Marion Lennox - Crowned: The Palace Nanny

Quite simply, he’d never seen a woman so beautiful.

‘Are you coming in?’ Elsa was standing on the veranda, looking at him with the beginnings of amusement. Probably because he was standing with his mouth open.

‘Is this a holiday shack?’ he managed, forcing his focus to the house-though it was almost impossible to force his focus anywhere but her. The information he’d been given said she lived here. Surely not.

‘No,’ she said shortly, amusement fading. ‘It’s our home. I promise it’s clean enough inside so you won’t get your uniform dirty.’

‘I didn’t mean…’

‘No.’ She relented and forced another of her lovely smiles. ‘I know you didn’t. I’m sorry.’

He came up the veranda steps. Zoe had already disappeared inside, and he heard the sound of running water.

‘Zoe gets first turn at the shower while I make lunch,’ Elsa explained. ‘Then she sets the table while I shower.’

It was said almost defiantly. Like-don’t mess with the order of things. She was afraid, he thought.

But…This woman was Zoe’s nanny. She was being paid out of Zoe’s estate. He’d worried when he’d read that-a stranger making money out of a child.

Now he wasn’t so sure. This wasn’t a normal nanny-child relationship. Even after knowing them only five minutes, he knew it.

And the fear? She’d be wanting reassurance that he wouldn’t take Zoe away. He couldn’t give it. He watched her face and he knew his silence was being assessed for what it was.

Why hadn’t he found more out about her? His information was that Zoe’s parents had died in a car crash four years ago. Since then Zoe had been living with a woman who was being paid out of her parents’ estate-an estate consisting mostly of Christos’s life insurance.

That information had him hoping things could be handled simply. He could take Zoe back to Khryseis and employ a lovely, warm nanny over there to care for her. Maybe this could even be seen as a rescue mission.

This woman, sunburned, freckled and barefoot, standing with her arms folded across her breasts in a stance of pure defence, said it wasn’t simple at all. Mrs Elsa Murdoch was not your normal nanny.

And…Christos and Amy had been her best friends?

‘I’m not here to harm Zoe,’ he said mildly.

‘No.’ That was a dumb statement, he conceded. As if she was expecting him to beat the child.

‘I just want what’s best for her.’

‘Good,’ she said brusquely. ‘You might be able to help me. There are a couple of things I could use some advice over.’

That wasn’t what he meant. They both knew it.

‘Did you know Zoe’s the new Crown Princess of Khryseis?’ he asked, and she froze.

‘The what?’

‘The Crown Princess of Khryseis.’

‘I heard you. I don’t know what you mean.’

‘I think you do,’ he said softly. ‘Your face when I said it…’

‘Doesn’t mean a thing,’ she whispered. ‘I’m tired, confused and hungry, and your uniform is doing my head in. Come in and sit down while I make lunch and take a shower. But if you say one word-one word-of this Crown Princess thing to Zoe before we’ve discussed it fully, you’ll be off my property so fast you’ll leave your gold tassels behind. Got it?’

‘Um…got it,’ he said.

‘Right,’ she said and turned and marched inside, leaving him to follow if he felt like it. Or go away if he felt like it.

Her body language said the second option was the one she favoured.

The moment he got inside he took his jacket off. He pulled off his tie, undid the next two buttons of his shirt and rolled up his sleeves.

It was a casual gesture of making himself at home and it rendered her almost speechless.

Outside he’d seemed large. Inside, tossing his jacket on the settee, rolling up his sleeves, taking a slow visual sweep of her kitchen-living room, he seemed much larger. It was as if he was filling the room, the space not taken up with his sheer physical size overwhelmed by his sheer masculinity.

He was six one or six two, she thought. Not huge. Just…male. And more good-looking than was proper. And way too sexy.

Sexy. Where had that word come from? She shoved it away in near panic.

‘This is great,’ he said, and she fought for composure and tried to see the house as he saw it.

It was tumbledown. Of course it was. There was no way she could afford to fix the big things. One day in the not too distant future Zoe might be able to go to school and she could take a proper job again and earn some money. But meanwhile they made do.

‘Where did you get this stuff?’ he asked, gesturing to the room in general. ‘It’s amazing.’

‘Most of it we found or we made.’

He gazed around at the eclectic mix of brightly coloured cushions and faded crimson curtains, the colourful knotted rugs on the floor, lobster pots hanging from the ceiling with shells threaded through to make them look like proper decorations, a fishing net strung across the length of one wall, filled with old buoys and huge seashells. There were worn pottery jugs filled with flowers from the garden; bird of paradise plants, crimson and deep green.

‘You found all this?’ he demanded.

‘I used to have an apartment at the university,’ she told him. ‘Small. My parents left me this place and I came here at weekends. I’m a marine biologist and we…I used the cottage as an occasional base for research. Zoe’s parents were what you might call itinerant. They had a camper van and most of what they owned was destroyed in the accident. So Zoe and I scrounged what we could find, we made a bit and we filled the rest by beachcombing.’ She met his gaze full on, defying him to deny her next assertion. ‘Zoe and I are the best beachcombers in the world.’

‘I can see you are,’ he said. He paused. ‘You’re a marine biologist?’

‘Yes.’ She faltered and tried for a recovery. ‘Very part-time until Zoe goes to school.’

‘Zoe doesn’t go to school?’

‘I home-school her here at the moment.’

‘So meanwhile you’re living off Christos’s life insurance.’

She’d opened the refrigerator and was lifting out salad ingredients. She froze.

She didn’t turn around. She couldn’t. If she had he might have got lettuce square in the middle of his face. What was he suggesting?

‘That’s right,’ she said stiffly. ‘I’m ripping Zoe off for every cent I can get.’

‘I didn’t mean…’

‘I’m very sure you did mean.’ Finally she turned, carefully placing the lettuce out of throwing range. ‘What is it you want of us, Mr Whoever-The-Hell-You-Are, because there’s no way I’m calling you Prince. I don’t know why you’re here but don’t you dare imply I’m acting dishonestly. Don’t you dare.’

‘I already did,’ he said, holding his hands up as if in surrender. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘So am I.’

The door swung open. Zoe appeared, looking wary. The little girl was in clean T-shirt and shorts. Her hair was a tangle of dark, wet curls. She was far too thin, Elsa thought, trying to see her dispassionately through Stefanos’s eyes.

She was so scarred. The burns had been to almost fifty per cent of her body, and twenty per cent of those had been full thickness. She’d had graft after graft. Thankfully her face was almost untouched but her skinny little legs looked almost like patchwork. Her left arm still needed work-her left hand was missing its little finger-and there was deep scarring under her chin.

She’d protect this child with her life, she thought, but protection could only go so far. This man was part of Zoe’s real family. She had to back off a little.

‘Okay, it’s my turn for the shower, poppet,’ she said, trying to make her voice normal.

‘You sounded angry,’ she said, doubtful.

‘I’m crabby ’cos I’m hungry.’ She tugged Zoe to her in a swift hug. ‘I’ll have a shower in world record time. Can you set the table and talk to…Stefanos. He’s your papa’s cousin. He knows all about Khryseis. Maybe he could show you exactly where he lives on the Internet. We have pictures of Khryseis bookmarked.’

And, with a final warning glance at Stefanos, she whisked herself away. She didn’t want to leave at all. She wanted to bring Zoe into the bathroom with her. She wanted to defend her with everything she had.

Zoe, Crown Princess?

Zoe had far too much to deal with already. If Stefanos wanted to take on part of Zoe’s life, then he had to contend with her. Zoe’s life was her life. She’d sworn that to Zoe’s mother, and she wasn’t backing down on it now.

She couldn’t. She was so afraid…

ZOE set the table while he watched her. The little girl was watching him out of the corner of her eye, not meeting his gaze directly. Table done, she turned to a corner desk holding a computer. The machine looked like something out of the Dark Ages, big, cumbersome and ugly. She checked the Internet, waiting until the Khryseis information downloaded-seemingly by slow-boat from China.

But finally the websites in Khryseis were on the screen. By the look of the bookmarks, she and Elsa spent a lot of time browsing them.

He tentatively showed her where he lived on the island-or where he’d lived as a child. She reacted with silent politeness.

He checked the other bookmarks for the island. They were marine sites, he saw. Research articles about the island.

Worth noting.

‘So you and Elsa spend a lot of time studying…fish?’ he ventured and got a scornful look for his pains.

‘Echinoderms.’

Right. Good. What the hell were echinoderms?

And then Elsa was back. Same uniform as before-shorts and faded shirt. She was tugging her curls back into a ponytail. Still she wore no make-up, and without the suncream her freckles were more pronounced. Her nose was peeling and her feet were still bare.