Marion Lennox - A Royal Proposition

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.’

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?’

‘Rose.’

‘Even though he knows you’re called Penelope?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’ll be Princess Rose?’

‘I guess so.’ She took a deep breath. ‘He says…he says he won’t call me Penny-Rose because I’m worth much more.’ She didn’t add that the way he called her Rose made her feel odd-like he was deliberately distancing himself from who she really was.

But Heather loved it. ‘Then he is special,’ Heather said soundly. ‘And…’ Penny-Rose could imagine her sister’s glee on the other end of the line. ‘Is he very rich?’

‘Um, yes.’

‘Specialler and specialler.’

Penny-Rose grinned. ‘Specialler… Is that good grammar?’

‘Always the big sister. Leave my grammar alone. When do we get to meet him?’

‘The wedding’s in six weeks. Alastair will send you plane tickets, if you can come.’

There was a squeal of delight from the other end of the phone. ‘Really?’

‘Really.’

‘Oh…’ A long sigh of pure pleasure. ‘Try and keep us away. Can we be bridesmaids?’

‘I’m not having bridesmaids.’

‘Princesses always have bridesmaids.’

‘Not this one.’

‘But…’ There was a slight pause. ‘It is going to be a royal wedding-right?’

There was only one answer to that. ‘Yes.’

‘Fabulous.’ Another sigh, then… ‘Help, we don’t have anything to wear.’

This had already been discussed. ‘Alastair’s sending you a cheque,’ she told her sister. ‘So…so you can get something wonderful to wear.’ When she revealed how much the cheque would be for, there was a moment’s silence.