paused, and then said in a softer tone, avoiding Penny-Rose’s eye, ‘My mother also says she badly needs money.’
It had stopped being even remotely amusing. Penny-Rose’s colour mounted to a fiery crimson and she took a step back. Investigators… ‘My circumstances are none of your business,’ she snapped. ‘How dare you?’
But Bert was looking back and forth at the pair of them. ‘It seems to me the conversation’s getting private,’ he said.
‘It seems to me the conversation is over,’ she flung back, and Bert nodded.
‘Yeah, OK. But the man’s right. You’re strapped for cash, girl, and you know it.’ It was Bert who organised a huge percentage of her wages to be sent back to Australia. She kept so little for herself that he’d been horrified. ‘Maybe it’s like the man says—you need to listen to his proposition.’ Bert’s sunburned face creased in resigned amusement. ‘Now, what I suggest—’
‘Is what you suggested first and send for a strait-jacket,’ she said through gritted teeth, but Bert shook his head.
‘No. The man’s got a problem, and it’s a real one. I’m seeing it now. I don’t say his solution will work but you could do worse than to listen to what he’s proposing.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘So… It’s two o’clock. We knock off at four. When we do, you go down to the village, Penny-Rose, get yourself washed and into something decent, and you…’ He turned and poked a finger into Alastair’s chest. ‘You take her out to dinner. Properly. Pick her up at her lodgings at six and do the thing in style.’
‘I don’t need—’ Alastair started, but Bert was on a roll.
‘You ask a lady to marry you, you do it properly.’
‘I don’t want—’ Penny-Rose tried, but the stubby finger was pointed at her in turn.
‘Give the man a chance. You can always refuse, and that’ll be the end of it. You made me listen to him. Now you do the same. If he badgers you after tonight, he’ll answer to me.’
‘Bert—’
‘No argument,’ Bert said. He’d wavered, but now his decision was made. It was time to get on with what he was here for—stone-walling. Everything else was a nuisance. ‘That’s my final word.’ He turned back to Alastair. ‘Now, you get back to your castle where you belong and you, girl, get back to sorting your stones. There’s to be no more talk of marriage before tonight.’
‘Bert, I can’t go out with this man.’
‘You can,’ Bert said heavily, and the amusement was suddenly gone from his voice. ‘This is the man who’s paying us, girl, and he’s in trouble. You made me listen to him. Well, I have. You can put the good of the team before everything for the moment and give him a fair hearing. That’s all I ask.’
‘And that’s all I ask,’ Alastair said, his calm brown eyes resting on her face in a message of reassurance.
Which was all very well, she thought wildly as she sent him a savage glance. Reassure all you like.
Marriage!
The man was seriously nuts!
‘Six o’clock, then,’ he said. ‘You’re staying with the Berics? I’ll collect you there.’
‘How do you know where I’m staying?’
‘I know all about you.’
‘Then you know what I’m about to say to your crazy proposition,’ she flung at him. ‘No and no and no.’
‘Just listen.’
‘I’ll listen. And then I’ll say no.’
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