A Royal Proposition

by Marion Lennox

  ‘I can’t inherit unless I marry.’

  ‘But Louis inherited.’

  Alastair shook his head, and the impression of weariness intensified. ‘Louis never formally inherited, and the cousins started legal action to recover the property. His death forestalled that, and legal opinion is that the estate and the title is now mine-as long as I do marry. As long as I do what Louis didn’t.’

  ‘And…your Belle’s not a lady of virtue?’ Bert butted in. He had things in his stride here-almost. His fierce intelligence was working overtime. ‘No?’

  ‘Belle’s a wonderful woman,’ Alastair said quickly. ‘But there are…shadows…in her past.’

  ‘I’d imagine there might be.’ Bert’s team had little time for a woman they’d decided from the first was prone to giving herself airs. On the first few days of working here there’d been a wall collapse on one of the men. Belle had been seen at the window, watching, but hadn’t enquired as to the state of Steve’s health or even sent down to ask whether she should contact an ambulance.

  With Bert carrying a cellphone, her disinterest had been a minor enough offence and hadn’t mattered, but it had rankled.

  ‘What…?’ Bert said slowly, his eyes moving from Penny-Rose to Alastair and back again. ‘What makes you think our lass here is any different? Virtue-wise, that is?’

  ‘Hey!’ Penny-Rose said, shocked into comment. ‘Can we leave my virtue out of it?’

  ‘Well, that’s it. We can’t,’ Alastair said heavily. ‘My mother-’

  ‘I might have known she’d come into it somewhere.’ Bert seemed to be almost enjoying himself now. He had the solid workman’s view of the aristocracy, and he didn’t mind this man’s discomfort. ‘Now, there’s a lady of virtue.’

  Marguerite, when she’d heard of the same accident a day later, had been horrified and had sent every possible comfort to Steve. Settled into the local hospital with a broken foot, Steve had appreciated the attention very much indeed, and so had his mates on his behalf.

  ‘My mother’s a lady who thinks ahead,’ Alastair told them. ‘While I’ve been seeing to the everyday running of the estate and trying to figure out financial ways of saving it, she’s been figuring out the only logical way. Which is marrying Penny-Rose. For a year.’

  ‘But-’

  ‘Like I said, it’s a business proposition.’ Alastair spread his hands. ‘I know this sounds intrusive, but my mother had Penny-Rose’s background checked. She’s employed investigators, and there’s now little she doesn’t know. In every respect, this is the sort of woman I need.’

  He paused, and then said in a softer tone, avoiding Penny-Rose’s eye, ‘My mother also says she badly needs money.’

  It had stopped being even remotely amusing. Penny-Rose’s colour mounted to a fiery crimson and she took a step back. Investigators… ‘My circumstances are none of your business,’ she snapped. ‘How dare you?’

  But Bert was looking back and forth at the pair of them. ‘It seems to me the conversation’s getting private,’ he said.

  ‘It seems to me the conversation is over,’ she flung back, and Bert nodded.

  ‘Yeah, OK. But the man’s right. You’re strapped for cash, girl, and you know it.’ It was Bert who organised a huge percentage of her wages to be sent back to Australia. She kept so little for herself that he’d been horrified. ‘Maybe it’s like the man says-you need to listen to his proposition.’ Bert’s sunburned face creased in resigned amusement. ‘Now, what I suggest-’

  ‘Is what you suggested first and send for a strait-jacket,’ she said through gritted teeth, but Bert shook his head.

  ‘No. The man’s got a problem, and it’s a real one. I’m seeing it now. I don’t say his solution will work but you could do worse than to listen to what he’s proposing.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘So… It’s two o’clock. We knock off at four. When we do, you go down to the village, Penny-Rose, get yourself washed and into something decent, and you…’ He turned and poked a finger into Alastair’s chest. ‘You take her out to dinner. Properly. Pick her up at her lodgings at six and do the thing in style.’

  ‘I don’t need-’ Alastair started, but Bert was on a roll.

  ‘You ask a lady to marry you, you do it properly.’

  ‘I don’t want-’ Penny-Rose tried, but the stubby finger was pointed at her in turn.

  ‘Give the man a chance. You can always refuse, and that’ll be the end of it. You made me listen to him. Now you do the same. If he badgers you after tonight, he’ll answer to me.’

  ‘Bert-’

  ‘No argument,’ Bert said. He’d wavered, but now his decision was made. It was time to get on with what he was here for-stone-walling. Everything else was a nuisance. ‘That’s my final word.’ He turned back to Alastair. ‘Now, you get back to your castle where you belong and you, girl, get back to sorting your stones. There’s to be no more talk of marriage before tonight.’

  ‘Bert, I can’t go out with this man.’

  ‘You can,’ Bert said heavily, and the amusement was suddenly gone from his voice. ‘This is the man who’s paying us, girl, and he’s in trouble. You made me listen to him. Well, I have. You can put the good of the team before everything for the moment and give him a fair hearing. That’s all I ask.’

  ‘And that’s all I ask,’ Alastair said, his calm brown eyes resting on her face in a message of reassurance.

  Which was all very well, she thought wildly as she sent him a savage glance. Reassure all you like.

  Marriage!

  The man was seriously nuts!

  ‘Six o’clock, then,’ he said. ‘You’re staying with the Berics? I’ll collect you there.’

  ‘How do you know where I’m staying?’

  ‘I know all about you.’

  ‘Then you know what I’m about to say to your crazy proposition,’ she flung at him. ‘No and no and no.’

  ‘Just listen.’

  ‘I’ll listen. And then I’ll say no.’

  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 figu
re 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.’