He seemed nice, Penny-Rose thought inconsequentially. He also seemed exhausted, strained to the limit, but still very, very nice. His voice was deep and grave and soft, and he sounded as if he was concerned for her.
His English was excellent-well, it would be, as his mother was English. It was only his words that were troubled.
‘I’ll come to the point,’ he told her, speaking slowly as if measuring each word.
‘What my mother wishes to know-what we all wish to know-is whether or not you can be persuaded to marry me.’
For a long, long moment nothing stirred. She stared at them in turn, taking in each of their faces. All of them looked…for heaven’s sake, they looked as if they were serious!
‘You have to be joking,’ she said at last, and it was as much as she could do to find her voice. Her words came out a sort of high-pitched squeak. She coughed and tried again. ‘I mean…you are joking, right?’
‘I’m not joking.’ The look of strain on his face intensified. ‘Would I joke about something so serious?’
‘Yeah, right.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘Did you say marry?’
‘I said marry.’
‘Then you’re either having a laugh at my expense or you’re all about in the head,’ she said bluntly. ‘Either way, I don’t think I should stay.’ She gave them a last wild look. ‘I…I’ll see myself out, shall I?’
She didn’t wait for an answer. She took herself out of the door and out of the castle, without a backward glance.
CHAPTER TWO
THE prince found Penny-Rose an hour later, when she’d been persuaded, against her better judgement, to go back to work. She was sorting stones and Alastair came up behind her so suddenly that she missed a couple of heartbeats.
As before, his voice was deep and soft and calm-as if nothing lay between them at all.
‘Why do they call you Penny-Rose? Why not just Penelope or Penny? Or even Rose?’
As a question it was harmless enough, but the situation was ludicrous. She caught her breath, regretted her missed heartbeats-while this man was around she needed all the heartbeats she could get-sat back on her heels and glared.
The fact that his shirt was open at the throat and the sun was shining on the wispy curls on his chest didn’t help at all…
Good grief! Cut it out, she told herself. Put your hormones on the back burner!
‘Bert says I’m not to fraternise with the upper classes any more,’ she said frankly. ‘You’ve had your joke. If you want something else, ask Bert. Go away.’ Already she could see her boss rising from where he’d been working. He’d been disbelieving when she’d told him what had happened, and then he’d been furious.
‘It’s their idea of a sick joke,’ he’d said. ‘It’s too bad we’re not back in England where I can have a word with the union.’
But they weren’t back in England. They were in this tiny principality where normal rules didn’t apply, and if Bert wanted to keep his team employed he had to bite his tongue and tell her to get on with stone-walling as if nothing had happened.
‘They’re paying excellent rates, lass,’ he’d told her. ‘The best. And we’ve gone to a lot of expense to get over here. We put up with it if we can, for the good of the team, but you’re not to go near them again. Just keep working and forget it.’
So she’d agreed. It had been a big thing for Bert to take on a female apprentice, and she wanted to make it as trouble-free for him as possible. But now this creep wouldn’t leave her alone.
‘Go away,’ she said again, and turned back to her stones. She concentrated fiercely on fitting a neat wedge between two blocks and refused to look at him.
Thankfully she heard Bert’s heavy footsteps, and then her boss’s Yorkshire accent. ‘I’d be grateful if you could speak through me if you have anything to say to the workers, sir.’ Bert’s words were deferential enough, but his tone was pure bulldog.
She risked a glance up, and to her surprise she saw Alastair raking his fingers through his ruffled black hair. It was a gesture that made him seem almost as bewildered as she was.
And it was gesture that suddenly made him seem much less of a prince-and much more human.
And much more…hormone-confusing?
Get back to work, she told herself fiercely, turning back to her ill-fitting stone. Forget your stupid hormones. And don’t look again!
‘I need to speak to Penny-’
‘Penny-Rose isn’t speaking to you. She’s heard what you have to say and it doesn’t make sense. So leave the lass be.’
‘I’m not offering her any indecent proposals.’
‘If you were, I’d take my team and walk off your land right now,’ Bert told him. ‘Money or no money. Penny-Rose is a good lass and a damned fine worker, and I won’t have her badgered.’
Wow! Under her cap, she felt her ears go pink with pleasure. Praise from Bert was hard to earn, and valued for what it was. She’d worked hard to get this far.
And for Bert to offer to withdraw his team on her behalf… Goodness!
But Alastair was still trying to speak. ‘I don’t-’
‘Look, what is it you want?’ Bert said, exasperated. ‘You’ve upset the lass, you’ve upset me. If you have anything reasonable to say, then say it. Now. In front of Penny-Rose. Clear the air, like. And then we can say no and get on with our work.’
‘I hope you won’t say no.’
Bert was getting angrier by the minute.
‘Well, what is it?’
‘As I said, I want to marry Penny-Rose,’ Alastair told him, putting his hands up as if to deflect the storm of protest he knew Bert was capable of. ‘I want to marry her for a year. As a business proposition. Nothing more.’
The silence went on for several moments. Penny-Rose stayed crouched by her stones. She wouldn’t look up but her fingers had ceased even trying to fit her rocks together.
This was crazy.
She left the answering to Bert, because she couldn’t think of a thing to say. Even the normally voluble Bert was having trouble.
‘Where I’m from,’ Bert said at last, in a voice that sounded as if he’d been winded, ‘people don’t take brides as business propositions. They take brides for life.’ His belligerent jaw jutted forward. ‘And just the one of them at 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.