‘Yes,’ Alastair said strongly, and with the same flash of insight that had seen her homesickness, he knew this was the only sensible thing to do. ‘Of course we’re keeping the dog. Why not?’
The cab driver took them to the nearest veterinarian.
‘Not to the animal shelter?’ Penny-Rose asked, and Alastair shook his head. For some reason he was unsure what to say-they were both in unfamiliar territory.
So they stayed silent while the vet clucked over the little dog, cleaned and stitched the gash on his side, examined his leg and told them the pup was starving but the leg itself was just badly bruised.
‘Take him home and give him a light meal-not too much as his stomach won’t be accustomed to big feeds. Look after him well, Madame.’
The vet smiled, speaking in halting English. Normally this man didn’t deign to use English-it was his opinion that foreigners should speak French in France-but there was something about Penny-Rose that made a man want to help all he could. Her halting thanks in French had made him smile. ‘Though I have no need to tell you to take care of him,’ he said gently. ‘I believe you are doing so already.’
Unlike the photographer, he didn’t ask if she intended keeping him. That was assumed.
But she’d been thinking, and there were problems.
‘I don’t think I can take him,’ she faltered as they emerged again to the streets of Paris. She looked up and found Alastair’s eyes gravely watchful. ‘At the end of the year I need to go home. The quarantine between here and Australia takes months.’
‘What’s a few months between friends?’ Alastair smiled. OK, if he was getting committed, he might as well get really committed. To a dog, mind, he told himself hastily. Just to a dog! ‘If there are problems, I’ll look after him when you go.’ He looked down at the disreputable mutt, the pup looked mournfully back and Alastair’s grin broadened. OK. Commitment here didn’t seem too hard. ‘My castle could do with an aristocratic hound as watch dog.’
‘Alastair…’ Penny-Rose caught her breath at the enormity of his offer. She felt like she’d been handed the crown jewels. ‘You’re kidding?’
‘Would I kid about something that means so much?’
She stared up at him, and something caught in her throat. Penny-Rose had never been handed a gift like this in her life. Gifts weren’t something that came in her direction-ever.
With a struggle she kept her voice light, though she felt tears of gratitude welling and it was all she could do to fight them back. ‘An…an aristocratic hound,’ she managed. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘He’ll do.’
She thought about this. ‘As I’ll do for a wife. Make-believe until the real thing comes along.’
‘That’s right.’ He was looking at her strangely, and her insides were kicking-hard.
Someone had to be practical.
Penny-Rose had to be practical! It was the only way if she wasn’t going to sink into the man’s chest and sob.
‘Well, let’s go, then.’ She set her chin with resolution. ‘Take us home. Your temporary wife and your aristocratic hound. You’re getting yourself quite a collection, Alastair de Castaliae.’
‘I believe I am,’ Alastair murmured.
And he didn’t look like a man fighting against the odds one bit.
To her surprise their cab didn’t take them back to Hotel Carlon.
‘I’ve arranged something different,’ Alastair told her as they drove in the opposite direction. ‘While you were trying on knickers, I made a few phone calls and had our bags moved.’ He grinned. ‘Maybe it’s just as well. Something tells me Scruffy will be more comfortable there.’
‘Scruffy…’ She was confused, but recovering. ‘Who are you calling Scruffy?’
‘Not you.’ Alastair’s eyes teased her. ‘Though come to think of it…’ At the look in her eyes he held up his hands in mock defence. ‘No. The pup. Of course I mean the pup. Scruffy.’
‘His name,’ she said with injured dignity, ‘is not Scruffy.’
‘Well, what else would you call him?’
Scruffy! Humph. ‘His name is Leo.’ With her equilibrium almost restored, with it came decisiveness. She raised her eyebrows with aristocratic hauteur, a princess in the making. ‘It means king.’
‘A king.’ He sounded stunned. ‘Like in Leo the lion?’ He looked down at the bandaged, bedraggled mutt in her arms, his lips twitched and he nodded. ‘Oh, right. I see it.’
‘You will.’ She smiled. ‘Just wait until he recovers.’
‘So I have a Leo and a Rose,’ he told her, but he was half talking to himself. ‘What next?’
What next indeed?
What next was introducing her to their hotel, which was pure pleasure. Penny-Rose walked through unassuming street doors and was stunned into silence, but this time it wasn’t grandeur that was taking her breath away. It was loveliness.
The hotel’s two floors were sedate and low. Built in pink-washed stone, the buildings circled a cobbled courtyard. French windows opened out to the garden, and her first impression was the fluttering of soft drapes in the evening air.
And that air was gorgeous! The courtyard was a mass of flowers. Wisteria clung to hundred-year-old vines, there were early roses, delicate pink tulips, soft blue forget-me-nots… And more.
The hotel itself looked almost inconspicuous in the garden setting. Chairs and tables were scattered under the trees, comfortable and inviting. There was a well-used birdbath, a sculpture of a woman drooping over a fishpond; there was the gurgle of running water behind…
This was just fabulous, Penny-Rose decided, and when Alastair showed her to her room-no porters here-it was even better. Her bedroom was simplicity itself, its major adornment being the window-framed courtyard. There was crisp white linen, fluffy white towels, a bath with no fancy gadgets at all, mounds and mounds of pillows and…
A dog basket!
She looked an astonished question at Alastair. How had he managed this?
‘I told Madame what our problem was,’ he told her. ‘She moves fast. Someone will be here any minute with minced steak for Leo.’
‘Oh, Alastair…’ She found herself suddenly close to tears again. Drat the man. She didn’t give way to emotion-she never gave way to emotion-and here he was unsettling her as no one else could.
As usual, when things got too much for her she resorted to practical matters. Or tried to. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply. ‘But…’ She glanced at her watch. It was well past eight and even her own stomach was rumbling. ‘How…how can we eat?’
‘We’re in the middle of the best eating district in Paris. We can eat any time we want.’
She bit her lip. He’d done so much already, and this was hard. ‘I mean… I can’t leave Leo.’
‘Now, how did I know you’d say that?’ He smiled down at her, that heart-stopping smile that made her insides do somersaults. ‘No problem. While you feed Leo I’ll make a foray out into the big, bad world and bring us back food. We can eat in the courtyard.’
‘Two picnics in one day!’
He nodded. ‘I can handle it. Can you?’
‘Yes. Oh, yes.’
She couldn’t think of anything more perfect.
CHAPTER SIX
SO WHILE Leo, fed and cuddled and exhausted, slept as he’d never slept in his life before, his new owners ate pâté de fois gras, then succulent beef, cooked to perfection in a rich Burgundy sauce, with tiny button mushrooms and crusty bread to soak up the juice. Followed by cheeses…
By the time the last of the main meal was gone, Penny-Rose knew she’d been to heaven and back. This was food at its most exquisite served in take-away containers as if it were everyday food.
And there was more! With the air of a magician conjuring up a rabbit or two, Alastair poured a rich, crimson wine that was full of the sunlight of late harvest, and when he produced bite-sized meringues, luscious strawberries and lashings of clotted cream, she could hardly believe her eyes. She’d never eaten like this.