A Royal Proposition Read online

  ‘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.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  IT WAS amazing how quickly, once a decision had been made, that plans were set in concrete. Before she could change her mind, Alastair told Marguerite and Belle, and Penny-Rose was left to tell Bert.

  ‘One wisecrack about romance and you’re dead,’ she told her boss. ‘It’s a marriage of convenience for a year, but the
world-and the team-has to think it’s indefinite. You know why I’m doing it, and it was you who made me listen to the man. So you can just shut up and support me. Or else.’

  Bert did. Surprisingly, he met her decision with wholehearted approval, and proceeded to tell the men-confidentially-that Penny-Rose was taking a step up in the world. He didn’t tell them about the time frame, but he did tell them everything else.

  The men sat in stunned silence while they took it in.

  And then they wholeheartedly approved! In the time they’d worked with her, the team had become extraordinarily fond of their ‘Penny-Rose’, and in their opinion her stroke of good fortune couldn’t have happened to anyone nicer.

  But they couldn’t understand why she was still sorting rocks as if nothing had happened.

  ‘I’m not royal yet,’ she retorted. ‘And even when I’m married, I’ll still be me.’ Still Penny-Rose, she thought. Not Rose yet. ‘I’m better off out here.’

  Out of the publicity, she meant. Here, in the secluded castle grounds, working alongside her friends, she was shielded from media hype. She could concentrate on what she was good at and block out her increasing nervousness.

  She could also block out her siblings’ reactions. Which was tricky.

  Because she couldn’t tell them it was a business arrangement which would last only for a year. They felt so indebted to her already… If they knew she was doing this for them, she’d have a mass educational walk-out, which was the last thing she wanted.

  So she told Heather the bare facts and left her sister to fill in the gaps as best she could. Which Heather did, with relish.

  ‘That’s just fantastic.’ Heather could hardly believe it. ‘Oh, Penny-Rose, I always knew you’d marry someone special. A real live prince? Is he fabulous?’

  ‘I guess you could call him fabulous,’ she said cautiously, and Heather chuckled.

  ‘He’d have to be if you’ve decided to marry him. I know what you think of marriage.’ She hesitated and Penny-Rose could hear her uncertainty down the line. ‘What does he call you? Penelope?’