A Royal Proposition

by Marion Lennox

  There was a limousine waiting. Awed into silence, Penny-Rose was ushered into the car like royalty, and she sank back onto leather cushions and thought that was exactly what she was! Royalty.

  Sort of.

  Or she would be in a matter of weeks, after this fairy-tale wedding had taken place.

  And then they reached their hotel. Alastair left her at her suite door and she had to pinch herself to ensure she really was awake.

  Her suite was twice as big as the house she’d been raised in. Heck, the bed was almost as big as the house she’d been raised in! There was more gold and silk and brocade than she’d ever seen in her life.

  It was great. Great! So why wasn’t she bouncing in pleasure?

  It was simply too big and too opulent and too damned lonely. Australia and her family seemed suddenly very far away, and she felt herself blinking back a tear.

  She wandered around the suite, touching everything, hardly daring to breathe, and when a knock sounded at the door she jumped a foot.

  It was Alastair. Of course. She’d been so stunned she’d hardly noticed him leaving to be shown to his own rooms. But all of a sudden she was desperately glad he was back.

  This felt over-the-top opulent, and she was way out of her depth.

  ‘This…this is quite some hotel,’ she made herself say, and he nodded and watched her face.

  ‘It is. Do you like it?’

  She took a deep breath and looked around. And looked around again.

  ‘It lacks something,’ she said finally. ‘Or some things. It needs half-a-dozen kids, a few cats and dogs, pizza boxes on the floor, a couple of inner tubes and some rubber duckies for the bath, something noisy on television…and maybe then I’d like it. A little bit.’

  ‘You don’t like it.’

  ‘Um, no,’ she confessed. ‘It’s like a palace.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘You may be used to sleeping in palaces-’

  ‘Hey, I’ve only just inherited the title.’

  ‘You chose this place.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve never been in this hotel. But Belle says it’s the best and my mother said I should bring you to the best.’

  ‘And you always do what Belle and your mother say. I see.’ She chewed her bottom lip. ‘My bath,’ she said at last, ‘is in the shape of a heart. It’s a spa with padded seats. Built for two. The bathroom looks as if it’s been designed for Cleopatra.’

  ‘Mmm.’

  ‘You have the same?’

  He nodded, unsure where the conversation was leading. ‘I have the same.’

  ‘So we have a heart-shaped spa each,’ she said. ‘That’s cosy. Two spas built for two. One in each room.’

  ‘You’re telling me it’s over the top?’ he ventured, his lips twitching, and she tilted her chin and nodded.

  ‘Just a bit. Maybe.’

  ‘We could always share.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ She gave him an old-fashioned look. ‘And then your requirement that I be a virtuous bride goes right out the window.’

  ‘There is that.’

  Alastair’s smile faded as he assessed his future wife. Dressed casually in tailored trousers and a linen open-necked shirt, Alastair himself looked supremely at ease in these luxurious surroundings. His future bride, however, looked far from comfortable.

  It was her hands, he thought. Always his eyes fell to her hands. Her sundress was lovely, she looked lovely, but her hands were the true Rose. Or Penny-Rose. They made him feel wrong-as if he was pushing her into something she wasn’t meant to be.

  He was suddenly, irresistibly reminded of a television show he’d once seen, where a much-decorated war veteran had been brought in for ‘show and tell’. The man’s deeds had been awesome, but the television show had been superficial. It had glamorised and in the process somehow belittled both the man and his actions.

  He’d been uncomfortable, watching.

  He was uncomfortable now.

  ‘Do you really not like it?’

  ‘It’s the gilt and the brocade,’ she explained. ‘And…’

  ‘And what?’

  ‘The mirrors. Wherever I go I see me.’

  ‘I can think of worse things to look at.’

  ‘Yeah, right, when you have Belle to compare me to. I don’t think.’ She took a deep breath. ‘OK. I’ll get over it. But I would prefer something a bit simpler.’

  ‘The Hotel Carlon doesn’t do simple.’

  ‘Then I’m stuck with it.’ She looked down at her sundress and wrinkled her nose. ‘But I believe you now when you say I need clothes, especially if I’m to spend any more time in front of these damned mirrors. Fine. Let’s get out of here and go shopping.’

  ‘You’re seriously not looking forward to this?’

  ‘I’m seriously not looking forward to this.’ She grimaced and made a confession. ‘I don’t exactly know how it’s done.’

  ‘What, shopping?’

  ‘Shopping.’

  ‘It’s easy,’ he told her, suppressing a smile. ‘You stand in a shop, you show them your credit card and you watch what happens.’ He held out his hand. ‘Come and see.’

  She stared down at his hand for a long moment. His fingers were tanned and strong and inviting. The gesture to take her hand in his was a casual one, no more.

  But what had Marguerite said? ‘It’d be so romantic to have you…strolling down Paris streets, hand in hand.’

  Yeah, great.

  But the hand was still proffered, and a deal was a deal. What was the man offering? A million pounds. Whew!

  It was the stuff of dreams, and if she was to engage in dreams she might as well go the whole distance.

  So she smiled up at her intended husband with a confidence she was far from feeling, she put her hand in his and she let herself be led out onto the streets of Paris.

  To shop!

  It wasn’t an introduction into shopping that Alastair gave her. It was a crash course master’s degree and then some. They shopped and shopped and shopped, and when Penny-Rose decided there couldn’t be an item of clothing left in Paris that she hadn’t tried on, Alastair turned to accessories and shopped some more.

  They paused only for meals. He took her to quiet little restaurants where he wasn’t likely to be known. They ate wonderful food, but Penny-Rose slipped into a quietness which even Alastair knew was out of character. On their second day he collected her from her room to find she had dark shadows under her eyes, and when questioned she admitted she hadn’t slept.

  ‘It’s the bed,’ she told him. ‘It’s too big and too cold and too…’

  ‘Too?’

  ‘Lonely.’ There. She’d said it. She looked at him, expecting to see laughter, but instead she saw concern.

  ‘Five-star hotels by yourself are a bit echoing,’ he agreed. ‘My suite’s just as barren. But I don’t think sharing’s an option, do you?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Then we just get on with it. One more night and then home tomorrow…’

  ‘Home to your castle!’

  He thought of the sumptuous guest room in the castle and frowned. ‘Do you find that just as lonely?’

  ‘I’m not homesick,’ she said, seeing what he was thinking. ‘I’m never homesick.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘No,’ she lied. ‘I’m enjoying myself. These clothes are…fabulous.’

  ‘We have bought some lovely things,’ he said gravely. ‘And there’s more to come.’

  Her determined cheerfulness faltered. ‘I… Yes.’

  ‘You’re not enjoying the shopping either?’

  ‘I feel like a kept woman,’ she blurted out. ‘It’s awful. I don’t know that I’m going to be able to stand it for a year.’

  ‘Being a princess?’

  ‘Being a princess.’

  He surveyed her face with caution. If he wasn’t careful he could blow it, and he knew it.

  Most women would jump at the chance she was being offered, he thought, but he knew enough
of her now to know that most women didn’t include Rose.

  ‘You can back out,’ he told her.

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘And then I’d lose my estate and Michael wouldn’t go to university.’

  ‘See? We’re up against a brick wall-both of us.’

  ‘It’s a comfortably padded brick wall,’ he said lightly, and she flushed and bit her lip.

  ‘I know. I’m being stupid.’

  ‘It’s harder for you than for me,’ he acknowledged. ‘I’m not being hauled out of my comfort zone.’

  Penny-Rose thought that through and found flaws. ‘It’s not very comfortable, living on turnip soup,’ she said, and he smiled. She had courage.

  And the only way through this was through it.

  ‘Breakfast?’ He proffered his arm.

  ‘Oh, yup, why not? A smorgasbord of two hundred different dishes…’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’d prefer a baguette.’

  ‘Well, actually…’

  ‘Actually, yes?’

  And there was only one answer to that. The choice in the hotel’s lavish restaurant simply overwhelmed her. ‘Yes.’

  He looked her up and down, and then he sighed. ‘Come on,’ he said in exasperation. ‘Breakfast here is the most magnificent that Paris has to offer, but don’t mind that. Let’s turn our backs on the Carlon’s stupendous breakfast and go find ourselves a baguette.’

  ‘Alastair…’

  But he was brooking no argument. ‘I can slum it with the best of them,’ he told her. His arm linked with hers and held. ‘Just watch me.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  SO INSTEAD of eating the hotel’s sumptuous breakfast they found a patisserie and Alastair proceeded to show Penny-Rose that he had absolutely no idea what slumming meant. As a peasant, he failed miserably. Penny-Rose’s simple baguette was simply not enough, not faced with the choice of Paris’s magnificent pastries.

  So while she watched in open-mouthed amazement, he proceeded to buy one of everything he could see. A baguette, croissants and mouth-watering pastries filled with fruit, something chocolate that Penny-Rose, with her limited French, decided was called Death by Explosion, and more…

  Then there was coffee in huge take-away mugs, the smell of which made her mouth water.

  They emerged finally from their patisserie to find piles of grapes and mandarins on a next-door stall. Ignoring her protests-‘You’ve dragged me away from the Hotel Carlon’s breakfast, woman-you can let me buy what I want’-he loaded them with so much breakfast they were having trouble carrying it. And Penny-Rose was caught between laughter and exasperation.

  She was given time for neither. ‘Now to the Bois de Boulogne,’ Alastair decreed. ‘It’s the closest.’

  It was also the loveliest.

  The sun was already warm with the promise of a magnificent day to come. The park was filled with mothers and pushchairs, elderly couples sitting soaking up the sun, and small children playing tag or racing with balloons…

  In true royal fashion Alastair found a tree and claimed it as their own. He signalled to someone in the distance, and before she knew it there were two deckchairs set up for their comfort.

  ‘Now…’ Alastair surveyed his scene with satisfaction. ‘Breakfast as Parisians do it.’

  ‘Oh, right. Parisian princes, would that be?’

  ‘You don’t like this either?’ His face fell ludicrously and it was all Penny-Rose could do not to laugh.

  But he was watching her with such an expression of anxiety on his face-and the sun was warm on hers-and it was Paris in the springtime and the coffee smelled tantalising and the pastries were exquisite…

  ‘I’d have to be a mindless idiot not to enjoy this,’ she said softly, smiling up at him. ‘No, Alastair, I don’t like this. I love it!’

  After that the shopping was better, though Penny-Rose still found it uncomfortable. She was now wearing some of the clothes she’d purchased the day before. That made her feel less conspicuous in these over-the-top salons, but every time she dressed at the end of each fitting she couldn’t help thinking, These aren’t my clothes.

  These aren’t me.

  She was buying clothes for a princess, she thought. Not for Penny-Rose O’Shea. Or two-bob Rose. Or whoever she was. She was beginning not to know any more.

  Once he’d made the decision to accompany her, Alastair took his duties seriously. He insisted on seeing her as she emerged in each outfit, and his smiles of approval disturbed her still more. She was turning into what he wanted, she thought.

  She was becoming no longer herself. She was becoming Alastair’s wife-for-a-year, and the prospect was more and more disturbing.

  But finally Alastair was satisfied. Almost. At four o’clock he announced her major wardrobe complete, and he escorted her to a tiny shop off the main boulevard.

  The shop needed some explaining, and he did it fast. ‘Before you get the wrong idea, my mother told me to bring you here,’ he told her hastily. At the look on her face, his dark eyes glinted with laughter. ‘This,’ he said with an evil grin, ‘may well be the best part of the whole shopping experience. It’s knicker time.’

  And as Penny-Rose gazed into the window she could only gasp.

  These weren’t just knickers. They were flights of fancy. Here were silken wisps of elegance that had nothing at all in common with the sturdy knickers she was wearing-except maybe two holes for legs.

  ‘I can’t buy these!’

  Alastair’s grin faded. ‘You can.’ He took her hand, imbuing her with the gravity of the occasion. Only his still-lurking glimmer belied his serious tone. ‘And you must. The servants will be doing your washing, and they’ll expect quality.’ His grin returned in full and she stared at him in confusion. The rat-he was enjoying this! ‘Remember,’ he told her, ‘this marriage has to appear real.’

  Somehow she found her voice. ‘Your wife would wear things like these?’

  He nodded, with no hesitation at all. ‘Of course she would.’ He motioned to a flagrantly indecent set of bra and panties on a flagrantly indecent model, and his laughter became more pronounced. ‘My wife would especially wear those.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, I can see Belle in those!’

  His smile faded again, but this time the fading was for real. He hadn’t been thinking of Belle, she realised as she watched his face. The rat had actually been thinking of her!

  This was crazy. The whole situation was absurd!

  ‘So I’m buying these to keep up appearances with the laundress?’ she asked carefully.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Does the laundress have any colour preference?’

  He pointed to the bra and pantie set-bright crimson. ‘I bet bright crimson would work a treat.’

  ‘On the laundress.’ She glowered.

  He assumed an air of injured innocence. ‘Who else could I be thinking of?’

  ‘Right.’ Her glower intensified. ‘Well, if this is just between me and the laundress, you can take yourself off while I make my purchases.’

  ‘Hey…’

  ‘This is between me and the laundress and the shop assistant,’ she said firmly. ‘Back in your box, mister.’

  ‘That’s no way to talk to a prince.’

  ‘A princess can talk any way she wants. And you want a virtuous bride. Virtuous brides wouldn’t be seen dead in a shop like this, especially with their prince-and especially before they’re married.’

  He thought that one through and didn’t like it. ‘That’s not playing fair.’

  ‘Who’s playing?’

  Their eyes locked.

  And suddenly the question was very, very real.

  Who was playing? Who could tell?

  The scary part was that somewhere in that over-the-top place Penny-Rose finally started to enjoy herself. With Alastair firmly left outside, she let the sales assistant have her head and she tried on set after set of the most gorgeous lingerie she’d ever seen in her life.

  A
nd standing in front of the three-way mirror she started to get an inkling of how Cinderella must have felt.

  ‘It’s an out-of-body experience,’ she told herself, looking at her trim body clothed only in a wisp of lace that could well have been cut-with cloth left over-from a very small handkerchief. She grinned. ‘Or an only-just-in-body experience. I guess when this is all done I can donate these to charity.’

  Charity would have a fit, she decided, and it was with a chuckle and arms full of packages that she emerged to the street to find her waiting prince.

  But her prince wasn’t where she’d left him. She searched the street, and found…

  A dog. A pup…

  The pup was some sort of terrier, knee high, wire-haired and fawn and white. Or he might once have been fawn and white. Now his fur was matted and filthy, and a deep, jagged wound stretched along most of his side. One leg was carried high, his shaggy ears drooped and his eyes were dull with misery.

  It was the end of a Paris business day. The boulevard was crowded, with legs going everywhere. Even though Paris was a city of dog lovers, in this crowd one small dog didn’t stand a chance of being noticed. Except by Penny-Rose, who was feeling bereft herself and was searching for Alastair.

  She saw the dog first. As she emerged from the shop and saw him, the small creature was pushed too close to the road, and she realised how he’d got that wound. He was headed that way again.

  ‘No!’ With a cry of dismay she dropped her parcels and darted forward. She was too late to stop the dog being pushed onto the road, but that didn’t stop her from diving after him. There was a screech of brakes, and the next moment she was crouched in the gutter, her arms were full of dog and her eyes were reflecting his pain.

  ‘Oh, no…’

  ‘Rose!’

  Alastair had been waiting with the patience of a saint-sort of. He’d been across the road, window-shopping and desperately trying not to think of what his intended wife was doing. He hadn’t succeeded. For some reason, all he could think of was his bride wearing that lingerie…

  So he hadn’t noticed the dog through the mass of legs across the street, and the first thing he saw was Rose diving head first into the crazy Parisian traffic.