Crowned: The Palace Nanny

‘Hi,’ he said, and smiled at the two of them and Elsa couldn’t resist. She had to smile. It was as if he had the strength to change her world, just by smiling.

‘Hi,’ Zoe said shyly and smiled as well, and Elsa looked at Zoe in astonishment. Two minutes earlier the two of them had been close to tears.

Stefanos’s smile was a force to be reckoned with.

‘I thought you’d be at the beach,’ he said, and then he looked more closely-maybe seeing the traces of their distress. ‘Is something wrong?’

‘We thought we wouldn’t go to the beach this morning,’ Elsa said repressively. Zoe loathed people talking about her injuries. She’d had enough fuss to last one small girl a lifetime.

Stefanos had never mentioned her scars. Maybe he hadn’t even noticed. Or…not.

‘Why not?’ he said gently, and suddenly he was talking to Zoe, and not to her. As if he’d guessed.

‘There’s a bit of my skin graft come loose,’ Zoe said.

Once again it was as much as Elsa could do not to gasp. Zoe never volunteered such information.

She’d had the best doctors-the best!-but almost every one of them talked to her and not to Zoe. Oh, they chatted to Zoe, but in the patronising way elders often talked to children. For the hard questions-even things like: ‘Is she sleeping at night?’-they turned to her, as if Zoe couldn’t possibly know.

So what had Stefanos done different?

She knew. He hadn’t treated her as an object of sympathy, and he’d talked directly to her. Simple but so important.

‘Whereabouts?’ Stefanos asked, still speaking only to Zoe.

‘Under my arm at the back.’

‘Is it hurting?’

‘No, but…it’s scary,’ Zoe said, and her bottom lip wobbled.

‘Can I ask why?’

‘Elsa will have to take me to hospital and they’ll make me stay there, and I don’t want to go.’ Her voice ended on a wail, she turned her face into Elsa’s shirt and she sobbed.

‘Zoe,’ Stefanos said, in a voice she’d not heard before. Gentle, yet firm. He squatted so he was at her eye level. ‘Zoe, will you let me take a look? I don’t know if I can help, but I’m a doctor. Will you trust me to see if I think you need hospital?’

He was a doctor?

There was a loaded silence. Zoe would be as stunned as she was, Elsa thought.

You still can’t have her, she thought, her instinctive response overriding everything else, but she had the sense to shut up. The last thing Zoe needed was more fear.

Because, astonishingly, Zoe was turning towards him. She was still hard against Elsa but he’d cut through her distress.

‘You’re a doctor?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you’re a prince.’

‘People are allowed to be both.’

‘My papa was a doctor,’ she said. ‘But a doctor of science. He studied shellfish.’

‘Did Christos get his doctorate?’ he said with pleasure. ‘Hey, how about that. I wish I’d known.’ Still he was talking to Zoe. ‘Your papa and I used to be really good friends. He taught me where to find the best shells on Khryseis. Only I always wanted to find the pretty ones or the big ones and he wanted to look for the interesting ones. Sometimes he’d pick up a little grey shell I didn’t think at all special and off he’d go, telling me it was a Multi-Armpit Hairy Cyclamate, or a Wobblysaurus Rex, or something even sillier.’

Zoe stared in astonishment-and then she giggled.

You could forgive a lot of a man who could make Zoe giggle, Elsa conceded. And…a man who could make her giggle as well?

‘Will you let me see what the problem is?’ he asked gently, and Zoe lifted her T-shirt without hesitation. Which was another miracle all by itself.

And here was another miracle. He didn’t react. Zoe’s left side was a mass of scar tissue but Stefanos’s expression didn’t change by as much as a hair’s breadth. He was still smiling a little-with Zoe-and she was smiling back. His long fingers probed the scar tissue with infinite gentleness, not going near the tiny suppurating wound but simply assessing the situation overall.

He had such long fingers, Elsa thought. Big hands, tanned and gentle. She wouldn’t mind…

Um…whoa. Attention back to Zoe. Fast.

‘What sort of medical supplies do you have here?’ he asked, still speaking only to Zoe, and Elsa held her breath. This was a question every doctor or nurse she knew would address to her, but this whole conversation was between the two of them.

‘We have lots of stuff,’ Zoe volunteered. ‘Sometimes when I’m just out of hospital the nurses come here and change my dressings. It costs a lot though, ’cause we’re so far out of town, so Elsa keeps a lot of stuff here and she’s learned to do it instead.’

‘Well, good for Elsa.’ And, dumbly, Elsa found she was blushing with pleasure. ‘Can I see?’ he asked.

‘I’ll get it,’ she said and headed for the bathroom-and even that was a minor miracle. For Zoe to let her leave the room while a strange doctor was examining her…Definitely a miracle.

She didn’t push it, though. She was back in seconds, carrying a hefty plastic crate. She set it down and Stefanos examined its contents and whistled.

‘You have enough here to treat an elephant,’ he said. ‘You don’t have an elephant hidden under a bed somewhere, do you?’

Once again Zoe giggled. It was the best sound. It made her feel…It made her feel…

No. She would not get turned on because this man made a child giggle.

Only she already was. She was fighting hormones here as hard as she could. And losing.

It had been too long. You’re a sick, sad spinster, she told herself, and then rebuked herself sharply. Not a spinster. She glanced across at the mantel, and Matty’s face smiled down at her from its frame. Sorry, she told him under her breath. Sorry, sorry, sorry.

‘You know, I’m sure I can fix this.’ Stefanos’s words tugged her attention straight back to him. ‘Zoe, if you and Elsa trust me…I think all this needs is some antiseptic cream, a couple of Steri-Strips to tug it together-see, it’s at the end of the graft so we can attach the strips to good skin on either side and tug it together. Then we can pop one of these waterproof dressings over the whole thing and you could even go swimming this morning. Which, seeing I brought my bathers, is probably a good thing.’ He grinned.

And Elsa thought, I’m in trouble here. I’m in serious trouble.

But they were moving on. Stefanos rose and washed his hands with the thoroughness of a surgeon. Then he lifted Zoe carefully-being mindful of where her scars were without Zoe noticing he was mindful, Elsa thought. He sat her on the kitchen table and proceeded to do his stuff.

He was skilled. She just had to see those fingers gently probing. She just had to listen to him chat to Zoe, distracting her as he worked. He was so careful, so precise, and she thought of all the doctors who’d treated Zoe over the past four years and she thought this man was a blessing.

This man wanted to take Zoe away.

This man was Zoe’s cousin-a prince.

This man was a doctor, with all the skills needed to take care of her.

She was a marine biologist with nothing.

He was applying the waterproof dressing now and he glanced over his shoulder to say something to her. And he saw her expression. She’d tried to get it under control but he could see-she knew he could see.

‘There’s nothing to be afraid of, Elsa,’ he said gently and she thought, You don’t know the half of it. Nothing to be afraid of? When he was threatening to turn her world around?

‘I…You came here to talk,’ she said, and it was really hard to get her words out.

‘I came here to swim,’ he said. ‘Are there any other problems to sort before we swim? Nothing I can treat? Ingrown toenails? Snakebite? Measles?’

Zoe giggled again and wriggled down from the table. She was totally at ease now, completely relaxed in his