A Royal Proposition

this sensation run where it would, letting it take its own sweet course and be damned with the consequences.

The kiss grew deeper. Neither could break the moment-break the contact. It was too precious. Too infinitely valuable.

It was as unexpected as it was magical.

‘M’sieur…’

The voice came from below, echoing up toward the open door of the battlements. Henri must have seen Alastair come up and was calling for him. ‘M’sieur, are you there?’

With his feet, it would have been agonising for the old butler to climb the spiral staircase, but they heard the heavy tread as he started.

It was enough.

Penny-Rose broke away. For one long moment Alastair still held her, his hands on her arms and his gaze locked on hers. Their eyes reflected mutual confusion, mutual need.

But…

‘I’m coming, Henri,’ Alastair called, halting the man before he could do himself any damage. ‘What is it?’

‘Your friend from Paris is on the phone,’ Henri announced. He didn’t need to say more. The staff hadn’t taken to Belle, and Henry used the same words and inflection every time she rang. Your friend from Paris…

Belle. It had to be. As usual, her timing was impeccable.

They both knew who it was, and the moment Henri spoke it was as if Belle had planted herself firmly between them. Alastair let his hands fall.

‘I’m…I’m sorry,’ he managed, and Penny-Rose shook her head. It needed only that. An apology.

‘Don’t be. I had no business to kiss you.’

‘I never meant-’

‘Of course you didn’t.’

He looked at her uncertainly. ‘It was just… I was worried about my mother and-’

‘Don’t explain things to me, Alastair,’ she said gently. Because he couldn’t.

Penny-Rose had to let him off the hook. He was confused and angry with himself. She could see that. He’d broken his unwritten rule.

This hadn’t been a kiss that could be forgotten. It had been very much more.

Penny-Rose knew how much more.

But Alastair would have to discover it for himself.

Talk about avoidance! If two people didn’t want to see each other, a castle was the perfect home, and over the next twenty-four hours a lot of avoidance took place.

Not deliberately, of course. Never that. But if Penny-Rose happened to be visiting Marguerite and Alastair decided to do the same, he’d hear her voice on the other side of the door and suddenly think of an urgent task down in the offices. Or there was a cow in trouble in the river pasture that he felt sure his farm manager needed a hand with-and it just happened to be dinner-time when it happened.

Or he’d be eating his leftover dinner in the kitchen and hear Henri and Rose walking down the passage toward him-and suddenly he’d had enough to eat. He was no longer hungry.

This was going to be some marriage if he couldn’t face the girl!

‘Keep it formal,’ Belle had said, and he knew he had to do just that. Anything else was the way of madness.

He was not going to lose his head like a stupid schoolboy. He was not exposing himself to the pain he’d known when he’d lost Lissa. And what he’d felt for Lissa seemed pale to how he could love-

No! Stupid thought.

Keep it formal. Or keep away entirely.

For twelve months?

He could only try.

It was madness, Penny-Rose thought bleakly to herself as she tried for sleep that night. Loving and marrying without being loved in return?

For the first time she let herself think what would happen if her loving didn’t work. What if nothing came of it but cold formality and divorce after twelve months?

‘I could go nuts,’ she told Leo. ‘Seriously, peculiarly nuts.

‘Or maybe I am already. Maybe I was nuts to agree to this wedding.

‘And now a honeymoon.’

But she wasn’t backing out. No way.

And money didn’t enter the equation at all.

‘He’s a dish, but he’s awfully formal.’ Twenty-four hours into their visit her siblings were ready to pronounce judgement. ‘Why doesn’t he lighten up a little?’

‘He’s a prince. He’s supposed to be formal,’ Penny-Rose retorted, and got howled down for her pains.

‘I suppose he wears a crown to bed.’ It was Heather, ever the impertinent one. She chuckled, bouncing on her sister’s gorgeous bed where they’d retired to gossip. ‘What does he wear to bed, by the way? Gold pyjamas?’ And then, as Penny-Rose turned an interesting shade of pink, her sister homed in like a bee to honey. ‘You mean you don’t know?’ Her jaw dropped in amazement. ‘You’re engaged to be married and you don’t know what he wears to bed?’

‘Maybe he doesn’t wear anything to bed,’ Elizabeth butted in, and Penny-Rose sighed. Honestly, her sisters were incorrigible.

‘Do you two mind? Mike’s here.’

‘Michael’s sixteen years old and sixteen-year-olds know more than you do,’ Heather retorted. ‘I’ll bet!’

It was Mike’s turn to blush, but still he grinned.

‘Does he lighten up?’ he persisted. Accompanying Penny-Rose, Alastair had met them off the plane. He’d been welcoming and pleasant but distant, and as soon as they’d reached the castle he’d excused himself, saying Rose needed time with her family. They’d hardly seen him since.

‘He’s busy,’ Penny-Rose said. ‘He has a wedding to organise the day after tomorrow, and it’s getting to him.’

But the question stayed the same. ‘Does he lighten up?’

‘He does.’

‘If you say so.’ Heather was fidgeting with her fingers. Finally she found the courage to say what needed to be said. ‘Love, you’re not just doing this for the money, are you? For…for us?’

If ever there was a time to admit that this was a marriage of convenience, this was it. But Penny-Rose gazed around at the anxious faces of her family and found she couldn’t do it. They were obligated to her enough, she thought. It wasn’t fair to make the debt deeper.

‘Stoopid, why would I-?’

‘You would.’ Heather sounded seriously perturbed. ‘I know you would. It’s been getting harder and harder for us all to stay at uni, and the burden’s been heaviest on you. But I can leave. I can defer for a couple of years.’

‘You’d never go back.’

‘I would.’

‘The odds are against it.’ Penny-Rose spread her hands. ‘I love stone-walling and that’s what I’m doing. We’re all doing what we want. So…you’re going to be a doctor, Liz will be an architect and Mike will be the world’s greatest engineer.’

‘But…’ Heather was still threading her fingers. ‘Not if it means you’re making an unhappy marriage.’ Her chin lifted and her eyes met her sister’s. Really, they were very alike. ‘Do you love him?’ she asked directly.

And there was only one answer to that.

‘Yes, I do,’ Penny-Rose said, in a voice that left no room for doubt.

And how could she doubt? Marriage to Alastair? It was what she wanted, even more than stone-walling.