LITMIR.BIZ

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      ‘I’ll do one now,’ Nicky said immediately, and grabbed at the box of paints and some of the drawing paper piled on the table. He looked at Anatole. ‘You do one of me,’ he instructed, and gave some paper and a brush to his big cousin, who took them smilingly.

      ‘You’ll need some water,’ Christine said.

      She went into the bathroom leading off the playroom, which linked through to Nicky’s bedroom next to Nanny Ruth’s quarters. As she filled the jar she swallowed, blinking. But she soon went back, set the filled jar down on the table.

      ‘Thank you, Mumma,’ said Nicky dutifully.

      Nanny Ruth was very keen on manners.

      ‘You have fun, munchkin,’ she said.

      She left the room. She had to get out of there—had to stop seeing her son and Anatole, poring over their labours, their heads bent together—both so dark-haired, dark-eyed. So alike...

      She clattered down the stairs to the main landing. How long would Anatole be here? Did he expect to stay the night?

      He can’t stay here—he can’t!

      Panic rose in her throat, then subsided. No, of course he would not want to stay here. It would not be comme il faut for her to have such a guest, even if he was her late husband’s nephew. Even without anyone knowing their past relationship.

      But if he wasn’t heading back to town tonight he’d have to stay at the White Hart in the nearby market town. It was upmarket enough, in this well-heeled part of England, not to repel him, and they should have vacancies this time of year. She realised her mind was rambling, busying itself with practical thoughts so that she didn’t have to let in the thought she most desperately wanted to keep at bay.

      Anatole and Nicky...heads together...so alike...so very, very alike.

      No! Don’t go there! Just don’t go there! That was a past that never happened. Anatole did not want a child...did not want a child by me...did not want me for a wife...

      Emotion rose up inside her in a billowing wave of pain. Pain for the idiot she’d been, her head stuffed full of silly fairytales!

      With a cutting breath, she headed downstairs into her sitting room to phone the White Hart, and then let Mrs Hughes know they might have an unexpected guest for dinner. Her thoughts ran on—hectic, agitated.

      She rubbed at her head. If only Anatole would go away. He’d kept away while Vasilis was alive. As if she were poison...contaminated. But if he was set on seeing Nicky—who seemed so thrilled that he’d come, so animated and delighted...

      How can I stop Anatole from visiting, from getting to know Nicky? How can I possibly stop him?

      She couldn’t think about it—not now, not here.

      With a smothered cry she made her phone call, put her housekeeper on warning, then got out the file on Vasilis’s foundation and busied herself in the paperwork.

      It was close on an hour later when the house phone went. It was Nanny Ruth, back on duty for the evening, wanting a decision about Nicky’s teatime.

      ‘Well, why not let him stay up this evening?’ Christine said. That way, if Anatole was assuming he would dine here, she would have the shield of her son present. Surely that would help, wouldn’t it?

      Some twenty minutes later her housekeeper put her head round the door.

      ‘Nicky and Mr Kyrgiakis are coming downstairs,’ she said, ‘and dinner’s waiting to be served.’

      Christine thanked her and got up. She would not bother to change. Her clothes were fine. Anatole would still be in his jeans and sweater, and Nicky would be in his dressing gown.

      She went into the dining room, saw them already there. Anatole was talking to Nicky about one of the pictures on the wall. It was of skaters on a frozen canal.

      ‘Brrr! It looks freezing!’ Anatole was shivering exaggeratedly.

      ‘It’s Christmas,’ explained Nicky. ‘That’s why it’s snowy.’

      ‘Do you have snowy Christmases here?’ Anatole asked.

      Nicky shook his head, looking cross. ‘No,’ he said disgustedly.

      Anatole looked across at Christine, paused in the doorway. ‘Your mother and I had a snowy Christmas together once—long before you were born, Nicky. Do you remember?’

      If he’d thrown a brick at her she could not have been more horrified. She was stunned into silence, immobility.

      With not a flicker of acknowledgement of her appalled reaction, he went on, addressing her directly. ‘Switzerland? That chalet at the ski resort I took you to? We went tobogganing—you couldn’t ski—and I did a black run. We took the cable car up, I skied down and you came down by cable car. You told me you were terrified for me.’

      She paled, opening her mouth, then closing it again. He was doing it deliberately—he had to be. He was referring to that unforgettable Christmas she’d spent with him and the unforgettable months she’d spent with him—

      ‘What’s tobogganinning?’ Nicky asked, to her abject relief.

      Anatole answered him. He was glad to do so. Had he gone mad, reminding Tia—reminding himself—of that Christmas they’d spent in Switzerland?

      I’m not here to stir up the past—evoke memories. It’s the future that is important now—the future of Vasilis’s son. Only that.

      He answered the little boy cheerfully. ‘Like a sledge—you sit on it, and it slides down the hill on the snow. I’ll take you one day. And you can learn to ski, too. And skate—like in the picture.’

      ‘I like that picture,’ Nicky said.

      ‘It’s worth liking,’ Anatole said dryly, his eyes flickering to Christine. ‘It’s a minor Dutch Master.’

      ‘Claes van der Geld,’ Christine said, for something to say—something to claw her mind out of the crevasse it had fallen into with the memory of that Christmas with Anatole.

      They’d made love on Christmas Eve, on a huge sheepskin rug, by the blazing log fire...

      Anatole’s eyes were on her, with that same look of surprise in them, she realised, as when she’d mentioned Vasilis discussing Aeschylus and Pindar with the vicar.

      She gave a thin smile, and then turned her attention to Nicky, getting him settled on his chair, then taking her own place at the foot of the table. Anatole’s place had been set opposite Nicky. The head of the table was empty.

      As she sat down she felt a knifing pang in her heart at Vasilis’s absence, and her eyes lingered on the chair her husband had used to sit in.

      ‘Do you miss him?’

      The words came from Anatole, and she twisted her head towards him. There was a different expression on his face now. Not sceptical. Not ironic. Not taunting. Almost...quizzical.

      Her eyes narrowed. ‘What do you think?’ she retaliated, snatching at her glass, and then realising it had no water in it.

      He reached for the jug of water on the table, filled her glass and then his own. ‘I don’t know,’ he said slowly. His mouth tightened. ‘There’s a lot I don’t know, it seems. For example...’ his tone of voice changed again ‘... I didn’t know that you knew about Dutch Old Masters. Or anything about Hellenistic sculpture. Or classical Greece literature. And yet it seems you do.’

      She levelled a look at him. There was no emotion in it. ‘Your uncle was a good teacher,’ she said. ‘I had nearly five years of personal tuition from him. He was patient, and kind, infinitely knowledgeable, and—’

      She couldn’t continue. Her voice was breaking, her throat choking. Her eyes misted and she blinked rapidly.

      ‘Mumma...?’

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