‘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.
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?
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.
