Her face clouded, just a little, at the memories the name brought back. ‘Penny-Rose?’
‘I’ve been really stupid,’ he told her. ‘Trying to make you into something that you weren’t. But Penny-Rose is how I first saw you. Dressed in those damned overalls, filthy, yet laughing at us, letting us know your values weren’t ours. Telling me that a marriage without love was stupid.’ He pulled her tightly against him. ‘So Rose is a princess. My Princess Rose. But Penny-Rose is the woman I love more than life itself.’
She looked up into his eyes for a long, long moment. And then she sighed with pure happiness.
‘Penny-Rose it is,’ she said softly. ‘I’ll go for Penny-Rose any day.’
‘You mean you’d rather be the woman I love than a princess?’
‘I’d rather be the woman you love than anything in the world.’
‘Then so be it,’ he said exultantly. ‘From this day forth. Because that’s exactly what you are.’
And he gathered her against him and kissed her-for a very, very long time.
EPILOGUE
M Y WEDDING day. My proper wedding day. A ceremony just for us-with the priest and Alastair and me and Leo. Because we want it to be a proper wedding, there’ll be Marguerite and our cameraman to act as witnesses, but there’ll be no one else.
A true and legal wedding… It’s funny how I’m more nervous now than I was at the big one.
There’ll be no velvet coats for Leo today. Or any fancy wedding gowns. We’re wearing jeans and bare toes on a beach in the South of France. Where no one knows us. Where we can take each other as we mean to have each other-in the privacy of ourselves.
Just us.
For now and for ever.
‘Wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife, to live for ever according to God’s law in the Holy estate of matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour and keep her in sickness and in health; and forsaking all others, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?’
‘I do,’ said Alastair.
‘And you, Penny-Rose. Wilt thou have this man…?’
‘I do,’ said Penny-Rose.
‘Amen to that,’ said Marguerite. Completely recovered, she stood with pride as their witness and she couldn’t stop smiling.
‘Woof,’ said Leo.
‘Bless you both,’ said their lone cameraman-the man they’d asked to record this event for their great-grandchildren. ‘May you be as happy and successful as you’ve made me.’
And that was the way it was.
Marion Lennox
Marion Lennox was born on an Australian dairy farm. She moved on-mostly because the cows weren’t interested in her stories!
In her nonwriting life Marion cares (haphazardly) for her husband, teenagers, dogs, cats, chickens and anyone else who lines up at her dinner table. She fights her rampant garden (she’s losing) and her house dust (she’s lost). She also travels, which she finds seriously addictive.
As a teenager Marion was told she’d never get anywhere reading romance. Now romance is the basis of her stories. Her stories allow her to travel, and if ever there was an advertisement for following your dream, she’d be it!
***
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A Royal Proposition Page 18
