She’d be able to hold her own. This was one feisty woman.
He needed to learn more about her. He needed to hit the phones, extend his research, come up with an offer she couldn’t refuse.
Unaccountably, he didn’t want to get out of the car. The battered family wagon, loaded with lobster pots, smelling faintly-no, more than faintly-of fish, unaccountably seemed a good place to stay.
He thought suddenly of his apartment in Manhattan. Of his consulting suite with its soft grey carpet, its trendy chrome furniture, its soft piped music.
They were worlds apart-he and Mrs Elsa Murdoch.
But now their lives needed to overlap, enough to keep the island safe. The islanders safe.
Zoe safe.
Until today he’d seen Zoe as a problem-a shock, to be muted before the islanders found out.
Now, suddenly that obstacle was human-a little girl with scars, attached to a woman who loved her.
They were waiting for him to get out of the car. If he left it any longer a media vehicle might come this way. One cameraman and Zoe would run, he thought, and it’d be Elsa who ran with her.
Elsa wasn’t family. It wasn’t her role to care for Zoe.
Forget the roles, he told himself sharply. Now he must protect the pair of them. He climbed from the car and tried to dust himself off. He had ginger cat fur on black trousers.
Suddenly Elsa was out of the car as well, watching as he shrugged on his jacket.
‘Do your buttons up,’ she said, almost kindly. ‘You look much more princely with your buttons done up. And hold still. If a car comes I’ll stop, but let’s see what we can achieve before that happens.’
And, before he knew what she intended, she’d twisted him round so she could attack the backs of his legs and the seat of his trousers.
With a hairbrush?
‘It’s actually a brush Zoe uses for her dolls,’ she told him, sweeping the cat fur off in long efficient strokes. ‘But see-I’ve rolled sticky tape the wrong way round around its bristles. It’s very effective.’
He was so confounded he submitted. He was standing on a headland in the middle of nowhere while a woman called Mrs Elsa Murdoch attacked his trousers with a dolls’ hairbrush.
She brushed until she was satisfied. Then she straightened. ‘Turn round and let me look at you,’ she said.
He turned.
‘Very nice,’ she said. ‘Back to being a prince again. What do you think, Zoe? Is he ready for the cameras?’
‘His top button’s undone,’ Zoe said.
‘That’s because it’s hot,’ he retorted but Elsa shook her head.
‘No class at all,’ she said soulfully. ‘I don’t know what you modern day royals are coming to.’ She carefully fastened his top button while he felt…he felt…He didn’t know how he felt; he was only aware that when the button was fastened and she stepped back there was a sharp stab of something that might even be loss.
‘There you go, Your Highness,’ she said, like a valet who’d just done a good job making a recalcitrant prince respectable. ‘Off you go and face the world while Zoe and I get back to our cats and our lobster pots.’
And she was in the car, turned and driving away before he had a chance to reply.
His first task was to get his breath back. To face the media with some sort of dignity.
His second task was to talk to the hotel concierge.
‘I need some extensive shopping done on my behalf,’ he said. ‘Fast. Oh, and I need to hire a car. No, not a limousine. Anything not smelling of fish would be acceptable.’
Then he rang Prince Alexandros back in the Diamond Isles. As well as being a friend, Alexandros was Crown Prince of Sappheiros, and Alex more than anyone else knew what was at stake-why he was forced to be in Australia in royal uniform when he should be in theatre garb back in Manhattan.
‘Problem?’ his friend asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘What don’t you know?’
‘The child’s been burned. She’s dreadfully scarred.’
There was a sharp intake of breath. ‘Hell. Is she…’
‘She’s okay. It’s healing. But my idea of leaving her on the island…She’ll have special needs.’
‘You were never going to be able to leave her anyway.’
‘I don’t have a choice,’ he snapped. ‘You know I can’t leave my work yet-I can’t break promises. But there’s a nanny. A good one. A Mrs Elsa Murdoch. She’s not like any Mrs Elsa Murdoch I’ve ever met.’
There was a lengthy silence on the end of the phone. Then, ‘How many Mrs Elsa Murdochs have you met?’ Alexandros asked, with a certain amount of caution.
Uh-oh. Alex and Stefanos had known each other since they were kids. Maybe Alex had heard something in his voice that he didn’t necessarily want to share.
‘Just the one,’ he said.
Another silence. ‘She’s young?’ Alex ventured.
‘Yes.’
‘Aha.’
‘There’s no aha about it.’
‘There’s a Mr Elsa Murdoch?’
‘No.’
‘I rest my case,’ he said. ‘Hey, Stefanos, like me, you’ve spent so much of your life pushing your career…avoiding family. Maybe it’s time you did a heads up and noticed the Elsa Murdochs of this world.’
Alex…’ He couldn’t think what to add next.
‘You want something more?’ Alex asked. ‘Something specific? If not…my wife’s waiting for me. Not a bad thing for a prince to have, you know. A wife. Especially if that prince needs to care for a child with injuries.’
‘This isn’t a joke.’
‘I don’t believe I was joking,’ Alex threw back at him. ‘Okay, so this Mrs Elsa Murdoch…You want to tell me about her?’
How had he got himself into this conversation? He didn’t have a clue.
‘I’ll leave you to your wife,’ he said stiffly.
‘Excellent,’ Alex said. ‘I’ll leave you to your Mrs Elsa Murdoch. And your little Crown Princess. Steve…’
‘Yes?’
‘Take care. And keep an open mind. Speaking as a man who’s just married…it can make all the difference in the world.’
Elsa lay awake far into the night, staring at a life she’d never envisaged. A life without Zoe.
She’d never thought of it.
Four years ago she’d been happily married, full of plans for the future, working with Matty and her good friends and their little girl.
One stupid drunken driver-who’d walked away unscathed-and she was left with nothing but the care of Zoe.
Up until today she’d thought Zoe depended totally on her. Up until now she’d never really considered that the reverse was true as well.
Without Zoe…
No. She couldn’t think it. It left a void in her life so huge it terrified her.
He’d backed off. He’d said he was leaving tomorrow.
Zoe’s needed back on Khryseis.
She reran his words through her mind-she remembered almost every word he’d uttered. He hadn’t backed off.
Zoe’s needed back on Khryseis.
She was Zoe’s legal guardian. But if it came to a custody battle between Elsa, with no blood tie and no means of giving Zoe the last operations she so desperately needed-or Stefanos, a royal prince, a blood relative, with money and means at his disposal, able to give her every chance in life…
What choice was there?
She felt sick and tired.
A letter lay on her bureau. She rose from her tumbled sheets-lying in bed was useless anyway-and read it for the thousandth time.
It was an outline of costs for cosmetic plastic surgery to smooth the skin under Zoe’s chin and across her neck.
She’d sold everything she had. There was no money left.
Stefanos.
Not if it meant losing Zoe. Not!
Who was she protecting here? Herself or Zoe?
Damn him!
She should be welcoming him, she thought. Knight on white charger with loaded wallet.
Not if it meant giving up Zoe.
To watch them go…