‘Ooh, it’s cool,’ Nicky said, and Athena gazed in awe at the vast chandelier in the bedchamber they’d just been ushered into and had to agree. This was the King’s bedchamber, with a smaller bedroom leading off to the side. ‘The smaller room’s for the King’s valet,’ Mrs Lavros told her. ‘It’s been years since the King’s been here, but we’ve kept it aired. There’s clean linen on the beds…’

Athena was no longer listening. She was staring out of the window at the beach that had been forbidden to mere mortals since Giorgos’s ancestors had plundered this place and made it theirs.

Nicky and Oscar were already out on the terrace, scrambling through the balustrades, figuring how they could clamber down to the cliff path.

She was a princess. Did princesses…clamber?

‘Has Nikos seen this?’ she breathed. The beach was wide and golden, curving from headland to headland. The sea was glistening diamonds-fabulous, romantic.

‘I’m not sure,’ the housekeeper told her. ‘But if you please, ma’am, what will you wear tonight?’

Tonight. A royal reception. How many people? She stopped thinking about clambering.

‘Something…simple?’ she ventured.

The housekeeper’s face fell. ‘Everyone wants to meet you,’ she said. ‘We so want our own princess. Prince Alexandros and Princess Lily will be here from Sappheiros, of course, and they’re wonderful, but they’re not our ruling family. Prince Alexandros will wear his medals,’ she said wistfully. ‘Don’t you have a formal gown?’

It was said without much hope.

And Athena looked at her two suitcases and knew her lack of hope was justified.

She’d packed for four weeks and she’d travelled light. She’d brought one formal little black dress.

Nikos should have warned her. Nikos should have warned her about the reception, she thought again, feeling anger build.