He was some catch!
He was some prince!
That wasn’t the way to think, she told herself hastily. Alastair was planning this as a business proposition, and so must she.
‘A million pounds,’ she murmured, forcing her thoughts sideways and letting herself dwell on what that could mean. ‘A million… Do you have any idea how tempting that sort of money is for a girl like me?’
‘I can imagine.’ Alastair smiled at her across the table and she had to give herself the same business-only lecture she’d given herself thirty seconds ago. It was either that or go take a cold shower. But he didn’t seem to notice. Maybe he had that effect on all women! ‘You’d never have to work again,’ he was saying.
His words startled her, breaking through her fog of masculine awareness. Of Alastair awareness… ‘Not work?’ Penny-Rose frowned. ‘I wouldn’t know how to not work.’
‘You could learn,’ he said gently, ‘during your year as a princess.’
‘Oh, right. Just swan around, adjusting my tiara and polishing my throne. I don’t think so.’
‘You’d be a figurehead…’
‘A figurehead who still has to get herself a master stone-waller certificate. I’m not going home without it.’
He stared at her. ‘You won’t need to stone-wall. A million pounds will set you up for life.’
She looked blankly at him, as if he were speaking some foreign language. ‘But I like stone-walling.’
‘You couldn’t possibly stone-wall as my wife.’
‘If you stuck me in a castle on a velvet cushion I’d go into a decline,’ she said. And then she chuckled. ‘Or I’d cause trouble. I just know I would. I’d be sticking my nose into all sorts of things that don’t concern me. You need to accept me as a stone-walling bride or not at all.’
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.’