A Royal Proposition

CHAPTER SEVEN

‘JUST leave everything to me.’

Back at the castle, groomed to an inch of her life, Penny-Rose was waiting to become Alastair’s official fiancée. They’d called a press conference, the gallery was packed and it was all Penny-Rose could do not to bolt for Australia.

She might have recovered her equilibrium since Paris, she thought desperately. She might have made a few resolutions, but she wasn’t a limelight kind of girl.

‘This is Belle’s forte,’ she muttered. ‘Can’t a substitute wife do as well?’

‘You are a substitute wife,’ Alastair reminded her, and she grimaced.

Oh, great. As if she needed reminding of that.

‘You don’t need to be nervous. Leave the talking to me.’

‘I can’t do much else with my grasp of French,’ she said bitterly. Then she took two deep breaths and got a grip. Cowardice was not what was needed. Resolution was what was needed. From this moment on.

‘I do know a phrase that might be useful,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘How about, Vous ne me ferez jamais parler?’ She clutched her throat with melodramatic flourish. ‘Jamais, jamais, jamais…’

‘You’ll never make me talk,’ Alastair translated faintly. He grinned as the tension eased a bit. ‘Never, never, never. Very useful. Where on earth did you learn that?’

She arched her eyebrows in superior fashion. ‘Where else but from my “Use-full Frase For Toorist” book? It’s the same place I learned I am bleeding to death, That man has a gun and Can you tell me how to reach the border?’ She managed a smirk. ‘See? I’m ready for anything.’

Alastair choked on laughter and the tension dissipated even further. But… This was serious. ‘As I said, maybe it’s best if I do the talking. Most of the press have a solid grasp of English, but-’

‘But you don’t want me to mess things up by threatening border runs.’ Penny-Rose nodded her understanding. ‘OK. I know my place. We Cinderella types are designed to sit and simper and look beautiful, and hope like hell the pumpkins stay at bay.’

‘Rose…’

She put up her hands. ‘I know. I know. I’m being paid heaps, and I’ll be good. I promise.’ Then she peeped through a crack in the door, trying to see what was waiting for them. ‘I wonder if our cameraman from Paris is here? That’ll be one friendly face.’

‘Yeah, he knows us intimately, right down to the colour of your knickers.’ Alastair grimaced.

‘He doesn’t know the real me wears cotton-tails.’

‘Cotton-tails?’ Alastair said faintly. ‘What are-’

‘You don’t want to know.’ She chuckled. ‘If you want to keep your delusion that real women wear black lace thongs, it’s fine by me. Oh, he is here. I can see him.’

‘He’ll be here.’ Marguerite was fluttering round the edges, adjusting Alastair’s tie and putting one last dab of powder on Rose’s nose. ‘He’d be mad not to be. A new princess… It’s what the press have been waiting for for years.’

‘Then let’s not keep them waiting.’ Alastair’s mind was still on the cotton-tail conversation and he was finding it hard to concentrate. But he had to get a grip. Somehow… He swung the door wide. ‘But, Rose, for heaven’s sake, leave the talking to me!’

Only, of course, she couldn’t. Because, after the first brief announcement, the press didn’t want to hear from Alastair alone. They knew this man. Who they didn’t know was the lady he was with, and they were fascinated.

‘Tell us about yourself,’ one asked in English, and Penny-Rose hesitated, obedient to instruction.

‘May I leave that to my-’

‘No,’ she was told very definitely, and before Alastair could get a word in they’d pushed her further. ‘Tell us what you think of our country.’

Well, she’d been obedient for all of a minute. It hadn’t worked. So what else was a girl to do but tell the truth?

‘It’s the most beautiful country I’ve ever been in,’ she said frankly. And then, despite her nervousness, her eyes twinkled. ‘Apart from mine.’

‘You love Australia?’

‘Of course I do!’

‘Then what’s the attraction here?’

She rolled her eyes at that, and turned toward her intended. She looked Alastair up and down, taking in his immaculate suit and gorgeous tie and the way his eyes creased into laughter lines and…and all of him. Her laughter lines creased into readiness.

‘Need you ask?’ She chuckled, and the room laughed with her.

They loved her. There were flashbulbs going everywhere and the questioning intensified.

‘People are saying this is a marriage of convenience,’ she was told. ‘What do you say to that?’

Alastair opened his mouth to answer, but his bride-to-be was in her stride and unstoppable.

‘They’re right, of course.’ Her twinkle stayed firmly in place. The only way to meet an accusation of an arranged marriage was partial honesty. ‘I imagine you know the terms of my future husband’s inheritance? If he doesn’t marry then the estate will be dispersed and that’ll cause hardship. So…’

Her eyes strayed around the members of the press and it was as if she was speaking to each person in turn. In moments, she’d made a big impersonal gathering seem like a cosy afternoon-tea chat. ‘It’s convenient for Alastair to be married to me, and it’s convenient for me to be married to Alastair.’ She smiled, and her hand reached out to lightly touch his. ‘Very convenient. And apart from that, we think we’ll like it very, very much.’

‘You’re in love with him!’ one of the female reporters said, on a note of discovery, and Penny-Rose refused to be disconcerted.

‘Of course. Aren’t you?’ she asked innocently. ‘I thought everybody was.’

There was general laughter and then the questioning turned back to Alastair. ‘So what makes this lady special?’

Alastair took a deep breath. But suddenly his rehearsed answer went out the window because the touch of her hand on his had thoroughly unnerved him, and so had the way she’d handled this terrifying occasion. Then there was the fascination of the cotton-tail question…

All at once there was only one answer to make.

‘If you can’t see that, you must be blind,’ he said, and there was a note of sincerity in his voice which gave Penny-Rose pause. Her laughter died.

If it were this easy…

‘Where’s your engagement ring?’ someone asked, and she put up her hand to display a family heirloom. That rightly took the press’s attention, giving them both much-needed breathing space. Things were moving way, way too fast!

And it was some rock, Penny-Rose thought, gazing down at her ring. Alastair had only produced it this morning and she wasn’t accustomed to its weight on her finger. Its weight wasn’t insignificant.

Pity it wasn’t granite…

What had Alastair had once said? ‘I never thought I’d be wining and dining a woman who’d look at rock and gasp…’

She looked up and found his eyes on hers-and she knew he realised exactly what she was thinking. Laughter sprang between them. And something else…

‘Where’s your dog?’ a voice called, breaking the moment. Which was just as well, because neither of them knew where the moment had been leading. Into unknown territory… She broke from Alastair’s gaze to see the cameraman from Paris beaming at her from across the room. ‘Where’s the pup you found?’

‘You mean…’ Her voice wasn’t quite steady. She adjusted it and tried again. ‘You mean Leo?’

‘Leo!’ the man said, and his grin broadened. ‘I might have known you’d call him something daft like that.’

The rest of the press gallery were fascinated.

‘He was a stray,’ the cameraman explained to the room in general. Maybe he was giving away a scoop, but it was he and only he who had the pictures from Paris. Generating interest would do no harm at all. ‘The lady rescued him.’

That had everyone enthralled-as did the looks that were being exchanged between Alastair and Penny-Rose. A love story and a rescued dog… Well, well. This, then, was the human-interest story they’d craved.

Readers didn’t want to hear about a marriage of convenience. Readers wanted romance-and, amazingly, it seemed as if it was romance they were being given.

‘Can we see your dog?’

Penny-Rose raised her eyebrows at Alastair and he gave an imperceptible nod. Anything to get the spotlight off them, his eyes told her.

She knew exactly how he felt. ‘No flashlights, then,’ she said sternly, and escaped Leo-wards.

‘Is it true Miss O’Shea is a stone-waller?’ she heard as she left the room.

‘Of course it is,’ Alastair replied. ‘It’s an unusual occupation, but you have to agree that Miss O’Shea is an unusual woman.’

‘You’ve never met anyone like her?’

‘Why do you think I’m marrying her?’ was the last thing she heard as she fled.

With Leo in her arms, she managed to regain her composure-sort of.

‘Isn’t he gorgeous?’ she demanded of the room full of cynical, case-hardened reporters. Leo was clean-almost-but he was bandaged, he’d lost a heap of hair, one ear was torn and his rib cage protruded for all to see.

But Penny-Rose had decreed he was gorgeous, and there wasn’t a person there who would have disagreed.

‘Do you like the dog, too?’ someone rounded on Alastair, and he managed a grin. The dog… Oh, right. The dog. He’d been looking at the lady.

‘I like the dog.’

But he was still looking at the lady.

‘This is seeming more and more like a love match,’ someone whispered. This was suddenly a very different marriage to the one the press had expected.

Penny-Rose sat by Alastair’s side and fielded questions with aplomb-without the least hint of shyness and uncertainty. And she glowed. Nestled on her lap, her disreputable pup wagged his tail and licked her face, then shifted to lick Alastair’s face in turn. Alastair pushed the shaggy face away, but it was a very half-hearted push.

‘He likes it,’ a reporter whispered to a colleague. ‘Hell!’

‘We have headlines,’ another said. ‘A royal romance!’

‘Followed by a royal marriage,’ her colleague agreed. ‘All at once, I can’t wait!’

There was one more question to ask. A reporter had checked his notes. ‘It says here that your name is Penelope,’ he said to Penny-Rose. ‘But you’ve been introduced as Rose. Will you be Princess Penelope?’

‘No,’ Alastair butted in before she could get a word out. ‘She’ll be Princess Rose.’

Princess Rose…

Penny-Rose looked at him with eyes that were suddenly bright with unshed tears. Princess Rose…

It might be too darned formal-but in that one unguarded moment he’d spoken her name almost as if he loved her!

‘Have you seen the newspapers?’

Belle’s voice woke Alastair from sleep. He’d spent the night on interminable paperwork and just before dawn he’d fallen into a troubled sleep where Rose and Leo had mingled with uncertain duty. An hour later the phone had rung.

‘How could you humiliate me like this?’ Belle’s voice was as shrill as he’d ever heard it. ‘Our friends know this is a marriage of convenience, but this…’ She took a deep breath. ‘This is disgusting!’

‘What’s disgusting?’ Alastair’s heart sank. Uh-oh.

‘Every newspaper has these headlines… ROYAL WEDDING. PRINCE FINDS HIS CINDERELLA…’ She seemed to be sorting newspapers as she spoke and he could hear as she tossed them aside. ‘They’re dreadful.’

‘You knew this was going to happen,’ Alastair ventured, still not sure what the problem was. ‘It was a mutual decision to do this.’

‘Yes, but I didn’t know this would happen. Alastair, these pictures… You’re sitting on the pavement in Paris, she’s cuddling a dog and you’re hugging her. And there are knickers and bras lying everywhere, and some sort of nightgown that only a slut-’

‘Hey, hang on…’ But he was in trouble. He knew it.

‘You look as if you love her!’

And there was the nub of the matter. Alastair closed his eyes, exhaustion washing over him in waves.

‘I don’t love her,’ he told Belle, making his voice as firm as he could. ‘She was nearly hit by a car. The dog was hit. They were distressed and shaken. I carried both of them off the road and-’

‘And you were stupid enough to be photographed.’

Silence.

Alastair thought that through and he didn’t like it. He didn’t respond, and after a moment of silence Belle decided that maybe she’d gone too far.

‘Are you still there?’

‘I’m here.’ He let the weariness creep into his voice and she heard that, too.

He could hear her rethink. She was playing for a major prize here. It might be wise to draw back.

‘Then can I tell my friends it was an accident? That you were playing the hero for a moment-nothing more?’

‘I hope you don’t tell your friends anything,’ he retorted. ‘Belle, you know how much is at stake. The marriage has to seem like it’s permanent.’

The silence was from Belle’s end now.

‘I hate it,’ she said at last, and Alastair nodded. So did he. Didn’t he?

‘But, Belle, if we back out now…’

‘We’ll lose everything.’ She was still focussed on that ultimate prize, he realised, and it was giving her pause. ‘I don’t want that.’

‘So what do you want me to do?’

‘Act formally,’ she ordered. ‘These photos make you look ridiculous. Like a schoolboy with a crush.’

‘I’ll see what I can do,’ he told her, and then he said his goodbyes-as formally as she intended that he act when Rose was around-and he tried for sleep again.

It didn’t work.

Formal?

Formal and Rose didn’t make sense!

Formal and Belle made sense, but he wasn’t marrying Belle.

He was marrying Rose.

The thought suddenly made the thought of sleep impossible.

The next few weeks passed in a blur. There was so much to be done!

Marguerite came down with influenza and retired to bed. ‘It must be from too much excitement,’ she told her son, and Alastair thought of how much effort his mother had gone to in the past couple of months and felt guilty to the core. He couldn’t load her with anything else.

Penny-Rose’s knowledge of what was needed for a royal wedding could be written on the palm of one hand. The organisation therefore fell to Alastair, dredging up memories of relatives’ weddings in the past.

Finally he located and re-employed the man who’d acted as his uncle’s social secretary. He was a godsend, but he wasn’t enough.

There were wedding organisers, caterers, state officials-everyone had to put their oar in. Almost the whole principality had to be invited and the production looked bigger than Ben Hur!

‘Can’t we just elope?’ Penny-Rose asked as she saw the lists. Every night when she came in from her stone-walling there were more decisions to be made. She did what she could, but the look of exhaustion on Alastair’s face was making her feel dreadful.

‘It’s a State wedding,’ Alastair sighed and raked his hand through his hair. ‘To be honest, I never imagined it’d get so out of hand. Every politician, every person with any clout, any deserving local…everyone would be offended to their socks if not invited.’ He gave a twisted smile. ‘It’s made use of the chapel unthinkable. There’s simply not room. The big marquee has to come all the way from Paris.’ He shook his head. ‘At least…’

He paused, and she prodded him to continue. ‘At least?’

‘At least I’ll only have to do this once,’ he admitted. ‘Belle and I will have a simple civil affair.’

‘Well, bully for you and Belle.’ But she said it under her breath. Alastair was back concentrating on his lists.

She looked across the dining table at him for a long moment. The man looked almost haggard, and the urge to rise from the table and go to him was almost irresistible. To touch him on the shoulders… To massage the tension from his back and to ease the strain…

But she couldn’t. She wasn’t wanted.

She was simply a name in the marriage ceremony, she thought, and any female would do. His real wife would be Belle.

The thought was almost unbearable.

And dinner was finished.

‘Goodnight, Alastair,’ she said softly, but he didn’t look up from his interminable lists. He was blocking her out.

She pushed back her plate and quietly went back to her living quarters.

Back to Leo.

‘He’s driving himself into the ground,’ she told her little dog. ‘As well trying to make everyone happy with the wedding, the estate management’s a mess, and he’s also trying to keep his architectural projects going. The thing’s impossible.’

But he had no choice. The only thing he could give up was his architecture.

‘And he can’t do that because that’s what he is,’ she continued. ‘An architect.’

Leo wagged his tail in agreement and she gave a rueful smile.

‘You understand. He’s an architect. Not a prince.’

As Penny-Rose was a stone-waller-not a princess.

‘So you and I keep to ourselves, Leo’ she murmured. ‘We’re not wanted. I’m just a name on a marriage certificate.

‘For now…’

Penny-Rose might have gone back to Leo, but her presence stayed on with the man she intended to marry, an insistent consciousness that followed him everywhere.

He hadn’t said goodnight. He’d been a bore.

But if he’d looked up, he might have said-he would have said, Help me with this. And she’d have stayed and sat beside him and the smell of her would have permeated his consciousness even more and…

And he wouldn’t have been able to keep it formal. As he must!

So he’d let her go back to her dog, and he’d gone back to his paperwork, and his exhaustion and sense of confusion deepened by the hour.

He saw her again at breakfast-briefly. They were curt with each other, as formal as Belle would have wanted. Then he saw her from a distance during the day.

It was strange how often his eyes strayed to where the new west wall was gradually taking shape.

Because there’d be his intended bride, filthy and happy, chipping away at stones with Leo scrabbling in the dust beside her. Woman and dog were inseparable and Alastair had to fight an almost irresistible urge to join them.

But… ‘Keep it formal,’ Belle had demanded, and it was the only sensible thing to do.

Formality increased as the wedding grew closer. It was the only safe barrier. But unknown to Alastair, Penny-Rose was learning more and more about the castle and its workings.

And finally she had to break through Alastair’s barriers to use it.

‘Henri has bunions,’ she informed him as they sat down to dinner a week before the wedding. Marguerite was still keeping to her room-her flu had left her worryingly frail-so Alastair and Penny-Rose dined alone. Formally. But for once Penny-Rose was breaking the ice. ‘You should do something about it,’ she told him.

Bunions… Alastair frowned. Henri… ‘Did you say bunions?’

‘I certainly did.’ She attacked the last of her salmon with vigour, and as the butler came in to clear the plates, she beamed up at him. ‘That was great, Henri. Can you tell Claude that we loved it?’

‘Certainly, M’selle. Cook will be delighted.’ The elderly man beamed, with a smile that left Alastair in no doubt that Rose was twisting his staff around her little finger. Henri was searching to please her now. ‘Claude has made you something called lamingtons for dessert,’ he told her. ‘He bought a book on Australian cooking, just to make you feel at home.’

Smiling, the butler carried away his plates, and Rose turned back to Alastair as if her point had been made.

‘See? He’s limping, and it’s getting worse.’

‘I hadn’t noticed,’ Alastair confessed, and she smiled her royal forgiveness. If he could be regally formal, then so could she.

‘No. That’s because you’re busy. But I did. The servants talk to me, so I can find out what’s wrong.’

He’d noticed that. Often he heard laughter and it’d be Rose and the housekeeper or Rose and a kitchen maid or Rose and the gardener…

And more and more, he felt shut out.

Now, as Henri reappeared bearing a tray of…lamingtons, for heaven’s sake, Alastair directed his attention to his butler’s feet.

Sure enough, the man was limping.

‘Rose says you need time off to have your feet attended to,’ he said ruefully. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I’m not a slave-driver.’

‘I never thought you were,’ Henri said with dignity. ‘But if it was your workload we’re talking about, I might agree. You drive yourself too hard, M’sieur.’

‘I don’t.’

‘You do.’ Henri paused and then relented. ‘But if I may say so, M’sieur, it’s a pleasure to work with you. You’ve been a breath of fresh air in the castle.’ He beamed at the pair of them. ‘You and M’selle Rose.’

Especially M’selle Rose, his smile said.

‘Thank you,’ Penny-Rose said faintly, and Henri’s beam widened.

‘It’s my pleasure. So my bunions can stay as they are, thank you very much,’ he declared. ‘Take time off with your wedding in a week? No, M’sieur. Tomorrow Marie and I intend to attack the marital suite.’ His eyes grew misty at the thought. ‘It’s forty years since your uncle brought his bride home. That marriage didn’t last, but…if I may say so, that wedding was an arranged match. Not a match as this is going to be. Oh, no!’

And he limped back to the kitchens, leaving them staring after him in astonishment.

‘He thinks it’s real,’ Alastair said, and Penny-Rose concentrated on her lamington.

‘Then I guess we’ve succeeded.’ It took an effort, but she didn’t look at him. ‘Have a lamington. They’re delicious.’

He took a bite of a chocolate-and-coconut-covered square, but his mind wasn’t on his lamington.

‘What have you been telling them?’

Her eyes widened at that. ‘Me? What do you mean?’

‘This is a marriage of convenience,’ he said heavily. ‘I thought it was obvious, but the staff don’t believe it.’

‘Maybe they don’t want to believe it,’ she said gently. ‘The staff have had a rough time, with the old prince’s failing health and then Louis. Maybe they’re looking for stability.’

‘That doesn’t depend on a stable marriage.’

‘Of course not.’ She lifted another lamington and took a bite, then surveyed it with care. ‘I guess Henry the Eighth had quite a stable household.’

‘Henry the Eighth?’

‘The one with six wives,’ she told him.

‘Hey!’ That was a bit much. ‘I only want two.’

‘Very moderate, I call it,’ she agreed equitably. ‘And there’s been no suggestion at all of anyone getting their heads chopped off.’ She chuckled across the table at him, and it was all he could do not to drop his lamington.

Hell! Things were getting seriously out of hand.

‘Rose…’

‘These lamingtons are great,’ she enthused. ‘Maybe we should honeymoon in Australia so we can eat more. I could introduce you to pavlovas and Vegemite sandwiches and pie floaters…’

‘Pie floaters?’

‘Pies in pea soup,’ she explained, and he shuddered.

‘If you don’t mind, I’ll stick to our cuisine. But that reminds me. Our honeymoon…’

‘Sorry?’

‘The press are expecting us to honeymoon.’

‘They can expect all they like. I haven’t finished my wall.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake…’ His pent-up emotions over-flowed and he thumped the table. ‘Rose, will you take this seriously?’

‘You don’t want me to take it seriously.’

‘I…’

‘It’s a mock marriage,’ she told him. She rose and gave him a mock curtsey. ‘Pardon me, Your Serene Highness, but there’s nothing serious about our marriage at all. So I’m not going on a honeymoon anywhere. Sorry, Alastair, but I’m going up to say goodnight to your mother.’ Then she flashed her infectious grin at him. ‘Stop worrying. Go and design a mansion for someone and stop thinking of weddings. You’re getting paranoid.’

And before he could stop her, she’d come around the table and kissed him, very lightly, on the top of his head. It was a teasing kiss-perfunctory and light-hearted.

There was no reason at all for him to put a hand to his forehead.

And for him to leave his hand there for a good three minutes after she’d left the room.