that. The locals say you’re engaged to some woman up in the house. Well, then. You hang onto her and leave our Penny-Rose alone. Bigamy is something I don’t hold with and never shall, and if you so much as come near our lass-’
‘This isn’t bigamy.’
‘Look, I don’t know what your rules are-’
‘I imagine my rules are exactly the same as yours,’ Alastair said wearily, and once again his fingers raked his hair. He looked like he was finding this impossible. ‘I’m not intending to marry twice. Or…not at once.’
This was getting crazier and crazier.
‘What we want here,’ Bert said conversationally, and speaking to the world in general, ‘is a strait-jacket. Anyone got one?’
Amazingly, it was Penny-Rose who came to the prince’s defence. That last gesture of his had got to her. For some reason this didn’t seem like someone making indecent propositions. This seemed like a man at the end of his tether.
‘Give him a break, Bert.’ She rose and shrugged off some dirt. Then she stood back so there was distance-and Bert-between them, but her eyes met Alastair’s and held.
And her chin tilted. This was the look she used when she was meeting trouble head on, and she had a feeling she was meeting it now.
This man’s trouble.
‘Let him say what he wants,’ she told her boss. ‘He isn’t making sense, but we might as well listen.’
The silence stretched out under the afternoon sun, and in the stillness Penny-Rose was aware that Alastair’s gaze never left hers. Their eyes were locked, and it was as if there were questions being asked-and answered- without words being spoken.
And whatever the questions were, her answers must have satisfied him because he gave a slight nod, as if he’d come to a final decision. Some of the confusion left his face.
‘It could work.’
‘What could work?’ Bert asked belligerently, and Penny-Rose laid a hand on her boss’s arm.
‘Let him say.’
And he did. ‘I’m serious,’ he said at last, his eyes still fixed on hers. ‘I don’t have a choice. If I don’t marry a lady of unimpeachable virtue, this entire estate will be split.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Bert told him.
‘It’s the terms of the old prince’s will,’ Alastair said wearily. ‘If I don’t make such a marriage then the estate will be sold and, no matter how I look at it, there’s no way I can buy it. God knows, I’ve tried every way over the past couple of months, but the thing’s impossible. I’d assume the castle itself will go to the government and be opened to the public as a tourist venue, but the acreage around here will be split up.’
Bert frowned, but he wasn’t too surprised. He’d heard the rumours. ‘And the village?’
‘That’s the hard part,’ Alastair told him. ‘It’s the reason I’m considering such a marriage. There are over a hundred families living around the estate. All of those homes will have to be sold, and the cousins who stand to inherit stipulate that they’ll be sold on the open market.’ He paused and gazed around him, over the river banks to the village beyond. ‘I guess you’ve realised by now how desirable this place is?’
It was. The Castaliae estate contained a fairy-tale village built on the cliffs of one of the most picturesque rivers in the world.
But it still wasn’t making sense. Bert was still confused.
‘So?’ Bert demanded.
‘So they’ll be sold for a fortune,’ Alastair said simply. ‘We know that. It’s already happened to villages like ours that haven’t been protected by one landlord. The locals are well enough off, but they’re not so wealthy that they can match the prices of city dwellers and overseas interests.’
He sighed, his gaze returning from the far-off village to the girl before him. Now he was talking directly to her. ‘If I can’t save it, the village will be deserted in winter and filled with wealthy tourists and designer shops in the summer. The locals will have to move away. They can’t bear it, and I can’t bear it. So I’m asking you, Penny-Rose, to marry me. If you’ll have me.’
More silence.
Penny-Rose’s gaze didn’t waver. She took him in. Not just his amazing good looks, but the grubbiness of his clothes-he wasn’t nearly as dirty as she was, but he obviously hadn’t had time to change since he’d been out working with his farm manager this morning-the tension of his stance and the dark shadows under his eyes. He looked like a man close to breaking point.
Then, finally, she allowed herself to look around, at the land he was talking of.
This estate went on for ever. The castle itself was built into the cliff overlooking the river, and at the base of the cliff was a tiny village. Penny-Rose was boarding with a family there, and they thought of this man as their landlord.
But this was indeed a fairy-tale village, with its soft sandstone buildings set into the cliffs on the gently flowing river. Alastair was right. Tourists would outbid any villagers for their homes. And if he couldn’t bear to have the villagers evicted, she could understand why not.
‘It’s a stupid clause,’ she said at last, and Alastair nodded.
‘It is. My uncle put it in place because my cousin was…wild. What it did was to stop Louis marrying at all, and then Louis died just three months after his father.’
‘So why don’t you just do what Louis did? Not marry?’ It seemed a reasonable solution. Surely the gorgeous Belle could be talked into being a mistress only-with so much money at stake!
‘I can’t inherit unless I marry.’
‘But Louis inherited.’
Alastair shook his head, and the impression of weariness intensified. ‘Louis never formally inherited, and the cousins started legal action to recover the property. His death forestalled that, and legal opinion is that the estate and the title is now mine-as long as I
‘And…your Belle’s not a lady of virtue?’ Bert butted in. He had things in his stride here-almost. His fierce intelligence was working overtime. ‘No?’
‘Belle’s a wonderful woman,’ Alastair said quickly. ‘But there are…shadows…in her past.’
‘I’d imagine there might be.’ Bert’s team had little time for a woman they’d decided from the first was prone to giving herself airs. On the first few days of working here there’d been a wall collapse on one of the men. Belle had been seen at the window, watching, but hadn’t enquired as to the state of Steve’s health or even sent down to ask whether she should contact an ambulance.
With Bert carrying a cellphone, her disinterest had been a minor enough offence and hadn’t mattered, but it had rankled.
‘What…?’ Bert said slowly, his eyes moving from Penny-Rose to Alastair and back again. ‘What makes you think our lass here is any different? Virtue-wise, that is?’
‘Hey!’ Penny-Rose said, shocked into comment. ‘Can we leave my virtue out of it?’
‘Well, that’s it. We can’t,’ Alastair said heavily. ‘My mother-’
‘I might have known she’d come into it somewhere.’ Bert seemed to be almost enjoying himself now. He had the solid workman’s view of the aristocracy, and he didn’t mind this man’s discomfort. ‘Now, there’s a lady of virtue.’
Marguerite, when she’d heard of the same accident a day later, had been horrified and had sent every possible comfort to Steve. Settled into the local hospital with a broken foot, Steve had appreciated the attention very much indeed, and so had his mates on his behalf.
‘My mother’s a lady who thinks ahead,’ Alastair told them. ‘While I’ve been seeing to the everyday running of the estate and trying to figure out financial ways of saving it, she’s been figuring out the only logical way. Which is marrying Penny-Rose. For a year.’
‘But-’
‘Like I said, it’s a business proposition.’ Alastair spread his hands. ‘I know this sounds intrusive, but my mother had Penny-Rose’s background checked. She’s employed investigators, and there’s now little she doesn’t know. In every respect, this is the sort of woman I need.’
He paused, and then said in a softer tone, avoiding Penny-Rose’s eye, ‘My mother also says she badly needs
