Crowned: The Palace Nanny

abreast.

‘The king who built this place must have been as fat as a whale,’ she told Zoe. ‘Or he had ten kids to take by the hand every Christmas morning.’ Zoe giggled and they were both still chuckling as Zoe hauled open the double doors to the great hall.

She stopped dead.

How long since she’d believed in Santa Claus?

When they’d gone to bed the Christmas tree was a decorator item, set up by the staff as a tasteful ode to Christmas. Now…whoever had come during the night had turned the tree into an over the top muddle.

The exquisite decorations and silver lights were still under there somewhere, but they were now almost hidden. Hung over the top of them were rows and rows of coloured popcorn, threaded together and hung in vast ribbons of garish colour. There were paper lanterns-every colour of the rainbow. Pictures of cats had been placed in tiny silver frames and hung as ornaments. There was a collection of motley socks hanging everywhere, all bulging.

‘The socks have got apples in them,’ Zoe said, awed, tugging her towards the tree. ‘That one’s a football sock and that one has a hole in the toe. And look at my present.’

She was seeing it. Stunned.

It was a trampoline, an eminently bouncy mat, built with a net canopy around it so a child could bounce without fear of falling.

For a child who needed to be encouraged to stretch scar tissue…for a child who loved bouncing…it was the best thing.

‘And you have a stocking too,’ Zoe said, deeply satisfied. ‘Look.’

She looked. On the mantelpiece hung three stockings. Zoe’s was bulging with nonsense gifts, a tin whistle, a boomerang-a boomerang?-a clockwork mouse…

More pictures of cats.

And there was a stocking labelled Elsa. A small parcel bulged in the toe, a document rolled and tied with a huge red bow was sticking out the end, and there were more pictures of cats.

The stocking labelled Stefanos was empty.

‘We should have something for Stefanos,’ Zoe said anxiously. ‘Santa didn’t come to him.’

‘We have a couple of gifts in our room,’ Elsa said uncertainly. ‘We could sneak up and put them in his stocking before he wakes.’

‘It’s too late for sneaking,’ said a low gravelly voice and she yelped.

The voice had come from behind the vast Christmas tree. Zoe darted behind in a flash.

‘Stefanos,’ she shouted. ‘He’s here. Elsa, he’s here, sleeping behind the tree.’

‘I always sleep behind the tree,’ a sleepy voice murmured, full of laughter. ‘For years and years. But I’ve never yet caught Santa Claus. Has he come?’

‘He’s come, he’s come.’ Zoe was squealing with excitement. ‘And he’s brought crazy socks. Elsa, he’s here. Stefanos is here. Come and see.’

There wasn’t a choice. She should have at least brushed her hair, she thought desperately, as she tried to organise her smile to be cool and welcoming. She walked cautiously around the tree, and there he was. He’d hauled a mattress downstairs, and a mound of bedding. He was lying back, smiling up at them, his blankets pulled only to his waist. Bare-chested.

Breathtakingly gorgeous.

Buster was on his stomach already, kneading his blankets with her soft paws and purring so hard you’d swear she’d recognised him. Zoe was snuggling down beside him, a little girl with everything she wanted in life.

‘You’ve messed with our Christmas decorations,’ she muttered before she could stop herself, and his grin widened.

‘I threaded popcorn all the way from New York to Athens, and I made half my fellow passengers help me. The rest were on lantern duty. And then it still looked a bit empty so Santa had to resort to socks. And a happy Christmas to you too, Mrs Murdoch. Dr Langham. My love.’

There was a bit too much in that statement for Elsa to think about. She opened her mouth to reply and gave up and closed it again.

‘No Happy Christmas?’ he said, smiling at her evident confusion.

‘Happy Christmas,’ she managed, sounding winded. ‘Why…why aren’t you in your own bed?’

‘I might have missed present opening. Have you opened your stocking yet?’ He rolled out of bed. He’d gone to bed wearing boxer shorts. Only boxer shorts. What more could a girl want for Christmas? she thought as she watched him stretch and yawn; as she thought all sorts of things that surely a nicely brought up girl-a mature widow!-had no business thinking.

Had she opened her stocking? ‘N…no,’ she managed, annoyed that her voice squeaked. ‘It’s bad form to open gifts until the family’s together.’

‘Is the family together now?’ he asked gently and he looked at Zoe cradling Buster and then he looked to her with such an expression that her heart did a double backflip. Landed on its back. Refused to start operating again in any mode she considered normal.

‘I…I guess,’ she muttered.

‘No guessing,’ he said, suddenly stern. ‘You need to be sure. Zoe, I’m assuming you’ve guessed this very fine trampoline came squeezing down the chimney in the wee small hours especially for you. Would you like to try it out for size?’

‘Ooh, yes,’ Zoe said and flew with Buster to the trampoline, only to be hauled back by her big cousin.

‘Buster,’ Stefanos said firmly, removing the long-suffering kitten from her arms, ‘stays on the ground.’

Only he didn’t. Stefanos handed Buster to Elsa and then, when her hands were safely occupied and she couldn’t fend him off, he kissed her. Just the once, but the look in his eyes said there were more where that came from. Just the once, but it was enough to light her world.

‘It appears I’m needing to send out a royal decree for mistletoe,’ he growled, his lovely crooked smile warming parts of her she hadn’t known were cold. ‘Honestly. Can’t you people be depended on to organise anything?’

She managed a chuckle but it was a pretty wavery chuckle. She was too…thrown.

‘Happy Christmas,’ he said again, and then obviously decided mistletoe was not absolutely essential and he kissed her again, deeply this time, long and hard and so wonderfully that finally Zoe ceased bouncing, put her hands on her hips and issued a royal decree of her own.

‘Yuck,’ she said. ‘And you’re squashing Buster. Stop kissing and open presents.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ Stefanos said and swept Elsa-and the slightly squished Buster-into his arms and deposited them both on the settee by the tree. Then he lifted the rolled document out of the top of her stocking and handed it to her, with such gravitas it was as if he was handing over royal title to his land and his kingdom for ever.

She looked up at him, wondering, but he was looking grave and expectant, waiting for her to discover for herself what it was. Slowly she unfastened the ribbon holding the roll of documents together. Buster pounced on the ribbon; she set both ribbon and Buster on the floor and then looked up at Stefanos again, half afraid to go further.

‘Well, go on, then,’ he said, in the same tone of impatience Zoe had just used. ‘Read it.’

She read.

…Transfer of title of Diamond Mine Number Two on the Isle of Argyros, the income from which to be used in perpetuity for the health of all the citizens of the Diamond Isles…

She stared up at him, confused. He smiled back at her, and he didn’t look confused in the least.

‘I’m changing my direction,’ he said softly. ‘So I’m hoping…if I head in the same direction as you, can we walk together?’

‘I…I don’t know what you mean.’

He sat down beside her, took the documents back and set them aside. His face was suddenly grave. ‘Elsa, on the plane on the way to New York I met a man who knew you. He told me about your research, and you know what else he said about you? He said…She sees the big picture. And he spoke in awe. He meant you don’t just look at the turtles on the beach that need saving. You broaden your work; you look at their survival internationally. And I finally figured it out. It was like I’d needed a swipe to the side of the head to wake me up, and I finally got it. That’s what I’ve been guilty of. Seeing only what’s before my eyes. Not thinking big. Seeing only my work in Manhattan and how much it means.’