And she felt so good by his side. So right!

But she seemed almost unaware of the man by her side. She was totally focussed on the dolphins.

And why not? For someone who’d never been to the beach, the creatures were entrancing. They surfed and tumbled and dived, swimming for the sheer exuberance of being alive. Time after time, they darted into the waves, streaming through the sapphire waters, their bodies like glinting silver arrows, and the joy they felt was almost a tangible thing.

‘They’re just…they’re just magic,’ Rose whispered, and Alastair could only agree. It was magic.

The whole morning was magic. This place. The island. The dolphins, the sun on his face…

This woman!

And then, as suddenly as they’d appeared, the dolphins departed, backing out of the waves and leaping and cresting along the shoreline, around the headland and off to thrill the three younger ones on their catamarans.

‘Do you think they’re paid by the island management?’ Penny-Rose whispered, her voice still awed, and Alastair managed a smile. It was a wonder he could manage anything. His body was doing very, very strange things.

His head was also doing strange things!

But he had to force his voice to sound normal. ‘With the price we’re paying, they’ve probably been trained in Miami,’ he told her, and then he laughed at the expression on her face. ‘Nope. They were the real thing, lady. Totally wild and totally free, giving us the performance of their lives just for their pleasure. And ours.’

She closed her eyes, and he felt her take it all in. The sheer loveliness of it. The wonder.

And then she opened her eyes again and he saw that the real world had intruded. She shifted away from him-imperceptibly, but it was a shift for all that.

‘Take me back to shore,’ she said simply. ‘Thank you for bringing me out, but it’s time my feet hit the ground.’

‘You should be able to swim,’ he growled, and she nodded.

‘Yes.’ She couldn’t quite keep the note of wistfulness from her voice. ‘But I can’t. So I need a tow. And then you can get back to your swimming.’

And all at once Alastair couldn’t bear it. She asked for nothing, he thought savagely. She gave and gave and gave. If he hadn’t had a damned good reason-like saving the tenants’ livelihoods-for this marriage, she’d never have made it.

She wouldn’t marry for profit. She wouldn’t do anything for profit, he thought. Not for herself.

‘Would you like to learn to swim?’ he asked, and it was as if someone else were doing the asking. He hadn’t meant to. Had he?

‘Would I like…?’

‘I can teach you.’ He smiled. ‘I taught Lissa.’

The name came up naturally, with no strain at all. Lissa… He’d hardly talked about Lissa since her death. He’d tried not to think of her. But now the memories came flooding back, of Alastair as a ten-year-old, holding his six-year-old cousin under the tummy and yelling, ‘Kick, kick…’

And Lissa kicking so hard he’d been bruised for weeks!

He grinned suddenly, and it was as if a weight had been lifted that he hadn’t known was there. The grieving had shifted imperceptibly, and the memories that remained were full of sunlight and laughter and love.

But not passion…

The passion he was learning about hadn’t come into the equation, he thought as Penny-Rose watched his face. He and Lissa had been such good friends that they hadn’t wanted more-or simply hadn’t known that more existed. And she’d been killed before they’d found out.

And now…

Now he knew more existed. Because what he was feeling for the woman by his side was very, very different.

Hell!

But Penny-Rose was lifting her eyes to his, and the expression on her face said she understood.

She couldn’t understand. How could she? It was his imagination.

‘If you could teach Lissa, then you can teach me,’ she said softly. ‘Oh, Alastair, I’d love it.’


Thus began one of the funniest, most precious days of Alastair’s life. All the rest of the morning they worked at it. Her trust was absolute, and her faith paid dividends.

‘You’ll do dead-man’s float first,’ he told her, and made her lie face down in the water. ‘Lie as flat as a board and don’t let yourself put your head up until I touch your shoulders.’

And she didn’t. He put his hand under the flatness of her stomach and held her-supporting her totally-and the feeling it gave him was spine-tingling. She lay still and trusting, until he touched her shoulder. Then she gasped and spluttered and knelt up on the sand to laugh in sheer delight.

They did it again and again, until she was almost floating by herself. ‘It feels wonderful. It feels weird.’

‘It’ll feel weirder. This time I’m going to lower my hand and you’ll feel the water supporting you instead of me. You’ll float.’

And she did! She floated as if she’d done it since childhood, and he gazed down at her beautiful body-and almost forgot to touch her shoulder! When he did, she spluttered a whole lot more as she struggled to her feet. He expected indignation but what he received instead was blazing joy.

‘I floated. I floated! All by myself, I floated!’

‘If I don’t touch your shoulder you can decide to put your head up yourself,’ he managed, laughing with her joy but trying desperately to ignore the strange feelings coursing through his body.

Penny-Rose didn’t understand. ‘Why would I? You’ll touch me when it’s time to surface. I trust you.’

He knew it. The thought was incredible. ‘But…if I’m eaten by a shark…’

She grinned, delirious with sun and surf and happiness. ‘Then I’ll drown of a broken heart, dead-man’s-floating to my doom. What a princess! people would say. Romeo and Juliet would have nothing on a scenario like that.’

He chuckled. ‘Hey, there’s no need to go to extremes. Dying of devotion…’

All of a sudden the lightness faded. They were standing in the shallows, looking at each other, and her words hung between them.

‘I’ll drown of a broken heart…’

And his.

‘Dying of devotion…’

The words had been said in jest, but suddenly things weren’t light at all. Things were moving fast here, changing every minute. The magnetism between them was a tangible power. It was gaining strength every second, and to resist the pull…

How was he to sleep next to her tonight? he asked himself desperately. On the other side of the mound of pillows…

Concentrate on practicalities.

‘Speaking of lunch,’ he said, and her look of uncertainty faded. She was starving, and passion could maybe take a back seat. It was a shame, but where he led, she’d follow. Don’t push the pace…

‘Now you’re talking. I wonder if flake’s on the menu?’

‘You mean we get to eat shark before it eats us? How very wise.’ He managed a grin and glanced at his watch. ‘It’ll be on the table right now. Race you up to the dining room, Rose O’Shea.’

‘It’s Penny-Rose de Castaliae to you, sir,’ she said meekly, and while he took that on board she gained so much of a head start that she beat him to lunch, hands down.


And by nightfall she could swim. Not very far, but she could manage half a dozen strokes before she had to surface, and she was so proud of herself she was threatening to burst.

‘I can swim, I can swim,’ she crowed at dinner, and her sisters and brother looked on with wonder.

‘You sound like a ten-year-old.’

‘I feel like a ten-year-old.’

‘Except,’ Heather said slowly, watching her sister with delight, ‘that when you were ten you sounded thirty.’ She turned to Alastair and her eyes shone with pleasure. ‘We can’t tell you how much it means to us-that our Penny-Rose met you.’

Alastair smiled, but inside he didn’t smile at all. Their pleasure in this marriage made him feel like a traitor. Why? He’d paid for this, he thought grimly. He’d paid money for a bride. So why was he feeling like a rat?

Because they were assuming he was doing this because he loved her, he thought, and he did no such thing. In twelve months he’d walk away.

Back to Belle.

Belle would never come to dinner with sand on her nose, bare toes and a make-up-free face that glowed with happiness, he thought suddenly, watching Rose’s lovely, laughing face.

It was just as well. Belle would be a sensible, practical wife.

‘Have some lobster,’ Penny-Rose said, and handed him a claw. She seemed totally oblivious of his confusion. ‘This guy’s defending his territory even in death. I can’t get the meat out.’

That made him grin. She was in lobster up to her elbows, and her enjoyment was obvious to all. He thought back to the night she’d eaten her first snail, and he knew without asking that this was her first lobster.

‘Allow me.’ He cracked the shell with practised ease. The long, smooth sliver of meat slid free, and then, because he couldn’t resist it, he leaned forward and popped it between her lips. She gazed up at him as the meat disappeared and…

And it was suddenly an incredibly sexy moment, and behind them he heard Heather snigger.

‘Um…excuse me, are we in the way?’

‘No,’ said Penny-Rose, and blushed to the roots of her hair. ‘I… Thank you.’

‘That’s quite all right.’ Alastair tried for an unflustered voice but it didn’t quite come off. ‘Cracking lobsters is one of my splinter skills. Along with swimming lessons.’

And he badly wanted to do it again. Pop a little more lobster between those lips… In fact, he wanted to desperately. But Rose was pushing her plate away decisively.

‘Swimming’s worse than stone-walling,’ she said, and her voice sounded even more flustered than he was feeling. ‘I’m going to bed.’

‘But there’s meringue for dessert.’ Mike couldn’t believe that she could leave, and Penny-Rose turned her attention gratefully to her younger brother.