fight with everything she possessed and then more.
Well, maybe she didn’t have enough armoury to win this battle, but she knew where she’d start.
‘I don’t think I will buy a wedding dress,’ she told him, fighting to keep her voice casual and watching his face as she did.
He frowned, thrown off balance. ‘Why not?’ He hesitated, and the forlorn look she’d been wearing came back to him. ‘You’re not thinking of pulling out, are you?’ His voice was anxious. Hell, if she pulled out now… ‘You’ll still marry me?’
‘Now, what have you done in the last couple of hours to make me change my mind?’ she teased. ‘You’ve been a model fiance.’
The lurching in the pit of his stomach settled. A bit. ‘Gee, thanks.’
‘Think nothing of it.’ And then her smile died. ‘I’ve… It’s just I’ve been thinking about your mother’s offer.’ She bit her lip, hardly daring to go on, but her commitment had already been made, and she had no control over it now. She was suddenly playing for keeps and, whether Alastair knew it or not, his precious independence was in deadly trouble.
But she couldn’t tell him that. She had to keep her voice practical and sensible. As all her plans must be.
‘I’m tired of spending your money, and I’m tired of shopping,’ she declared. ‘I’ve decided I’ll wear your grandmother’s wedding dress after all.’
‘But…’ He frowned. ‘I thought you objected to the idea. That it’s for my true wife to wear.’
‘Belle doesn’t want to wear it, and you said that’s what I’ll be,’ she told him. ‘Your legal wife. For a year.’
And however long I can manage, she told herself silently. From this day forward… For ever if I can manage it.
Penny-Rose lay in bed that night and thought, ‘What have I done?’
Beside her, Leo slept the sleep of the dead. Filled with food for maybe the first time in his life, his wounds eased with painkillers and his body snuggled into soft cushions, he lay beside his new mistress and thought he was in doggy heaven.
Her fingers trailed down to touch the pup’s wet nose, and she thought she was pretty much in the same place.
But not doggy heaven. Penny-Rose heaven.
‘He’s given me so much,’ she told the sleeping Leo, her conscience giving her a swift kick in the ribs. ‘He’s handed me a dream for a year. And he’s handed me you. It’s dreadful of me to go for more.’
But that was just what she was doing. Because somewhere during the last few days, something strange had happened. Her heart had been twisted and turned till she hardly knew herself.
‘I’ve fallen in love,’ she whispered. ‘So help me, Leo, I’ve fallen for the man. Now what?’
Fight?
‘Just try,’ she said to the darkened room. ‘Just…take this marriage as it comes but say my vows as if I mean them. And then cross every finger and every toe that I can work a little magic. See if I can change his formal Princess Rose into a Penny-Rose he can love.
‘And you’ll wear his mother’s wedding dress?’
She was questioning her own motives. Leo wuffled in his sleep and Penny-Rose grimaced and buried her nose in the soft pillows.
‘It’s very wrong.
‘But if you don’t try…
‘If you don’t try then Belle will end up with her prince,’ she told herself. ‘Or with
‘So what makes you think you can win his heart?
‘Nothing at all.’ She was two voices. The voice of reason and the voice of hope. ‘Nothing at all,’ she repeated into the stillness. ‘Oh, but, Leo, I can only try!
‘You’ll have to do more than try, girl.
‘I’ll do whatever it takes,’ she said, with a resolution she was far from sure of. ‘That and a bit more. Heaven help me, I can’t do anything else.’
She flicked on her light with sudden determination and crossed to where the day’s parcels had been stacked. In a minute she’d discarded her much-patched pyjamas and was standing in front of the mirror.
She was now wearing one of today’s purchases-a soft white nightgown of the sheerest silk. It was cut low across her breasts, it was embroidered white on white with tiny rosebuds and she’d never seen anything so exquisite in her life.
‘I can’t wear this,’ she told her reflection. ‘I bought this for the laundress.’
Her curls were tumbled to her shoulders, her face was tinged with a faint embarrassed pink and the reflection that looked at her was…
‘I’m not wasting this on the laundress,’ she addressed the sleeping Leo. She gave her reflection a rueful grimace. ‘It makes me look almost lovely.
‘Lovelier than Belle?’
She glowered. ‘It doesn’t matter how lovely Belle is. She doesn’t love him.’
And she herself did!
Alastair was sleeping just the other side of the wall. This was a suite, meant for a family. A door connected the rooms. All she had to do was turn the key on her side, and Alastair turn the key on his…
If I was a bit more brazen I’d knock, she thought suddenly, and then she gasped and took a step back as she realised where her thoughts were taking her. ‘Penny-Rose O’Shea… You hussy!’ she said aloud.
‘If that’s what it takes,’ her reflection answered her.
‘Nope.’ She slid the nightgown off and reached for her pyjamas. ‘I’m not into seduction.
‘So what are you into?
‘I’m into loving the man to bits,’ she responded to herself. ‘It’s all I have, and if that’s not enough…’
The nightie lay on the floor and mocked her.
‘We’ll see,’ she said, and grinned. ‘All’s fair in love and war. This is a combination of both!’
And in the next room, Alastair lay and stared at the ceiling with a lot more uncertainty. There were things going on in his life that he no longer understood.
It had all seemed so straightforward, he thought grimly. After Lissa’s death he’d made the decision to stay uninvolved, and he’d succeeded. His life was what he wanted.
He had a profession he was proud of. He had more than enough money. And he had Belle, available when he needed her, with the thought of a couple of children down the track.
Children…
They’d be quiet little things, he thought, conjuring them from the darkness. Maybe they’d have pigtails and hula hoops. Whatever, they’d be kids for his mother to pamper…
Marguerite deserved grandchildren.
He checked out his vision of his children-but something strange was happening. Instead of faceless prettiness, as there always had been, he now had Penny-Rose’s face before him.
Rose, he told himself. It’s Rose… Not Penny-Rose. It was stupid, but it was important somehow. He had to keep this formal.
So she was Rose. But why did his kids suddenly have Rose’s twinkle, and Rose’s cheekiness, and…?
For heaven’s sake, no! If they had personality like Penny-Rose-no,
It didn’t work. He’d watched his mother break her heart when his father had died, and his own gut had been wrenched enough when Lissa had been killed. Lissa had been such a good friend that the hurt had been dreadful.
So… It was a lesson he’d learned the hard way, but he’d learned it well. You don’t give your heart!
He wasn’t giving his heart now. This was a marriage of convenience.
What had Rose said? ‘The convenience of the employer comes first.’
That was what he was, he thought grimly. An employer. He was paying her to be his wife for a year, and
