by Lexi Whitlow
Wandering upstairs to look for Norah, I run into Duncan coming down with his travel bag. “How did things go with that Wembley character?” I ask, pausing him on the stairs.
His face, usually impassive, belies some hesitation on the subject. “It might be best to discuss it with Miss Ballantyne first, sir,” he says. “Rest assured, he won’t be returning to the palace.”
That’s a relief. “I’ll talk to her,” I say. “But I’d like a full, written report from you on everything you observed or that he did during his visit. You can work on it on the plane.”
“Yes, sir,” Duncan says, nodding.
I find Norah in her bedroom, curled up on top of her bed, fast asleep, purring little snores like a contented kitten. She’s so adorable, and I hate to disturb her, but we need to get going if we’re going to make Mykonos before midnight.
“Wake up, sleepyhead,” I croon, stroking her hair. “Time to wake up so I can whisk you off to a fairytale island adventure.”
Norah blinks and then rolls, facing me. She meets my eyes with a lazy, blank expression. She really was dead to the world. “Hey,” she whispers, stretching like a cat. “Hmm. What time is it?”
“Almost six,” I say, brushing back an errant curl from her cheek. “You’ve slept the afternoon away. You okay?”
She sits up, shaking off sleep. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just tired. We’ve had an awful lot going on these last few weeks. Must be catching up with me.”
“Everything’s packed and ready,” I tell her. “Whenever you’re ready, we can go.”
“Okay,” Norah says, yawning. “Sally packed my things. I just need to grab my camera bag and laptop.”
It occurs to me as I’m admiring Norah, and amused with her lazy afternoon, that she seems pale. She’s got small, dark circles under her eyes, and her lips are pale as well. “Are you sure you feel okay?” I ask again. “You’re usually bounding with energy.”
She smiles at me, patting my hand. “I’m fine. Just a little worn out.”
I’m not so certain. Something seems off with her.
“This is amazing,” Norah purrs, running her fingers along the gleaming teak paneling lining the interior walls of the jet.
“Is it?” I ask, laughing at her wonder. “It’s just a jet.”
I settle down in a big leather chair in the main cabin, waiting for the glass of whiskey I know is being poured by a member of the cabin crew at this precise moment.
“It’s not ‘just a jet,’” Norah corrects me, gazing around at her surroundings. “This is beautiful, and lush. It’s like something out of a movie.”
A pretty blond wearing a cobalt blue royal air polo and short black skirt hands me my whiskey, then turns to Norah. “Ma’am, may I get you something to drink?”
Norah nods to my drink. “Whatever he’s having,” she says, smiling broadly.
When the girl is gone, she leans forward to me. “You’ve never flown coach in your life,” she says, eyes wide and bright with glee. “This is nuts. You have no idea how lucky you are.”
I reach forward, taking her hand in mine. I lift it, pressing her fingers to my lips. “I’m starting to understand how lucky I am,” I say, holding her gaze. “You’re starting to make me understand.”
“What’s gotten into you?” she asks, sitting back, strapping herself in. “You’re awfully sweet this evening.”
“Nothing’s gotten into me,” I say. “I’m just realizing some things. Like how much I enjoy having you around. How much I like making you smile instead of you calling me names.”
“Prince no longer has his panties in a wad?” she quips, grinning slyly. “Good.”
“What happened with Wembley?” I ask, sipping my whiskey.
The jet begins slowly rolling toward the runway, engines winding up, causing the plane to vibrate.
Norah shakes her head. “Nothing good,” she sighs. “He was an ass. Duncan intervened. And I’ll be thrilled if I never hear his name mentioned again.”
“Duncan intervened?” I ask, surprised. “What did the guy do?”
Norah squeezes my hand, shaking off my question. “Don’t worry about it, Prince Overprotective. He’s gone. He’s not coming back. And I’m over it.”
I can’t wait to read Duncan’s report.
A few minutes later we’re in the air, circling high above Anglesey. It’s my favorite view. The island is beautiful from the above, dotted with castles and estates, modest houses and farms, all surrounded by sandy, windswept beaches and sheer, stone cliff walls on the coast. A more picturesque place never existed.
Mykonos is a little less than six hours flying time from Anglesey. We’ll land in the dark, but we’ll wake up to the bright, warm rays of the Aegean sun. With any luck, we’ll get to watch the sunrise while eating breakfast in bed on the yacht.
Twenty minutes into the flight, Norah is nodding on my shoulder, sleeping. She hasn’t touched her drink, so I help myself. She still looks pale and she’s obviously exhausted. We could both do with a break from the palace intrigue and scheduled demands we’ve been running through for the last several weeks.
By the time we land in Mykonos, it’s almost midnight and the airport is desolate. We’re met by household personnel, who drive us straight to the port at Chora. Norah is dead on her feet as we board the yacht that will take us to the tiny island where our villa stands high on a rocky cliff, a hundred feet above the water. We’ll sleep on board the ship tonight. Tomorrow, we’ll move to the villa and spend some serious time doing absolutely nothing at all.
Norah is almost as taken with the yacht as she was with the jet, but not quite as animated in her expressions of glee. She marvels at the luxury and size of the thing, but before she’s completely prone on top of the bed in our spacious, well-appointed berth, her eyes close and she snoozes in perfect time with the rhythm of the vessel’s rocking on the sea. I pull her shoes from her feet and find a blanket to cover her with, then head back above deck to have a look around.
I find Duncan and three other of our security detail in the galley, having a snack. When I come in, they all stiffen up like the pope has just joined them.
“Relax guys,” I say. “Eat.”
I help myself to the hummus, flatbread, feta, and green olives arranged in a platter at the center of the table. It’s almost impossible to find decent Greek food in Anglesey, and I’m looking forward to eating well while we’re here.
“Tell me about Wembley,” I ask Duncan. “I asked Norah. She told me you had to intervene?”
Duncan nods. “I wrote up a report,” he says. “It’s in your email. The short story is the guy is a loose cannon. He said some terrible things, and when Norah turned to leave he grabbed her and yanked her back.”
I stop chewing, putting down my flatbread. “He put his hands on her?” I ask in disbelief. “Where the hell were you?”
“Too far away to prevent it, sir. Flat-footed. I underestimated the threat, sir.”
Well, at least he admits it. “Shit,” I say. “What did you do with him?”
“Per Miss Ballantyne’s instructions, I had him escorted off the palace grounds. Then I took it upon myself to keep surveillance on him while he remains in Anglesey.”
“And?” I ask.
“And he’s still in the country. He’s staying at a hotel on the north end of Cymrea.”
I nod, returning to my meal. “Keep me posted on his whereabouts,” I say. “Put surveillance on his phone and computer. If he sends so much as a postcard, I want to know what it says. Understood?”
Duncan nods. “I’ll issue the command to the secret service tonight.”
When I return to our berth, I find that Norah has awoken at some point in my absence and gotten herself undressed and under the covers. I peel off my clothes, letting them fall to the floor, and climb in bed beside her, pulling her soundly sleeping form against mine into a tight spooning position.
The idea that Wembley laid hands on her—that he violently handled her—sits dee
p in my gut, growing hard like an angry boil. It frightens me to confront the idea that danger came so close. It angers me that he would dare hurt Norah. I’ve lived twenty-eight years on this Earth without a best friend, a lover, or a companion. I never thought I needed any of those things. I lived like an island, the world swirling around me but not really touching me.
Then I met Norah. The idea of losing her is too hard to bear. My mother’s words ring in my ear: “…cherish every moment you have it near… tell her how you feel…”
I press my lips against the back of Norah’s neck, pulling her close against me. “I love you, Duchess. I love you more than anything in the world.”
Norah sleeps on, not stirring, just breathing sweetly in my arms.
13
Norah
I wake in an unfamiliar place, hearing the gentle slap of water against a hard surface, feeling the rise and fall of the rolling tide supporting this vessel. I barely remember getting here. Opening my eyes, I try to get my bearings. Early dawn light rises over the flat line of the ocean just beyond my open balcony door. A warm Aegean breeze flutters the curtains, filling our cabin with salty, ocean scents.
Owen stirs beside me, his hand lifting, pulling back my hair. “Good morning,” he whispers in my ear.
I roll over to face him, coming eye-to-eye with him in the pale morning light. He’s sleepy still, smiling dreamily. My hand settles on his chest, fingers threading through thin curls of hair at his breastbone. I blink his beauty into my slowly-waking brain, studying his cheeks, the turn of his jawline at his throat, the way his eyebrows don’t quite match. The dimple on his right cheek that only appears when he smiles.
His skin is hot to my touch. The feel of it, and the scent of him next to me, make that place low in my belly and between my legs ache.
“I want to kiss you, Norah,” Owen says, his voice husky with sleep. “But only if you want me to.”
I lick my dry lips, then bite the lower one. “I think I’d like that,” I say.
He rises up on an elbow, coming over me. “I’m not going to be able to stop with just one kiss,” he says softly, his voice lower than the wind coming in over the sea. “I’ll never be able to stop with just one.”
Owen’s lips and mouth open me like an unread volume, drawing out wordless images and scenes from a dream half-remembered. I melt against his weight, merging into him. We make easy love, our bodies rocking in rhythm with the rolling tide beneath us.
I fell in love with his beauty the first time I saw him. I surrendered myself to that beauty so I could taste it and feel it, possessing it as my own. Now I’m falling in love with the man, surrendering myself—my whole soul—to his gentle, decent nature. I’m letting him possess me in a way I never thought I’d want or enjoy. When we’re like this, with our bodies and minds in unison, breathing, heaving, grasping at intimacy, unafraid of the vulnerability we both feel so keenly, we’re perfect.
My body responds to his like no one else’s I’ve ever known. I receive him into me, not ever wanting to let go, as if he completes me. With tears in my eyes, I hang onto him tightly, crying out against him as waves of his perfect pleasure fill me, wash over me, possess me completely, drown me in warmth and safety—fundamentally altering who I am when he’s inside me like this.
When our bodies finally still and untangle, no words are necessary. We lie together in the quiet dawn, drifting on the tide, fingers touching skin. I close my eyes with Owen’s arm wrapped around my shoulder, my cheek pressed against his chest. His breathing lulls me into the most contented sleep I’ve known since childhood.
When I open my eyes next, Owen sleeps soundly beside me, but the sun is rising high in the sky, and I’ve slept too long. I hear voices outside our open balcony: strange voices, alien accents carrying across the open water, lifting in the wind. I rise, pulling on a thin robe, and go to the balcony overlooking the island ahead of us. Small, brightly painted boats motor across open water from Mykonos—the big island, gleaming, stark in the sun—headed toward our small island with just one bleached building crowning its black, volcanic cliffs. The boats carry men wrapped in colorful shawls, wearing working clothes. Once landed on the beach, the boats are dragged above the tide line and abandoned by their pilots and passengers, who walk in a marching pace up into the hills behind the white villa, disappearing from view.
It occurs to me to get my camera and capture a few fleeting shots of this mini-invasion. I frame photographs, using the zoom lens to narrow my focus on the weatherworn faces of men tanned dark, wrapped in faded cotton to shield them from the relentless sun. Their eyes are blue, green, and brown. Their long, unruly hair curls in the wind with the kiss of sun, bleached golden.
I snap photo after photo of the men, capturing their bold colors and plowed faces as they cross the impossibly blue water to reach the beach.
“What are you doing?”
I turn. Owen stands behind me—tall, naked, gorgeous, sleepy.
“Taking photos,” I say. “Where are these guys going?”
Unafraid of appearing nude for everyone to see, Owen steps up to my side at the balcony railing. “They work in the olive grove,” he says impassively. “There’s a huge grove on the island. It provides a small income supporting the villa.”
“All these people work for you?”
Owen nods. “If you ask them, they’d say they work for the olives. The estate has been in existence since the 14th century, when some ancestor of mine shipwrecked on the island on the way to a crusade and discovered an olive grove in need of a master. He skipped the crusade, built a villa, and claimed the island for the Anglesey crown. The Greeks have never disputed our title to the island because we’ve never gotten involved in their complicated politics, and we pay excellent wages.”
“We should go see the olive grove,” I say, turning my gaze up to the hills above the villa on the cliff. “I’d love to hike up there.”
“Maybe tomorrow morning,” Owen says. “By the time we get situated in the villa, it’ll be mid-day, and it gets ridiculously hot up there. It’s a better early morning walk.”
“Okay,” I agree. I’m anxious to get off this boat and get to the villa. I want terra firma beneath my feet. I’ve never been prone to seasickness, but the gentle rising and falling of the deck—even in this calm blue water—has me feeling slightly queasy.
Owen wasn’t exaggerating about the heat. It’s barely eleven in the morning, but the temperature feels like July in Texas, complete with a salty, dry wind sucking every ounce of moisture from my skin, leaving me feeling crusty. Climbing the steep, stone-cut stairs from the beach to the villa starts off as a fine walk, but halfway up I’m breathless, thirsty, my thighs screaming from the exertion.
“We’re almost there,” Owen encourages me, seeing me struggle to lift my feet to take each step. “Let’s rest a few minutes here.”
There’s a turn in the stairs with a little landing overlooking the beach below, and the wide open Aegean Sea beyond. The water is a color of blue I’ve never seen, defying adequate description. It’s one of those rare shades that’s impossible to capture on film or reproduce in a painting. You have to see it to experience it. It can’t be conveyed in words or pictures.
“You’re dehydrated,” Owen says. “You’re not drinking enough water.” He hands me his water bottle. I take it and guzzle greedily, then feel my belly turn again with that queasiness I experienced earlier this morning.
The change of geography has my body discombobulated. I’m hungry, but sick to my stomach. Thirsty, but drinking just makes it worse. Everything has a slightly off, metallic after-taste. And I’m inexplicably exhausted, bloated, and tender. I feel almost as if I’m going to start my period, but that’s not possible as I’m on the pill, in the middle of a pack—not at the end.
Then again, I didn’t get a period between the end of the last cycle of pills and the beginning of this one. It didn’t strike me as odd then, as I had too much going on to think about it. In hindsight, ma
ybe…
No. I can’t be. That’s ridiculous.
Owen slips his hand into mine. “Just a little further,” he says patiently. “Then you can chill by the pool with a glass of wine and a fantastic Greek spread for lunch.”
I might have to skip the wine.
Owen and I spend the better part of the afternoon nibbling fresh tomatoes and salty olives, sumptuous mozzarella cheese, and cucumbers served with a smattering of dips and salads I can’t put a name to, all of them delicious. While we eat, lounging by the canopy-shaded pool, we talk about nothing and everything.
Owen asks me about growing up in Charleston, and what made me want to become a photographer. I tell him about the photography exhibit I saw when I was a child, images captured in Charleston in the 19th century. I was captivated by how much had changed, and yet how so many of the city scenes were familiar to me, one hundred and fifty years later. I fell in love with moments in history and felt the need to freeze them forever.
He tells me about growing up in the shadows of his father and older brother, always feeling like the extra on a surreal movie set. He was sent to boarding school in Scotland at seven years old and was expected to fend for himself without parents or the nannies who cared for him in the palace. At the school he was “just another little kid among three hundred.” He was anonymous. The school, at first bracing and strange, became a refuge. He flourished.
After graduation he went into the Navy for two years of required national service. After that it was college, then back to the palace, which he found alien and confining.
“I genuinely hate all the tradition and pomp of the place,” Owen admits. “All the butlers and valets with their powdered wigs. People scurrying around with odd functions that have no purpose in the twenty-first century.” Owen looks over his sunglasses at me, laughing. “Did you know there’s actually a person at the palace whose title is ‘Gentleman of the King’s Stool?’ His job two hundred years ago was to collect and clean chamber pots, and wipe the king’s ass, powder it, and then bury the king’s poop in a special pit reserved just for him.”
