Leo, bored with sitting on the settee with his owner, jumped down and nosed over to the bed. He leapt onto the covers and curled into the crook of Marguerite’s arm.
‘Maybe we could buy you a pup to keep you company,’ Penny-Rose suggested, and Marguerite’s face stilled.
‘I don’t need a dog.’
‘Do you have many friends in Paris?’
Alastair frowned. Was this any of Rose’s business?
But Marguerite was sighing, preparing to open up to Penny-Rose as she never talked to him.
‘I only moved to Paris after my husband died. But I have…I have a beautiful apartment. Belle decorated it for me.’
Oh, great. She could imagine. A big, elegant apartment, modern and chic and sterile as hell. ‘But not company?’
‘I don’t know many people yet…’
‘Then move back here,’ Penny-Rose said cheerfully. ‘Decide to stay here permanently.’ She cast a quick glance at Alastair and saw she had his approval. ‘Leo and I need company. It’d be great.’
‘That’d be lovely dear, but…’
‘But?’
Marguerite looked at her son, and then looked away. ‘It’d be worse,’ she said softly. ‘I’d stay for twelve months and then you’d leave and Belle would come. And Belle and I don’t…don’t get along.’
‘Belle likes you,’ Alastair protested, but Marguerite shook her head.
‘Belle’s a woman who can’t share. Whereas Penny-Rose…’ She smiled fondly at her future daughter-in-law. ‘Penny-Rose even shares her dog.’
‘Certainly, if it means I can get a night’s sleep without someone scratching his hindquarters in my face.’ Penny-Rose grinned. ‘So, yep, I’m extraordinarily generous, and willing to be more so. Stay with us.’
‘No.’ Marguerite shook her head. ‘As soon as the wedding’s over, I’ll return to Paris.’
‘If you’re better,’ Alastair growled, and she nodded.
‘I’ll be better. For your wedding I must be.’ Her scheming look reappeared. ‘But speaking of weddings, I was telling Penny-Rose when you came in. I have a surprise.’
‘I don’t trust your surprises,’ Alastair said cautiously, and his mother flashed him her most innocent of looks.
‘That’s a dreadful thing to say. As if I’d do anything you mightn’t like.’
His look of foreboding deepened. ‘What have you done?’
‘It’s my wedding present to you both. I’ve booked you a honeymoon.’
‘A honeymoon…’ Alastair took a deep breath and looked sideways at Rose. ‘We’re not going on a honeymoon.’
‘Of course you are,’ his mother said, turning businesslike. ‘Everyone needs a honeymoon, and you’re looking grey with exhaustion. Isn’t he, Penny-Rose?’
Penny-Rose could only agree. ‘Yes, but-’
‘There you are.’ Marguerite beamed. ‘She agrees. And I’ll bet Penny-Rose has never been on a decent holiday in her life. Have you, dear?’
‘No, but-’
‘You’re not refusing to take your wife on a holiday?’ Marguerite demanded of her son. ‘Especially as it’s already booked.’ She shifted Leo to retrieve a handful of pamphlets which had been lying on the coverlet. ‘These came with this morning’s post. Don’t they look wonderful?’
Penny-Rose looked at what she was holding up-and was caught.
‘Koneata Lau…’
‘It’s the most beautiful resort in the world,’ Marguerite told her. ‘It’s part of Fiji, but it’s a tiny cluster of separate islands, and you book your own island. This is the one I’ve booked for you.’
She opened a pamphlet to poster size, and a vision of sparkling seas, palm trees, golden beaches and tiny thatched cottages caught Penny-Rose’s imagination like nothing else could have.
A beach…
‘I’ve never been to the beach,’ Penny-Rose whispered before she could stop herself. ‘Not properly. Not to swim. Not to stay.’
‘You’ve never been to the beach?’ asked Marguerite in surprise.
‘None of us has,’ she confessed. ‘We lived a hundred miles inland and there was never money or time for holidays.’ She took a deep breath and pushed the thought away.
‘But no. Marguerite, it looks gorgeous, and thank you, but no. Honeymoons aren’t for crazy marriages like ours.’
She flashed an uncertain glance at Alastair. A honeymoon would be pushing him too far and too fast, she thought. She had every intention of trying to make this marriage work, but this was a bit much.
‘Besides, there’s Leo,’ she added, as if that clinched it. ‘I couldn’t leave him.’
But Marguerite had an answer for that. ‘Henri and I will look after Leo as if he’s our own,’ she said, scratching a floppy and adoring ear. ‘The staff are besotted by this dog of yours.’ They were, too. In the weeks since his arrival, Leo had crept around the collective castle hearts like a hairy worm.
But that wasn’t the issue here. The honeymoon was.
Beaches… Palm trees… A honeymoon with Alastair… It was a fantasy. Nothing more. But it was
She had to get away from these brochures!
‘My sisters and brother will be here tomorrow,’ she told them, and she couldn’t stop her voice from sounding a trifle desperate. ‘I can hardly get married and leave them to fend for themselves. It wouldn’t be fair.’
‘You intend to entertain your siblings on your honeymoon?’ Marguerite was aghast.
‘This is their holiday.’ Penny-Rose looked at Alastair, but his face gave nothing away. This was up to her. ‘They…they work hard, too, and Alastair’s offer of a trip here is unbelievable.’ She tilted her chin and ignored Alastair’s silence. ‘It’ll be fun, showing them around.’
‘You can hardly take your family sightseeing when you’re just married,’ Marguerite said, shaking her head. Beside her, Alastair’s face didn’t reveal one hint of what he was thinking, and it was starting to make Penny-Rose nervous.
But she had to be firm. For both of them. She set her chin in a manner both Alastair and his mother were starting to know. ‘Alastair will have work to do, and we don’t intend to hang in each other’s pockets.’ Then she cast one more wistful glance at the posters. One last look! ‘So no. Thank you very much, but no.’
She rose and managed a smile at both of them, albeit a shaky one.
‘I’ll leave you to each other’s company. I…have things to do.’
Only, of course, she didn’t.
She just needed to get away from the strange expression on Alastair’s face.
It was an hour later that Alastair found her.
Strangely unsettled, Penny-Rose had headed up to the battlements. Now she sat on the parapets, hugging her knees and staring out over the countryside below.
Thinking of beaches. And hopeless marriages.
And Alastair!
He found her there. She hadn’t heard him climb the stairs, and for a moment he stood in the sunshine and watched her face as she stared out away from him.
She looked bleak, he thought. And why not? She’d spent her life denying herself, and here she was denying herself again.
That one phrase had been enough to give him pause. When she’d left, Alastair had stood with his mother, staring down at the pamphlets.
He had so much…
So would she, he’d told himself. In a year she could afford to go to any beach she wanted.
