Sara Craven - His Forbidden Bride

‘Or even a small house. You’ll miss the garden.’

‘Yes.’ Zoe’s lip quivered suddenly. ‘Among so many other things.’ She forced herself to smile. ‘Maybe Aunt Megan’s doing me a favour. I’d just been thinking that my life could do with a whole new direction. This could be exactly the impetus I need. I might even move right away from here.’

‘Some place where the wicked Queen can’t barge in, using her own key,’ Adele agreed. ‘Although I’d miss you.’

‘Well, I won’t be going immediately.’ Zoe wrinkled her nose. ‘My contract stipulates one full term’s notice. But I can be looking—and planning.’

‘You don’t think some prince on a white horse is going to gallop up and rescue you?’ Adele asked, deadpan.

One already tried, thought Zoe, but he drives a Metro, and always stays inside the speed limit. And, anyway, I’m not sure who’d be rescuing whom…

‘Not in Bishops Cross,’ she returned, also straight-faced. ‘White horses can’t cope with the one-way traffic system.’

She finished her tea, and put the mug in the sink. ‘I’d better arrange to have my mother’s things taken out and stored in the short term,’ she mused aloud. ‘Aunt Megan mentioned a skip,’ she added with a touch of grimness. ‘And I’d put nothing past her.’

‘Not after that picture,’ said Adele. ‘Pity about that. Nice and bright, I always thought.’

‘It’s not terminally damaged—just needs a new frame. I’ll take it in with me tomorrow.’

‘It’ll be awkward on the bus. And there’s a framing shop a couple of doors from where Jeff works. Why don’t I ask him to drop it off for you on his way to work? Then you can pop round in your lunch break and choose another frame. Just tie a bit of paper and string round it, and I’ll take it with me now.’

‘Oh, Adele, that would be kind.’

Adele had always been a good neighbour, Zoe reflected as she hunted for the string. And, after Aunt Megan, her cheerful practicality was balm to the spirit.

‘She’s made a real mess of it,’ Adele commented grimly as Zoe went back into the sitting room. ‘Even the backing’s torn away.’ She tried to smooth it back into place, and paused. ‘Just a minute. There’s something down inside it. Look.’ She delved into the back of the picture, and came up with a bulky and clearly elderly manilla envelope.

She handed it to Zoe who stood, weighing it in her hands, staring down at it with an odd feeling of unease.

‘Well, aren’t you going to open it?’ Adele prompted after a moment. She laughed. ‘If it was me, I couldn’t wait.’

‘Yes,’ Zoe said, slowly. ‘I—I suppose so. But the fact is, it has been waiting—for a pretty long time, by the look of it. And, as my mother must have put it there, I’m wondering why she didn’t tell me about it—if she wanted me to find it, that is.’

Adele shrugged. ‘I expect she forgot about it.’

‘How could she? It’s been hanging there over the mantelpiece ever since she moved here—a constant reminder.’ Zoe shook her head. ‘It’s something she wanted to keep secret, Adele, when I didn’t think we had any secrets between us.’ She tried to smile. ‘And that’s come as a bit of a shock.’

Adele patted her on the shoulder. ‘It’s been quite a day for them. Why don’t I leave you in peace while you decide what to do? You can bring the picture round later on, if you still want it re-framing.’

Left to herself, Zoe sank down on the sofa. There was no message on the envelope, she realised. No ‘For my daughter’ or ‘To be opened in the event of my death’.

This was something that had remained hidden and private in Gina Lambert’s life. And if Aunt Megan hadn’t totally lost it, and thrown the picture on the floor, it would probably have stayed that way.

Maybe that was how it should be left. Maybe she should respect her mother’s tacit wish, and put it in the bin unopened.

Yet if I do that, Zoe thought, I shall always wonder…

With sudden resolution, she tore open the envelope and extracted the contents. There was quite an assortment, ranging from a bulky legal-looking document to some photographs.

She unfolded the document first, her brows snapping together as she realised it was written in a foreign language. Greek, she thought in bewilderment as she studied the unfamiliar alphabet. It’s in Greek, of all things. Why on earth would Mother have such a thing?

She put it down, and began to examine the photographs. Most of them seemed to be local scenes—a village street lined with white houses—a market, its stalls groaning with fruit—an old woman in black, leading a donkey laden with firewood.

One, however, was completely different. A garden guarded by tall cypresses, and a man, casually dressed in shorts and a shirt, standing beneath one of the trees. His face was in shadow, but some instinct told her that he was not English, and that he was looking back at whoever was holding the camera, and smiling.

And she knew, without question, that he was smiling at her mother.

She turned her head and studied the framed photograph of her father that occupied pride of place on the side table beside her mother’s chair. But she knew already that the shadow man was not John Lambert. The shape was all wrong, she thought. He’d been taller, for one thing, and thinner, and the man in the snapshot seemed, in some strange way and even at this distance in time and place, to exude a kind of raw energy that her father had not possessed.

Zoe swallowed. I don’t understand any of this, she thought. And I’m not sure I want to.

She felt very much as if she’d opened Pandora’s box, and was not convinced that Hope would be waiting for her at the end.

She turned the snapshot over, hoping to find some clue—a name, perhaps, scribbled on the back. But there was nothing. Slowly and carefully, she put it aside with the rest, and turned to the other papers.

There were several thin sheets stapled together, and when she unfolded them she realised, with sudden excitement, that this must be a translation of the Greek legal document that had so puzzled her.

She read them through eagerly, then paused, and went back to the beginning again, her brain whirling. Because the stilted, formal language was telling her that this was a deed of gift, assigning to her mother the Villa Danaë, near a place called Livassi, on the island of Thania.

Zoe felt stunned, not merely by the discovery, but by its implications.

This was a gift that Gina Lambert had never mentioned, and certainly never used. And that she’d clearly not wanted known. That she’d hidden in the back of a picture, which itself suddenly assumed a whole new significance.

Was it the recapturing of a cherished, but secret memory? Certainly that was how it seemed, particularly when she recalled how it had never been on show during John Lambert’s lifetime.

She read the translation through a third time. The name of the gift’s donor was not mentioned, she noticed, although she guessed it would be in the original. And there were no restrictions on the villa’s ownership either. It was Gina’s to pass on to her heirs, or sell, as she wished.

Yet there was nothing in the few remaining papers, consisting of a few tourist leaflets, a bill from a Hotel Stavros, and a ferry ticket, to indicate that she’d disposed of the Villa Danaë.

And she left me everything, thought Zoe, swallowing. So, unlikely as it seems, I now own a villa in Greece.

She realised she was shaking uncontrollably, her heart thudding like a trip-hammer. She made herself stand and walk over to the cupboard where her mother’s precious bottle of Napoleon brandy still resided, and poured herself a generous measure. Emergency tactics, she told herself.

When she was calmer, she fetched the atlas, and looked to see where Thania was. It was a small island in the Ionian sea, and Livassi seemed to be its capital, and only large town.

Not very revealing, Zoe thought, wrinkling her nose.

But Adele’s sister works in a travel agency, she reminded herself. She’d be able to tell me all about it—and how to get there.

Because she had to go to Thania, there was no question about that. She had to see the Villa Danaë for herself—if it was still standing. After all, it had belonged to an absentee owner for a long time, and might be in a state of real neglect and disrepair. But I have to know, she thought, taking another swift swig of her brandy as her pulses began to gallop again. And I have some money saved, and the whole summer vacation in front of me. There’ll never be a better opportunity.

She wouldn’t keep the house, of course. If it was habitable, she’d put it on the market. If it was falling down, she would just have to walk away—as her mother, apparently, had done before her.

But I’m not just going to see the villa, she thought. I want to find the answers to some questions as well. I need the truth, however painful, before I move on—start my new life.

She picked up the photo of the shadow man, and stood, staring down at him, wondering, and a little scared at the same time. Asking herself who he could be, and what his part in this mystery might be.

She sighed abruptly, and hid him back in the envelope with the rest of the paperwork.

I’ll find you, too, she thought. Somewhere. Somehow. And whatever the cost.

And tried to ignore the involuntary little shiver of misgiving that tingled down her spine.

THE rail of the boat was hot under Zoe’s bare arm. Ahead of her, the craggy outline of Thania rose from the shimmer of the sea.

Even now, with her target in sight, Zoe could still hardly believe she was doing this. The tension inside her was like a knot, endlessly being pulled more tightly.

She had told no one the real purpose of her visit to the island, not even Adele. She’d pretended that the envelope had merely contained souvenirs of what had been, clearly, a holiday her mother had once enjoyed, but memorable to no one but herself, and consequently not worth mentioning.

‘I need a break, so why don’t I try and discover what she found so entrancing?’ she’d laughed.

‘Well, don’t be too entranced,’ Adele warned. ‘And don’t let any local Adonis chat you on board his boat,’ she added severely. ‘We don’t want you doing a Shirley Valentine. You have to come back.’

I’m my mother’s daughter, Zoe thought wryly. And she came back, whatever the incentive to stay.

Aloud, she said lightly, ‘No danger.’

She’d told the same story of her mother’s favourite island to Adele’s sister Vanessa when she made the booking at the travel agency. Notwithstanding, Vanessa had tried hard to talk her into going somewhere larger and livelier.

‘Thania’s never been a typical tourist resort,’ she’d protested. ‘A number of rich Athenians have homes there, and they like to keep the hordes at bay. The hotels are small, and the beaches are mostly private. It’s all low-key and the nightlife barely exists. The ferry runs just twice a day from Kefalonia.’

She brightened. ‘Why don’t you stay on Kefalonia instead? See all the places where they filmed Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. There’s plenty to do there, and you could always go on a day trip to Thania if you really want to see it.’

Zoe shook her head, keeping her face solemn. ‘Nicholas Cage went back to America a long time ago, so I think I’ll pass on Kefalonia this time around. Besides, somewhere small and peaceful is exactly what I want.’ She paused, then tried to sound casual. ‘I believe there’s a Hotel Stavros in Livassi. Maybe you could book me in there.’