‘What?’
‘Sorry?’
‘What are you laughing at?’
‘The thought of me in frilly knickers underneath my homemade overalls,’ she confessed. ‘Some things are too ridiculous for words.’
‘But you’ll come shopping with me?’
‘Do I have a choice?’
‘No.’
She spread her hands. ‘OK. One shopping hit. But it’ll have to be just the one. Let’s get it all over in one shot. Can we buy a wedding dress while we’re at it?’
‘I have an idea about that.’ Marguerite had been watching the interplay, a small, self-satisfied smile playing on her lips. Who knew what was behind that smile? ‘I thought…’ She hesitated. ‘My dear, if you don’t mind, I thought you could wear my wedding dress.’ She flickered a questioning look at her son. ‘You’ve always loved the photographs of your father and I being married. The dress I wore belonged to your grandmother before me, and it’s lovely. If Penny-Rose agrees, it’d be wonderful for you to have your bride wear it.’
‘But won’t Belle…?’ Penny-Rose started, but was silenced by the sudden frown snapping down on her future mother-in-law’s face.
‘Belle would die rather than wear an old dress of mine.’
Belle would. The thought of the svelte Belle wearing a traditional, pre-loved wedding gown seemed almost ridiculous.
‘I… It seems very personal,’ Penny-Rose said, looking sideways at Alastair to see how he was taking it. ‘I mean, it is a wedding of convenience. It is only for a year.’
But, somewhat to her surprise, Alastair liked the idea. ‘I bet it’d look gorgeous on you. And it’s very economical.’ He smiled. ‘That should appeal to your parsimonious streak!’
‘If it’s your money, I don’t mind spending it,’ she replied, and got a bark of laughter in response.
‘That’s very generous.’
‘I can be,’ she agreed blandly, and just for a moment they were grinning at each other like fools.
Or like…friends?
Or something more.
Which was crazy. But the moment stretched on, for far too long…
It was Alastair who came back to earth first. Penny-Rose’s insides were still doing some type of aerobic act she couldn’t define. ‘You’ll wear my mother’s dress?’ he asked, and if his voice was a trace unsteady it was only Marguerite who noticed. Penny-Rose’s thoughts were way too unsteady all on their own.
‘Penny-Rose needs to see it first,’ Marguerite decreed, smiling complacently at them both. Things were going very well here. Very well indeed! ‘She’s only wearing it if she loves it. But meanwhile… Eat your supper, turn in for an early night and then head off to Paris in the morning.’
‘For knicker shopping,’ Alastair agreed, a wicked gleam lurking deep in those dangerous eyes.
‘In your dreams, Alastair de Castaliae,’ Penny-Rose muttered. ‘You buy me frilly knickers? Over my dead body.’ She hesitated. ‘And maybe it’s just as well if we buy me a wedding dress. I’m really not comfortable wearing your mother’s.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s real,’ she said frankly. Her insides had somehow settled, but with that crazy lurching had come a realisation. Alastair was holding her at arm’s length. She needed to do the same. ‘Some day you might meet someone even more special than Belle.’
‘That’s silly.’
‘No, it’s not.’ She turned to Marguerite. ‘You must understand. Wearing your wedding dress makes the whole thing personal-and this wedding has to be impersonal or it can’t work.’
‘I’d like you to wear it,’ Marguerite told her, and with a shock Penny-Rose realised what she was saying.
And she knew she was right in her decision.
‘I can’t,’ she told her. ‘It’s for Alastair’s true wife to wear.’
‘I don’t understand.’ Alastair was looking from one to the other. ‘You will be my true wife.’
‘As I said,’ Penny-Rose retorted. ‘In your dreams, Alastair de Castaliae. In your dreams.’
The next day was a dream all by itself.
First there was the journey to Paris.
Penny-Rose and her co-workers had taken the train through France when she’d started working in Alastair’s tiny border principality, and she’d expected that she and Alastair would take the same train back to Paris. Or they’d drive. Either way, it was a full day’s journey.
But they did neither. After an early breakfast, Alastair ushered her into his Ferrari. Ten minutes later they were boarding a private jet, and thirty minutes after that they were at Charles de Gaulle airport.
There was a limousine waiting. Awed into silence, Penny-Rose was ushered into the car like royalty, and she sank back onto leather cushions and thought that was exactly what she was! Royalty.
Sort of.
Or she would be in a matter of weeks, after this fairy-tale wedding had taken place.
And then they reached their hotel. Alastair left her at her suite door and she had to pinch herself to ensure she really was awake.
Her suite was twice as big as the house she’d been raised in. Heck, the bed was almost as big as the house she’d been raised in! There was more gold and silk and brocade than she’d ever seen in her life.
It was great. Great! So why wasn’t she bouncing in pleasure?
It was simply too big and too opulent and too damned lonely. Australia and her family seemed suddenly very far away, and she felt herself blinking back a tear.
She wandered around the suite, touching everything, hardly daring to breathe, and when a knock sounded at the door she jumped a foot.
It was Alastair. Of course. She’d been so stunned she’d hardly noticed him leaving to be shown to his own rooms. But all of a sudden she was desperately glad he was back.
This felt over-the-top opulent, and she was way out of her depth.
‘This…this is quite some hotel,’ she made herself say, and he nodded and watched her face.
‘It is. Do you like it?’
She took a deep breath and looked around. And looked around again.
‘It lacks something,’ she said finally. ‘Or some things. It needs half-a-dozen kids, a few cats and dogs, pizza boxes on the floor, a couple of inner tubes and some rubber duckies for the bath, something noisy on television…and maybe then I’d like it. A little bit.’
‘You don’t like it.’
‘Um, no,’ she confessed. ‘It’s like a palace.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘You may be used to sleeping in palaces-’
‘Hey, I’ve only just inherited the title.’
‘You chose this place.’
‘I didn’t,’ he admitted. ‘I’ve never been in this hotel. But Belle says it’s the best and my mother said I should bring you to the best.’
‘And you always do what Belle and your mother say. I see.’ She chewed her bottom lip. ‘My bath,’ she said at last, ‘is in the shape of a heart. It’s a spa with padded seats. Built for two. The bathroom looks as if it’s been designed for Cleopatra.’
‘Mmm.’
‘You have the same?’
He nodded, unsure where the conversation was leading. ‘I have the same.’
‘So we have a heart-shaped spa each,’ she said. ‘That’s cosy. Two spas built for two. One in each room.’
‘You’re telling me it’s over the top?’ he ventured, his lips twitching, and she tilted her chin and nodded.
‘Just a bit. Maybe.’
‘We could always share.’
‘Oh, right.’ She gave him an old-fashioned look. ‘And then your requirement that I be a virtuous bride goes right out the window.’
‘There is that.’
Alastair’s smile faded as he assessed his future wife. Dressed casually in tailored trousers and a linen open-necked shirt, Alastair himself looked supremely at ease in these luxurious surroundings. His future bride, however, looked far from comfortable.
It was her hands, he thought. Always his eyes fell to her hands. Her sundress was lovely, she looked lovely, but her hands were the true Rose. Or Penny-Rose. They made him feel wrong-as if he was pushing her into something she wasn’t meant to be.