The Secret His Mistress Carried

A manservant showed her out onto a big shaded balcony where Theon awaited her. ‘I believe this is an honour,’ Billie remarked with a grin.

‘How on earth have you escaped Gio?’ his grandfather enquired mockingly.

‘Something I said annoyed him... He’s taken refuge in work,’ Billie confided, marvelling at how very comfortable she felt in the older man’s company.

‘I overheard that conversation,’ Theon admitted, disconcerting her. ‘This balcony is directly overhead.’

Billie reddened but sat down. ‘Oh, well, it’s all within the family,’ she said without great concern because it wasn’t as if she and Gio had been hurling insults at each other or discussing anything she considered particularly private, although she knew that put in the same position Gio would have been furious.

‘I thought I should bring you up to date on some family history, as I doubt very much that Gio has done the job for me,’ Theon commented.

‘I know about his parents’ divorce,’ Billie contributed. ‘And I know his father really didn’t have much to do with him after it.’

‘Dmitri was a weak man. There, I have said it,’ the older man said wryly. ‘For years I wouldn’t admit that to myself because he was my son...’

‘It’s challenging to accept faults in those we care about most,’ Billie murmured soothingly.

‘You love Gio a great deal—it shines from you,’ his grandfather told her. ‘He’s a very lucky man.’

Billie flushed and decided not to embarrass herself with a denial while she poured the tea. ‘I hope he always thinks so. He’s much more complicated than I am...’

‘And that’s why I invited you for tea,’ Theon told her. ‘I’m very much afraid that his complexity can be laid at my door. I raised Gio from the age of eleven after his mother died.’

‘I had no idea she died while he was still so young,’ Billie said in surprise as she buttered a scone and deliberated with some gastronomic anticipation on whether to have raspberry or strawberry jam with her cream.

‘Ianthe couldn’t cope alone after Dmitri divorced her for Marianne. I had no idea how bad things had become for Gio’s mother,’ Theon told her heavily. ‘Perhaps if my wife had still been alive she would have had the wisdom to foresee the problems and she would have encouraged me to offer help in time to prevent a tragedy.’

Billie set down her scone after one delicious bite. ‘A tragedy?’ she pressed.

‘Ianthe hanged herself...and Gio found her,’ the older man recounted with a shudder. ‘I will carry the burden of my guilt to the end of my days.’

Eyes widening, Billie had lost colour. ‘I had no idea...’

‘I didn’t think you would, which is why I told you,’ Gio’s grandfather confessed. ‘The effect on Gio was catastrophic. He had lost his father, his home and then his mother, only a few months later.’

Billie shook her head slowly, cringing at the thought of such a huge loss being inflicted on Gio and his sisters while they were still so young. ‘That must have been dreadful for him,’ she muttered unsteadily, her heart swelling. ‘He would’ve felt responsible—’

‘I worried that Gio would inherit the same excessively emotional personality that both Dmitri and Ianthe demonstrated in the way they led their lives. That kind of emotional intensity leads to instability.’

‘Not always,’ Billie inserted gently.

Theon shook his white head. ‘I wanted to be sure that Gio did not repeat his father’s mistakes. It was too much responsibility to place on a child’s shoulders. In many ways I taught him the wrong values,’ he explained with unashamed guilt etched in his lined features. ‘I expected, wanted him to marry well...and we all know how successful that proved to be. I put far too much emphasis on wealth, status and family duty—’

‘But,’ Billie cut in with an apologetic look, ‘at the end of the day, Gio is a highly intelligent adult and totally independent and he made his own decisions.’

‘Ne...yes, and he married you without telling any of us because he refused even to risk the fact that I might have tried to interfere.’

‘Probably,’ Billie agreed thoughtfully. ‘But he’s not enough in touch with his own feelings to even know that.’

‘You know him so well,’ Theon pronounced with appreciation. ‘Now we’ve got the difficult bit over, shall we enjoy our scones?’

* * *

Gio was on the phone to Leandros and Leandros was asking awkward questions, destined not to be answered. ‘I just don’t understand.’ His best friend sighed. ‘You only got married yesterday. You only arrived with your family today. Why would you want to fly back to Athens for one night simply to have some fancy dinner?’