by Jessica Hart
‘You look very smart,’ she said.
Corran grimaced as he glanced down at himself. ‘I thought I’d better brush up for the solicitor.’ He looked around the room, which was still dingy and grubby, but transformed from earlier in the week, and his gaze came back to Lotty, who was on her knees cleaning the skirting boards. ‘Are you going to be OK here on your own all day?’
‘I’ll be fine.’ Lotty wrung out a cloth into the bucket. The water was already filthy. ‘I’ve got Pookie to protect me.’
Corran snorted as he eyed the little dog, who was sitting next to her, looking like a soft toy with his bright eyes and ears cocked as if he was following the conversation.
‘He’s not what you’d call an intimidating guard dog,’ he pointed out. ‘Unless you get a burglar with a phobia about fluff, in which case he might come in handy, I suppose.’
‘No burglar is going to be bothered to come all the way out here,’ said Lotty. ‘Besides, there’s nothing to steal.’
That was true enough. Still, Corran couldn’t help worrying.
And that made him cross. This was exactly what he had been afraid of when he first let Lotty stay. Worrying about someone else. He didn’t need it, he thought irritably.
He had known Lotty would be a distraction, but he couldn’t have guessed just how great a one she would prove to be. He couldn’t shake the image of Lotty in the bath. It was as if the curve of her throat, the slim shoulders, the delicate line of her clavicle were burned into his mind. He could still see the wet, pearly skin, the arms clutched over her breasts, her soft mouth open in shock, her eyes huge and startled.
If only he wasn’t so aware of her all the time. Even when he was ripping up floorboards or knocking down walls, he could see Lotty, slender, eyes shining, smiling that smile that made something stir queerly inside him. He could still picture her wrinkling her nose at a mug of tea or chewing her lip as she studied a recipe.
Much as he would like to dismiss her as a pampered brat, Corran couldn’t deny that she was a hard worker. There was a steely resilience to her that he hadn’t recognised at first, a stubbornness to the way she lifted her chin and refused to give in. He had pushed her unfairly hard, Corran knew, but she hadn’t uttered a word of complaint about the conditions. Corran didn’t know anyone else who would have put up with so much.
‘I’ll go to the supermarket on the way back,’ he told her. ‘Is there anything else you want?’
Lotty sat back on her heels and wiped her forehead with the back of her arm. ‘Proper coffee,’ she said.
‘You’ve already put that on the list. Three times. And we don’t need coffee,’ he said. ‘We’ve got plenty of tea.’
Lotty made a face, and he grinned at her, a brief, flashing smile, before he turned for the door. ‘I’ll see you later,’ he said. ‘Work hard.’
Princess Charlotte was hardly ever alone. There was always a footman outside the door, a lady-in-waiting with letters to be answered, her private secretary to discuss visits, a maid to help her dress.
So Lotty didn’t mind being left on her own at all. She hummed as she tackled the grime on the skirting boards and tried to forget about how Corran had looked when he smiled. The grin made him look younger, warmer, more attractive.
Much more attractive.
She wasn’t supposed to be noticing that he was attractive, Lotty reminded herself crossly. Hadn’t he already warned her off? And hadn’t she already remembered that she would be going home to Montluce before too long, and that she had had quite enough new experiences to keep her going for a while?
Losing her virginity was just going to have to wait.
It would be a shame to spoil things. In spite of everything, she liked Corran. She liked the fact that he made no concessions to her. He might be rude, but she could be rude right back. She could say whatever came into her head, and Corran wouldn’t mind at all. In an odd way, they were friends. Lotty had never felt as comfortable with anyone before, that was for sure. She didn’t want to spoil that by making an unwelcome pass that would embarrass him and humiliate her.
It was enough that he had let her stay.
And that she had kept her part of the bargain too. If she could finish washing down the paintwork, the cottage would be ready for painting by the end of the day and she would have done what she had promised to do, Lotty reminded herself. She should be thinking about that, not Corran’s smile.
But she couldn’t help the alarming dip of her stomach when Corran came back earlier than she had expected. He appeared in the doorway of the cottage bedroom, all austere angles and hard planes, and in spite of herself Lotty’s pulse kicked up a notch.
Eyes narrowed critically, he looked around the room. The floorboards were swept, the walls bare, the paintwork dingy with age but clean.
‘Not bad,’ he said.
‘Not bad?’ Lotty echoed, because it was easier than thinking about how lean and hard and untouchable he looked. How could she have even thought about trying to attract a man like Corran? He was too tough, too uncompromising, too dauntingly self-contained.
She rested her fists on her hips. ‘Is that all you can say? Not bad?’
‘What would you like me to say?’
‘For a start, you could say, “I’m sorry, Lotty, you were right and I was quite wrong when I said you wouldn’t be able to get the cottage ready for painting in a week.”’
Something that might have been a smile hovered around Corran’s mouth. ‘All right, I was wrong about that. There, satisfied?’
‘Not quite. You also have to say, “and I was completely wrong about you not lasting a day”. In fact, you might as well admit that you’re well on your way to losing that bet we made.’
‘That was for a month,’ he reminded her. ‘A lot can happen in three weeks.’
Lotty put her nose in the air. ‘Well, I hope you didn’t spend too much money in Fort William today, because you’re going to have to save to take me out for that dinner!’
The dent at the corner of Corran’s mouth deepened. ‘You’re a long way from earning that dinner, but I will give you a night off cooking. I splashed out on a ready-made curry.’
Not having to prepare the meal meant that Lotty could linger in her bath that evening, and she made the most of it. She was getting sick of putting on the same thing every evening but, short of ringing the changes between a camisole and a silk vest, she didn’t have much choice. On went the jeans, on went the raspberry pink cardigan that clashed so horribly with her red hair. She hadn’t thought about that when she threw a few clothes into her rucksack before she set off on the walk. She hadn’t thought it would matter what she wore in the evenings.
It didn’t matter. It was just that it might be nice to look more…feminine, more desirable.
Catching herself sighing, Lotty gave herself a mental slap. Pushing her feet into pumps, she shrugged on the cardigan and went downstairs to the kitchen, where Corran was heating up the curry.
‘Can I do anything to—’
She stopped. A spanking new cafetière sat in the middle of the kitchen table, a packet of freshly ground coffee propped against it.
‘I only bought it because I’m sick of you moaning about the instant coffee,’ said Corran before she could say anything.
Lotty couldn’t believe it. ‘You bought coffee! Real coffee! Oh, thank you!’ Without thinking, she threw her arms around him and hugged him, but even before her hands touched that solid body, she knew she’d made a mistake. A big mistake.
Now, instead of imagining, she knew that he felt as hard and strong as he looked. She knew how safe he felt, how steady. She could feel the steady beat of his heart, smell clean cotton and clean skin and something that was just Corran.
And for one tiny moment, his arms closed around her and he held her against him. It was an instinctive response to her throwing herself at him, Lotty was sure, but it felt so good, she let herself hope foolishly that he would never let her go.
He did, of
course. A beat, another, three, and then he snatched his arms from around her and stepped sharply back.
Mortified, Lotty flushed. ‘Sorry, it was just… I’m so thrilled by the idea of real coffee.’ It sounded lame, even to her.
Corran turned away to check on the rice. ‘It doesn’t take a lot to thrill you, does it?’ he said.
There was just a hint of something that might have been strain in his voice, but Lotty was still too embarrassed at the way she had thrown herself at him to wonder too much at it. She was more concerned to make sure that Corran knew she hadn’t meant anything by her hug. Keep it light, she told herself.
‘You know me,’ she said. ‘Easily excited.’
Then she wished she hadn’t said that. It sounded suggestive somehow.
There was an awkward pause. Lotty’s hands were thrumming with the feel of him. Not knowing what to do with them, she hugged her arms together and moved away as casually as she could while she tried desperately to think of something to say to break the lengthening silence.
In the end it was Corran who broke it. ‘So, how did you get on today? You weren’t too lonely?’
‘No. Well, a bit at lunchtime, maybe.’
She had sat on the beach with just Pookie for company. She had noticed the driftwood on the shingle, the birds that wheeled overhead, the colours of the hills across the loch, but it hadn’t been the same without him.
Corran put the rice and curry on the table, and Lotty pulled out a chair and sat down, still self-conscious. Her grandmother would be ashamed of her. All those years of training to put everyone at their ease no matter the circumstances, and she couldn’t think of a single thing to say!
The silence stretched uncomfortably again.
‘Um…how long does it take to get to Glasgow from here?’ Lotty blurted out at last.
Corran stiffened. ‘Two or three hours.’ He shot her a sharp glance. ‘Why? Are you planning to leave?’
Leave? The thought had panic clawing at Lotty’s spine. ‘No! No,’ she said again, more calmly. ‘I’m just sick of wearing the same clothes every evening. I left a case in left luggage at the station in Glasgow and I wondered how hard it would be to go and get it on the bus. Always supposing you’d let me have a day off, of course!’
‘I don’t know about that,’ Corran said. ‘Days off? Next thing, you’ll be wanting sick pay and holidays and bonuses!’
They were both trying too hard, but it was better than that awful tense silence.
‘Just one little day off,’ Lotty pretended to wheedle. ‘I promise I won’t lift my nose from the grindstone for a minute after that!’
‘I was thinking of going down to Glasgow myself at some point,’ he said after a moment. ‘I’ll need to furnish and equip the cottages as we get them ready. There are big stores where you can get cheap and cheery flat pack furniture. You might as well come with me,’ he told Lotty gruffly. ‘We could pick up your case at the same time.’
‘That sounds great. Thank you!’
‘I can’t spare the time for a while yet, though,’ he warned. ‘If you’re desperate, you’d better buy yourself something in Fort William. You can do the shop next week. Don’t expect any fancy shops, though.’
Lotty parked Corran’s Land Rover and reminded herself to lock it and put the key away safely. There was no footman here to drive the car away for her, to wash it and valet it and make sure that it was full of fuel before the next time she went out. All she normally had to do was get out and walk up the steps to the palace.
It was all very different here.
Lotty was excited at the trip to Fort William on her own. This was another whole new experience for her. She had been thrilled when Corran had told her she could do the supermarket shop. That morning he had handed her a wodge of cash.
‘That’ll have to be enough,’ he said, and then he added some more notes. ‘And this is for you.’
‘For me?’
‘Your housekeeping wages,’ he explained patiently. ‘It’s not much, but you’ve earned it.’
Now that money was burning a hole in Lotty’s pocket, and she was looking forward to her day off.
Not that she wasn’t enjoying her job. Having cleaned the cottage from top to bottom, she had helped Corran do some minor repairs—filling in holes in the plaster, fixing the broken banister, replacing the kitchen window—and since then she had been painting. Lotty loved seeing how the cottage looked brighter and fresher with every stroke of the brush.
She was on her mettle about the cooking now too. Which was nothing to do with the fact that Corran was looking for a woman who could cook, because she didn’t care, did she? And there was no point in trying to impress him. Still, Lotty wanted to do better, and she thought she was improving.
A little, anyway.
Now she felt as if she had earned her morning off. As Corran had warned, the shops were far from fancy, but Lotty didn’t care. She shopped in Paris and London, but none of the very expensive designer shops she usually frequented compared to the fun of flicking anonymously through the racks in a cheap and cheerful chain store with the music thumping and a sales assistant filing her nails behind the counter and nobody paying the slightest bit of attention.
Lotty loved it.
She bought a couple of vest tops, a shirt and a cotton jumper and smiled to herself imagining her grandmother’s expression. The Dowager Blanche would be horrified by the idea of her granddaughter in cheap off-the-peg clothes, and yet Lotty had more satisfaction buying them with the money she had earned from Corran than she had ever had buying designer labels with her inheritance.
CHAPTER FIVE
THINKING of her grandmother reminded Lotty that she ought to check in with Caro and make sure that everything was all right in Montluce. She wandered around until she found an internet café and sat down at a computer with a coffee.
Caro had written a long, chatty email, and made Lotty laugh describing her first meeting with the Dowager Blanche, and her grandmother’s beloved pug. It was strange reading her friend’s reaction to the palace and to Philippe, but she sounded in fine form, which was a big relief to Lotty, who had known just what a big deal it was when she had asked Caro to stand in as Philippe’s girlfriend.
The Dowager Blanche had been intent on making a match between Lotty and Philippe ever since his father had become Crown Prince of Montluce, and Caro had agreed to act as a decoy while Lotty escaped. She had told her grandmother that she was too embarrassed to stay in Montluce with Philippe flaunting his new girlfriend, which hadn’t predisposed the Dowager Blanche to like Caro very much. Knowing how intimidating her grandmother could be, Lotty hoped she hadn’t been too caustic to Caro. But Caro had obviously taken it all in good spirits, and was even generous enough to feel sorry for the Dowager.
I think that beneath all the guff about duty and responsibility and behaving like a princess, she’s really worried about you, Caro had written.
Lotty sighed. She knew that Caro was right. Her grandmother had controlled every aspect of her life since her mother had died—and probably before then, knowing the Dowager. She was a small, erect woman with a rigid composure and an excoriating tongue. Everyone in Montluce respected and adored her in equal measure.
Lotty felt much the same. She knew her grandmother loved her, but the Dowager didn’t believe in open displays of affection. Lotty had not been allowed to run around and behave like other children. For as long as she could remember, she had been good and done what was expected of her.
Other members of the royal family, like Philippe, had escaped, refusing to be crushed under the burden of duty and privilege, but Lotty had never dared stand up to her grandmother.
Until now.
Lotty drafted a careful email to the Dowager’s private secretary, saying that she was safe and well, and another to Caro, telling her about what she’d been doing. Caro would laugh at the idea of her peeling potatoes or making tea, but Lotty was still loving it. She wasn’t ready to go back to bei
ng dutiful just yet.
It was hard to shake off a lifetime of being good, though, and Lotty couldn’t help feeling selfish and guilty as she drove back to Loch Mhoraigh House that afternoon. She had had such a lovely time pushing a supermarket trolley along the aisles. Even queuing to buy cheese from the delicatessen counter was fun. Lotty had never queued before, and it was a thrill to take a ticket and wait for her number to be called like everyone else.
On the way home, she stopped in the village to buy the basic items she could get at the shop there. Corran always shrugged off any suggestion that he try and improve his relationship with the community, claiming that he had more important things to do, but Lotty thought it was a shame. The least they could do was support the local shop, she said. He was lucky to have one so close.
Not that the shop offered a big range of stock. It had a post office counter at the back, and a small selection of basic goods. A plump woman with tightly permed grey hair and winged glasses presided behind the counter. She eyed Lotty with interest as she carried over milk and butter.
‘You’ll be working up at the big house?’
Unused to the way information travelled in village communities, Lotty was amazed. ‘How did you know?’
‘That’s Corran McKenna’s Land Rover you’re driving,’ she said, which was a pretty big clue when Lotty thought about it. ‘Besides,’ she went on as she rang up the milk and butter, ‘they said at the hotel that you’d gone up there. We’d all expected to see you back before now.’
‘No, I like it there,’ said Lotty. ‘I’m hoping to stay a couple of months. Corran’s doing a great job,’ she added loyally.
‘Aye, well, his heart was always there, even as a wee boy.’
‘Oh, you know him?’
‘I did. I was Cook up at the big house for a while.’
‘You’re Mrs McPherson?’ said Lotty in delight.
‘I am.’
‘Corran told me about your scones.’