His exasperation equalled his mother’s.
‘What’s-her-name can go alone.’
‘Excuse me,’ Penny-Rose said, grinning slightly at their matching belligerent expressions. They really were very alike. ‘But I…I suspect I might need some help. I don’t exactly have much experience in shopping.’
They stopped glaring at each other and turned their stunned attention to her.
‘No experience in shopping.’ Marguerite gasped. ‘Oh, my dear…’ She sounded as if she’d just heard Penny-Rose had been deprived of something of major importance. Like a leg.
‘So where did you find the dress you’re wearing?’ Alastair demanded in disbelief. All women shopped!
‘Actually, I made it myself. I sew all my own clothes.’
That stunned them even more. Alastair stared at her as if she’d announced that she’d come from another planet.
‘You’re kidding.’ Sewing your own clothes… He’d hardly heard of such a thing.
‘I’m not kidding.’ She met his look head on, defiant. ‘I don’t just stone-wall. I have other skills, too.’ She grinned. ‘I can also whistle loud enough to call the kids home from a mile away. Want to hear?’ And she put two fingers to her mouth and prepared to whistle.
‘No!’ Marguerite and Alastair spoke as one, and she chuckled and desisted, but Alastair was still looking at her dress in awe.
‘But…’ His critical eyes appraised her workmanship and found no fault at all. ‘It’s lovely.’
She twinkled. ‘Thank you.’
He was still having trouble believing her. ‘And…your overalls?’
‘I made them, too.’
‘You really have never shopped for clothes?’
‘Sometimes at welfare places,’ she said diffidently. ‘But not…not at real clothes shops.’
‘Oh, Alastair!’ Marguerite’s eyes were shining. ‘What fun. To introduce your bride to shopping!’
‘To introduce your future daughter-in-law to shopping,’ he retorted, but despite himself his imagination was caught. ‘I don’t suppose…’ His thoughts were heading off at all sorts of wondrous tangents. A woman who’d never shopped…it was almost unbelievable. ‘Things like lacy negligees and so on…’ he said slowly. ‘I can hardly help her there.’
‘Of course you can,’ his mother said soundly. ‘Now…you’re to leave tomorrow morning. You’re to stay at the Hotel Carlon, which Belle tells me is the most splendid hotel in Paris. You’re to spend a fortune and you’re to have a very good time. That’s an order. Any questions?’
‘No, ma’am,’ Penny-Rose said faintly. ‘Except…’ She blinked. ‘There’s Bert. I need to ask Bert for a couple of days off.’
‘Bert and I have an arrangement,’ Alastair told her. ‘He’s a very understanding boss-and employee.’
That didn’t please her. ‘You mean you’ll just bribe him to keep me on the team with no questions asked.’
‘I need do no such thing. He’s not about to sack you.’
‘He mustn’t. If I lose my spot on the team…’
‘Because you’re out buying frilly knickers…’
‘If you so much as tell him that…’ She was aghast.
‘I won’t.’ Alastair smiled at her.
Drat! His smile was really starting to get to her. For heaven’s sake-she’d been living in Alastair’s home for only two days. She had over a year of this mock marriage to go, but there was something very strange going on already. Every time the man smiled at her, something in the deeper recesses of her middle did some sort of stupid lurch…
It was just that he was so darned attractive, she thought wildly, and the number of deeply attractive men she’d spent any time with in her life numbered approximately zero.
Or maybe it was just that she hadn’t had time to notice, she decided, forcing herself to be practical. Maybe there were plenty of gorgeous guys out there, and after this wedding farce was over-after her twelve-month marriage-maybe she could see for herself…
With her frilly knickers!
The thought made her grin, and Alastair saw it and smiled back.
‘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
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.’
