Sybil’s eyes met Merry’s but neither of them commented.
‘Your mother’s all worked up about Elyssa,’ Merry acknowledged when Angel sank fluidly down into his seat by her side. ‘Why?’
‘The horror of being old enough to be a grandparent,’ Angel proffered wryly.
‘Are you serious?’
‘There’s nothing we can do about it. She’ll have to learn to deal.’
‘Do you see much of your mother?’ Merry probed uneasily.
‘More than I sometimes wish. She makes use of all my properties,’ Angel admitted flatly. ‘But if she wants that arrangement to continue she will have to tone herself down.’
As the afternoon wore on Merry watched Angel’s mother drink like a fish and then put on a sparkling display on the dance floor with Primo. She did not behave like a woman likely to tone her extrovert nature down. Merry also saw Angelina seek out Roula Paulides and sit with the blonde for a long time while enjoying an animated conversation. So, she was unlikely to be flavour of the month with her mother-in-law any time soon, Merry told herself wryly. Well, she could live with that, she decided, secure in the circle of Angel’s arms as they moved round the dance floor. His lean, powerful body against hers sparked all sorts of disconcerting responses. The prickly awareness of proximity and touch rippled through her in stormy, ever-rolling waves. She rested her head down on his shoulder, drinking in the raw, evocative scent of him like a drug she could not live without and only just resisting the urge to lick the strong brown column of his masculine throat.
Early evening, the newly married couple flew out to Greece and the Valtinos home on the island of Palos where Angel had been born. Merry was madly curious about the small island and the darkness that screened her view of it frustrated her. Serried lines of light ascending a hillside illuminated a small white village above the bay as the helicopter came in to land. A pair of SUVs picked them up, ferrying them up a steep road lined with cypress trees to the ultra-modern house hugging the promontory. Like a giant cruise ship, the entire house seemed to be lit up.
They stepped out into the warmth of a dusky evening and mounted the steps into the house. Staff greeted them in an octagonal marble hall ornamented by contemporary pieces of sculpture.
‘Sally will take Elyssa straight to bed,’ Angel decreed, closing his hand over Merry’s before she could dart off in the wake of her daughter. ‘She’s so tired she’ll sleep. This is our night.’
Merry coloured, suddenly insanely conscious of the ridiculous fact that she had barely acknowledged that it was their wedding night. She was tempted to argue that she had to take care of Elyssa, but was too well aware of their nanny’s calm efficiency to tilt at windmills. Even so, because she was accustomed to being a full-time mother, she found it difficult to step back from the role and accept that someone else could do the job almost as well. Her slender fingers scrabbled indecisively in the grip of Angel’s large masculine hand until she finally followed his lead and the staff already moving ahead of them with their bags.
‘Supper has been prepared for us. We’ll eat in our room,’ Angel told her lazily. ‘I’m glad to be home. You’ll love it here. Midsummer it can be unbearably hot but in June Palos is lush with growth and the air is fresh.’
‘I didn’t realise that you were so attached to your home,’ Merry confided, running her attention over the display of impressive paintings in the corridor.
‘Palos has been the Valtinos base for generations,’ Angel told her. ‘The original house was demolished and rebuilt by my grandfather. He fancied himself as something of an architect but his design ambitions were thwarted when he and my grandmother split up and she refused to move out. His house plan was then divided in two, one half for him, the other half for her and it’s still like that. Some day I hope to turn it back into one house.’
Merry was frowning. ‘Your grandparents divorced?’
‘No, neither of them wanted a divorce, but after my mother’s birth they separated. He was an incorrigible Romeo and she couldn’t live with him,’ Angel admitted as carved wooden doors were spread back at the end of the corridor. ‘I never knew either of them. My grandfather didn’t marry until he was almost sixty and my grandmother was in her forties when my mother was born. They died before my parents married.’