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Helen didn’t appreciate the ‘hare-brained’ but she could not exactly deny it. If she was honest, she was amazed the deception had lasted so long. For the first year of Nicholas’ life she had encouraged Delia to reveal his existence to her family, but as time had passed Helen had not been quite so eager for the truth to be told. Guilt at her own role in prolonging the situation made her voice curt as she continued.
‘When Delia came to visit me four years ago, and told me she was pregnant, she had a scheme all worked out. Easter at home in Greece would be no problem; no one would notice her. According to Delia your father was over the moon because you had just told him your wife was pregnant and the much-wanted grandchild was due in August. How could she, even if she wanted to, disgrace her family and spoil everyone’s delight, with the news her own child was due a couple of months earlier?’ she queried sharply, so caught up in her own emotions she never saw the flash of anger in his dark eyes.
‘Anyway, she didn’t want to. She didn’t want her child brought up to be like her father, a chauvinistic tyrant who blamed her for the death of her mother.’ Leon’s head did jerk at that but he did not stop her. ‘She didn’t think you were much better after you agreed with him to ship her off to boarding-school because of a couple of teenage flirtations.’
His mouth twisted cynically. ‘Of course, you agreed with her, and it never entered your head she might have been better served if you had gotten in touch with her family.’
‘No, I didn’t just agree with her,’ Helen retorted hotly. ‘I told her to do just that.’ She paused, her anger fading at the memory of what had happened next—the death of her grandfather.
‘Very laudable, I’m sure, but not very believable given the present circumstances,’ Leon remarked cynically.
‘You are wrong. I only agreed to help her after she returned from the Easter holiday, and came here for my grandfather’s funeral. She told me that no one had even noticed she was pregnant,’ Helen shot back scathingly, ‘which rather proved her point.’
‘Regrettable. But not worth arguing over,’ he opined flatly. ‘We now have a young boy’s future to consider, a boy without parents.’ His dark eyes narrowed intently on her pale face. ‘Unless you happen to know the name of the father?’
‘Delia told me he was dead,’ she said, avoiding his astute gaze. She had also made Helen promise never to reveal the man’s identity, and she saw no reason to break her word now.
‘You are sure?’
‘Absolutely,’ Helen said firmly, looking straight up at Leon. Delia had shown her a newspaper cutting of the train crash that had killed the man.
‘Good.’ She had not given him a name, which Leon was sure she knew. Miss Heywood had very expressive eyes and she had avoided looking at him when she had answered, and for the opposite reason he believed her when she said the man was dead. ‘Then there is no fear of anyone appearing out of the blue to claim the boy. That only leaves you and I.’
‘Before you say anything more—’ Helen rushed into speech ‘—you should know when Nicholas was born Delia made me his guardian, with her, until he is twenty-one. It was necessary in case of emergency and so he could be enrolled with a doctor and the like, and I have the documentation to prove it.’ She felt some guilt for what she had allowed to happen, but even so she wasn’t about to give Nicholas up to this granite-faced autocrat without a fight.
‘I’m sure you have,’ he drawled cynically. ‘Before I arrived here I visited a lawyer in London, a Mr Smyth, and he is in possession of Delia’s last will and testament. In it she makes you a substantial beneficiary of her estate, twenty per cent to be precise, and you and I are now joint trustees of Nicholas’ money, as I am sure you know.’ Helen’s mouth fell open in shock. ‘Don’t look so surprised—after all, you are now probably the best paid nanny in the history of the world, as I am sure you also know.’
There was a sinking feeling in the pit of Helen’s stomach when she heard the absolute decisiveness in his tone, and she knew he was telling the truth.
‘Delia left me money.’ She gazed up at him in shock and saw the contemptuous expression on his hard face. ‘I didn’t know, and I don’t want it. I love Nicholas. I agreed to be his guardian to help Delia but not for money,’ she said, horrified and furious that this man could think so badly of her. ‘And I find it incredible that she made you Nicholas’ guardian as well, she told me she did not want Nicholas growing up like you,’ she blurted out unthinkingly.
Leon’s astute gaze narrowed, his needle-sharp brain instantly recognising Helen Haywood in her upset and anger had made a simple mistake. He had said he was a trustee of the boy’s estate, not a joint guardian. But he had no qualms about using her assumption to his advantage. Despite her protestations, and the care she had taken of the child, she was nothing more than a little gold-digger. ‘It seems my little sister said a damn sight too much and not always the truth,’ he drawled. ‘But never mind, it is not important. What is important is Nicholas.’
‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ she cried. ‘I have looked after him from birth; I love him as my own. Nicholas’ future happiness is all I care about.’
‘Excellent.’ He ignored the flare of anguish in her violet eyes. ‘Then you can have no objection to Nicholas coming back to Greece with me.’
‘But that’s insane,’ she responded emphatically. ‘You can’t just snatch him away from here. This is the only home he’s ever known.’
‘Then it is way past time he got to know his own. Nicholas is Greek, and he will quickly adapt. He will enjoy living in my home with my staff to attend to his every need. He will certainly enjoy the sunny climate rather than this constant cold grey drizzle. He is an Aristides and as such will have the best education available, and will eventually take his rightful place in Aristides International.’ Leon let his hard eyes sweep over her with a calculated arrogance.
‘You say you don’t want the money Delia left you, yet, according to the receptionist at the hotel where I stopped to book a room for the night, you are employed as a part-time carer in the crèche for the guests’ children. While a very laudable occupation, it is hardly going to make you a fortune,’ he mocked. ‘A fortune I already have, so what can you offer Nicholas to compare?’
Seething that the superior swine had the audacity to discuss her circumstances with a total stranger, Helen had had enough. ‘Money is not everything. I love Nicholas—something you, by all accounts, know nothing about.’ She did some mocking of her own.
‘Ah, Delia again, I presume. You should not believe everything you hear.’
‘Well, your marriage was no love match, rather it facilitated the acquisition of an American bank, according to Delia.’ She lashed back, her anger overriding her common sense. ‘What kind of example are you going to set for a trusting, lovable young boy like Nicholas?’
‘A realistic one,’ he stated rising to his feet and walking around to where she sat. ‘Not the kind of independent, idealistic fairy-tale view of life you and my sister adhered to.’ He captured her chin between his finger and thumb and tilted her head back so she was forced to meet the savage darkness in his eyes. ‘Look where love and independence got Delia and tell me I am wrong.’
Helen was speechless for a moment, her hands curled into fists in her lap in an effort to suppress the furious urge to hit him. His sister was dead, and his sneering comment was a low blow.
‘Oh! And your way was so much better—you managed to lose both your wife and your child,’ she snapped. ‘At least Nicholas is safe, and you are the most detestable man it has ever been my misfortune to meet. I wouldn’t let you look after my pet goldfish.’
As he towered over her his fingers tightened on her chin and she thought he was going to break her jaw during the taut silence that followed. Belatedly Helen realised she had gone way too far with her personal comment on his private life. If she wanted to keep in touch with Nicholas she had to get along with this man; how, she had no idea.
Then from just inside the kitchen door a high-pitched voice yelled, ‘Let go of my Helen, you nasty man.’
A ball of fury spun across the kitchen and kicked out at Leon’s shin. His hand fell from her chin and he stepped back and stared down in amazement at the child clinging to his leg.
‘It’s all right, Nicholas.’ Helen jumped off her chair and crouched down beside the boy. ‘He is not a nasty man,’ she said, slipping an arm around his smooth little body and turning him towards her. ‘He is Mum Delia’s brother and that makes him your uncle.’ Nicholas’ chubby arm closed around her neck and, lifting him into her arms, she stood up. ‘He is a nice man,’ she said, not believing it for an instant. ‘And he has come all the way from Greece to see you.’
‘Just to see me,’ Nicholas said, his big dark eyes, so like Delia’s, lifted up to the silent man towering over them. ‘You’re my uncle.’ Then he looked back at Helen. ‘My friend Tim has an uncle who stays with him and his mum, and sleeps in her bed. Is this uncle going to stay with you and me?’ Nicholas asked and cast a wary glance back up at Leon.
Helen felt the colour surge in her cheeks, and for a moment she was struck dumb. The fact that Nicholas at his tender age was aware of any adult’s sleeping arrangements other than her own shocked her rigid. But Aristides had no such problem.
‘Yes. I would like us to stay together,’ Leon confirmed, speaking for the first time since Nicholas had entered the kitchen. ‘If you will let me,’ he added with a smile. ‘You remind me very much of my sister Delia.’
‘You know Delia?’ Nicholas demanded.
‘Mum Delia,’ Helen prompted.
‘Mum Delia,’ Nicholas repeated. ‘She was supposed to come and see us and didn’t. But she sent me a car-shaped bed for Christmas, and lots of toys.’ He wriggled free of Helen’s hold to stand on chubby legs and glance shyly up at Leon. ‘Would you like to see them?’
Speechless with anger, Helen simply stared as Leon knelt down and took Nicholas’ hand in his. How dared he tell Nicholas he was staying with them?
‘I’d be delighted, Nicholas. May I call you Nicholas?’
‘Yes, come on.’ Nicholas tugged on his large hand impatiently.
‘Wait a minute.’ Helen finally found her voice. ‘For a start, Nicholas, what are you doing down here? I have told you not to come downstairs on your own.’
She felt guilty as hell. With the shocking revelations of the past hour she had forgotten he was no longer in his cot but in the new bed and could get out in a second, and she had also forgotten to fasten the child gate at the top of the stairs. ‘You might have fallen.’
‘I’m sure Nicholas is too big a boy to fall down the stairs,’ Leon declared rising to his feet. ‘Isn’t that right, son?’
Since when had his nephew become his son? Helen thought furiously.
‘Yes,’ Nicholas responded, and by the smile on his face he didn’t mind being called son at all. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Leon Aristides.’ The big man grinned down at the boy. ‘You can call me Uncle or Leon, or both, take your pick.’
Two minutes later she watched man and boy walk out of the kitchen to view the new bed and a sliver of fear trickled down her spine. Her protestation that Nicholas needed a drink of juice and a biscuit, their usual ritual, was brushed aside in typical male fashion by Nicholas.
‘You get it ready while I show Uncle Leon my car-bed.’
Her suggestion he needed dressing was brushed aside equally bluntly by Uncle Leon with, ‘No problem, I can mange.’
Controlling her instinct to follow the pair, she glanced around the empty kitchen with a heart as heavy as lead as the enormity of the news hit her. Delia dead and Nicholas had yet to be told.
Oh, God! She groaned and slumped down in the chair she had recently vacated. She eyed the wine bottle and for a second was tempted to drown her sorrows, but only for a second. She had to be strong for Nicholas. She owed it to her friend to make sure the boy was happy, never mind what the indomitable Leon Aristides wanted.
Rising to her feet, she picked up the glasses and washed them in the sink. No way was she going to quietly slip to the sidelines of Nicholas’ life, she silently vowed. She had dealt with enough sorrow and death in her life and she was not going to let this latest tragedy beat her.
Contrary to what Leon Aristides obviously thought with his dig about money and his patronising comment about her job at the crèche, at five feet two she was not a tiny ineffectual woman. The ‘tiny’ still rankled as she picked up the bottle from the table and put it on the back of the bench. She had a core of inner strength that had seen her through a lot of adversity that would have defeated a lesser woman.
She had nursed her grandfather for four years and continued her studies at the same time, eventually enrolling for a home-study degree. A few months after his death she had taken on the full-time care of baby Nicholas and continued her studies and last year she had obtained a degree in History of Art. Plus she was nowhere near the poor little woman Aristides thought.
Her grandfather after his first stroke at the age of sixty, had sold off the fifty acres of land that surrounded their home to an international hotel chain for development while making sure they kept the house and right of way. It was his way of ensuring there was money for his long-term care and Helen.
On inheriting her grandfather’s estate after his death, and the life insurance from her parents that had been held in trust, Helen was hardly penniless.
While she was nowhere near as wealthy as Aristides, the money she had invested assured her of a reasonably comfortable living and left her free to indulge her own interests. As a freelance illustrator she had already completed the illustrations for three best selling children’s books, and had a lucrative deal with the author and publisher to complete the illustrations on the full series of eight, her time spent at the crèche was a personal pleasure, but her greatest love was looking after Nicholas. Under the circumstances her life was as near perfect as she could have wished. Until today.
She opened the fridge and took out a carton of juice, then reached for Nicholas’favourite plastic mug from an overhead cupboard. She placed them both on the table with the biscuit tin, and straightened up, wondering what to do next.
Quietly she walked into the hall and stood at the foot of the stairs. She could hear the murmur of voices, and then childish laughter. She wanted to go upstairs and join them, but instead she walked the length of the hall and halfway back. She stopped at the hall table and picked up the post she had dropped earlier and looked through it. A couple of circulars and a letter. She turned it over in her hand and did not recognise the sender’s address but tensed as she realised it was a solicitor’s firm. She read the letter three times, and then slipped it in the table drawer.
Back in the kitchen she stared sightlessly out of the window. The finality of the situation hit her; Aristides was telling the truth. The solicitor’s letter was brief but informative, simply confirming Delia was dead and Helen was a beneficiary of her will.
Sighing, she turned. She needed something to do, something mundane so she didn’t have to think of what might lie ahead. Perhaps if she began preparing supper. They always had their meal about six, then bath and bed. Scrambled egg with crispy bacon and grilled tomatoes was a favourite of Nicholas’ and she was reaching for the china chicken that held the eggs when Nicholas and Leon walked back into the kitchen.
‘Uncle Leon likes my bed,’ Nicholas said, a broad grin on his face. ‘He said he is going to get me another one just like it for when we stay at his house in Greece.’ His eyes were huge with wonder. ‘Isn’t that great?’
With a malevolent glance at the tall dark man hovering over the boy, she bent down and picked Nicholas up. ‘Yes, marvelous,’ Helen got out between clenched teeth and deposited the boy on his seat at the table. ‘Now drink your juice and have a biscuit, while I get supper ready.’ She could do nothing about the stiffness in her tone; she was so angry it took all her self-control to speak civilly.
And it only got worse.
CHAPTER FOUR
THREE HOURS LATER Helen sat on the side of Nicholas’ bed and read him Rex Rabbit and the Good Fairy. The first book she had illustrated. Nicholas loved the stories about Rex, a rather naughty rabbit, and the fairy that helped him out of his troubles, and the original drawing of the fairy hung proudly on his bedroom wall.
Usually this was her favourite time with Nicholas. But with Leon Aristides sitting like some huge dark spectre on the opposite side of the bed listening to every word tonight was different. She came to the end of the story and nervously glanced across at him.
His dark eyes rested on her. She watched them narrow in silent command, and she knew what he meant. She glanced quickly back at Nicholas, her nerves on a razor edge.
‘Now your prayers,’ she murmured, smiling softly down at him. It was their usual ritual, but tonight it held only sadness for Helen. She knew she had to tell Nicholas his mother was dead. Not least because Leon had told her so earlier in no uncertain terms when Nicholas had been otherwise occupied with his toys. If she didn’t he would.
The childish voice ended with, ‘God bless my Helen and God bless Delia. Amen.’
‘Mum Delia,’ Helen murmured automatically, and was ignored.
‘Oh, and God bless Uncle Leon,’ Nicholas said with a grin. Then he added, ‘When is Delia coming? I haven’t thanked her for my bed yet.’
No time was good for what Helen had to say, but she had no choice, and, reaching out a finger to stroke his smooth cheek, her eyes moist with tears, she told him, ‘Mum Delia will not be coming back, sweetheart,’ and, moving, she slipped an arm around his small shoulders.
‘You know she lived a lot of the time in Greece. Well, so does Uncle Leon and that is why he is here today. He came to tell us Delia was badly hurt in an accident and she died.’ Her voice broke. Saying the words out loud seemed so final.
‘You mean she is never coming back?’ Nicholas’ bottom lip trembled, and the big dark eyes so like Delia’s filled with tears. ‘But why not?’
Helen tightened her arm around him and snuggled him closer. ‘Remember when your hamster died and you and I had a little service and I told you he had gone to heaven where he would still be able to watch you even though you could no longer see him?’
He looked up into her face and then glanced at Leon and back to Helen. ‘Has Delia gone to heaven?’ he asked, big fat tears rolling down his soft cheeks.
‘Yes, but she will still be watching over you.’
‘But I want to see her again.’ He began to sob in earnest.
‘Shh, it’s all right,’ Helen husked.
‘You won’t leave me like Delia?’ he gasped between his sobs, his little hands clinging to her shoulders, his body shaking.
Whether he understood the meaning of death, Helen wasn’t sure, or whether he was simply picking up the enormity of the news from the tension in the two adults, she could not say. She simply held him close and stroked his dark curly hair, murmuring soothing words of love and reassurance, telling him not to worry, she would always be there for him.
Eventually the sobbing ceased and Helen laid him gently down in the bed and kissed his brow.
‘Promise you won’t die and leave me?’ he pleaded, his eyes huge in his flushed damp face. ‘Promise.’
‘Don’t worry, my love, I will always be here for you,’ Helen said softly, brushing her lips against his brow again, and she saw exhaustion overtake him as his eyes closed and she kissed the slightly swollen lids, the smooth cheeks, and tenderly placed his car-printed duvet around his shoulders. ‘I promise.’ And a tear dropped from her eye to his cheek. His little nose wrinkled and he sighed and slept.
Ten minutes later at Leon’s insistence Helen was seated alone in the living room while he went to make coffee. She had been too emotionally exhausted to argue and now she laid her head back against the soft cushions of the sofa and closed her eyes.
Grief and guilt washed over her in waves, and her mind spun like a windmill in a gale. What a mess, and most of it of her own making. She should never have agreed to Delia’s mad idea, she should never have let her own circumstances influence her judgment, but then she would never have known the deep love she felt for Nicholas. To lose him would break her heart, yet she had always known Delia would claim him one day and somehow that had never felt so bad.
‘Here, take this.’ She opened her eyes to find Leon looming over her with a cup of coffee in his hand. ‘I’ve laced it with a little cognac I found in a cupboard. You look like you need it.’
She took the mug from him and raised it to her lips and swallowed down a mouthful of the hot liquid. She grimaced as the spirit caught her throat, but the warmth seemed to spread through her veins inducing a kind of calm. Slowly she sipped the refreshing brew until she had drained the cup and put it on the coffee table in front of her.
Finally she glanced across at Leon reclining on the sofa opposite. He had finished his coffee and he was watching her from beneath heavy-lidded eyes, a brooding expression on his rugged face, and she wondered what he was thinking. A moment later she found out.
‘Did you mean what you told Nicholas about never leaving him?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she asserted. ‘I know it will be difficult, and obviously I don’t expect to be physically with him all the time,’ she said gathering her thoughts into some kind of order. ‘I understand you will want to spend some time with him. You could take him for the holidays, as I know it is a custom in your family, plus apparently you have already told him.’ She couldn’t resist the dig. ‘Given the circumstances it is inevitable Nicholas and I will be apart for some periods, but I will still keep in touch with him by telephone on a daily basis so he will never feel I have left him,’ Helen offered and thought she was being reasonable.
‘I hear what you are saying, but I don’t agree. I can see Nicholas is happy with you and you don’t want to part with him. But as his uncle, his only blood relative, I think we should share his upbringing. Nicholas can live with me for six months of the year and you for the other.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Helen exclaimed, her eyes widening in astonished disbelief on his darkly attractive face. ‘That would be absurd. Nicholas switching home every six months, switching schools, doctors everything—only a man could come up with such an idiotic suggestion,’ she declared, for once feeling superior to the arrogant devil.
His mouth hardened. ‘Exactly.’
‘Then why suggest it?’ she queried warily, no longer feeling superior as she realised he had set her up for something, but what?
‘Don’t get me wrong. I think you have done a wonderful job with Nicholas, with little help from my sister, though his knowledge of the Greek language is quite good, so she did do something right. But I have noted he calls you my Helen. But he rarely adds the prefix Mum to Delia’s name unless you prompt him. He is upset at the news of her death, but, though it pains me to say it, nowhere near as upset as he would be if he lost you. To all intents and purposes you are his mother, and I think it would be in his best interest if he stays with you.’
‘You mean you agree he can stay with me? ‘Helen asked, hardly daring to believe Aristides could be so reasonable.
‘No, I mean the boy has had a confusing start in life with you as the only constant adult and he deserves more. He deserves two parents and a stable home and I can provide that.’
