Crowned: The Palace Nanny

THEIR apartments were stunning-two apartments with an adjoining door. Rooms almost big enough to house a tennis court.

‘They’re built for the Crown Prince and Crown Princess,’ Stefanos told them while Zoe and Elsa stared in incredulity.

‘This is something out of a museum,’ Elsa murmured. ‘You know the ones I mean? This is the bed where Charles the First spent the night before the Great Wiggery Foppery of Seventeen Sixty-Two.’

‘The Great Wiggery Foppery?’ Stefanos asked, bemused.

‘Or maybe it was the Great Gunfire Pirouette with Catherine Wheels,’ she told him, desperately striving for humour in the face of splendour that was just plain intimidating. ‘I’m Australian so my knowledge of royalty is distinctly hazy, but my grandma had a book on Bedrooms of the World. I read it when I was seven and I had chickenpox. They all had descriptions like Queen Anne had dropsy in this very bed and threw up on this very pillow. And no, don’t ask me what dropsy is.’

‘Are we really going to sleep in here?’ While Elsa was covering her nerves with nonsense, Zoe was awed into hushed delight.

‘They’ve changed the sheets since the great dropsy plague,’ Stefanos said gravely. ‘I think it might be safe to sleep in them again.’

Zoe giggled.

Which was the whole point of the exercise, Elsa reminded herself. If she could keep Zoe giggling…

But for how long?

‘We’ll sleep in this one,’ Zoe said, and proceeded to clamber up onto what was surely intended as the Crown Prince’s bed. It was vast, with four golden posts, a golden canopy and rich burgundy curtains drawn back with gold tassels.

‘Then Elsa will sleep in the other one,’ Stefanos said, motioning through the open door to a bedroom almost as large and a bed almost as luxurious.

The giggling stopped. Zoe’s bottom lip trembled.

‘No,’ she said. ‘This is too big by myself. We sleep in the same room at home. Why can’t we sleep in the same room here?’

‘We can,’ Elsa said. ‘There’s no need to worry Prince Stefanos, though. We’ll fix it.’

‘You’ve been sharing a room with Zoe?’ Stefanos asked.

‘I have.’ She met his gaze with open defiance.

‘So you had only one bedroom in that little cottage?’

‘Zoe has nightmares,’ she said. ‘Even if we had ten bedrooms we wouldn’t use them.’

‘I’m not sure the staff will approve of a trundle bed in here. They’re wanting Zoe to be real royalty.’

‘So Zoe gets the four-poster and I get a trundle.’

‘There needs to be some delineation.’

‘I’m her friend and her guardian.’

‘Yes, and her nanny.’

‘So I am,’ she said, figuring that here was a line in the sand-her first test. Zoe would not be made to suffer from the demands of royalty. ‘So it’s back to the trundle. Zoe will not sleep alone.’

‘I don’t like alone,’ Zoe said, relaxing now she was sure Elsa was on her side.

‘We’ll sort it out,’ Stefanos went on in a voice that said this issue wouldn’t go away.

‘If you think…’

‘Leave it,’ he said, and she met his gaze head-on. ‘Zoe, take a look at the beach.’

Zoe looked-while Elsa met Stefanos’s gaze and held. He smiled at her and she thought, Don’t you dare. You smile at me and you think you can get away with murder.

The scary thing was that she suspected he could.

‘Look at the beach, Elsa,’ he said gently, and she tore her gaze away from his and looked.

The palace gardens led down to a wide stretch of golden sand, a cove of shallow water and low, rolling waves.

‘Wow,’ Zoe breathed. ‘Can we swim?’

‘As soon as you’re settled.’ He hesitated, watching Elsa. Who forced her thoughts back to beds.

If he thought he could get his own way simply by smiling…She took a deep breath and started to form a cogent argument about trundle beds, but he’d moved on.

‘Lunch is in half an hour,’ he told them. ‘We’ll organise the beds later. Meanwhile, I’ll leave you to get settled. The butler will let you know when lunch is ready, and he’ll show you the way.’

‘Can’t we just come down in half an hour?’ Elsa asked.

‘You’d get lost,’ he told her and there was that smile again. ‘And now we have you both here we don’t intend to lose you. Make yourselves at home and I’ll see you at lunch.’

He went out. Elsa was left with confusion, an unaccountable fear and the knowledge that the room was bleaker for his going.

What was it about the man? In his presence she felt about the same age as Zoe.

This was crazy. It was just his uniform, she told herself. The fairy tale bit. He looked so…royal.

‘Stefanos said we’re getting our photos taken after lunch,’ Zoe ventured, looking worried. ‘Should I wear something pretty?’

‘You look very pretty right now,’ she said and gave the little girl a swift hug. A hug she needed just as much as Zoe. ‘But maybe we can find you something even prettier. What about your new dress?’

They came down to lunch looking nervous. Zoe was wide-eyed with wonder, clutching Elsa’s hand as if it were a lifeline-but she wasn’t subdued, Stefanos thought, as he watched them walk down the stairs towards him. She looked like a little girl about to go to a birthday party where she didn’t know anyone. It was a bit scary, but it might turn out to be fun.

Elsa, on the other hand, looked nervous in a different way. It was as if she was nervous of her royal surroundings. More. She was nervous of him?

She was still wearing jeans and sweatshirt. Zoe was in the most extravagant of the clothes he’d bought for her-her beautiful party dress. Beside her, Elsa looked subdued. She looked even more subdued when she saw him waiting for them at the foot of the stairs. It was this uniform, he thought regretfully. It was enough to scare him. After the media call he could take it off, but until then he had to be a prince.

So. He was a prince. Zoe was a princess. Elsa looked as if she didn’t want to be here at all.

And she was still limping. He hadn’t noticed when she’d arrived, but watching her coming down the stairs he saw it again. She was holding the balustrade with her spare hand and doing her best to disguise it, but she was being careful. The way she swung her left leg forward…There wasn’t full movement in her hip and it looked as if coming downstairs hurt.

Last time he’d seen her he’d seen the faintest trace of a limp. She’d brushed it aside when he’d enquired, and he’d had so much on his mind then that to assume it was a temporary sprain had been the easiest option. Now, though…There was a lot he had to find out about this woman.

Like what was the damage with her leg.

Like why she was coming to lunch and a media call in faded jeans and sweatshirt. Looking scared. Up until now he would have described her as spirited and feisty. What was it about this place that was sucking the spirited and feisty out of her?

He glanced up at the massive chandelier above his head-two thousand crystals, the housekeeper had told him, and he didn’t doubt it for a minute-and he thought, What’s oppressive about this?

He smiled at them and Zoe let go of Elsa’s hand and bounced down the last few steps to greet him. She gazed up at the chandelier and breathed deeply in small girl satisfaction.

‘It’s really, really beautiful,’ she said.

‘So are you,’ he told her and she giggled.

He glanced at Elsa-and caught her unawares. There was a wash of pure, unmitigated pain on her face. It was gone as soon as it had come, quickly turned into a smile, but he knew he wasn’t mistaken.

‘We’re hungry,’ she said, a trifle too fast, and he thought she was still in defence mode.

‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘In fact, more than excellent when you see what’s in front of us.’