A Royal Proposition

CHAPTER THREE

THE man who called for Penny-Rose four hours later was the same man-but only just. Madame Beric opened the front door, quivering in excitement. Penny-Rose didn’t blame her. She was waiting in the kitchen, trying not to quiver herself, and when Alastair was ushered in, she failed.

She definitely quivered.

Whew! This was Cinderella stuff. And where was her fairy godmother when she was needed? She’d put on her only dress that was halfway decent-a white sundress with tiny shoulder straps that was more useful for a day off than for a dinner date. She’d washed and brushed her curls until they shone, but that was as much as she’d done.

There wasn’t anything else to do. She wore no adornment. How could she? She didn’t have any adornment. Or any cosmetics. In fact, her entire outfit was worth peanuts!

Alastair, on the other hand, was wearing a formal suit that must have cost a mint. It was deep black, Italian made and fitted perfectly. The black was lightened by the brilliance of his crisp, white shirt and the slash of a crimson silk tie. His normally ruffled black curls had been groomed into submission, there was a faint aroma of very expensive aftershave about him and he looked every inch a man of the world.

Unlike Penny-Rose, who had the look of a woman who’d appreciate diving into a small, dark cupboard.

There wasn’t a small, dark cupboard available, and Alastair’s dark eyes were twinkling in amusement.

Good grief! She could see why Belle wanted him. In fact, she could see why any woman would want him! 28

‘You look beautiful,’ he told her, his wide smile taking in her discomfort and reacting with sympathy.

If she could have known it, he was also reacting with truth.

She did look lovely, Alastair acknowledged as he took in her simple appearance. Money made little difference when it came to pure beauty. Her glossy chestnut curls tumbled about her shoulders. Her face glowed with health and humour, her green eyes were edged with tiny, crinkling laughter lines and her diminutive figure was well suited by the simplicity of her dress. She was five feet four and beautiful, whatever she was wearing.

But Penny-Rose couldn’t tell what he was thinking, and the thoughts that were whirling around in her head were very different.

She was about as far from his beautiful Belle as any woman was likely to be, she thought bitterly. She wore little make-up, her nose had the temerity to sport freckles, and as for her hands…

Belle’s hands would be flawless-of course. They’d be groomed for wearing fabulous jewellery and doing little else. Penny-Rose’s hands had been put to hard physical work from the time she could first remember, and it showed.

Alastair reached out for her hand in greeting and she felt him stiffen as he came into contact with the roughened skin. He looked down involuntarily.

Her hands were worn and calloused. They were Cinderella hands, and no fairy godmother could have altered them in time for a date with a handsome prince.

She saw his face change-twist-in a half-mocking smile.

‘It is true,’ he said slowly, inspecting her fingers in a way that made her attempt to haul her hands out of reach. But he held on, and kept inspecting. ‘What my mother said about you is right.’

She was thoroughly flustered, by his words and the feel of her hand in his. ‘I have no idea what your mother said,’ she snapped, hauling free her fingers. ‘But if it’s that I have no time for nonsense then, yes, it’s the truth. So can we get this dinner over and be done with it?’

‘You sound like you aren’t looking forward to it.’

‘I’m not.’

But, in fact, that was a lie. There were few village families prepared to take in lodgers, so Penny-Rose had had to be grateful for what she’d been able to find. Madame Beric was a kindly enough soul but she was a gifted watercolour artist, with little time for anything else. Her cooking was therefore appalling. Penny-Rose was now up to turnip soup version thirty-four, and burned turnip soup version thirty-four at that…

‘Where are we going?’ she asked, despite herself, and Alastair’s face creased again into one of his blindingly attractive smiles.

‘Lilie’s, of course,’ he said softly. ‘Where else does a man take a woman when he’s asking her to marry him? It’s the best, and tonight only the best will do.’

It was a twenty-minute journey-twenty minutes while Penny-Rose sat in stunned silence in the passenger seat of Alastair’s car. A Ferrari. Of course. She’d never been near such a car in her life. Alastair’s shabby clothes of earlier had been token workman-like apparel, she thought resentfully. No wonder her hands fascinated him. He wouldn’t know what it was to work hard with his hands.

Everything about this man screamed money.

And now he wanted more and he was prepared to marry a stranger to get it.

Maybe that was unfair, she acknowledged. Maybe it was true that he was concerned about the villagers.

She glanced across at him as they pulled to a halt in the restaurant car park, and found that he was twisting to survey her with the same intensity she was using on him. Their gazes met. She flushed and turned away.

‘You don’t approve of me, do you?’ he asked cautiously and she bit her lip.

‘I’m not here to make a judgement,’ she said at last. ‘I’m here because my boss told me to be here.’

‘And to eat a wonderful dinner?’

There was that. She had the grace to concede the point and her lips gave an involuntary twitch into a smile. ‘Um…OK.’

‘My mother says you know what it is to be hungry.’

That comment killed her smiling urge. She returned to glaring, shoved the car door open and then stood and waited for him to get out and lock his damned expensive car.

‘I said the wrong thing,’ he said ruefully, as they turned toward the restaurant.

‘My stomach is my business,’ she said with dignity.

‘I guess it is.’

She said nothing-just concentrated on where they were going. Damn him, he had her right off balance and she didn’t know how to deal with it. Somehow she just had to get this over with. Concentrate on dinner…

Luckily, Lilie’s was worth concentration.

The restaurant was built into the parapets of another mediaeval castle. Well, why not? This was fairy-tale country, with castles here to spare.

But there were modern touches. A lift swept them to the rooftop, where the restaurant was situated among the battlements. Floor-to-ceiling windows were now installed where archers had once stood to protect their fortress-and Penny-Rose saw the view and gasped in delight. She’d been trying to disregard Alastair’s disturbing presence until now, but the view made her almost forget him.

Almost? Well, almost a little bit…

Focus on the view, she told herself. And what a view! It was as if they were perched in an eagle’s nest high over the river. Below were river plains, golden with buttercups and inhabited by placidly grazing cattle. At every turn of the river were more ruins, more castles, and more…

More stone!

‘What are you thinking?’ Alastair asked, watching her with bemused interest.

‘I’m thinking…’ she said slowly, and paused.

‘Yes?’

‘That there’s a lifetime of work for me in this country,’ she managed, and his eyebrows shot to his hairline.

‘What on earth…?’

‘Stone-walling,’ she breathed. ‘Look at it out there-all those stones. All those crumbling walls, just waiting for repair.’

He shook his head. ‘I don’t believe this.’

‘What don’t you believe?’

That he’d taken a woman out to dinner-and she was talking about stone?

‘Um…stone walls are just stone walls,’ he managed, and she gazed at him as if he’d just uttered a profanity.

‘That’s like saying every house is just a house. And they say you’re a well-respected architect. Is that what you believe?’

‘I… No.’ He was flummoxed. This woman was like no woman he’d ever dated.

‘Well, there you go, then.’ She smirked. ‘I rest my case.’

He grinned. They were being led to a discreet table tucked into a niche where all they had for company was the view. ‘OK,’ he conceded. ‘But…’

‘But?’

‘I never thought I’d be wining and dining a woman who’d look at rock and gasp.’

She gave him a look of gentle mockery. ‘Surely not. You must be using the wrong rock. Have you tried diamonds?’

He cast her an amused glance-she certainly was different-but then was distracted by the need to order champagne.

Penny-Rose didn’t protest. She could count the times she’d tasted champagne on one finger. She cast another long look out over the valley, she gazed around her again at the opulent restaurant setting-and she decided there and then that she wasn’t about to let scruples get in the way of a very good dinner.

And Alastair saw it. ‘You’re intending to milk this for everything it’s worth,’ he said dryly, and she had the grace to blush.

‘Um…yes.’

‘Because?’

‘Because I shouldn’t be here. I have no intention of agreeing to any crazy marriage proposal but, as you say, I’ve been hungry.’ She beamed, abandoning herself to enjoyment, and gave a small bounce on the beautifully padded chair. ‘Wow. This looks like a very nice place to eat.’

He was fascinated. She’d bounced. She’d definitely bounced.

‘What?’ she demanded, seeing his expression. ‘What did I do wrong?’

‘Nothing.’

‘I just said it looks a great place to eat.’

He took a deep breath. ‘That, Miss O’Shea, is an understatement. Can I interest you in some snails?’

‘You can interest me in anything that’s not turnip soup,’ she said, and received another startled look. ‘That’s what the Berics live on,’ she explained. She shook her head. ‘Every night, M’sieur Beric sits down to turnip soup, and every night he finishes it, looks up and tells his wife it was delicious. So she makes it the next night. And if she doesn’t, he gets all disappointed.’ She grinned. ‘So you see why I finally agreed to eat with you?’

‘Despite disapproving of me?’

Her smile widened. ‘Despite that.’

He paused, but he had to ask. ‘Why?’

‘Why what?

‘Why do you disapprove of me?’

‘Because you’re a prince and I’m a worker,’ she said frankly. ‘Cinderella was a fairy story. It doesn’t happen in real life.’

‘It might.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ It was a gentle jeer. ‘Even Cinderella’s prince didn’t propose marriage just for a year!’

Alastair thought that through and disagreed. ‘Her guy had his deadlines, too,’ he told her, semi-seriously. ‘Like midnight. Seeing carriages turn to pumpkins just as the going gets romantic might put a man right off his stride.’

‘I’d imagine it might,’ she said faintly.

‘So Cinderella’s beloved had to work fast.’ He paused again, and then his smile died. ‘As I do.’

‘If you want to be Prince.’

‘No.’ Alastair shook his head.

The champagne arrived. There was a moment’s silence while the bubbles were poured, and he waited until she’d taken her first gorgeous sip. He waited for her verdict, and he got it.

‘Yum!’ she said, and he smiled at her pleasure. Yum. It was a word Belle hadn’t used in her life!

But he couldn’t afford to be distracted by this strange Cinderella his mother had found for him. He had this one meal to persuade her, and he already knew persuasion would take some doing.

‘I really don’t want to be a prince,’ he said, and his eyes met hers over the glass. ‘Will you believe that?’

‘Um…’ She took another cautious sip and made her decision. ‘No.’

He had to make her believe. Otherwise nothing would make sense. ‘Fame,’ he said slowly, ‘isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. This principality is small, but as the eldest-indeed, only-male of the royal family, the spotlight is now on me. There’s a population of a tiny country waiting to see what I do.’

He motioned out the window to the tiny holdings scattered along the river. ‘There are so many families whose lives depend on my choice-and your choice, too.’

‘Don’t you dare try to blackmail me,’ she snapped, suddenly angry, and his expression softened.

‘No. I won’t. But according to my mother, our needs mesh.’

She glared some more. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘A year as my wife would set you up for life.’

‘I don’t need to be set up-’

‘You can barely afford to eat now,’ he pointed out. ‘Michael is still at secondary school and he wants to be an engineer. How are you going to afford three of them at university?’

She placed her champagne glass carefully down on the table. All of a sudden the bubbles tasted like vinegar.

‘You really have pried…’

‘My mother has on my behalf.’ His calm gaze met hers, and his hands reached out across the table and took hers. She didn’t pull back. He looked down at those work-worn hands, and his mouth twisted into the mocking smile she was starting to know well.

‘You want a résumé of all my mother found out about you?’

‘No, I-’

‘Because I intend to give it to you.’ He shook his head at her indignant protest, released her hands and sat back, assessing. His eyes rested on hers, like she was an enigma he was still trying to figure out.

‘Your mother was an invalid,’ he started, watching her face. ‘She had multiple sclerosis. She should never have had one child, let alone four, but your father was desperate for a son. After three daughters, she finally died giving birth to Michael. That was when you were ten.’

‘I don’t-’

‘I’m saying this no matter how much you interrupt,’ he continued. ‘So you may as well listen and make sure I have it right. We wouldn’t like to make any mistakes here.’

‘Of course not,’ she said bitterly, and Alastair smiled.

‘Very wise. So what did you have? A father who’s a farmer and an expert stone-waller, but who coped with his wife’s illness by turning to the bottle.’ He held his hand up as Penny-Rose made an involuntary protest and she subsided. Reluctantly. ‘And a mother who depended on her eldest daughter for everything.

‘And then your mother died.’ His voice softened still further. ‘Which left you at ten, caring for Heather, six, Elizabeth, four and Michael who was newborn. And a herd of dairy cows and a father who drank himself stupid every night, leaving everything else to you.’

‘I don’t-’

‘Welfare nearly stepped in,’ he went on. ‘The whole district was concerned. My mother’s investigators had no trouble finding people who remembered gossip about your family. I gather you came within an inch of being put into care. But for you.’

‘I didn’t-’

But he was brooking no interruptions. Like Cinderella’s prince, he was working to a deadline. ‘You worked your butt off,’ he told her. ‘You came home from school every night and you milked. You got up at dawn and did the same. The neighbours knew and were horrified but you wouldn’t have it any other way, and when Welfare tried to step in they were met by a little girl whose temper matched that of any adult. “Leave us alone,” you said. “We’ll survive.” And somehow you did, until you could leave school at fifteen and work full time on the farm.’

‘Yes, but-’

‘But it wasn’t much easier then, was it, Penny-Rose?’ he said gently. ‘Because your father drank any profits, and you had your work cut out keeping bread on the table. When your father got drunk one night and smashed his car into a tree, things might have been easier. If the younger children had left school. But you wouldn’t let them.’

‘Of course not. They’re so clever,’ she said desperately. ‘All of them. Heather wants so much to be a doctor. Like you, Elizabeth wants architecture.’ She flashed him a wintry smile. ‘And somehow you already know that Michael longs for engineering.’

‘You’re supporting two at university now and one at school. How are you going to do more?’

‘They have part-time jobs. They help.’

‘Not enough. It’s two more years until Heather finishes and Michael’s major expenses haven’t started. You’re up to your ears in debt already.’

‘I don’t need to listen to this!’

‘No, but you should,’ Alastair said ruthlessly. ‘You can’t do it. You’ve come to Europe because the pay’s better. With a great exchange rate you can send more money home, but there’s an end to it. You can’t stretch your debts any further.’

‘I must,’ she said in a small voice, and his hand came back across the table and caught hers.

‘You need a life, too.’

‘They’re great kids.’ Her green eyes sparked with anger. ‘We’ve talked it through. As soon as Michael’s finished, it’s my turn. That’s when I can start enjoying myself.’

‘Oh, great. In six years? More! How much more turnip soup, Penny-Rose? How long before they’re self-supporting and you have your debts paid off?’

‘I want them to have the best,’ she said stubbornly. ‘They shouldn’t suffer because my father…’

‘Because your father didn’t face his responsibilities.’ Alastair’s voice gentled. ‘You face yours, though, don’t you? And I do, too. That’s what this is all about. Facing responsibilities. That’s why I’m asking you to marry me. It could help us both.’

‘I don’t-’

‘No, don’t say anything.’ He smiled at her, a smile that lit his face and took the heaviness away from her heart. ‘First let’s eat a very good dinner. And tell me…’

‘Tell you what?’ She was thoroughly flustered. ‘You already know everything.’

‘I don’t know this.’

‘What?’

‘Why do they call you Penny-Rose?’

She didn’t answer him until she’d demolished the first course. Her snails were magnificent morsels of taste sensation. She’d never tasted anything so delicious in her life. And in a way, it was time out. Her whole attention had to be on conquering the tricky silver tongs and tiny fork-and on not missing a drop of the gorgeous juice.

She finally finished and looked up to find Alastair watching her. The look on his face was strange, as if he couldn’t believe she was real.

‘Oh, what?’ she said crossly. ‘Have I made a faux pas?’

‘On the contrary, you managed beautifully,’ he told her, just a hint of a smile lingering in his voice. ‘In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed watching someone eating snails more.’ He left her to make of that what she liked, and then pressed home his question for the third time. ‘Before our next distraction comes-’

‘Food’s not a distraction,’ she retorted. ‘What a thing to say!’

‘OK, I was brought up wrong,’ he admitted. ‘I could have had snails for breakfast if I’d wanted. But I do want to know-’

‘You know everything.’

‘Not this.’

‘So pay more money to your private investigators.’

‘My mother asked them,’ he confessed. ‘But apart from knowing your full name is Penelope Rose O’Shea…’

‘So? That’s why I’m called Penny-Rose.’

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘It’d explain Penny, or Rose, but-’

‘I hate Penny.’

Alastair’s face was thoughtful, watching hers. ‘I see you do. Why don’t you call yourself Penelope, then?’

‘I’m not much into that either.’

‘Would you like to explain?’

‘My…’ She caught herself. No! This was none of his business. It was no one’s business.

But then she looked at him again, and he looked gravely back, and she thought, He does want to know. For whatever reason, he’s really interested.

In me.

The thought was so novel she could hardly believe it. Talking about herself was something she never did, but suddenly she couldn’t resist telling him. Just once.

‘My father called me Penelope,’ she began. ‘He insisted I was called that after a great-aunt, so she’d leave us money. But she never did, and my father hated the name because of it. And I think…’ She took a deep breath. ‘I think my father hated me.’

‘That’s a fair indictment of your father.’

She shook her head. ‘Maybe I don’t blame him. I was his conscience, you see,’ she told him. ‘From the time my mother died I badgered him. All Dad wanted was to drink himself into oblivion, and I wouldn’t let him.’

‘How did you stop him?’

She shrugged. ‘It was never easy. I’d steal money from his wallet to feed the kids, so when he went to the pub he didn’t have enough. A great little thief-that’s me. Or I’d wake him up sometimes…’ Her voice faltered as she tried to continue. ‘When I was ill or when the milking got too much for me, I’d sometimes be able to shame him into helping. And I badgered him into teaching me to build stone fences. He had to work a bit to get money to drink, so he’d take on a stone-walling job, and there I’d be, watching. Because it meant money, I’d help all I could.’

‘I’d have thought,’ Alastair said thoughtfully, his eyes resting on hers, ‘that he’d have been grateful.’

‘He wasn’t.’ There was no question of that. ‘He called me Penelope. He’d put on this dreadful voice and he’d say to the kids, “Penelope says we have to do this. Penelope says there’s not enough to eat…’” She broke off. ‘He’d tell the kids it was my fault they were hungry-because I’d taken his money! Sometimes it was as if I had another kid to look after, but he was my father. I couldn’t stop him hating me. The only way I could get through to him was to threaten to come into the pub and tell his drinking mates how much we’d had to eat that week.’

‘You didn’t!’ Alastair said, awed, and she managed a smile.

‘You have no idea what you can do when you’re desperate. Only then…after the first time I threatened that, he started calling me Penny instead of Penelope. He said I was constantly grubbing for money so I might as well be named for it. I hated that, too. So, behind his back, the kids started calling me Penny-Rose.’

‘I see…’

‘And it’s sort of stuck,’ she told him. ‘And maybe it fits me. Penelope Rose is on my passport and job application, but when I got the job with Bert they said I was such a two-bit thing they’d call me Penny-Rose.’ She smiled. ‘’Cos I surely wasn’t a two-bob Rose.’

There was silence as he took that on board. The waiter came and cleared their plates, but still Alastair didn’t speak.

‘I don’t think you’re a two-bob Rose either,’ he said at last, and he couldn’t quite keep the emotion out of his voice. He looked at her across the table and he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. All this… His mother had told him her background, but until now it had hardly seemed true.

‘I don’t think you’re a two-bob Rose either,’ he repeated. ‘I refuse to call you Penny. Or Penelope. I think you’re a Rose, and a million-pound Rose at that. A Princess Rose. You deserve it, and marriage to me might just make sure that you get it. From this time on…’ His voice caught with sudden, unexpected emotion. ‘From this time on, you’re Rose.’

‘Rose…’

‘Don’t you like it?’

‘Yeah, but it doesn’t sound like me.’ She grinned. ‘It sounds too dignified.’

‘You can live up to your name.’

‘Yeah, right.’

‘If you want to…’

The main course arrived then, giving them welcome time out. Penny-Rose-or just Rose-was never going to be distracted from food like this, not for all the princes in the world.

Before her was roast duckling, snow peas and crispy roast potatoes, served with a jus that made her mouth water before she even saw it. Penny-Rose-cum-Rose forgot all about dignity and concentrated on what was important.

Which was a novelty in itself to Alastair. He wasn’t accustomed to taking a woman out to dinner and having all her attention focussed on the food!

He sat and watched, bemused, waiting for the moment when she’d scraped her plate clean, and then turned back to more mundane questions. Like marriage proposals.

She turned straight back to practicalities.

‘I can see you have a problem marrying Belle,’ she said at last, popping a final snow pea into her mouth and savouring it with regret that it was the last. ‘But why did you choose me as an alternative? I’d imagine there must be lots of nice, virtuous girls in your principality.’

‘Um, yes.’ He seemed discomfited and she pressed home her point.

‘So why did you choose to investigate my background?’

‘You were my mother’s choice.’

‘Oh, right. And you always do what your mother tells you?’

He grinned. ‘Always.’

‘Why don’t I believe you?’

‘In this instance I think she’s done very well.’

‘But why me?’ she pressed again.

He hesitated, but decided he might as well be honest. ‘Because you’re Australian.’

She frowned at that. ‘You’ll have to explain.’

‘At the end of our marriage,’ he told her, playing with the cutlery still lying on the table, ‘you’ll need to walk away. I don’t want television and newspapermen in your face for the rest of your life. I’d imagine you don’t want that either.’

‘No,’ she said, startled.

‘This marriage will create publicity.’ He paused. ‘You know I’ve been engaged to be married before?’

‘I did know that,’ she said, a trace of sympathy entering her voice. This man stood to inherit the rulership of this tiny country and you couldn’t cross the border without hearing the gossip. ‘Her name was Lissa and she was killed in a car crash three years ago.’

‘With my father.’

‘I’d heard that as well.’ Her face softened still further. ‘I’m sorry.’

He shrugged off her sympathy. He didn’t need it. He just needed to make her see why it mattered. ‘Then maybe you’ll understand why I don’t want to get emotionally involved again.’

‘Hence Belle.’ She nodded wisely, thinking of what the gossip columnists said about Alastair’s companion. ‘I can see that, too.’

He heard the gentle criticism-the same concern that came from his mother when she asked whether he was sure he was doing the right thing-and it stung. ‘Belle will make me a very good wife.’

‘I’m sure she will.’

His eyes narrowed, but Penny-Rose’s face was cordiality itself.

‘Apart from the virtue bit,’ she added. ‘That’s hard. To be hit now for flings you had in your youth. So…’ She cocked her head. ‘You’re not in love with Belle?’

‘I’m not in love with anyone.’

‘No?’ She was like a brightly inquisitive sparrow, he thought, impossible to take offence at. But she was insistent. She was still waiting.

‘No. I’m not in love with anyone,’ he repeated stiffly. ‘After Lissa, it’s impossible.’

‘Lissa was some lady?’

‘We were second cousins and we grew up together,’ he told her, his voice softening. ‘We were the best of friends.’

He received a probing look as Penny-Rose thought this through. ‘So… You’re thirty-two now, and you didn’t get engaged until three years ago. They say you’d only just become engaged when she was killed. And you and Lissa were friends for years.’ She paused and thought it through some more. ‘Then after years of friendship, passion suddenly overtook you so you decided to marry?’

He frowned at that, and fingered his wineglass, sending shards of candlelight glistening through the Burgundy. ‘Aged almost thirty, we realised how good friendship could be.’

‘So you weren’t in love with Lissa either?’

His face darkened. ‘I loved Lissa.’ And from the way he’d said it, she was sure it was the truth. But maybe he hadn’t loved her as a man could love a woman. Or…as she’d always hoped a man could love a woman.

For heaven’s sake… What would she know? she thought suddenly. Maybe what she was thinking of was a romantic dream. It was a dream she’d always had at the back of her mind, but still just a dream for all that.

She could hardly probe any further down that road, but there was still something not quite right. She sipped her wine and wrinkled her freckled nose. ‘And Belle?’ she pressed. ‘She’s a friend, too?’

‘Not like Lissa was, but…’ Alastair hesitated, but this was a major commitment he was asking of this woman, and it was important for him to be honest. He knew that. If she agreed, she had to know exactly what she was letting herself in for. ‘Belle’s an interior decorator-a partner with my Paris architectural firm. She knows what I expect in a woman, she entertains my clients magnificently and she doesn’t interfere with my need for privacy.’

‘Your need for privacy! That’s a wonderful basis for a marriage-I don’t think.’ Her words were out before she could hide the revulsion in her voice, and he heard it. His brows snapped down in anger.

‘Privacy and mutual support is all either Belle or I need.’

‘I…I understand.’ Penny-Rose did, too, and the thought made a shudder run down her spine. He saw, and his frown deepened even further.

‘You’re cold?’

‘How could I be cold?’ It was the most beautiful spring evening. But his concern was warming, she thought. Nice.

‘So let me get this right,’ she continued. ‘You want me to play the fairy-tale princess for a year, then at the end of it to calmly apply for a divorce, hitch up my socks and walk out of here. Leaving you to Belle.’

‘I wouldn’t have put it quite like that but, yes. That sums it up.’

‘And Belle?’ Penny-Rose toyed with her wineglass. ‘How does she feel about it? If it were me,’ she said carefully, ‘I wouldn’t be happy about seeing my fiancé marry someone else first. In fact,’ she added honestly, ‘it’d be pistols at dawn if anyone made the attempt.’

He smiled at the image. ‘That’s hardly sensible. And Belle’s sensible. I told you. She understands that the needs of the country have to come first.’

‘I see.’ Or she saw enough to make her shiver again.

But she needed to concentrate on her own role. Not Belle’s future one. ‘Is this really going to be OK?’ she asked. ‘Will the lawyers be happy with a twelve-month marriage?’

‘The inheritance doesn’t say how long I have to stay married. Legal opinion is that if the marriage doesn’t last a year then annulment rather than divorce could be considered and it could risk the inheritance. But if it lasts a year-’

‘Then you and Belle can be safe as Prince and Princess and live happily ever after.’ She nodded wisely-but there was something else niggling her. Something else that needed asking, and there was no easy way to ask it.

‘Um…how do you know I’m unimpeachably virtuous?’ she demanded.

He looked across at her, startled, and then he grinned. ‘The investigators say you’ve never had a boyfriend. According to my mother, you haven’t had time.’

‘Gee, thanks.’

‘It does make things easier,’ he told her. ‘And your maturity helps. If I marry a woman who’s not mature then I risk her falling…’

‘Falling for you?’

‘There’s not much chance of that happening,’ he said bluntly. ‘Not with the way I feel about marriage. But falling for the trappings of the position.’

‘What makes you think I won’t?’

‘You’re a pragmatist,’ he replied. ‘My mother says so, and I’m starting to accept that she’s right. You do what you need to do to survive.’ He grinned again. ‘Besides, you’re Australian. If the worst comes to the worst, after twelve months I can kick you out of the country. But I don’t think I’ll need to do that. You’ll be wanting to get back to your sisters and brother. And you’ll have your fee.’

Now they were getting down to business. ‘My fee,’ she said faintly.

The thought suddenly seemed repugnant. But… According to Alastair and his mother, she was a pragmatist. So she’d just better school her features into interest and behave like one. A virtuous pragmatist.

It sounded like something to take for constipation. Or… She grinned. Maybe it sounded more like someone who played very boring music!

Get a grip, she told herself. Was it the champagne that was going to her head? ‘What…what exactly were you thinking of as a fee?’ she asked unsteadily, and he nodded as if he’d expected the question.

He was certainly prepared-and then some! ‘My accountant suggests an allowance of ten thousand English pounds per week, over and above expenses, for the entire time we’re married, and a further one million pounds settlement at the time of the divorce.’

She’d raised her wineglass to her lips, she’d taken a sip-but the wine didn’t go down. She choked and choked again, and finally Alastair came around to thump her shoulders.

The feel of his hand on the bare skin of her back did nothing at all to help her composure. By the time she’d finished coughing she was bright pink and thoroughly flustered.

‘I’m sorry,’ she gasped at last. ‘I thought you said…a million pounds!’

‘I did. Plus the rest.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’ She was almost angry.

‘No. I’m rich already. I might not have enough to buy the estate at the values tourists would put on it, but if I inherit, I’ll have more money than I know what to do with. My lawyers say that if I’m not generous, I could face a lawsuit later. I don’t want that. And my mother says you deserve this windfall, and I’m starting to believe that she’s right.’

‘And…’ She still couldn’t take it in. ‘Belle agrees to it?’

‘Belle’s the woman I want with me long term,’ he said slowly. ‘After losing Lissa, I don’t want anyone or anything making emotional demands. Belle’s a wonderful partner and she understands-’

‘She understands what little you want of her.’ Penny-Rose nodded, though the thought of the marriage he was contemplating made her feel dreadful. ‘And she understands me?’

‘She sees you as a necessary evil.’

‘Gee, thanks.’

‘Say nothing of it.’ He smiled, his dangerous, coaxing smile that had her half-inclined to agree just so she could see it once more. He was still standing, looking down at her, and his very closeness was unnerving.

The whole situation was unnerving.

And there were things she didn’t understand. Lots of things.

‘I’d imagine, as a prince, yours would be a very public wedding,’ she said slowly.

‘Yes. It’ll need to be.’

‘Then how will your people take it?’ she went on, thinking it through as she spoke, ‘when I disappear after twelve months?’

‘My people are pragmatists,’ he said. ‘Like yourself. There’s discontent now because the succession is at risk. Even though my engagement to Belle hasn’t been official, the gossip columnists have voiced rumours and disapprove. They know about the inheritance, and they want the principality to continue. Our marriage will dispel that worry.’

But she was no longer listening. She’d been caught by a word. A very major word. Succession… She almost choked again.

‘Hey, you don’t want me to have a baby, do you?’ she demanded, and Alastair smiled. Drat! How could she concentrate when he smiled like that? But she must concentrate. ‘There’s no stipulation about babies in the old prince’s will?’

And now he was laughing at her. ‘No. I think Belle and I can manage that. Eventually.’

‘That fits in the category of what an elegant hostess does?’ Penny-Rose enquired politely, and his smile faded.

‘There’s no need-’

‘To be impertinent?’ Her equilibrium almost restored, she managed a chuckle as Alastair finally sank down again into his chair. ‘I’m sorry but I’m always impertinent. You should know that if you intend marrying me.’

‘Then you will marry me?’

She put up a hand. ‘I’m thinking about it. Nothing more.’

‘That’s all I ask.’

‘How long do I have to make up my mind?’

‘Until coffee,’ he told her, and her equilibrium disappeared all over again.

‘Help…’

‘If you don’t agree, I need to find someone else,’ he said apologetically. ‘And pragmatic single women of unimpeachable virtue…’

‘Are a bit thin on the ground?’ Penny-Rose was fighting for composure. ‘I guess you could always put an advertisement in the international press. WANTED:PRINCESS FOR A YEAR. I imagine you’d be swamped by callers.’

‘Maybe I would be.’ He smiled faintly. ‘But I can’t do that.’

‘Why not?’

‘This marriage,’ he said slowly, ‘has to appear real.’

‘To appease the cousins?’

‘And the lawyers. That’s right.’

‘But…’ She thought this through. ‘Bert and the team already know it’d be a marriage of convenience.’

He shrugged. ‘A marriage of convenience doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not a real marriage. Royal marriages have been just that for thousands of years. But advertising seems a bit over the top, and I can’t publicly stipulate a time frame. I’m running a fine legal line.’

‘You certainly are.’ She glanced up at him and then away again. He was starting to disconcert her. He was speaking of business. He was planning out his whole life-first with her and then Belle-as if he was planning a commercial venture.

The thought left her feeling almost ill.

What a waste, she thought suddenly. Arranged marriages might be what was expected of royalty, but… With Alastair’s wonderful smile, and his caring nature-and his money and his castle…

He was some catch!

He was some prince!

That wasn’t the way to think, she told herself hastily. Alastair was planning this as a business proposition, and so must she.

‘A million pounds,’ she murmured, forcing her thoughts sideways and letting herself dwell on what that could mean. ‘A million… Do you have any idea how tempting that sort of money is for a girl like me?’

‘I can imagine.’ Alastair smiled at her across the table and she had to give herself the same business-only lecture she’d given herself thirty seconds ago. It was either that or go take a cold shower. But he didn’t seem to notice. Maybe he had that effect on all women! ‘You’d never have to work again,’ he was saying.

His words startled her, breaking through her fog of masculine awareness. Of Alastair awareness… ‘Not work?’ Penny-Rose frowned. ‘I wouldn’t know how to not work.’

‘You could learn,’ he said gently, ‘during your year as a princess.’

‘Oh, right. Just swan around, adjusting my tiara and polishing my throne. I don’t think so.’

‘You’d be a figurehead…’

‘A figurehead who still has to get herself a master stone-waller certificate. I’m not going home without it.’

He stared at her. ‘You won’t need to stone-wall. A million pounds will set you up for life.’

She looked blankly at him, as if he were speaking some foreign language. ‘But I like stone-walling.’

‘You couldn’t possibly stone-wall as my wife.’

‘If you stuck me in a castle on a velvet cushion I’d go into a decline,’ she said. And then she chuckled. ‘Or I’d cause trouble. I just know I would. I’d be sticking my nose into all sorts of things that don’t concern me. You need to accept me as a stone-walling bride or not at all.’

Wordless, he sat back and stared some more. Finally he reached across and lifted her fingers again, gazing down at her callouses and scratches left from the day’s work. ‘You don’t want to leave all this?’

‘A stone-waller is what I am,’ she said simply. She took a deep breath, trying to make him see. ‘Alastair, money would be very nice-because of my sisters and my brother-but at the end of the year I’ve no intention of becoming your pensioner for the rest of my life.’

‘There’s a lot of women who’d jump at the chance.’

‘I’m not a lot of women.’

‘I can see that.’ He laid her hand down on the table. ‘But…if you don’t agree to marry me, there’s many families here who’ll lose their homes.’

‘That’s the only reason I’m listening.’

‘We could make it work.’

Penny-Rose hesitated. ‘You’d want a fairy-tale wedding? Lace and chariots and archbishops and the whole catastrophe?’

‘Maybe not archbishops. If we’re making vows we don’t intend to keep, I’d prefer not to do it in a church. The church here is tiny so that can be our excuse. But otherwise, yes, pretty much the whole catastrophe.’ And he sounded suddenly as unsure as she felt. They were hurtling into this together and in truth it scared them both.

She stared at him, and she saw his uncertainty-and his need. For some reason, his hesitancy reassured her.

As did his decision not to use a church.

His scruples were the same as hers.

‘You’d have to fly my sisters and brother over to watch,’ she told him slowly, and for the first time she sounded as if she was starting to think of this marriage as a serious possibility. ‘They’d never forgive me if I didn’t include them, and if they don’t see it for themselves they’ll never believe it’s real.’

Alastair didn’t hesitate. ‘I can do that. Of course.’

‘And…’ She bit her lip, stared at the table for a while and then raised her eyes to meet his. There was something else she had to be sure of, and this was major. ‘It really is business only? You wouldn’t come near me? As a wife, I mean.’ Her face turned pink. ‘Um…there’d be separate bedrooms?’

‘There are royal precedents for such arrangements.’ He grinned, relaxing a little. ‘The marriage suite in the castle is two bedrooms with a dressing room in between.’

‘How very romantic. And locked doors?’

‘Of course,’ he said gravely. ‘Because you’re a lady of unimpeachable virtue.’

‘I’m not infringing on Belle’s domain.’ Her mind was working in overdrive. This was going to be hard, but it had to be said.

‘Speaking of Belle… Alastair, she’ll have to go.’ She hesitated, trying to think of an alternative, but there wasn’t one. With Belle included in the arrangement, the marriage idea was preposterous. ‘For the full twelve months of our marriage, Belle will need to stay away from the castle. I can’t play the part of your wife if you have a mistress in the same house. I’d feel like Belle was watching me, daggers drawn, for the whole year. I’d hate it. She’d hate it. So…’ Her troubled eyes managed a twinkle. ‘I need to put my wifely foot down.’

Alastair thought that through. It was a reasonable request. Sort of. Belle would resent it, he thought, but on reflection Penny-Rose was right. The whole sham marriage could well founder if she stayed.

Finally he nodded. ‘Agreed.’

‘And I can keep on stone-walling with Bert?’

That wasn’t as easy. ‘That’ll raise eyebrows. Princesses don’t stone-wall.’

‘This one does,’ she told him. ‘Or it’s no deal. I’ll be your part-time princess and you can be my part-time prince. But from eight to four, it’s off with the tiara and on with the overalls. You can lock the gates so there’s nobody to see me do it, apart from Bert and the guys. Bert already knows what the deal is. He’ll keep his mouth shut and the men think I’m eccentric anyway.’

‘You can’t keep stone-walling,’ he said faintly, looking again at her hands. ‘You can’t want to.’

‘I can and I do.’ She leaned forward, trying to make him understand. ‘Alastair, will you continue to be an architect as well as a prince?’

That was different. ‘Yes, but-’

‘But nothing. I’ve spent years learning how to stone-wall. I’m good at what I do and it took years of negotiating before I got Bert to employ me. He’s giving me the chance of being a master waller. I’m not about to give that chance up now.’

‘With the money you’ll earn, you won’t need to be a master waller.’

‘Like you won’t need to be an architect. But you won’t stop.’

‘But-’

Penny-Rose shook her head, refusing to be swayed. ‘But nothing. There’s no negotiating on this one. I can use your money for the kids’ education, and I can’t tell you how much of a relief that will be, but afterwards I’ll put what remains into a nice little pension plan for when my fingers get too feeble to wiggle copestones.’

‘It’ll be some pension plan.’

‘And very nice it’ll be, too.’ She chuckled, and her green eyes met his and held. ‘You are serious about all this?’

There was only one reply to that. Alastair had no choice. ‘I am serious.’

‘But…you do have reservations?’

And he had to be truthful again. ‘I do.’

‘Well, so have I,’ she told him. ‘But if the choice is for Michael not to go to university and for your villagers to lose their homes, I think we could give it a crack, don’t you?’

There was a moment’s pause. The thing hung in the air between them-a weighty decision, to be made one way or another right now. Because, marriage of convenience or not, they both knew this decision would change their lives for ever.

But he couldn’t step back now. Not when so much was at stake.

‘I believe we can give it a crack,’ he said at last, and finally he allowed himself to relax. He smiled. ‘After dessert, of course. Can I interest you in Pierre’s excellent raspberry soufflé?’

‘You can indeed,’ she said cordially. ‘And then let’s plan how we intend to get married.’