Nicky and Christa were delighted to see each other-far too immersed in the novelty of each other to notice scenery. Athena had her nose against the window the whole way.

She and Nikos had been here before-as kids they’d explored most parts of the island, both on foot and on the back of a saddle-tough pony-but they’d never got past the gates of the Eagle’s Nest. The gates were twelve feet high and padlocked, with locks big enough to deter the most intrepid of explorers. Mind, a twelve feet high fence wasn’t actually what had stopped them. What had stopped them was the pack of dogs left loose to roam the grounds at will.

‘So…um…where are the dogs?’ Athena asked nervously as the gates swung open at their approach.

‘There was only one left when Giorgos died,’ Nikos said over his shoulder. ‘The old groundsman took him home with him. He says he’s turned out to be a pussycat. Do you think you can be royal without killer Dobermans?’

‘I’ll try,’ she said magnanimously, and found herself smiling. Despite the trauma of the morning, despite the confusion of her visit to Annia, suddenly there was a frisson of excitement. She felt eight years old again, nose pressed against the twelve foot gate-and suddenly the gate swung open.

‘Cool, isn’t it?’ Nikos said, and it was as if he’d guessed her thoughts. ‘The place has always been kept in readiness for a royal visit of up to a dozen guests. So there should be room for us.’

‘We’ll need four bedrooms,’ she said as a knee-jerk reaction. He met her gaze in the rear-vision mirror and grinned. And there it was again. That smile. Pure mischief.

The smile of the Nikos she’d once known…

They drew up before the main entrance. Here again were servants. Two servants.

Joe and Mrs Lavros from the palace.

‘I figured we’d go with staff we know,’ he told her.

‘I can make my own bed and we can make our own sandwiches,’ she said, lightness fading. ‘Why do we need anyone?’

‘I need Joe,’ he said flatly.

Once again he met her gaze and the message was unmistakable. Her lightness faded. Joe. Nikos’s cousin. Big, burly and totally dependable. Security.

‘And Mrs Lavros makes baklava just like Mama does,’ he said. ‘No aspersions on your cooking, Princess…’

‘You think I can’t cook?’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘Mama makes great hamburgers,’ Nicky said, leaping to her defence. Then he hesitated. ‘One day last winter we made…bak…bakla…what you were just talking about…’

‘Let’s not go there,’ Athena said hurriedly. Nikos grinned-and Nicky grinned with him-and she suddenly had two guys with identical smiles and it was doing her head in.

‘So how did your mama’s baklava turn out?’ he asked.

‘We ate it with spoons,’ Nicky said, still grinning. ‘It was good but it didn’t look like the picture in the recipe book. And Mama had to spend half an hour scrubbing honey off the oven.’

‘I rest my case,’ Nikos said, opening the door of the car. ‘Mrs Lavros is here to stay. Okay, kids, it’s yours to explore.’

The kids and Oscar tumbled out of the limousine. Mrs Lavros and Joe smiled a welcome and took themselves off, and they were alone on the steps of a fairy tale. Two kids, two adults and one dog. Her family, Athena thought, and then stomped on the thought and concentrated on this truly excellent building.

It was a true fairy tale castle. Built two hundred years ago by a mad monarch with delusions of grandeur, all white stone, turrets and towers, it was like a sugar confection, a magic, secret fantasy.

‘Wow,’ Nicky breathed, awed. He was standing dumbstruck, staring upwards, seeing a white flag with blue stars and pale yellow stripes fluttering from the battlements. ‘What’s the flag for?’

‘It means the Crown is in residence,’ Nikos said.

‘The Crown…’

‘That would be your mother. Welcome to the Eagle’s Nest, Princess.’

‘Don’t…don’t call me that.’

‘We don’t have a choice,’ he said. ‘It’s time you acknowledged it. This is your place, Princess. You’ve come home.’

It was fabulous. The more they saw…it was more and more wonderful. The kids whooped through the castle with joy and wonder, and Nikos thought he’d been right to bring them here. He’d been right to include Christa.

The terrors of this morning had faded to nothing for Nicky. He was a kid in a fairy tale castle, he had an adoring little sister at his heels, he had his dog.

He had his mother.

He had his father.

All was right in his little boy’s world, and Nikos watched and listened to his excitement and found a peace settling on his heart that had been missing for ten years.

For ten years Thena had been gone. He had his family here-his daughter, his mother, his aunts and uncles and cousins. He’d built his fishing fleet, he’d succeeded on his own terms, he’d almost thought he had enough.

He hadn’t. Now, standing by Thena’s side as the kids led them on a tour of exploration, he knew his life had suddenly got better.

How to make it complete?

Ten years ago Thena had thought her career was more important than life on this island. He had one more chance to make her see, he thought. To make her understand how wonderful it could be. To see how right it was.

The castle was three storeys high, with the ‘Eagle’s Nest’, a tower with parapets, as the fourth floor. The kids were whooping from room to room on the second floor, choosing bedrooms.

‘This one’s ace,’ Nicky breathed as he discovered a vast bedchamber with a huge four poster bed amid a décor that was pure medieval, right down to a set of armour on either side of the windows. Nicky leaped onto the big bed, Oscar and Christa gamely followed, Nicky tugged the gold tassels holding back the curtains and they were enclosed in a vast velvet tent. The adults were left firmly on the outside.

Oscar shoved his nose out to look at his mistress, checked she was still there and then dived back to join the kids.

‘Can we sleep in here please, Mama?’ Nicky breathed from behind the velvet. ‘Can we, can we, can we?’

‘I guess we can,’ she said dubiously. ‘It’s a pretty big bed. We’ll both fit.’

Nicky’s head emerged, astonished. ‘I didn’t mean you, Mama. I meant me and Christa and Oscar.’

‘So take that, Mama,’ Nikos said at her side, and found himself smiling. For him too, the fears of the morning were dissipating. He should have brought them straight here, he thought. But then…she’d had to go to the palace. She’d had to turn into a princess so she could lay claim to this place.

‘I’ll sleep next door,’ she said, sounding desperate, and both kids launched themselves out from behind their canopy and onto further exploration.

‘Don’t choose before you’ve looked at them all,’ Nicky ordered, grabbing his mother’s hand and tugging her from the room. ‘There might be another one as good as this one.’

There wasn’t. Not on this floor. Nicky checked them all and declared them ordinary-bedrooms with French windows and terraces that overlooked the sea, with beds big enough to fit a king and half his courtiers, all were rejected as being not as cool as the one Nicky and Christa had claimed.

‘I guess we could share,’ Nicky said with magnanimity.

‘Nicky, I’ll take the one next to yours…’

‘There’s upstairs,’ Nikos said, and Nicky beamed.

‘See, Mama, there’s upstairs. I like this place. Come on, Christa.’

They were flying upstairs, hand in hand.

Christa had a brother, Nikos thought, stunned, and glanced at Thena and saw she was as stunned as he was.

‘I thought this might take years,’ he said.

‘I didn’t…I can’t…’

‘Though maybe they’re like us,’ he said. ‘We met when we were eight years old and we knew right then that we were going to be best friends. Friends for ever.’

‘Don’t…’

‘We were, Thene,’ he said softly. ‘We still could be. Surely your career can be redirected. I don’t mean give it up entirely. But you’ve given so much for it already…’

‘Don’t,’ she said again and she was close to tears.

He wouldn’t push. He mustn’t. He had her here. He had time.

And then there was a whoop of absolute joy from above their heads.

‘We’ve found your bedroom. Come on up. Mama, Papa, come on up.’

Mama, Papa…Nicky had shouted the words as naturally as breathing. Mama, Papa…

It took their breath away.

‘Shall we go take a look?’ Nikos said and put his hand out to her.

She took a deep breath. She stared down at his hand.

And then, deliberately, she put her hands behind her back and walked up the stairs.

There was still so much between them. How did you learn to trust again? No matter how desperately you wanted to…how did you take that leap?

But then she reached the top of the stairs and the door to the third floor bedroom, and she stopped thinking of anything else.

The third storey was part of the tower, narrowing to the nest itself on the fourth floor. The top of the tower was a circular fortification on top of the building where one looked over the parapets to see the entire island. Or that was what she’d imagined. She’d just never imagined what lay beneath.

All her childhood she’d seen this part of the castle-a stark white tower seemingly growing from the crags of the northern highlands. The tower could be seen from all over the island, from out at sea, maybe even from the far islands of Sappheiros and Khryseis.

It was almost dusk. The islands, all white stone cliffs and blue-green mountains, glittered like jewels reflecting the tangerine rays of the setting sun. The sea stretched out in every direction, reflecting the sunset. Below them were fishing boats, heading for harbour, heading for home.

She could see everything, because, apart from the tiny vestibule allowing access, there was nothing between them and a three hundred and sixty degree view of sea and sky.

She was on top of the world.

There were no lights, she saw. Instead there were candles. Hundreds of candles, set into wall embrasures. But they weren’t lit yet-they didn’t need to be. The setting sun gave a tangerine glow to the whole world.

Beneath her feet the carpet was lush and deep, but apart from the view the focus of the room was the bed. How had they ever got it up here? It must have been built on site.

It was a full circle, a great island in the centre of the room. As big as two king-sized beds, it was made up with vast antique quilts of deep crimson and lovely faded silver. The silver and the crimson were caught up in cushions, hundreds of cushions, soft, squishy. Nicky had already picked up an armload and was tossing them indiscriminately at Christa and at Oscar.

Christa was giggling and tentatively tossing a cushion back.

But then Nicky realised Nikos and Athena were at the door, staring in with stunned amazement. ‘Look at the sky,’ he demanded and grabbed Christa’s hand, and they clambered onto the great bed, lay on their backs and gazed upward.

Thena gazed up as well.

And gasped.

The ceiling was a vast glass dome, sweeping upward as part of the great central tower. It was one enormous window, built of hundreds and hundreds of lead framed glass panels forming one magnificent window to the sky.

The setting sun was glittering in from the windows so Athena’s attention had been distracted to the lower level. But now…She gazed up in awe at a vast expanse of sky, the soft scudding clouds of sunset and the first hint of the evening star.

‘This is so cool,’ Nicky breathed. ‘It hasn’t got a tent like our bedroom but it’s cool anyway. It’s like flying.’

She could see the simile. In this room she was on top of the world. She was almost floating.

‘Will you and Papa sleep in here?’ Nicky demanded and she came down to earth fast.

‘I…no. I’ll sleep next to your bedroom.’

‘It’s okay, Mama,’ Nicky said magnanimously. ‘Christa and Oscar and I don’t mind if you sleep up here. I won’t be scared if I have Christa. And you won’t be scared if you have Papa.’

Papa. The word was part of his vocabulary already.

That was enough to choke her right up, to make her world twist from its axis. Nicky had a papa.

She glanced at Nikos and his eyes were hooded and enigmatic. But she knew this man. She knew this expression. It meant he was struggling hard not to show emotion.

He wanted his son. He was falling in love with her Nicky.

Her son had a father.

Her son was telling her she had to sleep with Nikos.

‘Nikos and I don’t share a bedroom,’ she said, too curtly.

‘Why not?’ Both the children were gazing at them now. They’d found this room for them. For a moment Athena thought they’d taken it personally if she didn’t accept their find as a delight.

‘Thena can sleep in here,’ Nikos said, and his voice was as guarded as his expression. ‘She probably snores. Grown ups snore a lot. If you guys don’t mind, I’ll sleep down in one of the downstairs bedrooms so her snores don’t drive me crazy.’

‘I don’t think she snores,’ Nicky said doubtfully.

‘She has the look of a snorer.’

‘Hey.’ She was torn between laughter and tears. Laughter was by far the preferred option but tears were certainly close.

‘What do snorers look like?’ Nicky asked.

‘They have fat noses,’ Nikos said and looked up to the windows and stroked his own nose. ‘As opposed to you and me, Nicky. We have the Andreadis nose. Thin, straight and exceedingly handsome.’

‘I do not have a fat nose,’ Athena exclaimed.

‘Snub, I’d say,’ Nikos said indulgently. ‘Cute, but definitely not aristocratic.’

The conversation had suddenly veered away from snoring-away from bedrooms-which was definitely a relief.

‘I have your nose?’ Nicky was supremely unaware of the emotional undercurrents running between the adults. He was concentrating on himself, and on Nikos, and on this new relationship which he’d hardly had a chance to explore. ‘And I have your cowlick. And I don’t get seasick.’

‘So you’re a true Andreadis.’

‘But I’m Nicholas Christou.’

‘Christou’s your mother’s name,’ Nikos said. ‘If I’d married your mother you’d be an Andreadis.’

‘I like being a Christou.’

‘I expect you do,’ Nikos said easily but Athena’s mind had taken off again.

Christa…Christou…

She was Athena Christou. Something occurred to her which hadn’t had time to surface until now. But it hit her then. How had Marika felt about her daughter being named so closely after Nikos’s ex-girlfriend?

Maybe neither of them had ever thought of it. Maybe Marika had never seen her as a threat.

It was so long ago. Why did it still have the capacity to sting now?

‘So what do we do now?’ Nicky said, moving on.

‘Supper and bed?’ Nikos suggested and Nicky’s face fell. So did Christa’s. She’d been gamely following the conversation and she got this.

‘Play,’ she said very firmly, and Oscar wagged his tail in agreement.

Athena almost groaned. She was so tired she could hardly stand. The emotional strain of the last twenty-four hours was added to sheer physical fatigue. But, of course, Nicky had slept this afternoon and he hadn’t spent last night dancing. He was raring to go.

‘Tell you what,’ Nikos said, and he glanced at Athena with that careful, assessing look she was starting to know. And to fear? The look that said he knew what she was thinking. ‘How about we have a light supper and then I take Christa and Nicky down to the beach for a swim before bed?’

‘Is it safe?’ she demanded before she could stop herself and then could have kicked herself. For Nicky’s face registered alarm, and he moved fast to stand beside her.

And Nikos got that, too. ‘You needn’t worry,’ he said, gently but firmly. ‘Nicky, what happened this morning will not happen again. We have lookouts now, watching the island’s waters. And under this castle, down a secret little path known only to us, there’s a tiny cove, rimmed by reefs. The water inside the reef is calm and clear and is only just deep enough for swimming. It’s full to the brim with fish-no one’s ever been allowed to swim here and the fish show no fear. No boat can get over the reef to reach here. Do you trust me enough to take you there without your mother?’

And it wasn’t up to her. It was Nicky himself who decided.

‘Yes,’ he said, firmly and surely, and he moved confidently away from her side. ‘We trust Papa, don’t we, Mama?’

‘I…yes,’ she faltered and was saved from having to say anything more by the whoop of delight as Nicky took her yes to mean not only that she trusted in Nikos, but also that it was okay to swim after dinner. Without her.

It seemed Nicky was now a part of Nikos’s family, whether she belonged or not.

The kids went whooping out of the bedroom, up the last remaining flight of stairs to the parapets that capped the tower. Nikos stayed back. There weren’t words to express what either of them were feeling. Or maybe neither of them knew what they were feeling.

There were things to be said but neither of them knew where to start.

Finally he stood aside to allow her to precede him from the room.

‘He’s safe with me, Thene,’ he said softly as she passed him, and she thought, yes, I know he is.

Her son was part of Nikos’s family.

And she…she was jealous.