Crowned: The Palace Nanny (8 page)

‘Useful?' The concept made Elsa gasp. What was she letting herself in for? This man…this
prince
…was moving way too fast, and she had no idea where he was going. ‘Like how?' And then as he paused as if he wasn't sure how to answer, she decided this was deeply scary and a girl had to set some limits.

‘Can we get some ground rules in place?' she ventured, searching wildly for some way to ground herself. Employment as a palace nanny…What did she know of such a job? What did royal nannies do?

In the absence of a job description, maybe she ought to list her own.

‘Ground rules?' he asked, quirking one eyebrow. Again he seemed to be on the verge of laughter, and the sensation made her feel crazy.

‘No washing, no ironing and definitely no scrubbing the stairs on hands and knees,' she said wildly, while he and Zoe looked on with astonishment. ‘No attending royal banquets and sitting at the bottom of the table where I don't know anyone. Neither will I wear a calf-length uniform with a starched collar and
Nanny
embroidered on the front. Nor will I curtsey or walk out of Zoe's presence backwards. No shoe shining, no…'

‘But we do still need to go,' Zoe said, cutting into a tirade that was getting…well, more than a bit irrational.

Elsa paused. She looked at Stefanos's hiked eyebrows—both of them were hiked now. His lips were twitching.

Maybe she was being just ever so slightly over the top.

She struggled for calm. Hysteria wasn't what was needed, she told herself severely. Nor was treating this as a crazy joke. She needed to stay practical and focus on Zoe—regardless of whether or not Stefanos was laughing at her.

In her short life Zoe had faced her parents' deaths, and then more hospitals and doctors and paramedics and social workers than Elsa wanted to think about. Almost all of them talked over
her head. It made Zoe mad, but usually she became quiet and passive.

Not now. She'd been listening to Elsa in astonishment, but with an attention more suitable to one twice her age. Now she turned to Stefanos and frowned.

‘Elsa doesn't have to do all that stuff, does she?'

‘No,' Stefanos said definitely. ‘I think Elsa's been reading too many fairy tales.'

‘But there really is a palace?'

‘There really is a palace,' he said and smiled at her. ‘And you really are a princess.'

He'd hooked Zoe, Elsa thought frantically. Just because he had a smile to die for.

Just because he was logical, thoughtful and he sounded as if he cared. Just because he was smiling at Zoe now with kindness and also the trace of a challenge, convincing her that this could be some sort of magical adventure.

He was glancing at her with a quizzical look that was kind as well as knowing.

How could he be kind? What did she know of the man?

What did she know about the island?

‘What…what medical facilities are on the island?' she managed, trying valiantly to sound grown-up, sensible and in control. Or at least as grown-up, sensible and in control as Zoe.

‘Zoe will have me to care for her,' he told her, matching her tone. ‘And there's specialist backup in Athens.'

‘There are no paediatricians on Khryseis?'

He hesitated. ‘Education has hardly been King Giorgos's concern,' he admitted at last. ‘In fact he's actively discouraged it. Even I haven't been able to work there. Giorgos wouldn't permit me to practice medicine on Khryseis, so I've built my career elsewhere.'

‘There are no medical facilities at all?' she asked incredulously.

‘There's one elderly doctor and a midwife. Up until now the fishermen have taken really ill islanders to Athens.'

‘You're kidding me.'

‘Sadly, no.'

‘And…and now?'

‘And now we go back to the island and think about the future from there.'

‘You'll get more medical staff?'

‘That's one of my first priorities. The island's not big enough to support a huge range of specialties but there will be good basic medicine with fast transfers to Athens at need.'

He hesitated. ‘Elsa, you will be looked after,' he said, gently but strongly. ‘You both will. So no, Elsa, you will not be asked to scrub stairs or polish silver. You'll be on the island as Zoe's friend and as her nanny, for as long as you wish to stay. I'll ask nothing more of you. This isn't a trap, Elsa. I promise you. No strings.' His face broke into another of his magical smiles. ‘Our island's lovely, Elsa. Zoe. We can work things out. The three of us. Please?'

His smile caught her and held. Demanding a response. How could she resist an appeal like this?

And, despite her fears, a tiny trickle of excitement crept in.

She had no idea where this man was coming from—or where he was going—but his smile was mesmerising. And as well as that…

She and Zoe had eaten sandwiches for lunch almost every day for four years. She'd had to chop wood to cook and to heat their water. Wood-chopping jarred her hip so much that sometimes it was hard not to just give in. But there was never the choice of giving in.

But now…Stefanos was offering them a home in a palace on an island in the Mediterranean. He was offering her a well-paid job. She'd have no more money worries. No wood-chopping. Did he realise how enticing it sounded? This man might appear seriously sexy but right now it was the lack of wood-chopping that was more seductive.

‘I do need to keep my research skills up,' she muttered, fighting to sound practical and reserved and wary.

‘Of course. I see you doing the same things you're doing now. With Zoe.'

‘Home-schooling?'

‘We can get a tutor. Zoe, you'll need to learn Greek.'

‘I already know Greek,' Zoe said proudly.

‘You already know…'

‘Christos spoke Greek to her as a baby,' Elsa told him, feeling a bit smug herself as she noted his astonishment. ‘We figured it was part of who she was, so we've kept it up.'

‘Elsa speaks it now too,' Zoe added, ‘and we both read it. There are two old Greek ladies in Waratah Cove. We visit them once a week and talk with them, and Elsa does their shopping and says it's payment for our lessons. If we went away I'd miss them.' Her face clouded. ‘And the cats. How can we go away without our cats?'

‘Yeah, the cats,' Elsa said, as if it was a challenge.

He grinned at that. ‘That's one more thing fixed. Zoe, open the blue suitcase.'

She opened it. Fascinated. To display cat food. Bulk cat food. A suitcase of cat food.

‘So we're supposed to open the suitcase and come home when they need a refill?' Elsa said and she couldn't help sounding waspish.

‘That's fixed too,' he said, his grin teasing her to smile with him. ‘There's a guy who works round here tending gardens, doing odd jobs. I've arranged for him to visit every night at dusk, feed the cats, lock them up, then let them out at dawn. In perpetuity. And if any other stray comes along then he's to do exactly what you'd do. Take it in, get it neutered, tell it the house rules. He can even do your two Greek ladies' shopping if you want. Now…Any more objections?'

‘My…my house?' Elsa stammered.

‘I told you, he does gardens and odd jobs. He'll maintain this place as long as we want.'

‘You found this guy when?'

‘The concierge at the hotel earned his keep last night,' he said, and grinned again. ‘He brought his wife in to help. His wife knows you and knows what you need. So there you go. Local knowledge and my cash.'

‘Yeah, your cash,' she said, breathless. ‘We can't take it.'

‘See, what you don't understand is that you can,' he said. ‘Zoe's a princess. You're nanny to a princess. Are there any other problems?'

‘The medical facilities…'

‘I'll be there and, as I said, there are fast flights to Athens. Until we get other medical facilities organised we can cope.' He took her hand again and held, and with his other hand he took Zoe's. ‘Khryseis needs a team,' he said. ‘A royal team. Prince Regent, Princess Zoe and Nanny Elsa. Do we have it?'

‘Yes,' Zoe said.

There were no arguments left. The only one that was still swirling round and round in her mind was, I don't want to be a nanny to your prince.

But that was dumb. She glanced at the mantel where Matt still smiled.

Definitely it was dumb.

He glanced to where she'd looked. Saw what she'd been looking at.

Didn't ask a question.

‘It'll be fine,' he said softly, and the pressure on her hand strengthened. Then, before she knew what he was about, he put his hand under her chin and tilted it—and kissed her. It was a feather-light kiss, quickly over, and why it had the capacity to make her feel…make her feel…

No. She had to stop thinking about how it made her feel, because that was nonsense. But his hand was still under her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze.

‘I will keep you safe,' he said, strongly and surely. ‘And Zoe too. You've worked too hard for too long, Elsa Murdoch. Now it's up to Zoe and me to see you have some fun. Just say yes.'

And what else was she to do?

‘I guess…yes,' she managed, but she didn't add, Yes, Your Royal Highness. Because that would be agreeing to all of it. The whole royal fairy tale.

Ridiculous.

T
WO
weeks later they left Australia, luxuriating in first class seats on a direct flight to Athens, to be followed by a smaller plane to Khryseis.

‘I'll be on Khryseis to meet you,' Stefanos had said in one of the scores of calls he'd made since then. ‘But our people will take care of you all the way.'

They hadn't seen him since that fateful lunch. He'd had to leave. ‘Things are chaotic,' he'd said. ‘I need to get back to the island straight away but I promise I won't let that disorder touch you.'

It wasn't touching them now. They were in first class airline seats. They had a cocoon each, with every conceivable gadget, including one that turned the seats into beds at the flick of a switch. A hostess had already made Zoe's bed for her, with crisp linen and fluffy duvet, and she was fast asleep.

Elsa was staring out of the window and seeing what was probably Hawaii.

She was trying not to gibber.

She'd been on one overseas flight in her life. To Tasmania. She didn't remember all that many gadgets and duvets and cocoons on that flight. She remembered being served a packet of nuts and a warm beer.

She was about to be a nanny to a princess.

The princess was bone weary. Her little body still wasn't up to strength. The last weeks had been excitement plus, and Elsa had worried about the wisdom of letting her go at all.

‘But it's imperative,' Stefanos had said in his deep, grave voice and, dumb or not, she believed him. If Zoe wasn't there he had no power to replace the council. He had no power to stop the corruption he told her was endemic.

So, once again, why rail against something she had no control over? Now, as Zoe snuggled into sleep, she thought with this level of luxury maybe her little charge could enjoy herself.

Maybe
she
could enjoy herself.

Amazingly, her hip wasn't hurting. Normally, sitting for more than a couple of hours made it ache unbearably, but her hip obviously decided it liked first class treatment, thank you very much, and it wasn't only her hip thinking it.

She was on her way to live in a castle. As a nanny. A nanny, she reminded herself. A paid servant. She'd get to eat in the servants' quarters, while Zoe ate in state. She'd use chipped pottery while Zoe swanned round in party dresses, using cut-glass crystal and silverware, attended by butlers and…and whatever else royalty had.

Um…this was Zoe she was talking about. Maybe she couldn't see that happening.

And tucked in her bag was a document, prepared by Stefanos's legal team, read from all angles by her local lawyer and then faxed to a team of international lawyers in Canberra for a final check.

The document said that if, at any time, Zoe seemed so distressed that it was damaging her mental or physical health—and that decision was to be made by a team of independent
Australian
medical experts flown out at Stefanos's expense—then Zoe's fare back to Australia would be paid immediately. And so would hers.

So. Maybe it'd work?

But…she was a marine biologist, not a nanny.

Stefanos had promised her starfish.

Yeah, great. She shoved that thought as far back in her head as she could. She'd like to be rid of it completely—the ache to follow her own dreams.

But Zoe came first. Zoe was more important than dreams. And maybe those dreams could still be resurrected. If Zoe was unhappy they'd come home.

Catch-22. She didn't want Zoe to be unhappy.

‘But we can make it a game,' she'd whispered to Zoe as she'd watched her little charge drift towards sleep. ‘You being a princess in a castle.'

‘With a prince,' Zoe had said sleepily. ‘Isn't he nice?'

He is nice, Elsa admitted. Um…all things considered, he's very nice.

Which was why she had to remember that he was a prince and she was a nanny. A nanny with a sliver of a career left as a marine biologist, who could maybe be happy with starfish.

Certainly a nanny with no interest whatsoever in a prince. Even if he was as drop-dead gorgeous as Stefanos.

Especially
if he was as drop-dead gorgeous as Stefanos!

She closed her eyes. Two seconds later the hostess was beside her. ‘Can I make your bed up for you, ma'am? Here are your pyjamas.'

She handed her a pair of pink silk pyjamas.

There was a well-known Australian politician sitting in the seat diagonally in front of her—she recognised him from the newspapers. He was wearing blue silk pyjamas as he read the financial pages.

What a shame Stefanos wasn't with them, she thought. He'd look really cute in blue pyjamas.

See, she told herself sternly. That's what nannies are paid not to think.

What are nannies paid to think?

Not about lost careers. Not about lost dreams.

And not about drop-dead gorgeous Prince Regents.

 

Stefanos paced the palace balcony and waited for them, feeling ridiculous. The staff were beside themselves with excitement, so much so that he'd given in and done the dress-up thing again. He'd done it twice now, once in Australia at the formal reception and again today. Hopefully there wouldn't
be too many more occasions where he had to feel so ridiculous.

But maybe there would be.

This whole situation was crazy, he told himself, for maybe the thousandth time since he'd heard the news of Christos's death. He was automatically Prince Regent—island ruler until Zoe turned twenty-five—but, although the Regency gave him some powers, the thing he wanted most was denied to him.

He wanted the island to be a democracy, but as Regent he had no power to change the constitution. Democracy would have to wait for Zoe to turn twenty-five.

Since he was a kid he'd dreamed of Khryseis being a great and wonderful place to live. But now…he'd fallen in love with his medicine. He was good at his job. His research was vitally important, and he loved what he did.

What could he do here but tinker round the edges, protect the islanders from the worst of the excesses they'd endured in the past, then—what?—try and remember his general medicine so he could treat the islanders' minor ailments until Zoe came of age? In what, seventeen years?

Then he'd go tamely back to the States and pick up where he'd left off? To a career that was waiting for him?

Yeah, and pigs would fly.

He had no choice. He had to care for the island. He had to care for Zoe.

And Elsa?

She needed care as much as Zoe, he thought. Elsa had stood up to him with the air of a battered warrior, a woman accustomed to having her world shift and accepting those shifts with as much dignity and grace as she could muster. He'd seen how much the thought of losing Zoe terrified her, but once she'd realised how needful it was she'd simply got on with it.

He had the feeling that even if he hadn't offered her a generous salary, she'd still be doing exactly what she was doing. Taking care of Zoe, no matter what life threw at her.

What had life thrown at her?

He needed to find out more about her—and her husband. Why was he no longer on the scene? She still wore a wedding ring.

Um…why was that relevant?

He should have found out. His enquiries had been professional. It had seemed wrong to pry.

But he wanted to know.

He did already know some things. For one…
She seemed loving
. For some dumb reason that phrase had been playing in his head since he'd met her. Her fierce devotion to Zoe was touching something in him that he'd learned to ignore a long time ago.

He didn't do emotion. Since he'd left this island as a teenager he'd been totally committed to his medicine. Yet here he was, not only realising he'd have to abandon the work he was passionate about but, in the stillness of the night, as he lay trying to find a way he could sort all his commitments, Alexandros's idle teasing kept rising up to taunt him.

Wife. Family.

No!

He remembered the horror of his father's death, and his mother's anguish as she'd insisted he take a scholarship to the US to keep him safe. He remembered grief and homesickness, and his mother's death had cemented his knowledge that love caused nothing but pain. Work had been his salvation then, as it could be his salvation now—whether or not it was the work he desperately wanted to do.

‘If you please…' A delicate cough sounded behind him and he jumped a foot. The old palace butler moved like a cat. One of these days the old guy was going to give him a heart attack.

He turned and tried to look as if he hadn't had a fright. ‘Yes?'

‘I believe they've arrived, sir,' the old man said gravely.

He glanced out at the magnificent formal driveway. An ancient Rolls-Royce was proceeding in state down the avenue, the flag of Khryseis flying proudly from the grille.

The butler was beaming with pride and anticipation. That was what this was all about, Stefanos thought grimly. Giving the islanders back their identity.

Which was why he was wearing this ridiculous uniform.

But there were other imperatives hammering at him. Back in New York he had a surgical list still waiting. He couldn't let those kids down. He'd have to return before he could finally commit himself to this place.

The car had pulled to a halt and the driver stepped out. He must be eighty as well—half the retainers in this household were in their dotage—but, like most of the staff, he was also wearing the imposing uniform of the Khryseis royal household.

Since Giorgos's death, since the islanders had discovered they could revert to their own royal family, the excitement had been building. The Isle of Sappheiros now had its own royal family in its palace. So did the Isle of Argyros. Khryseis, the smallest of the islands, was last to revert to rule by its original royal family, and the islanders were looking to Stefanos to make this good.

And they were also looking to this one little girl, coming home. A child who must be protected.

At least he could share that responsibility, he thought, once more feeling grateful for Elsa. Ruling the island might be his duty but with Elsa here he didn't need to commit emotionally. If he kept Zoe safe and her nanny happy, then that was the extent of his obligations.

The Crown Princess was loved by a woman called Elsa. Which meant the love bit could be shelved as not his business.

 

Elsa and Zoe climbed from the Rolls-Royce and if they weren't quite clutching each other they came awfully close.

‘This is really scary,' Zoe whispered, and Elsa couldn't agree more.

It was a palace. A real, honest to goodness palace, vast and ancient. Turrets, battlements, spires and flags, vast entrance steps and Grecian columns, all set against a magical back
drop—sapphire seas, golden beaches, white cliffs with mountains in the background.

Internet pages they'd read had told them that Khryseis was the most impoverished of the three Diamond Isles, but once it had been fabulously wealthy. This palace backed it up. Elsa had never seen a building so fantastic. Or big.

‘I hope we don't have to dust and hoover it,' she whispered to Zoe, and Zoe giggled. The tension eased.

Only then Stefanos strode out of the vast front entrance and the tension zoomed back again.

‘Ooo er…' Elsa muttered, and Zoe clutched her hand and gave another shaky giggle. Striding down the great granite steps towards them, Stefanos looked like something out of history. Romantic history.

‘He's a real prince again. Do you think he wears a sword?' Zoe whispered, awed.

‘Hey, he is,' Elsa said as he got closer and they could see the great golden hilt emerging from its scabbard. ‘Be good, Zoe.'

‘It's only Stefanos. He won't hurt us,' Zoe said, and it was the child who was trying to reassure the adult.

Some nanny she made, Elsa thought. Telling her charge to be scared.

Actually, she wasn't a great nanny at all. She looked down at her scuffed trainers—she'd needed comfy shoes for the flight and these were all she had. For the last four years she'd lived in jeans and sweatshirts. If her royal duties demanded better clothes, they'd need to wait until pay day.

Zoe, however, looked beautiful. In her sparkly new clothes, her dark curls held back with diamanté butterfly clips, her pretty blue sandals adorned with butterflies, she looked every inch a child of royalty.

Underneath her carefully chosen clothes were scars which were still healing, but her new clothes hid them and gave her confidence. As this man coming towards them was giving her excitement.

‘I'm going to be a princess,' she whispered.

‘And I'm going to be a nanny,' Elsa whispered back.

‘Stefanos said we could still look for starfish,' the child said, picking up on her nerves and, amazingly, trying to reassure her.