‘He didn’t want Takis and the whole village seeing you,’ teased Nell, as soon as both Nikos and Demetria had disappeared.

‘I’m sure you’re making too much of it.’ Penny shook her head. ‘As he said, we’re just going to pick up some bits and pieces for the boathouses.’

‘Like hell you are,’ Nell whispered when Demetria had left the room. ‘Faithful Penelope, I think you probably ought to face facts. Nikos is falling for you. What are you going to do about it?’

Ten

‘Guess what!’ Moira was almost jumping up and down with excitement when they arrived back at the hotel on their bikes, exhausted and sweaty. ‘The boathouses have had their first booking!’

Penny was delighted but absolutely mystified. ‘But how? We haven’t even advertised them yet.’

‘Demetria had the brainwave of putting the photos on the island’s own website, and bingo! Two adults plus a baby are arriving on the ferry today!’

‘A baby!’ Penny immediately went into panic mode. ‘I didn’t think about babies. What will we do about a cot?’

‘Don’t people bring their own?’ Nell asked, trying not to be irritated that this had all happened when she’d already sent the photos to her daughter Willow and asked for her help in marketing the boathouses.

‘Demetria will find one,’ offered Cassandra, who had been listening.

‘I’ll paint it for you with some nice Greek myths,’ offered Moira.

‘Couldn’t you stick to nursery rhymes?’ Nell suggested. ‘Probably safer.’

‘Considerably safer!’ endorsed Professor Brinkley, who had just emerged from reception with Dora on his arm – where, to the surprise of all, she looked rather happy.

‘Karl here has been telling me fascinating facts about Venus,’ Dora announced enthusiastically. ‘Not only was she the goddess of sex and love, but also prostitution! She was born from the foam after Saturn castrated his father and the blood fell into the sea. And wait for this – myrtle, the flower I keep smelling in the olive grove, is a Roman symbol of the fanny. Especially the clitoris!’

Cassandra stared at Dora. ‘Who are these Fanny and Clitoris?’ she demanded. ‘Are these your British gods?’

‘Definitely stick to nursery rhymes!’ Nell collapsed in giggles, all her annoyance about the photos forgotten.

Demetria, efficient as usual, produced a wooden cot no longer needed by the wife of a farmer whose children, to her great sadness, had left to look for work in Crete and Santorini.

Moira painted it with the cow jumping over the moon, spent an hour drying it with her hairdryer, and delivered it to them at the boathouse with the help of Demetria’s husband in his pickup. ‘There you go,’ she grinned. ‘Though the cow could easily be Io, the poor girl Zeus turned into a heifer to avoid his wife’s wrath.’

‘I prefer the Hey Diddle Diddle version,’ Penny laughed. ‘What have you got there?’ She indicated a carrier bag bulging with bottles.