A Most Unconventional Courtship

The boy, who had been regarding him closely, produced a rapid burst of what were obviously questions.

Lord! Now what? ‘Um…Parakaló, miláte pio sigá…’

‘He doesn’t speak it very well,’ the boy said critically, in accented English, to the unseen woman. ‘I speak English, Italian, French and Greek, all perfectly.’ There was a soft laugh from the watcher. ‘So, my French is not so perfect, but I am only eight and he is a man.’

Goaded, Chance retorted, ‘I speak English, French, Italian, Latin and Classical Greek. All perfectly.’ Then he smiled ruefully. What am I doing, entering into a bragging contest with an eight-year-old?

‘Aiee! Greek like the heroes spoke it?’

‘Yes. Like Paris and Hector and Achilles spoke it.’ Silenced, the boy stared at him, mouth open. ‘I am afraid I do not know where I am or how I got here.’ Or why I do not get up and find out, come to that. I cannot be that hung over, but nothing seems to want to work. Chance levered himself upright on the coach and fell back gasping. ‘Bloody hell!’

‘Not in front of the children!’ Now that was a reproof if ever he had heard one.

‘Sorry.’ He twisted round, trying to ignore the flame of pain in his hip and side and the sickening ache in his ankle. ‘I was not expecting anything to hurt.’

‘Do you not recall last night?’ The hidden speaker came into view at last. There was a moment of crowded thought and he realised his mouth was hanging open, just like the lad’s, but for a quite different reason. Chance shut it with a snap and made an effort to appear less half-witted.

‘I recall nothing of it at all, and I am sure I would remember you.’He would have to be dead not to, he thought, studying the tall, slender figure standing in front of him, hands on her hips and an expression of exasperated disapproval on her oval, golden-skinned face.

A veritable Greek beauty, he thought hazily, seeing how the weight of black hair at her nape balanced the imperious carriage of her head and how the traditional island costume with its flaring black skirt and embroidered bodice showed off curves that a fashionable gown would have hidden.

Then the impact of her eyes, her quite extraordinary eyes, struck him. Greek? Surely not, not with those clear green cat’s eyes, slanting under angled brows. And her accent was clear and pure. ‘You are English.’

She did not answer him, but the expression that passed over her face, fleetingly, was one of barely suppressed anger. ‘Children, introduce yourselves, then leave the gentleman in peace.’

‘I am Dora and this is Demetri.’ The little girl nudged her brother with a sharp elbow. ‘Stop staring, Demi. He said he can speak like the heroes, not that he is one.’ She followed this comprehensive feminine put-down with a sweet smile and skipped off, pulling the boy behind her.

‘Stir the pot, Dora, please,’ the tall woman called after her. ‘And, Demetri, more wood. I do not think you brought much up last night, óhi?’

The cool green eyes turned back to regard Chance. ‘You may call me Kyria Alessa.’ He was left with the distinct feeling that, whatever his chores might have been on the previous evening, he had failed in them also. ‘You were attacked in the courtyard below last night by two men, wrenched your ankle in the drain, fell against the fountain base and were hit on the head. Do you remember nothing of it?’

Chance levered himself up his elbows again and she pushed the pillow down behind his back, stepping back sharply the moment she had done so, as though he had an infectious disease. ‘I can recall playing cards at the Residency—the Lord High Commissioner’s residence,’ he explained. From the impatience on her face she knew what he was talking about. ‘It was my first night on the island, Sir Thomas had introduced me to various gentlemen, his usher had found me lodgings. I discovered I was more tired than I thought, so I made my excuses and started back—’ He broke off, trying to recall. ‘I think they offered me a footman with a torch, but the night was clear, there seemed to be lights everywhere, so I refused.’

‘A foolish decision, in a strange town,’ she observed crisply. ‘Where are you lodging?’

‘In the fort—the Paleó Frourio.’

‘Then what on earth were you doing here, in the middle of the town, at almost midnight?’

The chilly criticism was beginning to penetrate both his headache and the general sense of dislocation. Chance began to feel an answering anger, and some other emotion he was too irritated to analyse, tightening inside him. ‘The night air woke me up, I thought I would explore—what is there in that to displease you?’

Any other woman of his acquaintance would have blushed and backed down in the face of a firm masculine reproof. Not this one. Her eyebrows slanted up and she smiled as though humouring a rather backward child. ‘Other than the fact that you were set upon by a pair of murderous no-goods on my doorstep? That you blunder about a strange town flashing your silver-headed cane and your shiny fobs and your pockets full of coin to attract them? That this happens under my children’s window and I have to deal with the consequences?’

Chance could feel the heat over his cheekbones. ‘I gather I have your husband to thank for my rescue, Kyria.’

‘I have no husband.’

A widow then, and a very young one. What was she? Twenty-four? ‘I am sorry for your loss. Who, then, rescued me from these two assassins?’

‘No loss.’ She said it so baldly that he was shocked. It probably showed—he was still too dazed to manage much finesse. ‘And I dealt with them.’

‘You?’ He felt incredulous and made no effort to hide it.

In answer the widow stooped and drew a knife from her boot. She held it as though she knew exactly how to use it.

Chance eyed it with horrified fascination. ‘You knifed them?’

‘Of course not, I am not a murderer. I suggested to one that it would be better if I did not tell the Lord High Commissioner about his smuggling, and I hit the other one.’ She reversed the knife in her hand, displaying the rounded knob of the pommel. ‘He left when he regained consciousness. I thought about having you taken back to the Residency, but it was late, I did not know how badly you were hurt, I was tired and it was inconvenient. Demetri will take a message on his way to school.’

‘Thank you.’ There did not seem to be much else to say, given the turmoil of emotions that were churning around in his aching head. He felt humiliated that he had had to be rescued by a woman, angered at her attitude, physically in pain and, regrettably and damnably inconveniently, thoroughly aroused.

Angry, green-eyed witches were not within his experience; if he had been asked, he would not have thought it likely that he would find one attractive. This one, this Alessa, was reaching him at a level he did not understand. It was not just her looks, which were remarkable. There was some quality in her that made him want to say mine, drag her into his arms and wipe that cold, disdainful look off her face with his passion.

Which was impossible to contemplate. Chance had a strict code when dealing with women: professionals or experienced society ladies only, and this young widow with her children was quite obviously neither.

‘Breakfast is ready.’ It was little Dora, working away in the far reaches of the room behind him where he could not see. Chance tried again to twist round and was brought up short by the pain in his hip.

‘Is anything broken?’He kept the anxiety out of his voice, but it struck cold in his belly. What were the doctors like on this island? How likely was he to end up with a limp for life, or something worse?

‘Nothing.’ She turned away with a swish of black skirts that gave him a glimpse of petticoats and of white stockings over the cuffs of the short leather boots. The costume was exotic and alluring, yet at the same time practical.

There was a brisk discussion in Greek going on. He gave up trying to follow it and made himself relax back against the hard pillow. Then the boy reappeared, dragging a screen, which he arranged around the couch. ‘This is mine, but you can borrow it,’ he announced importantly, stomping off, only to reappear with a bowl of water, towel and soap, which he set down on a chair by Chance. ‘You must wash your face and hands before breakfast. Oh, yes, I almost forgot.’ He thrust an earthenware vessel with a cloth over it into Chance’s hands and grinned. ‘You are to push it under the couch when you have finished with it.’

So, her anger with him did not extend to humiliating him by making him ask about basic needs. That was something to be thankful for. Flipping back the blanket, Chance made the discovery that perhaps he was not so grateful after all. The shirt he was wearing was not his. All his own clothes had gone, down to, and including, his drawers, and someone had bandaged his hip very professionally. Somehow he doubted that this was Demetri’s work.

He made himself decent again and waited, expecting the boy to come back with some food. Instead, Alessa pushed aside the screen and put down a beaker and plate on the chair, shifting the basin on to the floor.

‘Did you undress me and bandage my wounds?’

‘Yes.’ She smiled, laughter glimmering in her eyes. He must be showing his embarrassment. How damnably unsophisticated. ‘Mrs Street, my neighbour, helped me. An unconscious man is not easy to handle.’

I will wager I was not—and aren’t you finding this amusing? ‘Thank you, Kyria Alessa. You must allow me to recompense you for your trouble,’ he said smoothly. He saw from the flash of her eyes that he had succeeded in angering her. She regained her poise with the agility of a cat.

‘That is not necessary. Greeks regard it as a sacred duty to care for strangers.’ She stood there calmly, her hands with their long, slender fingers folded demurely across the front of her apron.

‘But then…you are not Greek, are you?’

Again, she dealt with the direct question by ignoring it. ‘You should tell me your name so Demetri can tell Mr Harrison where you are.’

‘Harrison?’ The name was vaguely familiar, then he remembered. The events of the previous twenty-four hours were beginning to come back in hazy detail. ‘Oh, yes, Sir Thomas’s secretary. How do you know him?’

‘I know everyone at the Residency,’ she replied, without explanation. ‘Your name, sir? Or have you forgotten it?’

‘Benedict Casper Chancellor. My friends call me Chance.’

Alessa ignored the implied invitation. ‘And your title?’

‘What makes you think I have one?’ And what makes her ask it as though she is suggesting I have a social disease?