‘You didn’t!’ Alastair said, awed, and she managed a smile.
‘You have no idea what you can do when you’re desperate. Only then…after the first time I threatened that, he started calling me Penny instead of Penelope. He said I was constantly grubbing for money so I might as well be named for it. I hated that, too. So, behind his back, the kids started calling me Penny-Rose.’
‘I see…’
‘And it’s sort of stuck,’ she told him. ‘And maybe it fits me. Penelope Rose is on my passport and job application, but when I got the job with Bert they said I was such a two-bit thing they’d call me Penny-Rose.’ She smiled. ‘’Cos I surely wasn’t a two-bob Rose.’
There was silence as he took that on board. The waiter came and cleared their plates, but still Alastair didn’t speak.
‘I don’t think you’re a two-bob Rose either,’ he said at last, and he couldn’t quite keep the emotion out of his voice. He looked at her across the table and he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. All this… His mother had told him her background, but until now it had hardly seemed true.
‘I don’t think you’re a two-bob Rose either,’ he repeated. ‘I refuse to call you Penny. Or Penelope. I think you’re a Rose, and a million-pound Rose at that. A Princess Rose. You deserve it, and marriage to me might just make sure that you get it. From this time on…’ His voice caught with sudden, unexpected emotion. ‘From this time on, you’re Rose.’
‘Rose…’
‘Don’t you like it?’
‘Yeah, but it doesn’t sound like me.’ She grinned. ‘It sounds too dignified.’
‘You can live up to your name.’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘If you want to…’
The main course arrived then, giving them welcome time out. Penny-Rose-or just Rose-was never going to be distracted from food like this, not for all the princes in the world.
Before her was roast duckling, snow peas and crispy roast potatoes, served with a jus that made her mouth water before she even saw it. Penny-Rose-cum-Rose forgot all about dignity and concentrated on what was important.
Which was a novelty in itself to Alastair. He wasn’t accustomed to taking a woman out to dinner and having all her attention focussed on the food!
He sat and watched, bemused, waiting for the moment when she’d scraped her plate clean, and then turned back to more mundane questions. Like marriage proposals.
She turned straight back to practicalities.
‘I can see you have a problem marrying Belle,’ she said at last, popping a final snow pea into her mouth and savouring it with regret that it was the last. ‘But why did you choose me as an alternative? I’d imagine there must be lots of nice, virtuous girls in your principality.’
‘Um, yes.’ He seemed discomfited and she pressed home her point.
‘So why did you choose to investigate my background?’
‘You were my mother’s choice.’
‘Oh, right. And you always do what your mother tells you?’
He grinned. ‘Always.’
‘Why don’t I believe you?’
‘In this instance I think she’s done very well.’
‘But why me?’ she pressed again.
He hesitated, but decided he might as well be honest. ‘Because you’re Australian.’
She frowned at that. ‘You’ll have to explain.’
‘At the end of our marriage,’ he told her, playing with the cutlery still lying on the table, ‘you’ll need to walk away. I don’t want television and newspapermen in your face for the rest of your life. I’d imagine you don’t want that either.’
‘No,’ she said, startled.
‘This marriage will create publicity.’ He paused. ‘You know I’ve been engaged to be married before?’
‘I did know that,’ she said, a trace of sympathy entering her voice. This man stood to inherit the rulership of this tiny country and you couldn’t cross the border without hearing the gossip. ‘Her name was Lissa and she was killed in a car crash three years ago.’
‘With my father.’
‘I’d heard that as well.’ Her face softened still further. ‘I’m sorry.’
He shrugged off her sympathy. He didn’t need it. He just needed to make her see why it mattered. ‘Then maybe you’ll understand why I don’t want to get emotionally involved again.’
‘Hence Belle.’ She nodded wisely, thinking of what the gossip columnists said about Alastair’s companion. ‘I can see that, too.’
He heard the gentle criticism-the same concern that came from his mother when she asked whether he was sure he was doing the right thing-and it stung. ‘Belle will make me a very good wife.’
‘I’m sure she will.’
His eyes narrowed, but Penny-Rose’s face was cordiality itself.
‘Apart from the virtue bit,’ she added. ‘That’s hard. To be hit now for flings you had in your youth. So…’ She cocked her head. ‘You’re not in love with Belle?’
‘I’m not in love with anyone.’
‘No?’ She was like a brightly inquisitive sparrow, he thought, impossible to take offence at. But she was insistent. She was still waiting.
‘No. I’m not in love with anyone,’ he repeated stiffly. ‘After Lissa, it’s impossible.’
‘Lissa was some lady?’
‘We were second cousins and we grew up together,’ he told her, his voice softening. ‘We were the best of friends.’
He received a probing look as Penny-Rose thought this through. ‘So… You’re thirty-two now, and you didn’t get engaged until three years ago. They say you’d only just become engaged when she was killed. And you and Lissa were friends for years.’ She paused and thought it through some more. ‘Then after years of friendship, passion suddenly overtook you so you decided to marry?’
He frowned at that, and fingered his wineglass, sending shards of candlelight glistening through the Burgundy. ‘Aged almost thirty, we realised how good friendship could be.’
‘So you weren’t in love with Lissa either?’
His face darkened. ‘I loved Lissa.’ And from the way he’d said it, she was sure it was the truth. But maybe he hadn’t loved her as a man could love a woman. Or…as she’d always hoped a man could love a woman.
For heaven’s sake… What would she know? she thought suddenly. Maybe what she was thinking of was a romantic dream. It was a dream she’d always had at the back of her mind, but still just a dream for all that.
She could hardly probe any further down that road, but there was still something not quite right. She sipped her wine and wrinkled her freckled nose. ‘And Belle?’ she pressed. ‘She’s a friend, too?’
‘Not like Lissa was, but…’ Alastair hesitated, but this was a major commitment he was asking of this woman, and it was important for him to be honest. He knew that. If she agreed, she had to know exactly what she was letting herself in for. ‘Belle’s an interior decorator-a partner with my Paris architectural firm. She knows what I expect in a woman, she entertains my clients magnificently and she doesn’t interfere with my need for privacy.’
‘Your need for privacy! That’s a wonderful basis for a marriage-I don’t think.’ Her words were out before she could hide the revulsion in her voice, and he heard it. His brows snapped down in anger.
‘Privacy and mutual support is all either Belle or I need.’
‘I…I understand.’ Penny-Rose did, too, and the thought made a shudder run down her spine. He saw, and his frown deepened even further.
‘You’re cold?’
‘How could I be cold?’ It was the most beautiful spring evening. But his concern was warming, she thought. Nice.
‘So let me get this right,’ she continued. ‘You want me to play the fairy-tale princess for a year, then at the end of it to calmly apply for a divorce, hitch up my socks and walk out of here. Leaving you to Belle.’
‘I wouldn’t have put it quite like that but, yes. That sums it up.’
‘And Belle?’ Penny-Rose toyed with her wineglass. ‘How does she feel about it? If it were me,’ she said carefully, ‘I wouldn’t be happy about seeing my fiancé marry someone else first. In fact,’ she added honestly, ‘it’d be pistols at dawn if anyone made the attempt.’