Then, to the applause of the palace staff, they ran, hand in hand, up the great staircase to the main balcony overlooking the forecourt.
‘Can you do this?’ Alex asked her, holding her tight.
‘Just hold me,’ she whispered. ‘Hold me for ever. If you hold me, I can do anything.’
Palace protocol was that the Prince kiss his Princess.
Protocol be damned. She kissed him first. And then it was a moot point as to who was kissing who.
Sappheiros had its new royal family.
What followed was a year of wonder…
On the morning of their first anniversary, Lily woke to laughter. They were at the hideaway. Michales was an early riser, but so was Alex. Father and son were out on the balcony, watching the finches in the vines, watching the sea, chuckling at inane manly jokes. The standard hadn’t risen past the sausage joke, she thought sleepily. How a girl could love the pair of them was a wonder in itself.
What a year. How could she ever have imagined it would be so good?
This life they’d chosen was unimaginably wonderful. They spent most of their time at the palace, but the palace had changed. Was still changing.
The island had had practically no public buildings. Thus some of the vast palace was now set aside as a truly magnificent library. Meeting rooms. Mothers’ clubs, patchwork, anglers’ clubs…whatever the islanders needed. The gardens had been made public. The island had been desperate for a new hospital so the palace summer house overlooking the sea was now its base.
She and Alex had worked together to make these things happen. They were a team. His enthusiasm fed hers and vice versa. They lay in bed late at night and made plans. And made love.
There was still a section of the palace retained by them, for their exclusive use. They’d made it a wee bit more of a home. They’d removed a score of chandeliers. They’d introduced jam for breakfast. They’d accepted that it needed to be their permanent home.
For the islanders had taken their royal couple to their hearts. They loved them living in the palace. Finally, they had a real royal family. They had continuity and pride.
She’d accompanied Alex to Manhattan twice now. But Alex drew his plans here, he asked for soil samples to be analysed and the results sent here, he worked on the Internet and constructed plant lists here.
Sappheiros was his home.
As Sappheiros was her home. Lily worked on her boats as Eleni and Spiros played grandparents. Their boatyard was going from strength to strength.
So…She and Alex had their separate careers, but whatever they did, they did where they could come together at nightfall. Where they could stay together as a family.
Family was the best thing, and the times they could escape to the hideaway were delicious.
She was languorously drowsy. Deeply content. Tonight they’d have dinner here, on the balcony, to celebrate their first year of marriage. Alex had wanted to do something special but special was here. And a restaurant with spicy food…maybe not.
‘Are you staying in bed till noon?’ Alex was standing in the doorway, smiling in at her. He set Michales down and the little boy toddled over to his mother. She tugged him into bed and he crowed with delight.
‘We have a gift for you,’ Alex said. ‘Michales and I. Only you have to get out of bed for us to give it to you.’
‘Bed,’ Michales said and beamed.
‘Can I dress first?’
‘Nope,’ Alex said. ‘Okay, you can put on a wrap. And sandals. That’s all. We’re too impatient.’
She was intrigued.
He’d been doing something. Part of the cliff between here and the beach had been blocked off for the past year. ‘We’re worried it’s eroding,’ Alex had told her, but he’d been here too often for a simple erosion problem.
Something was brewing, she knew. He’d looked mysterious when she’d probed, but definite that she should not go down there.
‘Let’s go now,’ he said and held out an imperious hand. Then, as she didn’t move, he strolled over to the bed, bent and kissed her. Deeply. Strongly. Thoroughly. Then he took her hand and tugged her to her feet.
‘Come,’ he said in his best born-to-rule voice and she giggled and grabbed her wrap and came.
Sure enough, the path that had been cordoned off was now un-cordoned. It led to another cove, just around the cliff from the bay where they swam.
She’d been down this path once when they’d just married but it had been cordoned off straight after.
And now…
She could see why.
This was a garden. Only…what a garden.
It was a waterfall, rock, rough and tumbled, as if tossed together by nature. As she reached the first set of steps, Alex flicked a switch set in the rock—and the waterfall came alive. Water tumbled from above, cascading over rock formations so wonderfully natural she’d have sworn they’d been placed by the gods themselves.
‘You made this,’ she gasped.
‘The water’s pumped from the bay with solar power,’ he said in quiet satisfaction. ‘The sun comes out, the waterfall runs. Water comes from the bay and goes back to the bay.’
She choked with wonder.
‘It’s my anniversary gift,’ he said and held his hand out again. ‘Come on. There’s more to show you at the bottom.’
The cove at the base of the waterfall was tiny—a miniature version of the cove where they swam. It was a natural harbour formed by two outreaches of cliff. The waterfall ended as a rippling creek that ran beside an ancient boathouse, then over the sand and out to sea.
She’d seen this boathouse twelve months before. It had been dilapidated—about to fall down.
It wasn’t dilapidated now. It was gleaming with new paint, pale blue and crisp white, bright and welcoming in its ocean setting. A tiny jetty reached out from the boat doors. Alex’s newly restored dinghy was tied at the jetty. The setting was…exquisite.
‘Our own boathouse,’ Lily breathed. ‘Oh…’
‘There’s more,’ Alex said in satisfaction and handed her a key tied with a big blue bow. ‘It’s from Michales and me. See the soggy end of the bow? It’s been sucked personally by the Prince Michales. It should have a royal insignia, but we ran out of time.’
She gazed at her two boys in wonder—her men—and she unlocked the doors.
And drew in her breath.
‘Happy anniversary to us,’ a sign said inside the door. The banner hung the full length of the boathouse.
And behind it…There was a pile of wood, as wide as it was high. Dressed timber. Tons of it. Enough wood to build…
A boat?
She walked forward, scarcely able to breathe. She touched the nearest plank.
‘You haven’t,’ she breathed.
‘I’d like to say I personally dived for it,’ Alex said modestly. ‘But I’m lousy with a snorkel. I figured you’d want me alive to hold hammers and stuff.’
‘It’s Huon Pine,’ she gasped. ‘It’s…Alex, there’s enough here to build…’
‘A yacht?’ he asked, hopeful. ‘Would you like to build one?’
She was running her fingers from plank to plank, her mind already seeing what she’d build. Twenty-five feet…She stood back. No, thirty. A half cabin. Oh, she’d sail like the wind.
‘I’d like something that sails like the wind,’ Alex said and she turned and gazed at her husband in astonishment. He was holding their son and looking at her with such eagerness that a bubble of laughter built within her.
‘Hey, is this my present or your present?’
‘Both,’ he admitted. ‘I figured you could build it and teach Michales and me to sail. That could be your anniversary present to us.’
‘I already have an anniversary gift for you.’
‘You have?’ He set Michales down on his feet. ‘You have a gift for me?’
‘Mmm.’
‘Then why are we down here when we could be back at the house opening presents?’
‘This one’s a work in progress,’ she said. ‘Like your boat.’
‘A work in progress…’
‘One might interrupt the other,’ she said. ‘I can’t build two things at once. At least I don’t think I can.’
‘You’re already building me a boat?’
‘Guess again.’ And she smiled at him with all the love in her heart. ‘I’ve been building it for a couple of months now. Give me seven months more…’
He got it this time. He stared incredulously at her—and then he surged forward and lifted her high. He whirled her around and around, while Michales looked at his parents as if they’d lost their minds.
He toddled forward and Alex had to stop swinging or he’d have bowled his small son over. He set his wife down, gathered his son into his arms and then held them both. He simply held them, a man holding his family. A man granted everything he wanted in life—and more.
The terrors of the past were done. The fears. The injustices and their bitter legacy. Dispersed by love.
He loved this woman in his arms so much…
‘The dolphins are watching,’ Lily murmured, glancing out through the boatshed doors to where a pod of dolphins had glided into the cove, seemingly to check out what was happening.
‘Let ’em look,’ Alex said. ‘As long as they don’t have cameras. This is no time for paparazzi.’
‘I wouldn’t mind the odd paparazzo,’ Lily murmured. ‘There should be someone to document how happy I am right now.’
‘There’ll be enough documentation at the royal reception tomorrow,’ Alex said, gathering her even more tightly into his arms. ‘Meanwhile, I’ll remind you every time you ask. You’re asking now? I’m telling you. I love you. You’re my wife. You’re the mother of my children. You’re my own beautiful Princess. You’re my Lily and you’re my love.’
ISBN: 978-1-4268-3922-1
CLAIMED: SECRET ROYAL SON
First North American Publication 2009.
Copyright © 2009 by Marion Lennox.
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