A Royal Proposition Read online

  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. Ju
st 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.’