A Royal Proposition

CHAPTER SIX

SO WHILE Leo, fed and cuddled and exhausted, slept as he’d never slept in his life before, his new owners ate pâté de fois gras, then succulent beef, cooked to perfection in a rich Burgundy sauce, with tiny button mushrooms and crusty bread to soak up the juice. Followed by cheeses…

By the time the last of the main meal was gone, Penny-Rose knew she’d been to heaven and back. This was food at its most exquisite served in take-away containers as if it were everyday food.

And there was more! With the air of a magician conjuring up a rabbit or two, Alastair poured a rich, crimson wine that was full of the sunlight of late harvest, and when he produced bite-sized meringues, luscious strawberries and lashings of clotted cream, she could hardly believe her eyes. She’d never eaten like this.

She hadn’t known such food existed!

‘I can’t believe you found all this,’ she told him and he looked smug. In truth, he was enjoying himself hugely. He was accustomed to women who treated great food as an everyday event. Rose’s delight made him smile.

It also made his chest expand a notch or two. ‘I’m a hunter-gatherer from way back,’ he said as his smug look intensified. ‘There’s not a lot me and my trusty club can’t do.’ He pointed to the remnants of the beef. ‘That’s Brontosaurus Rex. Or ex-Rex. Whatever.’ He pushed his chest out another notch. ‘But there’s no need to congratulate me. A man does what he must in order to survive.’

‘Yeah, right. You survive on this kind of food?’

‘I can survive on less,’ he told her. ‘If I need to. One Rex drumstick instead of two.’ His smile faded. ‘As I imagine you have in the past.’

Unaware of the way his gaze had just changed, she popped a strawberry into her mouth and sighed in bliss. ‘Oh, yes. You know, I may well go home at the end of our twelve-month marriage the size of a house.’

‘That’s fine by me.’ More of Rose? He could handle that.

Her smile disappeared as she thought about it. ‘I guess…me getting fat would give you your excuse to divorce me.’

‘I doubt anyone would think that was a reasonable excuse,’ he said, and suddenly thought, Hell, what excuse was he going to use? Mutual incompatibility?

The more he was getting to know her, the more that reason wouldn’t wash.

‘It’ll have to be homesickness on my part,’ she said, watching his face and guessing where his thoughts were headed. ‘Or I’ll suddenly find out about Belle.’

‘And you didn’t know about Belle beforehand?’

‘I was stupid,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Thick as a brick. I can be when I want to be. Or even…’ her smile deepened ‘…when I don’t want to be.’ She decided to confess all. ‘You know, the day before we came here, I started adding a fourth layer to my wall without putting in throughstones.’

‘Throughstones?’ He was lost.

‘Stones stretching across the wall to tie the sides,’ she said patiently. ‘Ask Bert how stupid that is.’

‘I…um…I see. An unforgivable sin.’

‘You’ll think so if your wall falls down in two hundred years,’ she retorted, and he smiled.

‘I’ll be watching for it.’

‘And you’ll deduct the cost of repair from my wages? That’d be right.’

‘Or from your great-great-grandchildren’s wages,’ he told her. ‘Remind me to put something in my will to that effect. My great-great-grandchildren can gather stupidity compensation when it’s due.’

‘It won’t be necessary,’ she said with dignity. ‘I was only three stones along before I realised. The throughstones are now in place.’

‘You relieve my mind enormously.’

‘That’s the plan.’ Her green eyes twinkled and a faintly remembered phrase came wafting thought her consciousness. ‘After all, as long as domestic service survives, the convenience of the employer comes first.’

He grinned at that. ‘Very good. I like it. And it’s not convenient to me if my wall falls down.’

‘That’s the ticket.’ She chuckled. ‘Your wife and your dog will have fallen down in their duty, and that would never do.’

It took Alastair a while to answer that. He sat and watched her as she tackled a last strawberry. The day had taken its toll. She looked ruffled and tired, but she’d showered and changed into her own faded jeans and cotton blouse. She looked fresh and clean and lovely-but she was as far from the circle of women he usually moved in as she could be. Her toes were bare, her hair was gently stirring in the warm night air and she wasn’t wearing a scrap of make-up.

Domestic servant?

She was Cinderella to a tee, he thought ruefully. But all at once he knew that if the fairy godmother were to arrive with her magic wand, he wouldn’t have her wave it.

‘I suppose not,’ he said at last, and he sounded suddenly bewildered.

But Penny-Rose’s own confusion was settling. The last rays of evening sun were lingering over the courtyard, with their echoes of warmth from a perfect spring day. Her little dog lay fast asleep in her room. Soon she’d go up to him, and sleep in her wonderful bed, and wake tomorrow morning to sunshine and…

And to Alastair.

The direction her thoughts were headed suddenly jarred home with a vengeance, and her eyes flew wide with shock.

‘What’s wrong?’ Alastair saw the look.

‘I…’

‘Rose?’

‘Sorry.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s nothing.’

‘But something’s bothering you.’

‘No. It was just something…’ She fought for an explanation-any explanation-because the real one surely wouldn’t do. ‘It was something I forgot to tell Bert, but it’ll be OK.’

‘You’re not still worrying about your wall?’ He was gently teasing, but the concern in his voice deepened her sense of shock.

Because she knew now what was happening. There was no question about it. It had never happened in her life before-it was something she’d read about but had never believed was real-but there was now no doubting its reality.

It was happening to her right now.

Help!

‘We can go home tomorrow-back to your precious stone-walling,’ Alastair was saying, and she had to concentrate fiercely to hear him. ‘The only task we have left is to order your wedding dress.’

She thought that through. They’d left her wedding dress to the end of their stay because they knew their chances of making such a purchase without publicity were remote. But now it didn’t matter. Tomorrow was Thursday. They’d make their purchase and then they’d fly home to announce their plans.

But Penny-Rose’s plans had suddenly changed.

A wedding for a year…

She looked at Alastair and the familiar lurch happened all over again. She knew it now for what it was. It was inescapable, and it had changed things for ever.

This was serious commitment, she thought desperately. This man was some prince and he was offering her marriage. It might only be for a year, but she’d still agreed to marry him. What would she say?

‘With this ring I thee wed. With my body I thee worship…’

The words of the wedding vow came to her as clearly as a song on the late night air.

‘To love and to cherish… From this day forward…’

They’d be making the vows in jest-to last for a year.

But why?

Alastair wasn’t in love with Belle. Penny-Rose’s thoughts were flying every which way and it was a wonder she wasn’t saying things out loud. Confusion was certainly washing over her face. He wasn’t in love with anyone, she thought. After the shock of Lissa’s death, Alastair had been deeply wary of commitment. He wanted a wife of convenience, and that was all.

So…she was to be his wife of convenience for a year and after that she’d be followed by another convenient bride.

Belle.

It was all wrong, she thought wildly. This man should be loved to distraction. He deserved to be loved to distraction.

As Leo was going to be. As much as she was capable of loving.

Or…as she loved already.

This had never happened to her before, but she knew she was right. Somehow her heart had been handed over, like it or not. Whether or not it was sensible, she was head over heels in love with Alastair de Castaliae, and she didn’t know what to do with it.

But she knew now that when she made her wedding vows, she’d be incapable of lying.

‘From this day forward…’ There’d be a part of her that was desperate for those words to mean exactly what they said. And they meant for ever.

If that was what she wanted…

The old Penny-Rose was surfacing. The Penny-Rose who was prepared to fight and steal and do anything she must to protect her sisters and brother. The Penny-Rose who knew the only way to get what she wanted was to fight with everything she possessed and then more.

Well, maybe she didn’t have enough armoury to win this battle, but she knew where she’d start.

‘I don’t think I will buy a wedding dress,’ she told him, fighting to keep her voice casual and watching his face as she did.

He frowned, thrown off balance. ‘Why not?’ He hesitated, and the forlorn look she’d been wearing came back to him. ‘You’re not thinking of pulling out, are you?’ His voice was anxious. Hell, if she pulled out now… ‘You’ll still marry me?’

‘Now, what have you done in the last couple of hours to make me change my mind?’ she teased. ‘You’ve been a model fiancé.’

The lurching in the pit of his stomach settled. A bit. ‘Gee, thanks.’

‘Think nothing of it.’ And then her smile died. ‘I’ve… It’s just I’ve been thinking about your mother’s offer.’ She bit her lip, hardly daring to go on, but her commitment had already been made, and she had no control over it now. She was suddenly playing for keeps and, whether Alastair knew it or not, his precious independence was in deadly trouble.

But she couldn’t tell him that. She had to keep her voice practical and sensible. As all her plans must be.

‘I’m tired of spending your money, and I’m tired of shopping,’ she declared. ‘I’ve decided I’ll wear your grandmother’s wedding dress after all.’

‘But…’ He frowned. ‘I thought you objected to the idea. That it’s for my true wife to wear.’

‘Belle doesn’t want to wear it, and you said that’s what I’ll be,’ she told him. ‘Your legal wife. For a year.’

And however long I can manage, she told herself silently. From this day forward… For ever if I can manage it.

Penny-Rose lay in bed that night and thought, ‘What have I done?’

Beside her, Leo slept the sleep of the dead. Filled with food for maybe the first time in his life, his wounds eased with painkillers and his body snuggled into soft cushions, he lay beside his new mistress and thought he was in doggy heaven.

Her fingers trailed down to touch the pup’s wet nose, and she thought she was pretty much in the same place.

But not doggy heaven. Penny-Rose heaven.

‘He’s given me so much,’ she told the sleeping Leo, her conscience giving her a swift kick in the ribs. ‘He’s handed me a dream for a year. And he’s handed me you. It’s dreadful of me to go for more.’

But that was just what she was doing. Because somewhere during the last few days, something strange had happened. Her heart had been twisted and turned till she hardly knew herself.

‘I’ve fallen in love,’ she whispered. ‘So help me, Leo, I’ve fallen for the man. Now what?’

Fight?

‘Just try,’ she said to the darkened room. ‘Just…take this marriage as it comes but say my vows as if I mean them. And then cross every finger and every toe that I can work a little magic. See if I can change his formal Princess Rose into a Penny-Rose he can love.

‘And you’ll wear his mother’s wedding dress?’

She was questioning her own motives. Leo wuffled in his sleep and Penny-Rose grimaced and buried her nose in the soft pillows.

‘It’s very wrong.

‘But if you don’t try…

‘If you don’t try then Belle will end up with her prince,’ she told herself. ‘Or with my prince. And he doesn’t want her any more than he wants me. It’s such a waste!

‘So what makes you think you can win his heart?

‘Nothing at all.’ She was two voices. The voice of reason and the voice of hope. ‘Nothing at all,’ she repeated into the stillness. ‘Oh, but, Leo, I can only try!

‘You’ll have to do more than try, girl.

‘I’ll do whatever it takes,’ she said, with a resolution she was far from sure of. ‘That and a bit more. Heaven help me, I can’t do anything else.’

She flicked on her light with sudden determination and crossed to where the day’s parcels had been stacked. In a minute she’d discarded her much-patched pyjamas and was standing in front of the mirror.

She was now wearing one of today’s purchases-a soft white nightgown of the sheerest silk. It was cut low across her breasts, it was embroidered white on white with tiny rosebuds and she’d never seen anything so exquisite in her life.

‘I can’t wear this,’ she told her reflection. ‘I bought this for the laundress.’

Her curls were tumbled to her shoulders, her face was tinged with a faint embarrassed pink and the reflection that looked at her was…

‘I’m not wasting this on the laundress,’ she addressed the sleeping Leo. She gave her reflection a rueful grimace. ‘It makes me look almost lovely.

‘Lovelier than Belle?’

She glowered. ‘It doesn’t matter how lovely Belle is. She doesn’t love him.’

And she herself did!

Alastair was sleeping just the other side of the wall. This was a suite, meant for a family. A door connected the rooms. All she had to do was turn the key on her side, and Alastair turn the key on his…

If I was a bit more brazen I’d knock, she thought suddenly, and then she gasped and took a step back as she realised where her thoughts were taking her. ‘Penny-Rose O’Shea… You hussy!’ she said aloud.

‘If that’s what it takes,’ her reflection answered her.

‘Nope.’ She slid the nightgown off and reached for her pyjamas. ‘I’m not into seduction.

‘So what are you into?

‘I’m into loving the man to bits,’ she responded to herself. ‘It’s all I have, and if that’s not enough…’

The nightie lay on the floor and mocked her.

‘We’ll see,’ she said, and grinned. ‘All’s fair in love and war. This is a combination of both!’

And in the next room, Alastair lay and stared at the ceiling with a lot more uncertainty. There were things going on in his life that he no longer understood.

It had all seemed so straightforward, he thought grimly. After Lissa’s death he’d made the decision to stay uninvolved, and he’d succeeded. His life was what he wanted.

He had a profession he was proud of. He had more than enough money. And he had Belle, available when he needed her, with the thought of a couple of children down the track.

Children…

They’d be quiet little things, he thought, conjuring them from the darkness. Maybe they’d have pigtails and hula hoops. Whatever, they’d be kids for his mother to pamper…

Marguerite deserved grandchildren.

He checked out his vision of his children-but something strange was happening. Instead of faceless prettiness, as there always had been, he now had Penny-Rose’s face before him.

Rose, he told himself. It’s Rose… Not Penny-Rose. It was stupid, but it was important somehow. He had to keep this formal.

So she was Rose. But why did his kids suddenly have Rose’s twinkle, and Rose’s cheekiness, and…?

For heaven’s sake, no! If they had personality like Penny-Rose-no, Rose-then how could he not love them? he thought, and loving anything…

It didn’t work. He’d watched his mother break her heart when his father had died, and his own gut had been wrenched enough when Lissa had been killed. Lissa had been such a good friend that the hurt had been dreadful.

So… It was a lesson he’d learned the hard way, but he’d learned it well. You don’t give your heart!

He wasn’t giving his heart now. This was a marriage of convenience.

What had Rose said? ‘The convenience of the employer comes first.’

That was what he was, he thought grimly. An employer. He was paying her to be his wife for a year, and emotional ties didn’t come into it.

How could they? She didn’t need him long term. That was why he’d chosen her. She was Australian, and she’d be off home as soon as she had her money.

Leaving him with Belle.

Which was the way he wanted it, he told himself hastily. The way it had to be.

The sensible way.

As was Rose’s decision to wear his mother’s wedding dress. It was economical. Wedding dresses-especially ones suitable for a royal wedding-cost a fortune. She was saving him money with her decision.

Putting the convenience of the employer first!

So why didn’t she feel like one of his employees?

‘I’m not very good at this Cinderella thing,’ he said out loud. ‘I’m not comfortable with it. It’s the fact that she has nothing and deserves so much that’s making this all so damned gut-wrenching.

‘That’s why you gave her the dog.

‘That’s right. She has nothing. A dog can’t hurt.

‘And you’re comfortable with her wearing your mother’s wedding dress?

‘It’s sensible.

‘Hell!’

He turned over and pummelled his pillows, trying not to envisage Rose in his mother’s wedding dress. And then trying not to envisage Rose sleeping just through the wall. Could he hear her? There was a soft murmuring through the door. She was awake. She was probably lonely. All he had to do, he thought, was take his key and-

No!

That was the way of madness. He had to stop Rose from turning into Penny-Rose every time he thought of her.

But she was so close…

How could he block her out? Out of his thoughts? Out of his life?

He’d ring Belle, he decided. She’d talk sense into him. He’d phone her and talk through the Palmerstone job. They’d been working on it together, so she wouldn’t think it was strange…

It was one in the morning!

He put the phone down with a reluctant grin. This was not a good plan. Belle would think such a phone call was weird. He’d never hear the end of it.

But he had to speak to someone or he’d go nuts.

‘What I need,’ he told the darkness, ‘is another Leo. I wonder whether Rose will let me share…’

His key lay in his hand, and he held it so hard that it hurt.