‘You’re cold?’

‘How could I be cold?’ It was the most beautiful spring evening. But his concern was warming, she thought. Nice.

‘So let me get this right,’ she continued. ‘You want me to play the fairy-tale princess for a year, then at the end of it to calmly apply for a divorce, hitch up my socks and walk out of here. Leaving you to Belle.’

‘I wouldn’t have put it quite like that but, yes. That sums it up.’

‘And Belle?’ Penny-Rose toyed with her wineglass. ‘How does she feel about it? If it were me,’ she said carefully, ‘I wouldn’t be happy about seeing my fiancé marry someone else first. In fact,’ she added honestly, ‘it’d be pistols at dawn if anyone made the attempt.’

He smiled at the image. ‘That’s hardly sensible. And Belle’s sensible. I told you. She understands that the needs of the country have to come first.’

‘I see.’ Or she saw enough to make her shiver again.

But she needed to concentrate on her own role. Not Belle’s future one. ‘Is this really going to be OK?’ she asked. ‘Will the lawyers be happy with a twelve-month marriage?’

‘The inheritance doesn’t say how long I have to stay married. Legal opinion is that if the marriage doesn’t last a year then annulment rather than divorce could be considered and it could risk the inheritance. But if it lasts a year-’

‘Then you and Belle can be safe as Prince and Princess and live happily ever after.’ She nodded wisely-but there was something else niggling her. Something else that needed asking, and there was no easy way to ask it.

‘Um…how do you know I’m unimpeachably virtuous?’ she demanded.

He looked across at her, startled, and then he grinned. ‘The investigators say you’ve never had a boyfriend. According to my mother, you haven’t had time.’

‘Gee, thanks.’

‘It does make things easier,’ he told her. ‘And your maturity helps. If I marry a woman who’s not mature then I risk her falling…’

‘Falling for you?’

‘There’s not much chance of that happening,’ he said bluntly. ‘Not with the way I feel about marriage. But falling for the trappings of the position.’

‘What makes you think I won’t?’

‘You’re a pragmatist,’ he replied. ‘My mother says so, and I’m starting to accept that she’s right. You do what you need to do to survive.’ He grinned again. ‘Besides, you’re Australian. If the worst comes to the worst, after twelve months I can kick you out of the country. But I don’t think I’ll need to do that. You’ll be wanting to get back to your sisters and brother. And you’ll have your fee.’

Now they were getting down to business. ‘My fee,’ she said faintly.

The thought suddenly seemed repugnant. But… According to Alastair and his mother, she was a pragmatist. So she’d just better school her features into interest and behave like one. A virtuous pragmatist.

It sounded like something to take for constipation. Or… She grinned. Maybe it sounded more like someone who played very boring music!

Get a grip, she told herself. Was it the champagne that was going to her head? ‘What…what exactly were you thinking of as a fee?’ she asked unsteadily, and he nodded as if he’d expected the question.

He was certainly prepared-and then some! ‘My accountant suggests an allowance of ten thousand English pounds per week, over and above expenses, for the entire time we’re married, and a further one million pounds settlement at the time of the divorce.’

She’d raised her wineglass to her lips, she’d taken a sip-but the wine didn’t go down. She choked and choked again, and finally Alastair came around to thump her shoulders.

The feel of his hand on the bare skin of her back did nothing at all to help her composure. By the time she’d finished coughing she was bright pink and thoroughly flustered.

‘I’m sorry,’ she gasped at last. ‘I thought you said…a million pounds!’

‘I did. Plus the rest.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’ She was almost angry.

‘No. I’m rich already. I might not have enough to buy the estate at the values tourists would put on it, but if I inherit, I’ll have more money than I know what to do with. My lawyers say that if I’m not generous, I could face a lawsuit later. I don’t want that. And my mother says you deserve this windfall, and I’m starting to believe that she’s right.’

‘And…’ She still couldn’t take it in. ‘Belle agrees to it?’

‘Belle’s the woman I want with me long term,’ he said slowly. ‘After losing Lissa, I don’t want anyone or anything making emotional demands. Belle’s a wonderful partner and she understands-’

‘She understands what little you want of her.’ Penny-Rose nodded, though the thought of the marriage he was contemplating made her feel dreadful. ‘And she understands me?’

‘She sees you as a necessary evil.’

‘Gee, thanks.’

‘Say nothing of it.’ He smiled, his dangerous, coaxing smile that had her half-inclined to agree just so she could see it once more. He was still standing, looking down at her, and his very closeness was unnerving.

The whole situation was unnerving.

And there were things she didn’t understand. Lots of things.

‘I’d imagine, as a prince, yours would be a very public wedding,’ she said slowly.

‘Yes. It’ll need to be.’

‘Then how will your people take it?’ she went on, thinking it through as she spoke, ‘when I disappear after twelve months?’

‘My people are pragmatists,’ he said. ‘Like yourself. There’s discontent now because the succession is at risk. Even though my engagement to Belle hasn’t been official, the gossip columnists have voiced rumours and disapprove. They know about the inheritance, and they want the principality to continue. Our marriage will dispel that worry.’

But she was no longer listening. She’d been caught by a word. A very major word. Succession… She almost choked again.

‘Hey, you don’t want me to have a baby, do you?’ she demanded, and Alastair smiled. Drat! How could she concentrate when he smiled like that? But she must concentrate. ‘There’s no stipulation about babies in the old prince’s will?’

And now he was laughing at her. ‘No. I think Belle and I can manage that. Eventually.’

‘That fits in the category of what an elegant hostess does?’ Penny-Rose enquired politely, and his smile faded.

‘There’s no need-’

‘To be impertinent?’ Her equilibrium almost restored, she managed a chuckle as Alastair finally sank down again into his chair. ‘I’m sorry but I’m always impertinent. You should know that if you intend marrying me.’

‘Then you will marry me?’

She put up a hand. ‘I’m thinking about it. Nothing more.’

‘That’s all I ask.’

‘How long do I have to make up my mind?’

‘Until coffee,’ he told her, and her equilibrium disappeared all over again.

‘Help…’

‘If you don’t agree, I need to find someone else,’ he said apologetically. ‘And pragmatic single women of unimpeachable virtue…’

‘Are a bit thin on the ground?’ Penny-Rose was fighting for composure. ‘I guess you could always put an advertisement in the international press. WANTED:PRINCESS FOR A YEAR. I imagine you’d be swamped by callers.’

‘Maybe I would be.’ He smiled faintly. ‘But I can’t do that.’

‘Why not?’

‘This marriage,’ he said slowly, ‘has to appear real.’

‘To appease the cousins?’

‘And the lawyers. That’s right.’

‘But…’ She thought this through. ‘Bert and the team already know it’d be a marriage of convenience.’

He shrugged. ‘A marriage of convenience doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not a real marriage. Royal marriages have been just that for thousands of years. But advertising seems a bit over the top, and I can’t publicly stipulate a time frame. I’m running a fine legal line.’

‘You certainly are.’ She glanced up at him and then away again. He was starting to disconcert her. He was speaking of business. He was planning out his whole life-first with her and then Belle-as if he was planning a commercial venture.

The thought left her feeling almost ill.

What a waste, she thought suddenly. Arranged marriages might be what was expected of royalty, but… With Alastair’s wonderful smile, and his caring nature-and his money and his castle…

He was some catch!

He was some prince!

That wasn’t the way to think, she told herself hastily. Alastair was planning this as a business proposition, and so must she.

‘A million pounds,’ she murmured, forcing her thoughts sideways and letting herself dwell on what that could mean. ‘A million… Do you have any idea how tempting that sort of money is for a girl like me?’

‘I can imagine.’ Alastair smiled at her across the table and she had to give herself the same business-only lecture she’d given herself thirty seconds ago. It was either that or go take a cold shower. But he didn’t seem to notice. Maybe he had that effect on all women! ‘You’d never have to work again,’ he was saying.

His words startled her, breaking through her fog of masculine awareness. Of Alastair awareness… ‘Not work?’ Penny-Rose frowned. ‘I wouldn’t know how to not work.’

‘You could learn,’ he said gently, ‘during your year as a princess.’

‘Oh, right. Just swan around, adjusting my tiara and polishing my throne. I don’t think so.’

‘You’d be a figurehead…’

‘A figurehead who still has to get herself a master stone-waller certificate. I’m not going home without it.’

He stared at her. ‘You won’t need to stone-wall. A million pounds will set you up for life.’

She looked blankly at him, as if he were speaking some foreign language. ‘But I like stone-walling.’

‘You couldn’t possibly stone-wall as my wife.’

‘If you stuck me in a castle on a velvet cushion I’d go into a decline,’ she said. And then she chuckled. ‘Or I’d cause trouble. I just know I would. I’d be sticking my nose into all sorts of things that don’t concern me. You need to accept me as a stone-walling bride or not at all.’