He was suddenly, irresistibly reminded of a television show he’d once seen, where a much-decorated war veteran had been brought in for ‘show and tell’. The man’s deeds had been awesome, but the television show had been superficial. It had glamorised and in the process somehow belittled both the man and his actions.
He’d been uncomfortable, watching.
He was uncomfortable now.
‘Do you really not like it?’
‘It’s the gilt and the brocade,’ she explained. ‘And…’
‘And what?’
‘The mirrors. Wherever I go I see me.’
‘I can think of worse things to look at.’
‘Yeah, right, when you have Belle to compare me to. I don’t think.’ She took a deep breath. ‘OK. I’ll get over it. But I would prefer something a bit simpler.’
‘The Hotel Carlon doesn’t do simple.’
‘Then I’m stuck with it.’ She looked down at her sundress and wrinkled her nose. ‘But I believe you now when you say I need clothes, especially if I’m to spend any more time in front of these damned mirrors. Fine. Let’s get out of here and go shopping.’
‘You’re seriously not looking forward to this?’
‘I’m seriously not looking forward to this.’ She grimaced and made a confession. ‘I don’t exactly know how it’s done.’
‘What, shopping?’
‘Shopping.’
‘It’s easy,’ he told her, suppressing a smile. ‘You stand in a shop, you show them your credit card and you watch what happens.’ He held out his hand. ‘Come and see.’
She stared down at his hand for a long moment. His fingers were tanned and strong and inviting. The gesture to take her hand in his was a casual one, no more.
But what had Marguerite said? ‘It’d be so romantic to have you…strolling down Paris streets, hand in hand.’
Yeah, great.
But the hand was still proffered, and a deal was a deal. What was the man offering? A million pounds. Whew!
It was the stuff of dreams, and if she was to engage in dreams she might as well go the whole distance.
So she smiled up at her intended husband with a confidence she was far from feeling, she put her hand in his and she let herself be led out onto the streets of Paris.
To shop!
It wasn’t an introduction into shopping that Alastair gave her. It was a crash course master’s degree and then some. They shopped and shopped and shopped, and when Penny-Rose decided there couldn’t be an item of clothing left in Paris that she hadn’t tried on, Alastair turned to accessories and shopped some more.
They paused only for meals. He took her to quiet little restaurants where he wasn’t likely to be known. They ate wonderful food, but Penny-Rose slipped into a quietness which even Alastair knew was out of character. On their second day he collected her from her room to find she had dark shadows under her eyes, and when questioned she admitted she hadn’t slept.
‘It’s the bed,’ she told him. ‘It’s too big and too cold and too…’
‘Too?’
‘Lonely.’ There. She’d said it. She looked at him, expecting to see laughter, but instead she saw concern.
‘Five-star hotels by yourself are a bit echoing,’ he agreed. ‘My suite’s just as barren. But I don’t think sharing’s an option, do you?’
‘No!’
‘Then we just get on with it. One more night and then home tomorrow…’
‘Home to your castle!’
He thought of the sumptuous guest room in the castle and frowned. ‘Do you find that just as lonely?’
‘I’m not homesick,’ she said, seeing what he was thinking. ‘I’m never homesick.’
‘No?’
‘No,’ she lied. ‘I’m enjoying myself. These clothes are…fabulous.’
‘We have bought some lovely things,’ he said gravely. ‘And there’s more to come.’
Her determined cheerfulness faltered. ‘I… Yes.’
‘You’re not enjoying the shopping either?’
‘I feel like a kept woman,’ she blurted out. ‘It’s awful. I don’t know that I’m going to be able to stand it for a year.’
‘Being a princess?’
‘Being a princess.’
He surveyed her face with caution. If he wasn’t careful he could blow it, and he knew it.
Most women would jump at the chance she was being offered, he thought, but he knew enough of her now to know that most women didn’t include Rose.
‘You can back out,’ he told her.
‘And then what?’
‘And then I’d lose my estate and Michael wouldn’t go to university.’
‘See? We’re up against a brick wall-both of us.’
‘It’s a comfortably padded brick wall,’ he said lightly, and she flushed and bit her lip.
‘I know. I’m being stupid.’
‘It’s harder for you than for me,’ he acknowledged. ‘I’m not being hauled out of my comfort zone.’
Penny-Rose thought that through and found flaws. ‘It’s not very comfortable, living on turnip soup,’ she said, and he smiled. She had courage.
And the only way through this was through it.
‘Breakfast?’ He proffered his arm.
‘Oh, yup, why not? A smorgasbord of two hundred different dishes…’
‘Don’t tell me you’d prefer a baguette.’
‘Well, actually…’
‘Actually, yes?’
And there was only one answer to that. The choice in the hotel’s lavish restaurant simply overwhelmed her. ‘Yes.’
He looked her up and down, and then he sighed. ‘Come on,’ he said in exasperation. ‘Breakfast here is the most magnificent that Paris has to offer, but don’t mind that. Let’s turn our backs on the Carlon’s stupendous breakfast and go find ourselves a baguette.’
‘Alastair…’
But he was brooking no argument. ‘I can slum it with the best of them,’ he told her. His arm linked with hers and held. ‘Just watch me.’
CHAPTER FIVE
SO INSTEAD of eating the hotel’s sumptuous breakfast they found a patisserie and Alastair proceeded to show Penny-Rose that he had absolutely no idea what slumming meant. As a peasant, he failed miserably. Penny-Rose’s simple baguette was simply not enough, not faced with the choice of Paris’s magnificent pastries.
So while she watched in open-mouthed amazement, he proceeded to buy one of everything he could see. A baguette, croissants and mouth-watering pastries filled with fruit, something chocolate that Penny-Rose, with her limited French, decided was called Death by Explosion, and more…
Then there was coffee in huge take-away mugs, the smell of which made her mouth water.
They emerged finally from their patisserie to find piles of grapes and mandarins on a next-door stall. Ignoring her protests-‘You’ve dragged me away from the Hotel Carlon’s breakfast, woman-you can let me buy what I want’-he loaded them with so much breakfast they were having trouble carrying it. And Penny-Rose was caught between laughter and exasperation.
She was given time for neither. ‘Now to the Bois de Boulogne,’ Alastair decreed. ‘It’s the closest.’
It was also the loveliest.
The sun was already warm with the promise of a magnificent day to come. The park was filled with mothers and pushchairs, elderly couples sitting soaking up the sun, and small children playing tag or racing with balloons…
In true royal fashion Alastair found a tree and claimed it as their own. He signalled to someone in the distance, and before she knew it there were two deckchairs set up for their comfort.
‘Now…’ Alastair surveyed his scene with satisfaction. ‘Breakfast as Parisians do it.’
‘Oh, right. Parisian princes, would that be?’
‘You don’t like this either?’ His face fell ludicrously and it was all Penny-Rose could do not to laugh.
But he was watching her with such an expression of anxiety on his face-and the sun was warm on hers-and it was Paris in the springtime and the coffee smelled tantalising and the pastries were exquisite…