‘There’s too much to do. We can’t afford your standards here,’ he’d told her. ‘This is farmwork. We have a job to do and we need to be economical.’

She’d agreed, but she made them perfect anyway, working into her lunch-hours and evenings to get them right so her stones would still look magnificent in hundreds of years.

But they took so much effort, and here they were, already cut.

‘How…?’ She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. ‘How…?’

‘I employed men off site,’ Alastair explained. ‘Bert showed them what you’ve been doing and said we wanted more of the same. They delivered them this morning.’ As she replaced her stone, he lifted her hands and fingered her rough skin. ‘So, for the next year you can go on stone-walling all you like, but the hardest bit’s done.’

‘Oh, Alastair…’

‘It was Bert’s idea.’

‘It was no such thing.’ She knew that much at least. Alastair must have thought of this all by himself. She thought back to the day a couple of weeks ago when he’d discovered her swearing over a gashed hand and a copestone that wouldn’t cut as she’d wanted it. ‘Bert wouldn’t have thought of this as a gift.’ She managed a wavering smile. ‘Not in a million years. As a matter of fact, I think one of our toasters is his.’

‘It would be.’

Silence. She carefully disengaged his hand. For some reason it was suddenly important that she do so.

A thousand copestones…

She couldn’t have thought of a better wedding gift if she’d tried.

Damn, there was a tear trickling down her nose-and then another one. She wiped them fiercely away with the back of her hand, and gave a very unromantic sniff.

Which suddenly made Alastair feel very romantic indeed.

This was unreal. Standing in the dawn light, beside a mound of stones, with a woman in bridal attire… A woman who sniffed and tried to look fierce when he knew she wanted to burst into tears. And the reason for those tears? Because here was a woman who thought a pile of copestones was the greatest present…

He put a hand out to touch her, but she backed away as if she were scared of being scorched. ‘No!’

‘No, what?’ His eyes were on hers. ‘Don’t you like my gift?’

‘I…I do.’ But Penny-Rose knew what she’d stepped back from. She knew what was close to happening. And she didn’t want this man to kiss her.

Not yet. It wasn’t right.

She didn’t want to seduce him, she thought frantically. Nor did she want him to make love to her because she was convenient.

She wanted him to fall in love with her. As she loved him. So intensely that she ached…

‘I…I have a gift for you, too,’ she murmured softly, and it brought him up short. A gift…

‘You don’t have any money,’ he said before he could stop himself, and she glared.

‘Yeah, well, there are some things that can be gained without money. Like Leo.’

‘Like our aristocratic dog,’ he agreed. ‘A gift without price.’ And then his brow creased and he grinned in mock dismay. ‘Oh, hell. Don’t tell me. Another dog?’

‘It’s nothing of the kind,’ she said with dignity. ‘Though if I find one with just the right pedigree…’

‘To match Leo’s.’

‘That’s right.’ She was relaxing again now. The moment of tension had passed. ‘So…do you want to see my gift?’

‘Of course I do.’ He was fascinated.

‘It doesn’t come in a velvet box either,’ she told him. ‘And it’s not gift-wrapped. It’s no toaster.’

‘Rose, there’s no need to give me anything.’

‘You brought the kids over for the wedding,’ she said simply. ‘You’ve given me the earth. So of course there’s a need for a gift. It took me a while to figure out what, but I finally did.’

‘What-?’

‘Come and see.’


Once again they walked around the castle, but this time south, where pastures gave way to woodland. Here there was a small rise, looking back over the castle to the cliffs and river plains beyond. It was a place of absolute beauty. Penny-Rose had found it one day when she’d sought a quiet place to eat her lunch, and she’d been back again and again ever since.

And finally she’d asked Marguerite about it.

‘My husband loved the castle,’ Marguerite had said. ‘In a way, he felt it was his ancestral home. And Lissa’s family couldn’t bear for her to be buried alone. There’s a crypt for the royal family underneath the chapel, but we thought…it’d be lovely if they were buried here.’

So there were two simple gravestones, nestled among the woodland. And surrounded by flowers…

‘Alastair planted them,’ Marguerite had told her. ‘All the flowers we both love. Wildflowers and roses and daffodils and tulips and honeysuckle and wisteria… So it’ll be a mass of flowers all year round.’

The only jarring note, to Penny-Rose’s mind, was the fence. They’d erected a simple wire fence around the graves to keep the cattle out, and it looked discordant in such a lovely place.

So she’d fixed it.

Alastair hadn’t been here for weeks. He’d had so much on his plate he hadn’t had time.

But now… He saw what she’d done before he reached the graves. His steps slowed. He walked up to the fence and he stopped and took it in.

It was the most beautiful fence he’d seen in his life. Made of simple sandstone, every stone was perfect. The fence formed a tiny fold about ten feet square, a croft where the graves were protected against the weather and against the cattle.

And the fence was built with such care and craftsmanship that the graves would be protected for a thousand years.

It was high-four feet or so-so the sturdiest sheep couldn’t climb over, but there were throughstones forming a stile so one could enter.

And she’d formed smoots-narrow slits in the stone-regularly spaced, all the way along. ‘To let light in, and so the woodland creatures can enjoy your garden,’ she explained, watching his face with some anxiety. ‘The first morning I walked up here I saw a litter of tiny rabbits munching on your buttercups. And I thought…if this was my grave that’s what I’d want.’

Silence.

‘I can pull it down if you don’t like it,’ she whispered, still anxious. ‘But it was the one thing I could do for you. I know you loved your dad and you loved Lissa. And somehow this seemed right.’

It did, too.

It seemed perfect.

Alastair climbed the stile without a word. Reaching the top, he held out his hand. After the briefest of hesitations, Penny-Rose placed her hand in his and climbed the stile with him. Her wedding dress was lifted carefully over, and then they were together in the fold.

Around them, wildflowers blossomed around masses of tulips. Wisteria had been carefully restrung against the stones. As it was late spring it was losing its flowers so a carpet of soft blue petals lay everywhere, and the wild roses were just starting to bloom.

The smell of the morning was with them. The dew on the grass left a pungent fragrance where they walked, and the two simple graves lay gently side by side. Like two friends.

As they had been, Marguerite had told her. Lissa had been almost a daughter to Alastair’s parents. These were Alastair’s people, and it was right that they be buried together.

‘Thank…thank you,’ he said in a voice that wasn’t too steady, and this time it was he who badly wanted to sniff. Penny-Rose heard it and managed a grin. She was still feeling distinctly sniffy herself.

Keep it practical… ‘Not carrying a handkerchief?’ she managed.

‘They gave me a buttonhole instead.’ He smiled, and plucked the crimson rose from his lapel. ‘As a handkerchief it makes a very poor substitute, but here it is. What’s mine is yours.’

It was a simple statement-a jest-but it hung between them like the promise of the morning to come.

Only…the morning was already here.

‘We…we’d best get back to the castle,’ Penny-Rose said uncertainly. ‘We have a plane to catch this afternoon and we haven’t had any sleep.’

‘That’s right.’ But he couldn’t keep his eyes from her. ‘We have a honeymoon to begin.’

‘A holiday,’ she corrected him. ‘You need to be really married to go on a honeymoon.’

‘And we’re not really married?’

She hitched her dress high. This scene was threatening to run away with her, and she wasn’t ready. Alastair wasn’t ready.

Seduction wasn’t her scene. She was playing for keeps, so she had to be practical. Somehow.

‘No, Alastair, we’re not,’ she told him. She looked down at Lissa’s grave, and a tiny smile curved her lips. ‘I hope we’re becoming like you and Lissa…good friends. But that’s not a basis for a marriage.’

‘Lissa and I thought so.’

‘Well, I’m not Lissa.’ She stepped up onto the stile and stayed on the fence-top for a moment, looking down. She looked immeasurably lovely, dressed in her bridal finery, with the dawn light behind her and the carpet of wildflowers at her feet. ‘I’m me. I’m Penny-Rose. The girl who married for money. I’m your bride for a year, but just for a year, Alastair de Castaliae. So let’s not forget it.’


The door between Alastair and his new bride was firmly locked.

‘Goodnight,’ she’d said sweetly as they’d arrived back at the castle. She’d stood on tiptoe to kiss him but it had been a fleeting kiss of farewell-nothing more. ‘We only have eight hours till we catch our plane. I’m off to get some beauty sleep and I suggest you do the same.’

But how could he, when every nerve in his body screamed that his bride was just on the other side of the door?

Belle.

Think of Belle, he told himself desperately. He’d promised to marry her. That was the sort of marriage he wanted. Not…not what he could have with Rose.

And what sort of marriage was the one he envisaged with Rose? If he allowed it to become…proper.

It was the sort of marriage his mother had had, he acknowledged, because if he allowed himself to give-as Rose gave-there’d be no holding back.