Crowned: The Palace Nanny (12 page)

‘You…you…' She could hardly get it out.

‘Idiot?' he suggested, laughing down at her and her heart did another backflip.

‘Definitely idiot,' she said, trying for asperity and failing miserably. ‘I…Thank you.' She was so far out of her comfort zone that she could hardly make her voice work but there was something else she badly needed to say. ‘And…at the press conference…thank you for calling me Doctor.'

‘It's what you are.'

‘Not since Zoe needed me. I've been her mama since then. If I called myself Doctor, everyone thought I was medical. It just confused things.'

‘So you stopped being Doctor and started being Mama. As you'd stop being on holiday and start bossing councillors if I asked it of you. You know, you're one special lady.'

‘I am not.'

He grinned and lowered her onto the bed, and when he let her go she was aware of a sharp stab of loss.

‘You want some painkillers for your hip?'

‘It's not hurting.'

‘I'm very sure it is.'

‘It's fine!'

‘Right, then,' he said and smiled again. She could hear his smile even when she didn't look at him. It was a smile that crept all around her, enveloping her in its sweetness. ‘You want help to undress?'

‘No,' she said and then, as she reran his question in her head, she found her voice. ‘No! And…and don't think I'm not angry any more that you didn't tell me. I still am. It's just got to wait until morning.'

‘That's my girl. What if I organise lunch tomorrow so we can talk about it?'

‘I don't think…'

‘I don't think you can think right now.'

He tugged an eiderdown from the foot of the bed and tucked it around her. ‘You'd be more comfortable if you undress but I don't think I can help you there,' he said, his voice suddenly unsteady.

‘No,' she said, and then couldn't think why she'd said it. Her voice didn't seem to belong to her.

‘You'll be okay,' he said, looking down at her with all the tenderness in the world. As if he cared. As if he really cared.

‘You'll be cared for here,' he said, echoing her thoughts. ‘You and Zoe will be safe. We'll get that hip fixed. You can play with your starfish and live happily ever after.'

There was a lot to object to in that statement. He seemed to think he was reassuring her.

‘I hate starfish,' she muttered.

‘You hate starfish?'

‘They don't do anything. They just blob. You move 'em and they just blob some more. I hate 'em.'

‘You're studying them.'

‘Doesn't mean I don't hate 'em.'

‘You're done in, sweetheart.'

‘I'm not done in. And I'm not your sweetheart.'

‘You're not, are you? There's a complication to avoid.'

‘Go away.'

‘I will,' he said.

But he didn't. He stood gazing down at her and she didn't want him to go. She was half asleep, allowing images from the past—grief, pain, worry, even starfish—to be supplanted by this gorgeous Prince of the Blood.

Prince of the Blood. She wasn't actually sure what the term meant but she knew what it looked like. There was a Prince of the Blood smiling down at her right now, tucking in her eiderdown, looking gorgeous in his fabulous uniform. He was still wearing his sword!

‘I love your sword,' she said.

‘Don't encourage me,' he said. ‘I'm starting to look in mirrors and swagger.'

‘So you ought,' she whispered. ‘Life should hold a little swagger.'

His smile softened. He stooped so his face was really close to hers and he placed a finger on her lips. To hush her? She
didn't know and she didn't much care. It was enough that he was touching her.

It was suddenly incredibly important that he touch her.

‘You've lost your swagger,' he said softly, almost as a whisper. ‘Life's sucked it right out of you. Let me fix it for you.'

‘I don't…You can't.' Matty, she thought desperately, but he'd faded even more. What remained was the memory of how grief felt, how loss felt, how she couldn't afford to fall…

‘Elsa…' he said softly and as if in a dream she murmured back.

‘Mmm.'

‘Is it okay if I kiss you?'

Of course it wasn't. The idea was ridiculous.

But this wasn't real. It was a dream. And in her dream it was okay to kiss a prince. In her dream she could put her arms around his neck, link her hands and tug him downward.

In her dreams she could open her lips and wait for his lips to touch them.

In her dream he kissed her.

 

He kissed her.

Of all the dumb, stupid, complicating things to do, this must surely be the stupidest.

But she lay in her too-big bed, tucked under the vast eiderdown, looking up at him with eyes that were dreamy and close to sleep.

But not quite. She was watching him. She was smiling at him. And then her hands came up to hold him…He'd have to be inhuman to resist.

She was beautiful.

She was so different from any other woman in his world.

Slight and sexy, her sun-bleached curls were so fine they looked as if they'd float.

Her eyes were gorgeous in her too-thin face. A man could drown in those eyes.

She had eighteen freckles. He'd counted them when?
Maybe the first time he'd seen her. How many times had he recounted? And her lips were so kissable.

What made Elsa's lips more desirable than any other woman's?

Because they belonged to Elsa?

And because she was responding.

Amazingly, she was tugging him down to her and there was no way he could resist these lips. This mouth. This woman. He sank so he was sitting on the vast bed, and he gathered her into his arms—and he kissed her with all the tenderness in his heart.

She melted into him. What had provoked him to ask permission to kiss her? He didn't know. All he knew was that the desire had become overwhelming. And when his mouth met hers…

He'd kissed women in his time. None like this.

She was warm and tender, close to tears and close to laughter, exhausted by jet lag and by fear of losing Zoe, intimidated beyond belief by her surroundings…and yet she was courageous beyond belief and she was melting into his arms as if she belonged here. She was kissing as well as being kissed. Her lips were demanding, opening, aching for him, and taking him as well as giving herself.

She felt right.

She felt like…home. Home and heart.

There was a ridiculous thought. And, as the acknowledgement of how crazy it was hit home, other realities slammed in.

He did not need to be attracted to this woman. This woman meant family.

He did not do family.

All this flooded through his consciousness like a shock wave, breaking the passion of the kiss, causing his arms to stiffen a little, causing him to break away…

Or maybe it was Elsa who broke away. He hardly knew. All that was certain was that she was still in his arms but the kiss
had ended and he felt a flood of regret so deep it threatened to overwhelm him.

And Elsa's eyes were clouding as well, distancing herself from him, her arms untwining themselves from around his neck and pushing against his chest. Pushing him away.

‘What…what do you think you're doing?' she whispered and he knew her confusion was at least as great as his.

‘What do we both think we're doing?' he said ruefully and looked down into her face and saw fear.

Fear? Where had that come from? Surely she couldn't be afraid of him.

He was a prince in a royal palace and she was…a royal nanny.

He stood up as if she burned, taking a swift step back from the bed. If she could think that…

But…‘You needn't worry,' she whispered. ‘I'm not thinking you're about to rape and pillage. I have a scream that can be heard into the middle of next week.'

‘Good for you,' he said unsteadily.

‘Don't patronise me.'

‘I never would.'

She closed her eyes. It was a defence, he knew, but he never doubted for a moment that she'd sleep.

He stood looking down at her for a long moment, trying to think of what to say. Trying to think of how he could take this from here.

‘Go away,' she muttered again.

Go away? It was the only sensible thing to do.

Of course it was the sensible thing to do.

Go away, he repeated to himself and it was a direct order, but only he knew how much effort it cost him to turn on his heel and walk out of the door.

If Zoe hadn't been asleep in the next bed…

Maybe it was just as well she was.

E
LSA
woke and sunlight was streaming in though the massive French windows of their bedroom. The crystals from the chandelier above her head were sending glittering sparkles across the room.

Zoe was sitting on the end of her bed, fully dressed in another of the lovely outfits Stefanos had bought for her.

She was cuddling a kitten. A small grey kitten with a white nose, white paws and a tiny tip of white on the end of his tail.

‘Go say hello to Elsa,' Zoe said, and put the kitten down and watched in satisfaction as the small creature walked along the coverlet, crouched down and put a paw out to tentatively touch Elsa's chin.

‘What…where did he come from?' Elsa managed, doing a speedy visual check of the room in case Stefanos was lurking behind the curtains. Not that she was afraid of Stefanos. Not exactly.

But she wouldn't put it past the man to lurk.

‘Stefanos gave him to me,' Zoe said with deep satisfaction. ‘He said I must be missing my cats at home and he's mine to keep. His name is Buster.'

‘Yours to keep…' Elsa said cautiously. This needed thinking about.

There were things like quarantine laws. It was easy enough,
she knew, to get animals from Australia to Europe, but taking them the other way…

She'd just woken up and here was another instance of Stefanos's arrogance. He'd have planned this before last night, she thought. Before she'd known he was leaving. He'd assumed he could talk her round.

He had talked her round.

But something wasn't making sense. Zoe was up and dressed. She'd gone to sleep—what—at five or six p.m.?

She checked her wristwatch.

Eleven.

She sat bolt upright and yelped. Buster bolted for the far end of the bed, where his new mistress scooped him up and held him close.

‘You're scaring him,' she said, reproachful.

‘I'm scaring myself. How can it be morning already?'

‘It's been morning for ages,' Zoe said. ‘I woke up and waited and waited but you kept sleeping. And then I opened the door and there was a really nice lady sitting in the corridor and she said her name was Christina and she'd been waiting for me to wake up. She helped me have a bath—it's a really big bath, Elsa, you should see it—and she helped me with my clothes and then she took me down for breakfast and Stefanos was there. So we had a really yummy breakfast—strawberries, Elsa—and then Stefanos took me to the stables and gave me Buster. And I brought him up to show you but you were
still
sleeping, and Stefanos said we had to let you sleep for as long as you needed to, so we've been really quiet only we've just been watching.'

This was just about the longest speech Zoe had ever made. She sat back on the bed and cuddled Buster the kitten, and Elsa smiled at her in pleasure and wonder. The as-yet-not-met Christina must be good to have Zoe smiling after a bath. To be remembering it with pleasure.

But there was another part of her that was saying uh-oh.

Stefanos was truly seducing them, she thought, watching Zoe's face flush with excitement. He'd already seduced her
little charge. Zoe might be hugging her kitten but every time she said Stefanos's name her voice took on the hush of hero worship.

He'd given her strawberries for breakfast. He'd given her a kitten.

Bribery, she thought.

And what was he trying on her?

Seduction of another kind.

But…she kind of liked it.

Matty, Matty, Matty, she thought fiercely but it didn't work. Wherever Matty was, however much she'd loved him, he was no longer protection against Stefanos.

‘Do you want to get up now?' Zoe said. ‘Stefanos wants to take you out to lunch. He said you both need to talk privately about boring stuff, so he asked if I'd mind staying here with Christina and Buster. And Christina thought she might show me the beach. If that's okay with you,' she added, but her tone said Elsa's agreement was never in doubt.

It couldn't be in doubt. Elsa inspected the request from all angles. There was a lot to consider.

Like going out to lunch with Stefanos. He'd suggested it last night. She didn't remember agreeing.

‘He said to tell you it's a picnic. He said to tell you shorts are man…mandatory and swords are optional. I don't know what that means.'

‘It means Stefanos is being silly,' she said, a bit too abruptly, and Zoe looked at her in astonishment.

‘Don't you like Stefanos?'

‘No. Yes! I don't know.'

‘Do you want Christina to run you a bath?' Zoe said seriously. ‘The bath is lovely. It's really, really deep.'

‘I believe I can run my own bath,' Elsa said. ‘Though I should take a shower. I hope your cousin Stefanos is taking one too. Preferably cold.'

‘Why would he want to do that?' Zoe asked, astonished.

‘I have no idea,' she said and summoned a grin. ‘I know I'm being stupid. But I think it might be me who needs to take a cold shower.'

 

She went to shower—but then she changed her mind. This wasn't a place for denying oneself.

Her hip would definitely like a bath.

Back home she survived on tank water. Showers had to be fast of necessity.

Here she had a feeling if she wanted to stay in the bath all day, playing with the amazing selection of bottles of luxury…stuff? no one would say a word of protest. So she did. If not for a day, for almost an hour.

She might have used one too many bottles of smelly stuff, she conceded as she soaked on. She was fighting to keep an airway free through bubbles.

Finally, reluctantly, her conscience got the better of her. She wrapped herself in a fabulously fleecy white towel, used several more towels getting rid of the bubbles and padded back to the bedroom.

She opened her wardrobe and gasped. Yesterday she'd accepted two dresses and a couple of shirts and sandals. Some time during the night her selection had been augmented by…well, by enough clothes to keep a girl happy for a year.

This was really intrusive. She should be angry. But…She tugged out a lovely jonquil blouse and a soft pair of linen shorts. She held them up in front of her and any attempt at anger disappeared.

‘If you need to change direction, then you might as well enjoy it,' she told herself, and thought she was about to go on a picnic with Stefanos and she had new clothes and she felt terrific and maybe changing direction wasn't bad at all.

He was leaving.

She wouldn't think about that. She'd cope. She always had coped with what life threw at her. And if life was now throwing
bubbles and new clothes at her…and lunches with princes…a girl might just manage to survive.

 

She came down the staircase looking wide-eyed with apprehension, self-conscious in her neat lemony blouse, white shorts and new sandals—and very, very cute. She'd twisted her curls up into a knot. He liked it, he thought. He liked it a lot.

He'd like it better if he could just untwist it…

‘Have you been standing there for hours waiting for me?' she demanded as she saw him.

‘Hours,' he agreed, and grinned.

Did she have any idea how cute she was? Her eyes were creased a tiny bit from a lifetime spent in the sun, but that was the only sign of wear. Her nose was spattered with her eighteen gorgeous freckles. If he didn't know for sure she must be close to thirty, he'd have pegged her as little more than a teenager.

And she smelled…She smelled…

‘Wow,' he said as she came close, and she grinned.

‘Lily of the Valley, Sandalwood and Fig and Anise. There would have been lavender in there too, but I couldn't get the bottle open.'

‘Thank God for that,' he said faintly and then counted freckles again. ‘Um…Don't you believe in cosmetics?'

‘Pardon?'

‘Most of the women I know wear make-up,' he said lamely, kicking himself for letting his mouth engage before head.

‘Well, good for them,' she said encouragingly. ‘Do you, too?'

‘Do I what?'

‘I've spent so much time in doctors' waiting rooms over the last four years that I've read enough cosmetics advertisements to make me a world expert. There's men's cosmetics as well. I'm sure princes use them. Fake tan's the obvious one. Does your tan rub off on your towel?'

‘No,' he said, appalled, and she arched her eyebrows in polite disbelief.

‘You'll need sunscreen,' he said, sounding lame, and the look she gave him then was almost scornful.

‘Go teach your grandmother to suck eggs. I'm Australian. I put sunscreen on before my knickers.'

And then she heard what she'd said—and blushed.

It was some blush. It started at her toes and worked its way up, a tide of pink. She could feel it, he thought, and her knowledge that it was happening made it worse.

He loved it.

‘So…so this is royal beachwear,' she managed, moving on with an obvious struggle.

He glanced down at his casual chinos, his linen shirt and his boat shoes. ‘What's wrong with this?'

‘Looks great for being a prince and lazing on a sixty-foot yacht on the Mediterranean,' she said. ‘It's not great for rock pools, though. And that's where I hoped we'd be going. Somewhere rock pooly?'

She was defending by attack, he thought. But she was still blushing.

Last night he'd kissed her. Right now, all he could think of was that kiss. And how he could repeat it.

He may well get his face slapped, he thought. She'd been way out of control last night, exhausted and vulnerable. Right now…her defences were up and, even if he wanted to—okay, he did want to—she'd be sensible enough for both of them.

‘The kitchen staff have set us up with a picnic basket,' he told her. ‘There's a great little beach I know a few minutes' drive from here. I believe it even has rock pools.'

‘What time will we be back?'

‘Does it matter?'

‘Yes,' she said, definite. ‘I want control here. I should even be deciding where we're going.'

‘Isn't it usually the guy…?'

‘Who gives orders,' she finished for him. ‘I'm sure it is, and if it's a prince then it probably works double. But
Sleeping
Beauty
's for wimps. I fight my own battles—and I set up my own defences. Can I tell Zoe four o'clock?'

‘If you like.'

‘I do like,' she said. ‘You're on probation. After that kiss last night…I don't know why you did it but it scared me. I'm happy to have a picnic but let's make it quite clear this relationship is purely business.'

‘Of course,' he said courteously but he was aware of a stab of disappointment.

He didn't know what was happening—but what he did know was that he didn't want to be on a business footing with Elsa.

 

‘So why are we going on a picnic?' she asked as they headed out along the coast road. ‘Aren't there urgent princely things you should be doing?'

There were urgent princely things he should be doing, but for now…They were ensconced in a Gullwing Mercedes—a 1954 300 SL. A car with doors that opened like wings from the centre. A car that looked like a weird seagull—a crazy, wonderful car. It had belonged to the King, but it had obviously sat in mothballs for the last fifty years. Finding it had been a highlight of the past two dreary weeks.

And now…it felt great. The sun was shining, they were cruising smoothly around the curves of the scenic coast road, the Mercedes' motor was purring as if it was finally allowed to be doing what it should be doing—and for the moment that was how he felt too. As if he'd got it right.

Beside him…A beautiful woman with freckles.

‘So we're going to the beach why?' she prodded again and he shook off his preoccupation with Elsa the woman and Gullwing the car and tried to think of what she'd asked.

‘I want to be private.'

‘Not so you can kiss me again?'

‘No,' he said, startled, and then thought actually that wasn't such a bad idea.

‘Just as well,' she said, but her voice was strained. He
glanced across at her and thought she'd come close to admitting that last night's kiss had affected her as much as it had him.

‘So you want to talk to me,' she ventured.

‘We need to depend on each other,' he said, trying to sound suitably grave and princely. ‘Maybe it's time we got to find out a bit more about each other.'

‘Without kissing.'

‘Without kissing.' Hard to sound grave and princely while saying that.

‘So you can figure whether I can take on this island?'