Marion Lennox - A Royal Proposition

But she couldn’t tell him that. She had to keep her voice practical and sensible. As all her plans must be.

‘I’m tired of spending your money, and I’m tired of shopping,’ she declared. ‘I’ve decided I’ll wear your grandmother’s wedding dress after all.’

‘But…’ He frowned. ‘I thought you objected to the idea. That it’s for my true wife to wear.’

‘Belle doesn’t want to wear it, and you said that’s what I’ll be,’ she told him. ‘Your legal wife. For a year.’

And however long I can manage, she told herself silently. From this day forward… For ever if I can manage it.

Penny-Rose lay in bed that night and thought, ‘What have I done?’

Beside her, Leo slept the sleep of the dead. Filled with food for maybe the first time in his life, his wounds eased with painkillers and his body snuggled into soft cushions, he lay beside his new mistress and thought he was in doggy heaven.

Her fingers trailed down to touch the pup’s wet nose, and she thought she was pretty much in the same place.

But not doggy heaven. Penny-Rose heaven.

‘He’s given me so much,’ she told the sleeping Leo, her conscience giving her a swift kick in the ribs. ‘He’s handed me a dream for a year. And he’s handed me you. It’s dreadful of me to go for more.’

But that was just what she was doing. Because somewhere during the last few days, something strange had happened. Her heart had been twisted and turned till she hardly knew herself.

‘I’ve fallen in love,’ she whispered. ‘So help me, Leo, I’ve fallen for the man. Now what?’

Fight?

‘Just try,’ she said to the darkened room. ‘Just…take this marriage as it comes but say my vows as if I mean them. And then cross every finger and every toe that I can work a little magic. See if I can change his formal Princess Rose into a Penny-Rose he can love.

‘And you’ll wear his mother’s wedding dress?’

She was questioning her own motives. Leo wuffled in his sleep and Penny-Rose grimaced and buried her nose in the soft pillows.

‘It’s very wrong.

‘But if you don’t try…

‘If you don’t try then Belle will end up with her prince,’ she told herself. ‘Or with my prince. And he doesn’t want her any more than he wants me. It’s such a waste!

‘So what makes you think you can win his heart?

‘Nothing at all.’ She was two voices. The voice of reason and the voice of hope. ‘Nothing at all,’ she repeated into the stillness. ‘Oh, but, Leo, I can only try!

‘You’ll have to do more than try, girl.

‘I’ll do whatever it takes,’ she said, with a resolution she was far from sure of. ‘That and a bit more. Heaven help me, I can’t do anything else.’

She flicked on her light with sudden determination and crossed to where the day’s parcels had been stacked. In a minute she’d discarded her much-patched pyjamas and was standing in front of the mirror.

She was now wearing one of today’s purchases-a soft white nightgown of the sheerest silk. It was cut low across her breasts, it was embroidered white on white with tiny rosebuds and she’d never seen anything so exquisite in her life.

‘I can’t wear this,’ she told her reflection. ‘I bought this for the laundress.’

Her curls were tumbled to her shoulders, her face was tinged with a faint embarrassed pink and the reflection that looked at her was…

‘I’m not wasting this on the laundress,’ she addressed the sleeping Leo. She gave her reflection a rueful grimace. ‘It makes me look almost lovely.

‘Lovelier than Belle?’

She glowered. ‘It doesn’t matter how lovely Belle is. She doesn’t love him.’

And she herself did!

Alastair was sleeping just the other side of the wall. This was a suite, meant for a family. A door connected the rooms. All she had to do was turn the key on her side, and Alastair turn the key on his…

If I was a bit more brazen I’d knock, she thought suddenly, and then she gasped and took a step back as she realised where her thoughts were taking her. ‘Penny-Rose O’Shea… You hussy!’ she said aloud.

‘If that’s what it takes,’ her reflection answered her.

‘Nope.’ She slid the nightgown off and reached for her pyjamas. ‘I’m not into seduction.

‘So what are you into?

‘I’m into loving the man to bits,’ she responded to herself. ‘It’s all I have, and if that’s not enough…’

The nightie lay on the floor and mocked her.

‘We’ll see,’ she said, and grinned. ‘All’s fair in love and war. This is a combination of both!’

And in the next room, Alastair lay and stared at the ceiling with a lot more uncertainty. There were things going on in his life that he no longer understood.

It had all seemed so straightforward, he thought grimly. After Lissa’s death he’d made the decision to stay uninvolved, and he’d succeeded. His life was what he wanted.

He had a profession he was proud of. He had more than enough money. And he had Belle, available when he needed her, with the thought of a couple of children down the track.

Children…

They’d be quiet little things, he thought, conjuring them from the darkness. Maybe they’d have pigtails and hula hoops. Whatever, they’d be kids for his mother to pamper…

Marguerite deserved grandchildren.

He checked out his vision of his children-but something strange was happening. Instead of faceless prettiness, as there always had been, he now had Penny-Rose’s face before him.

Rose, he told himself. It’s Rose… Not Penny-Rose. It was stupid, but it was important somehow. He had to keep this formal.

So she was Rose. But why did his kids suddenly have Rose’s twinkle, and Rose’s cheekiness, and…?

For heaven’s sake, no! If they had personality like Penny-Rose-no, Rose-then how could he not love them? he thought, and loving anything…

It didn’t work. He’d watched his mother break her heart when his father had died, and his own gut had been wrenched enough when Lissa had been killed. Lissa had been such a good friend that the hurt had been dreadful.

So… It was a lesson he’d learned the hard way, but he’d learned it well. You don’t give your heart!

He wasn’t giving his heart now. This was a marriage of convenience.

What had Rose said? ‘The convenience of the employer comes first.’

That was what he was, he thought grimly. An employer. He was paying her to be his wife for a year, and emotional ties didn’t come into it.

How could they? She didn’t need him long term. That was why he’d chosen her. She was Australian, and she’d be off home as soon as she had her money.

Leaving him with Belle.

Which was the way he wanted it, he told himself hastily. The way it had to be.

The sensible way.

As was Rose’s decision to wear his mother’s wedding dress. It was economical. Wedding dresses-especially ones suitable for a royal wedding-cost a fortune. She was saving him money with her decision.

Putting the convenience of the employer first!

So why didn’t she feel like one of his employees?

‘I’m not very good at this Cinderella thing,’ he said out loud. ‘I’m not comfortable with it. It’s the fact that she has nothing and deserves so much that’s making this all so damned gut-wrenching.

‘That’s why you gave her the dog.

‘That’s right. She has nothing. A dog can’t hurt.

‘And you’re comfortable with her wearing your mother’s wedding dress?

‘It’s sensible.

‘Hell!’

He turned over and pummelled his pillows, trying not to envisage Rose in his mother’s wedding dress. And then trying not to envisage Rose sleeping just through the wall. Could he hear her? There was a soft murmuring through the door. She was awake. She was probably lonely. All he had to do, he thought, was take his key and-

No!

That was the way of madness. He had to stop Rose from turning into Penny-Rose every time he thought of her.

But she was so close…

How could he block her out? Out of his thoughts? Out of his life?

He’d ring Belle, he decided. She’d talk sense into him. He’d phone her and talk through the Palmerstone job. They’d been working on it together, so she wouldn’t think it was strange…

It was one in the morning!

He put the phone down with a reluctant grin. This was not a good plan. Belle would think such a phone call was weird. He’d never hear the end of it.

But he had to speak to someone or he’d go nuts.

‘What I need,’ he told the darkness, ‘is another Leo. I wonder whether Rose will let me share…’

His key lay in his hand, and he held it so hard that it hurt.

‘JUST leave everything to me.’

Back at the castle, groomed to an inch of her life, Penny-Rose was waiting to become Alastair’s official fiancée. They’d called a press conference, the gallery was packed and it was all Penny-Rose could do not to bolt for Australia.

She might have recovered her equilibrium since Paris, she thought desperately. She might have made a few resolutions, but she wasn’t a limelight kind of girl.

‘This is Belle’s forte,’ she muttered. ‘Can’t a substitute wife do as well?’

‘You are a substitute wife,’ Alastair reminded her, and she grimaced.

Oh, great. As if she needed reminding of that.

‘You don’t need to be nervous. Leave the talking to me.’

‘I can’t do much else with my grasp of French,’ she said bitterly. Then she took two deep breaths and got a grip. Cowardice was not what was needed. Resolution was what was needed. From this moment on.

‘I do know a phrase that might be useful,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘How about, Vous ne me ferez jamais parler?’ She clutched her throat with melodramatic flourish. ‘Jamais, jamais, jamais…’