Wedding Night with a Stranger. Anna Cleary

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      Sebastian listened as patiently as time would allow to all the recent details of their exuberant young lives, while Danae looked on, beaming with maternal pride.

      Eventually, he detached himself with a laugh. ‘That’s enough,’ he said, ruffling the two four-year-old heads. He waited for a brief respite in the voluble trio of voices, then jumped in with a query of his own. ‘Is Yiayia here?’

      His mother tilted her head in the direction of the hall. ‘In the orangery.’

      Sebastian approached quietly, in case his grandmother was having a late afternoon nap. He needn’t have been concerned.

      Dressed in her gardening smock, her hair coiled loosely into a bun, the small, frail woman was up and active, struggling to lift a terracotta pot onto a bench.

      ‘None of that,’ Sebastian said, striding forward and removing it from her worn hands. ‘You know what the doctor said, Yiayia.’

      ‘Oh, pouf. Doctors,’ his grandmother exclaimed while Sebastian positioned the pot in the miniature rainforest that was her pride and joy, adorning every available space. ‘What do they know?’

      She peeled off her gloves and reached up, tilting her soft, lined cheek for his kiss.

      Sebastian obliged, declining to argue, knowing she worshipped the members of the medical profession as though their words were piped direct from heaven.

      ‘Well, glikia-mou. Now, what are you about?’ She settled herself into a high-backed wicker chair draped with shawls, while Sebastian sat facing her.

      Filtered by leaves both inside and out, the afternoon sun slanted through the glass walls, bathing the room in a greenish light.

      Sebastian made himself relax, aware he was being examined by an almost supernaturally astute observer of human frailty. ‘Do you remember the Giorgias family?’

      Her elderly brows lifted. ‘From Naxos?’ He nodded, and she said, ‘Of course. From when I was a child. There was always a Giorgias in our house. My father and their father were friends.’

      ‘Do you remember Pericles Giorgias?’

      ‘Ah.’ She gave a sage nod. ‘Of course I remember him. He was the one who inherited the shipyard, and the boats. He married Eleni Kyriades. He was such a generous man. It was he who helped your father when the stores nearly collapsed back in the eighties.’

      Sebastian tensed. ‘How do you mean, he helped Papa? Are you sure?’

      ‘For sure I’m sure. When the banks wouldn’t help Pericles made your father a loan. To be repaid without interest over a very long time. No strings attached.’ She shook her head in wonderment. ‘Such a rare thing, generosity.’

      Dismay speared through Sebastian. Such generosity was rare indeed. But there’d been strings attached, all right. Strings of honour. With grim comprehension he recognised the situation. The Nikostos were now under an obligation to the Giorgiases. For some reason Peri Giorgias required a favour, and he’d chosen to collect from the son of his debtor.

      A son for a father. A favour for a favour.

      He could almost hear the clang as the trap snapped shut around him. Chained to a stranger in wedlock.

      In an attempt to break free from the vice sinking its teeth into his gut, he got up and paced the room. Another marriage was the last thing he’d ever intended. How could he dishonour Esther’s memory with some spoiled tycoon’s poppet?

      ‘There were other brothers too. Three. At least three.’ Yiayia’s gentle voice filtered through his reflections. ‘I remember the youngest, but the middle boys…’ The old lady sat back in her chair and closed her eyes. After a moment she said, ‘I remember young Andreas. He didn’t care for the family business. I think he was an artist. He came out here, and married an Australian girl. Oh, that was a terrible tragedy. Poor Andreas and his wife.’

      In spite of his resistance to knowing anything about the Giorgias woman’s history, Sebastian’s attention was arrested, and he turned to watch his grandmother’s face. ‘What happened?’

      ‘A boat accident. Night-time on the harbour. You may not remember. Your parents, your grandfather and me, we all went to the funeral, but you’d have still been a boy. Only imagine a Greek being killed in a boating accident! They said it was a collision. Silly young people out skylarking. Andreas and his wife didn’t stand a chance.’

      He frowned, unwilling to feel sympathy. Unwilling to feel. ‘They left children?’

      His grandmother’s face lit up. ‘That’s right, there was a child. A girl, I think. I’m nearly sure the poor little thing was taken back to Greece with one of the brothers.’

      Sebastian grimaced and resumed his chair. After a smouldering moment he made the curt acknowledgement, ‘Pericles.’

      ‘Ah.’

      A pregnant silence fell.

      Sebastian wondered if by admitting he knew that one fact, he’d given away something crucial. Sooner or later, if he went through with this charade, they would all have to know. What would they think of their brilliant son then, snagged like a greenhorn in a duty marriage? Forced up the aisle with a woman he hated?

      A flash of the Giorgias woman’s drawn, anxious face at the last stirred a sudden unaccountable turmoil in his chest and he had to rescind the thought. No, he didn’t hate her, exactly. He just felt—angry. What man wouldn’t? To have his bride, his life, decided by someone else.

      In the first flush of his outrage Sebastian had blamed—he allowed himself to use her name—Ariadne. He’d imagined her as a spoiled little despot, winding her doting uncle around her little finger. How had she come to choose him? Had he been listed in some cheap catalogue of eligible males?

      Now, after hearing Yiayia’s words he began to see it was almost certainly instigated by Pericles himself.

      His grandmother studied his face, her shrewd black eyes revealing nothing of her thoughts. After a long moment, she said, ‘You have met her? Andreas’s daughter?’

      Sebastian hesitated, then shrugged and said without expression, ‘I have had that pleasure.’

      The wise old eyes scanned his a moment longer, then closed, as if in meditation. ‘I don’t think Pericles and Eleni were blessed.’

      Sebastian knew what she meant. Other people might be blessed with brains, beauty, talent, health or wealth, but to Yiayia children were the most worthwhile of life’s gifts, so blessings referred only to them.

      ‘They ’d have wanted to take on the little one,’ she continued. ‘I expect they’d have been overjoyed. Eleni had nothing much else to fill her heart. That Pericles liked the business. He was the right one to take over the shipping because he had an eye for money. Clever, but not always very smart. Andreas, now…A thoughtful boy, I think. Sensitive.’ She shook her head and clasped her lined hands in her lap. ‘Oh, that was a terrible shame. The young shouldn’t have to die.’

      Was she thinking of Esther now? ‘No,’ he said shortly. ‘They shouldn’t.’

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