A Most Unconventional Courtship

by Louise Allen

  ‘Alessa, you have never carried two children.’

  ‘No, of course not.’ She stared at him, perplexed, then she realised what he meant. ‘Oh! You thought Dora and Demetri are mine? For heaven’s sake, Chance! How old do you think I am? They are seven and eight. I am twenty four.’

  ‘Yes, I guessed that.’ He sounded shaken.

  ‘So you think I was married at sixteen?’ Alessa marched over to the pile of her clothes on a rock and scrambled into a camisole and petticoat. They clung unpleasantly to her salt-wet skin, but at least they covered her. She spun round and found Chance was still standing at the water’s edge, hands on hips, staring at her. She tried very hard not to stare back. He was so beautiful. More than beautiful—desirable, tempting. Wickedly tempting. She made herself focus on the still-purple bruise on his hip.

  ‘I am not very good about children’s ages,’ he confessed. ‘I have no nephews or nieces. And have you ever been married?’

  ‘No.’ Alessa turned her back and walked to the edge of the beach where a tumble of rocks lay in the shade of an arching shrub. She sat down and regarded her feet, curling her toes in the dry sand. ‘And before you ask, yes, I am a virgin. And, no, I am not in the habit of swimming naked with men. I did not think there was anyone around.’

  She risked an upward glance through her lashes. Chance had turned and was standing with his back to her, hands on his admirably slim hips, gazing out over the bay. ‘This is a fine mess,’ he observed, apparently dispassionately. ‘I can only apologise.’

  ‘Why? I expect it was something we both needed to get out of our systems.’ Alessa tried to match his tone.

  ‘I certainly have not got it out of mine,’he retorted grimly. ‘Now, what are we going to do?’

  ‘Perhaps you could put some clothes on?’ Alessa suggested, trying very hard not to stare at the long, hard, male body, and failing.

  ‘Lord! I had forgotten.’ To her delight Chance was blushing—at least, the back of his neck had gone scarlet. ‘I will be back in a minute.’He took a running dive into the water and swam strongly for the headland, leaving Alessa prey to wildly mixed emotions, and a quivering new awareness of her own body, which made her knees feel weak.

  By the time a fishing boat appeared round the headland with furled sail and a respectably, if casually, dressed, gentleman at the oars, she was fully clothed and sitting in the shade of the bush again while she plaited her wet hair.

  Chance ran the boat ashore and waded through the shallows to stand in front of her. There was no sign of his limp now.

  ‘Is your ankle better?’ Alessa knotted a piece of ribbon round the end of her plait and tossed it over her shoulder. Perhaps if they pretended nothing had happened…

  ‘Yes. Thank you. Alessa, what just happened—nearly happened—just now. That will not happen again.’

  Oh. If only…‘Of course not.’ She glanced up, noticed the curving branches and the sprays of leaves of the shrub that arched over their heads, and smiled, despite the churning feeling inside her. ‘It could not, just here, in any case.’

  ‘Why not?’ Chance hunkered down on his heels in front of her with all the flexibility of Demetri.

  ‘This.’ She caught a frond and pulled it down. ‘This is the Chaste Tree. Virgins are protected by it. The other name is Monks’ Pepper.’ She rubbed the shrivelled remains of last season’s flowers between her palms and held out the hard grains for him to see. ‘It tastes like pepper, and it makes men chaste. Which is why it is so good for monks. Try it.’

  ‘Certainly not.’ Chance recoiled, sat down on the sand with an undignified thump and scooted backwards out of the contaminating shade. ‘I am entirely with Saint Augustine.’ She looked puzzled. “‘Lord, give me chastity, but not just yet.’”

  Chance’s expression as he eyed the bush warily released all the pent-up tension in Alessa. The laughter built and bubbled until she could contain it no more. ‘You don’t need to worry—it doesn’t make you impotent,’ she managed to gasp, tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘Just chaste.’

  ‘You,’he observed severely, ‘are very bad for a man’s self-esteem. First you rescue me, then you lecture me, now you laugh at me.’

  ‘I expect you deserve it. Have you anything to eat in your boat? I am starving.’

  ‘No, nothing. I was going to sail over to that bay. There must be a village.’

  ‘Yes. My village. Would you like to come and eat with us?’ She got warily to her feet, suddenly very shy of being close to him, yet anxious not to let him go now she had found him again. And her head was buzzing with the impossible news that he had found a relative of hers—an aunt, of all things—here on the island.

  ‘Are the children with you?’ She nodded, too preoccupied to speak. Chance pulled her rowing boat into the water and tied it to the stern of the skiff before handing her in. ‘Is that all your household?’ She noticed how competently he handled the little craft, it seemed an odd skill for an English nobleman. Perhaps he kept a boat on the lake that his country house would doubtless have. She could imagine summer picnic parties, all the ladies in elegant light gowns, the servants spreading a feast on crisp white cloths over an immaculately scythed lawn, the gentlemen amusing themselves with sailing boats. Another world…

  ‘Are the three of you alone?’

  Alessa started, realising he had already asked her the question. She must have caught the sun—how else to account for this ridiculously light-headed feeling? ‘My friend Kate Street is staying with us. And old Agatha lives next door. She is the nearest thing I have to a grandmother, I suppose.’

  ‘I should have checked further.’ Chance frowned. ‘I was so pleased having identified your aunt and linked her to your father that I didn’t note the rest of the family, although your paternal grandfather is dead, I’m afraid. You have an uncle, as well as the aunt on your father’s side. Your father was the Honourable Alexander William Langley Meredith?’

  ‘Yes.’ Alessa nodded, noticing the look of relief on Chance’s face. He had told her more abruptly than he intended in the shock of their meeting. How would she feel if he had made a mistake? Disappointed? She was not at all sure how she felt now, when it seemed he was correct. ‘Yes, Captain the Honourable Alex Meredith.’ She hesitated, then stretched out a hand to touch his as it lay relaxed on the tiller. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You are not sure you truly are grateful, are you?’ His smile was disarmingly rueful. ‘You must understand it would be dishonourable of me to abandon an English gentlewoman.’

  ‘Even one who was not in distress?’

  ‘Even so. When you are safely back in England, you will realise it was the right thing to do, believe me.’

  Alessa eyed the elegant, assured profile as Chance scanned the shore ahead, adjusting the steering towards the pebbled beach. So arrogantly sure of himself, of his place in the world. So certain he knew what was best for her, and so fixed on following the dictates of his honour, whether she wanted it or not. She should dislike him and resent him, and part of her did. But the other part yearned for him and for the feel of his mouth on hers again, the touch of his hands on her body, the times when they seemed so much in harmony they hardly needed to speak.

  ‘There.’ She pointed. ‘The children have come down to the beach.’ The entire village gang of under-tens was skirmishing along the shoreline, skimming stones, splashing in the surf, playing tag.

  ‘Where did you find your two?’ Chance was smiling at the sight and her heart warmed to him. Unbidden the thought struck her: He would make a good father.

  ‘Demetri’s father was in the boat with my father when the storm caught them. He never came home either, and his wife had died the year before. Dora I did, literally, find that same year. She was sitting by the side of the road, blood all down her face, crying and clutching a filthy rag doll.

  ‘Eventually I found the priest of her village. Her mother was a widow who took up with a fisherman who beat them both. One day he went too far and the woma
n died. Dora ran away.’ She shrugged. ‘She had no one to look after her, so she stayed with me. Now they think they are brother and sister and I do not remind them of the past. One day, perhaps, they will want to ask.’

  ‘When you take them to England, Demetri will do well at school. He will grow up an English gentleman.’

  ‘He is Greek, Corfiot,’ Alessa said sharply.

  ‘When he is a man he can choose what he wants to be. And Dora will marry—’ He was cut off short by Alessa’s muttered exclamation. ‘What? Do you not believe in marriage?’

  ‘Perhaps. It is not the be-all and end-all. And who will want to marry a Greek peasant girl in England?’

  ‘Someone who wishes to ally himself to the Merediths by marrying their ward. Your life is going to change in ways of which you have no idea, Alessa.’ Chance lifted a hand in greeting to the children who had gathered round the landing stage, calling and waving.

  Whether I like it or not. Alessa stood up as the skiff grounded and untied the painter of the rowing boat, tossing it to Demetri to make secure. He scrambled to take it, greeting her with his wide, affectionate grin. An English gentleman, with all the advantages that would bring him. What could he become, given the opportunity? And Dora? A whole world would open up to them. Am I being selfish, or just proud?

  ‘See who I have found,’ she greeted them as she hopped out of the boat into the surf. ‘Lord Blakeney is coming to eat with us—will you run on ahead and tell Aunt Kate?’

  ‘Yia sou.’ Chance smiled at the children.

  ‘Yia sas,’ they chorused back, wide-eyed at his sudden acquisition of a colloquial phrase, then took to their heels and headed up the steep hill.

  ‘You have been learning modern Greek,’ Alessa commented as she led the way over the shingle to the foot of the track way.

  ‘I have about ten phrases now. I try to practise on the servants, but they all think I am mad and insist on addressing me in English, so I am not making much progress. When I get stuck I start to think in classical Greek and then I get in a muddle.’ He reached out, took her hand and tucked it into the crook of her arm. ‘This hill is devilishly steep.’

  ‘But not long.’ Alessa felt curiously breathless, despite having walked up and down that same hill countless times. Chance’s body was warm against her wrist, and the linen shirt was still damp from where he must have pulled in on over his wet body. She could feel her cheeks colouring. ‘See, there is the cottage.’

  The stone building nestled into a bank, shaded by olives behind and a big pine at the side, leaning as though for companionship against Agatha’s smaller house. Alessa felt a warm tug of affection for it. ‘Home.’ Could I leave here? And the feeling that ran through her was fear.

  Chapter Nine

  Chance felt Alessa’s body stiffen and glanced down, but he could not see her face under the broad brim of her hat. Instead he studied the reception party—he was not certain he would call it a welcome party—which was clustered around the gate.

  The children were certainly pleased to see him, but the two women were another matter. The younger, a buxom wench with a tangled mop of red hair, her muscular arms crossed under a quite magnificent bosom, was regarding him with a look that held both curiosity and assessment. He stared back with a certain degree of hauteur, expecting her to drop her gaze, but she just grinned back unrepentantly. This, presumably, was the friend who had helped undress him and put him to bed; from the wicked twinkle he was quite sure she knew that he knew it, and was watching him for signs of discomfiture.

  Chance drew on several years’ experience of dealing with alarmingly forward young matrons and maintained his composure. The other woman was another matter altogether. Apparently as old as the olive trees behind her, brown, wrinkled and with every sign of being as tough as old boot leather, Agatha regarded him with sharp black eyes from under an elaborately draped headscarf. That, no doubt, concealed a substructure of cows’ horns.

  Chance conjured up a mental picture of the full set of Almack’s patronesses at their most critical and produced a charming smile. The shrewd old eyes narrowed.

  ‘Kalíméra,’ he said politely.

  ‘Yia sas.’ Health to you. The old woman produced the phrase like a threat.

  Mrs Street smiled more broadly. ‘Good day, my lord. A pleasure to meet you again.’

  Beside him he heard the sharp hiss of Alessa’s indrawn breath. ‘I regret I have no memory of our first encounter, ma’am,’ he replied. ‘You have the advantage of me.’

  ‘Kyria Agatha, Mrs Street,’ Alessa snapped, almost pulling him through the gate so that its two guardians had to give way in front of her. ‘I hope our guest will not have to wait long for some refreshment.’ Her voice had all the steel chill he had last heard reproving him; now he found himself enchanted by it. She was flustered and defensive, for all that she was trying to conceal it, and the only reason for that could be him.

  Which means, Chance mused, allowing himself to be pulled by the children to a bench under a vine arbour, that she is not as unaffected by what happened in the bay as she would like to make out.

  He should be ashamed of himself, he knew. On one level he was—no gentleman should take advantage of a lady like that, however surprised he was by the encounter, and however extreme their state of undress. On the other hand, his body still ached with the memory of hers in his arms, of the silken slide of wet skin against his, the heat of her mouth, passionate—innocent—under his.

  He wanted her, and what was even more imperative, he wanted her to want him. What had she meant when she said, I expect it was something we both needed to get out of our systems? That she had been curious and now her curiosity was satisfied? Somehow he felt as though his for her never would be.

  Demetri and Kate Street were bringing over a table, Dora lugging a chair behind them. Chance tried to get to his feet and found himself pushed down on to the bench again by a small, firm hand on his shoulder. ‘Sit, please. You are our guest.’

  Food began to appear. A plate of olives, black and green in a golden pool of oil. Cheese lying on a vine leaf. A craggy loaf with a dangerous-looking knife stuck into it and a dish of pale butter, and finally a gnarled, U-shaped sausage that looked as though it had been hanging in the rafters for months. Old Agatha began to slice it, revealing a deep crimson interior, richly flecked and marbled with white like a piece of porphyry. Chance felt his mouth begin to water as the boy hefted a pitcher of water on to the table and Alessa added a jug of wine.

  ‘Sit, everyone.’ Alessa gestured to the table and they sat around. She began to pour wine into beakers, a splash for the children, topped up with plenty of water: half and half for Kate Street, herself and him; undiluted for Agatha.

  In the dappled shade with the sun glinting off the waves in the bay below, Chance felt himself relax. He had not realised just how tense he had been. Now he felt a kind of happiness he could not entirely define.

  ‘Would you cut the bread, my lord?’

  He reached for the knife, suppressing a smile. Alessa’s tone would not be out of place in a Mayfair dining room, asking him to pass the caper sauce or carve a capon. It was difficult to create a creditable slice of the rustic bread, but he persevered, passing each slice as it was cut. The children exhibited perfect table manners, he noticed, sitting quietly and handing olives or the cheese without being asked. He smiled at Dora and was rewarded by her flashing, mischievous smile in return.

  She would be enchanting, all dressed up in English style. Would she like a pony? he wondered. When Alessa was home in England where she belonged, the children could have whatever they wanted—her long-lost family would dote on them, surely.

  He glanced across at Alessa and saw she was gazing round the garden, an expression of quiet contentment on her face as she took in the neatly tended rows of vegetables, the chickens that had strayed from Agatha’s plot and were chasing a spider, and the vine, which scrambled over the front wall. His pleasure vanished, replaced by a chill stab of
doubt. This was her home now, and she was happy. Was he wrong, after all, to want to take her away from it?

  Then he looked at the old woman’s work-gnarled hands, Kate Street’s reddened knuckles, the careful, loving mends and darns in the children’s clothes. Yes, of course he was doing the right thing; she might think she was happy now, but this was not what she had been born to. In society she would flourish, and the children with her.

  He looked at Alessa again, and this time caught her eye. Off guard, she smiled at him and his heart seemed to flip in his chest. All the sound in the garden stilled to nothing. The sensation lasted a moment only, then she glanced away and hearing returned.

  ‘Are you staying locally, my lord?’ It was Mrs Street, managing to sound perfectly respectable, despite the impudent glint in her eye.

  ‘The Lord High Commissioner has taken a villa at Paleokastritsa. I am his guest.’

  ‘Then my Fred and his lads are guarding you,’ Kate Street said with simple pride. ‘Smartest lot in the army, my Fred’s lads.’

  ‘Sergeant Street, is it? I must look out for him.’

  ‘I’m not married to Fred Court, Lord love you!’ The redhead snorted with amusement, caught the sharp edge of Alessa’s meaningful stare and glanced at the children, then added, ‘Not that we’ll not be getting round to it, some day.’

  There didn’t seem to be much to be added to that, so Chance turned to the old woman who was steadily demolishing bread and cheese despite an apparently total lack of teeth. ‘Do you speak English, ma’am?’A blank stare. He did not feel up to making stumbling conversation in Greek, but surely she would have acquired some Italian from the long-time rulers of the island. ‘Parliamo inglese, signora? Italiano?’ The stare this time was positively frosty. He was beginning to see where Alessa might have acquired her more forbidding expressions.