Sara Craven - Her Greek Groom

He didn’t want it to be me, she thought with desolation. He hoped it was Eloise. That she’d come back to him.

‘Those lilies and carnations over there, and the fruit basket, came without a card,’ her father said eagerly. ‘But I think I know who they’re from.’ He smiled tenderly. ‘In fact, I’m sure. I just wish she’d signed her name. But perhaps she felt diffident about that—under the circumstances.’

Diffident? Cressy wanted to scream. Eloise hasn’t an insecure bone in her body.

Instead, she forced a smile as she sat down beside his bed. ‘Yes—perhaps…’

He played with the edge of the sheet, frowning a little. ‘Has she been in contact—left any message at all?’

Cressy shook her head. ‘There’s been nothing. Daddy. Don’t you think I’d have told you?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said with a touch of impatience. ‘Certainly there’s never been any love lost between you.’

‘Well, that’s unimportant now.’ She put a hand over his. ‘All that matters is that you get well.’

‘The consultant says I can go home soon, if I keep up this progress. But he wants me to have a live-in nurse for a while. He feels it will be too much for Berry.’

His frown deepened. ‘I wasn’t sure that my insurance covered private nursing, but he says it’s all taken care of.’ He paused. ‘What I need to know is—do I still have a home to go to?’

She said gently, ‘Yes, you have, darling. I’ve managed to do a deal with your creditors. You can go on living at the house.’

He nodded. ‘That’s good. I’d have hated Eloise to find the place all shut up, or occupied by strangers, and not know where to find me. Because it won’t last—this Alec Caravas thing. She’s had her head turned by a younger man, that’s all.’

Cressy’s lips parted in a silent gasp of incredulity. For a moment she could feel the blood drumming in her ears and felt physically sick.

Was that really his only concern—providing a bolt-hole for his worthless wife—if she chose to return? Didn’t he realise she’d been Alec Caravas’s full accomplice—and that the police would want to interview her if she ever dared show her face again?

She’d expected her father to ask all sorts of awkward questions about the exact accommodation she’d reached over his debts, but he didn’t seem remotely interested. Instead he just took it for granted that she’d managed to get things sorted.

Just as he’d tacitly accepted the estrangement between them that Eloise had imposed, she realised with a sudden ache of the heart.

And he would never have any conception of the terrible personal price she’d been forced to pay on his behalf.

I’ve ruined my life to get him out of trouble, Cressy thought with anguish. And he doesn’t even care. Nothing matters except this obsession with Eloise.

She got clumsily to her feet. ‘I—I’d better go. I promised the nurses I wouldn’t tire you.’

‘Perhaps it would be best.’ He leaned back against his pillows, reaching for the radio headphones.

She took a deep breath. ‘But there’s something I must tell you first. I—I have to go abroad very soon—to work. It’s a special contract. It may take a few months.’

‘Well, that’s excellent news.’ His smile held some of the old warmth. ‘I hope it means more money—or a promotion. You deserve it, you know.’

She said quietly, ‘I’m not sure what I deserve any more. And I’m not certain if I should go—if I should leave you.’

‘Nonsense, darling. Of course you must go. We both have our own lives to lead. We can’t be dependent on each other. And the last thing I want is you fussing round me. Berry and this nurse will be bad enough.’

‘No,’ she said. ‘You’re probably right. I—I’ll see you tomorrow.’

She went quietly to the door and let herself out. In the corridor, she stopped and leaned against the wall, aware that her legs were shaking so badly she thought she might collapse. She closed her eyes as a scalding tear forced its way under her lid and down her cheek.

She thought brokenly, Oh, Daddy…

‘Miss Fielding—is something wrong?’ A nurse’s anxious voice invaded her torturous thoughts.

Cressy straightened quickly. ‘No—it’s all right.’ She tried a little laugh. ‘I think the worry of the past few days has just caught up with me, that’s all.’

‘I’m not surprised. Oh, and talking of surprises…’ The girl felt in the pocket of her uniform. ‘You know the fruit and flowers that arrived for your father with no name on them? Well, they’ve just found this card in Reception. It must have fallen off when the delivery was made.’ She beamed. ‘One mystery solved.’ She lowered her voice significantly. ‘Although I think he was hoping they were from Mrs Fielding.’

Cressy held out her hand. ‘May I look?’

The signature was a slash of black ink across the rectangle of pasteboard. ‘Draco Viannis.’

She wasn’t even surprised. She closed her hand on the card, feeling its sharp edges dig into her palm. Wanting it to hurt. Needing a visible scar to counterbalance all the inner pain.

She said quietly, ‘Thank you. I’ll—see that he gets it. Now, is it possible for me to have a word with the consultant?’

She didn’t go straight back to the house. There was a National Trust property a few miles away, whose grounds were open to the public. There was an Elizabethan knot garden, and a lake with swans, and Cressy had always loved it there.

She found an unoccupied bench and sat, gazing across the sunlit waters with eyes that saw nothing and a heart without peace.

Her father had needed her, she thought, so she’d turned her back on the love that Draco was offering and gone running to him. She’d wanted, just once more, to be the cherished only daughter—to bask in the old relationship. To be important to him again.

But that was always going to be impossible, she realised wearily. Because they were not the same people any longer. Life had moved on for both of them.

So why this last vain attempt to cling on to her childhood?

She looked down at her hands, clenched in her lap. She remembered other hands, dark against her pale skin, and shivered.

She thought, Was I really so afraid of becoming a woman? Was that the true reason I ran away from Draco?

Under the circumstances, her reluctance to face the challenge of her own sexuality was ironic. Because Draco himself had changed all that in one brief, but very succinct lesson.

And now she was left stranded, between his desire for revenge and her father’s indifference.

I’ve wrecked everything, she told herself desolately. Sacrificed the only chance of real happiness I’ve ever been offered.

But she couldn’t let herself think about that, or she would break down completely. And she had to be strong to get through the next few weeks or months, living on the edge of Draco’s life. Strong enough, too, to walk away with her head high when it was over.

And before that she had other problems to deal with.

Her father might be too preoccupied with the loss of his wife to question this ‘job abroad’ too closely, but her aunt and uncle might not be so incurious. They would want a full explanation, and she couldn’t imagine what she would say to them—or to Berry, who would find it unthinkable for her to leave her father in this way.

And how could she explain why her father’s debts were now in abeyance, and the house reprieved, without mentioning the precise terms of her ‘contract’ with Draco?

Her conversation with the consultant had been uncomfortably revealing. Over the years her father’s health cover had been reduced to a minimum. The top-grade private room he was occupying, and the services of the live-in nurse, were being paid for by Draco.