by Jessica Hart
Abruptly, she pushed back her chair so that Corran had to move out of the way. She carried her mug over to the sink. ‘I didn’t realise you were such an expert on European monarchies,’ she said coldly.
‘I’m not, but I’ve got several mates who became bodyguards after leaving the Army. It’s good money, I gather, but God, what a life, trailing around after obscure royals! Some of the stories they tell about the pampered brats they have to babysit would make your hair stand on end. They spend their entire day following these people around from shop to restaurant to party.’
‘Really?’ said Lotty, who had spent her entire life being shadowed by a member of the royal close protection team.
Montluce had few political problems, at least until the recent furore about the proposed gas pipeline, but it was an important financial centre, and the royal family’s wealth was enough to make them a target. Lotty’s first companions were lean, expressionless men whose eyes moved constantly and who were always on the alert to the slightest sound or movement.
‘It’s not much fun being trailed after either,’ she pointed out, and then, as Corran raised his brows, ‘I imagine.’
Rinsing out the mug, she set it upside down on the draining board and wiped her hands on a tea towel. ‘I’d better get back to work,’ she said.
Corran frowned. ‘Haven’t you finished for the day?’
‘I’ve just a bit of tidying up to do.’
‘The midges will be out soon,’ he warned.
‘I won’t be long.’
Lotty needed to be alone for a while. It had been odd seeing Caro and Philippe in that magazine, and she hadn’t been able to help laughing at the idea of Caro’s unconventional dress style coming into fashion, but Corran’s attitude to the Montlucian monarchy had stung. That was her family he had dismissed as being lazy, pointless and out of touch.
It was ironic that Philippe was probably the person who would most agree with him.
The conversation had depressed her, underlining as it did the gulf between them. It had left her feeling disloyal and guilty for being so happy at Loch Mhoraigh.
Calling for Pookie, she walked down to the cottages, her hands stuffed into her pockets. The little dog frolicked around her ankles and she thought about how much she would miss him when she left. The loch was grey and choppy under sullen clouds, and there was a rawness to the air that made Lotty zip up the collar of her fleece. On a day like this, it ought to be easy to feel nostalgic for the green hills and serene lakes of Montluce but there was an elemental grandeur to the Scottish mountains that caught at Lotty’s throat, no matter what the weather.
That made her feel bad too. She was a Princess Charlotte of Montluce. She loved her country. She shouldn’t feel like this about another one, as if Scotland was where she belonged. As if it was going to tear her heart out when she left.
Lotty vented her confused feelings on the floorboards, getting down on her knees to scrub them vigorously. She didn’t want things to change, but they couldn’t stay like this for ever.
She should start giving some thought to leaving soon. She had saved most of her housekeeper’s wage, derisory though it was. She had enough to move on, and maybe get a job somewhere else for her last month of freedom.
Or perhaps she should just go home to Montluce. That was where she belonged, after all. Her grandmother might be autocratic, but Lotty was her only real family now and she would need her granddaughter’s support.
Philippe would be leaving Montluce as soon as his father was well enough to take over his duties once more, and then Lotty would have to be ready to step back into the role she had been born for. But she couldn’t go back to the way she had been before. Not after being here with Corran. Somehow she was going to have to do something to make her life bearable when she got home.
Then she caught herself up. Bearable? What kind of self-pitying nonsense was that? Lotty flinched inwardly, ashamed of herself. She had more money than she knew what to do with. Everyone loved her—the papers were always saying so. She never had to worry about where the next meal was coming from. Millions of people would love to be in her position.
They’d love to have nothing to do all day except be shown around factories and community projects. They’d love to shake hands and smile, no matter how fed up they were feeling. They’d love to have to be careful about everything they wore and everything they said and everything they did. They’d love to spend their lives living up to other people’s expectations.
But she was the one going to have to do it.
And she would, Lotty vowed. As for the time she had left here with Corran, she would make the most of it and refuse to let herself have any regrets.
Corran had been right about the midges. Lotty had to run back to the house, frenziedly batting them away from her ears while Pookie scampered beside her, unclear about the reason for all the urgency but barking with excitement anyway.
In the kitchen, Corran had papers spread all over the table.
‘Oh.’ Lotty stopped, slapping the last few midges from her hands and neck. It was all very well to decide to make the most of things, but all at once the atmosphere seemed awkward. ‘I was going to start the supper. Will I disturb you?’
‘No, you carry on,’ said Corran. ‘I thought it would be easier to do this here than on the computer, but I can move if I’m going to be in your way.’
Why were they suddenly being so polite to each other? Lotty hated it. She washed her hands at the sink.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I heard back from the finance company I approached about investing in the estate this morning,’ he told her. ‘It just so happens that Dick Rowland, one of the directors, is coming up to the Highlands with his wife. He suggested calling in on their way to Skye to have a look round the estate.’
‘That’s good news, isn’t it?’ It was difficult to tell from his expression.
Corran straightened the page of figures in front of him as if trying to decide. ‘It goes against the grain to ask for help,’ he said after a moment, ‘but the fact is, I’m going to need extra money to get the estate up and running again, and I’m lucky to get any interest at all from investors in the current market. So yes, it’s good news—but Rowland won’t make up his mind until he’s seen what we’re doing.’
‘I thought the idea was that income from the cottages would be ploughed back into the estate?’ Lotty dug in the vegetable basket for an onion.
‘It will be, but it’s going to take a while for the money to start coming through. We might pick up one or two Christmas lets but, realistically, we won’t get many takers until next Easter. I need to be investing in breeding stock this autumn. If Dick Rowland is prepared to invest in the estate, I can get going.’
Lotty picked up a knife and sliced the top off the onion. She was getting better at cooking basic meals, or perhaps she was just getting more practice. She was never going to be a master chef, but at least she didn’t need to follow a recipe now to make shepherd’s pie.
‘So we need to impress him when he comes?’
Corran nodded. ‘It won’t be easy. Rowland’s a famously hard-headed businessman. He says it’ll just be an informal visit, but when I mentioned it to the bank manager today, she said I should have all my figures ready for him anyway.
‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about before we got distracted by Glitz,’ he went on stiltedly after a moment’s hesitation. ‘Are you likely to be around?’
‘Around?’ The onion was making Lotty’s eyes stream, and she lifted her arm to wipe the tears away with the back of her wrist. ‘What do you mean?’
‘The Rowlands aren’t coming for another month,’ he said. ‘You always said you’d only stay a couple of months.’ Corran drew a breath. ‘I wondered if you had a plan to move on yet.’
‘Oh…’ Lotty lowered the knife. Hadn’t she just decided that she should think about leaving? But she couldn’t go, not while he needed her. ‘No…not yet,’ she said
slowly.
‘I’d appreciate it if you could stay a couple of weeks longer until they’ve been,’ he said formally. ‘I’d like to make sure the cottages are completely ready. It will show that I’ve got a strategy and can implement it.’
Lotty felt as if she’d been given a reprieve. Another month, and a reason to stay. Happiness was ballooning inside her, but the sober, sensible part of her brain hung in there too, dragging her back to reality with the reminder that nothing had changed really. She would still have to go.
‘I’m happy to stay until they’ve been,’ she told him, ‘but after that…’
‘You’ll leave,’ Corran finished for her quickly. ‘I understand.’
Lotty didn’t want him to understand. She wanted him to seize her in his arms and beg her not to go. She wanted him to refuse to let her go, to make her stay for ever.
But what about her grandmother? Her duty? What about the fact that Corran wanted a sensible, practical wife to share his life?
She forced a smile and went back to chopping her onion. ‘So what’s the plan? Finishing the cottages?’
‘Yes, those first,’ he said, pushing the papers into a pile. ‘Then I’d like to get the rest of the place spruced up a bit too. Half the fences are down. It all looks shabby. I need to do something about the barns and pens, and the stable block is a mess… Well, I can’t tackle all of it yet, but if I can cost out my development plans and look as if I’ve put in a bit of effort, I should have a better chance of convincing him that this can be a profitable estate again—and that’s all he’ll be interested in.’
Lotty wasn’t sure about that. ‘I think you should do something about the house too,’ she said as she tipped the onion into a frying pan.
Corran frowned. ‘The house is bottom of my priority list.’
‘First impressions count,’ she said.
She should know. She thought about all the royal visits she had done, and how everything was always tidy, always freshly painted and sparkling clean. It was nonsense to think that she was seeing places as they really were. The people who welcomed her wanted her to see them as they could be, as they longed to be, not as they were on a day-to-day level.
Corran wasn’t convinced. ‘The house isn’t part of the investment plan.’
‘They’re going to arrive here,’ Lotty pointed out. ‘I’m not suggesting you do up the whole house, but at the very least you need to make sure the drawing room and the loo look welcoming.’
‘I can’t believe Dick Rowland will notice that the drawing room is a bit shabby.’
‘His wife will. And it’s more than a bit shabby. You don’t want them feeling depressed by the place before they even get outside.’
Corran thought about that. ‘I can’t afford new furniture.’
‘We can use some of the stuff we bought for the cottages,’ said Lotty. ‘As long as we’ve fully furnished a couple of those, they’ll get the idea. We just need a couple of sofas and a coffee table. We’ll keep it simple.’
She shook the onion in the pan, excited by the possibilities. ‘It wouldn’t take long to strip off the old wallpaper so you can’t see the marks where the paintings were—that would make a big difference!—and we could sand the floorboards. I can make it look nice.
‘If you want to impress this guy, Corran, you need to make sure you welcome him properly,’ she said. ‘I know what I’m talking about,’ she promised him.
‘I suppose you did this kind of thing in your PR job,’ said Corran, and she bit her lip. She’d forgotten about her imaginary career in public relations.
‘Something like that,’ she said.
A thought occurred to her. ‘How long are they going to stay?’ she asked Corran, not sorry to change the subject. ‘Not the night?’
The pale eyes gleamed with understanding. ‘No, he said they were planning to spend the night in Fort William.’
‘Phew! At least I won’t need to produce a fancy meal.’
‘I’ll suggest a cup of tea,’ said Corran. ‘Just buy a packet of shortbread or something.’
But Lotty had no intention of giving the Rowlands shop-bought anything. She might not be up to cooking a gourmet meal, but surely she could manage something for tea. What better occasion could there be for some perfect little scones? And they would be perfect this time. She would go back to Betty McPherson and learn how to make them properly if it was the last thing she did.
It would be the last thing she did for Corran, and Lotty was determined to do it right. While she was doing her royal duty, she wanted to think of him here, on a thriving estate, doing what he needed to do. And if this investment helped him to achieve that, she would do whatever she could to make it happen.
Lotty was really pleased with the cottages when they were finished. Corran had put in new kitchens and bathrooms and done the tiling, while she had cleaned and painted them all. Now new carpets had been laid, and the rooms were simply but stylishly furnished. With that spectacular setting too, how could the Rowlands not be impressed?
Corran wanted to concentrate on the outside after that, but Lotty set about pulling the tired wallpaper off the drawing room walls. The house had much bigger rooms than the cottages, of course, and the high ceiling proved a new challenge. She had to balance precariously on ladders to reach the wallpaper underneath the coving, until Corran came in and shouted at her for taking unnecessary risks.
‘It is necessary,’ Lotty protested from the top of her ladder and he clicked his tongue in exasperation. ‘I’ll do it, then. Get down from there at once! I haven’t got time to deal with you if you break your neck,’ he grumbled.
It was almost like it had been before.
Almost.
Lotty couldn’t quite put her finger on what had changed, but something had. There was an edge of desperation to their love-making now and, although they still talked and Corran was still grouchy, sometimes a constraint crept into the silences between them. Now those pauses in the conversation which had once been companionable seemed to be weighted with all the things they weren’t talking about, like what would happen after the Rowlands had been.
Like the future, when they would go their separate ways.
Like saying goodbye.
Lotty was making more of an effort to keep in touch with Montluce, hoping that she would start to feel homesick. She wanted to remember all the things she loved about her country: the history and the proud independence of the people, the gentle lakes and the wooded hills, the cuisine and the markets and the chic way the women wore the most ordinary of clothes.
She emailed Caro more regularly, and was one of the first to hear when Philippe defied his father and the Dowager Blanche to refuse permission for the proposed gas pipeline that had caused unprecedented protests in the country. The environmental impact was too great, Philippe had decided, and astounded observers by negotiating a new agreement that miraculously satisfied the activists and those who were more concerned by the impact on the economy.
‘Montluce has hit the headlines,’ said Corran, who’d read about it on the internet. ‘Your Prince Philippe is being hailed as a hero of the environment.’
‘See, there’s a point to him after all,’ said Lotty, but she was wondering what was really happening in Montluce.
She hadn’t heard from Caro for a while. The Dowager Blanche would be furious. Lotty’s father hadn’t taken much interest in anything beyond Ancient Greece, so it was her grandmother who had been running the country behind the scenes for years. She was the one who had made the original agreement for the pipeline, and she wouldn’t take kindly to her will being crossed.
Expecting a crisis, Lotty was a little puzzled when none seemed to materialise but she had other things to think about. In spite of all her efforts to reconnect with Montluce, she was absorbed in life at Loch Mhoraigh. Sanding floorboards, walking the dogs, washing dishes, poring over a recipe, sweeping and tidying… Lotty clung to the ordinary things while she could, committing the simple joy of day-to
day life to her memory.
And when the day’s tasks were done, there were the long, sweet nights with Corran. She hoarded every moment. Each touch, each kiss, each gasp of wicked pleasure was dipped in gold and stored in her head for the future when memories would be all she would have.
How could she think about Montluce when there was Corran, his sleek, powerful body, his mouth—his mouth—and those strong, sure hands? Lotty wanted to burrow into him, to hold on to him as if he could stop the hours passing and make it always now, and never then.
But the clock kept ticking on and, just when Lotty had let herself forget about life in Montluce, she received an email message from her grandmother that jolted her back to reality.
Caro, it seemed, had gone back to England and everything had gone wrong. Where was Lotty when she was needed? Her grandmother missed her. Please would she come home soon.
It was a querulous message, so unlike the indomitable Dowager Blanche that Lotty was instantly worried. Her grandmother never begged, never admitted that she needed help.
Lotty bit her lip.
Unseeingly, she looked out of the office window. It was a dismal evening with rain splattering against the glass and an angry wind rattling the panes, but Lotty was thinking about the palace in Montluce. Did her grandmother need her now? Had she been selfish long enough?
‘May I use the phone?’ she asked Corran, who was in the kitchen, poring over figures for his breeding programme.
He looked up, and his brows drew together at her expression.
‘Of course,’ he said.
Lotty went back to the office, took a deep breath, picked up the phone and dialled the palace’s number. As soon as it was answered she gave the code word which put her call immediately through to the Dowager Blanche’s office, and then there was a click and her grandmother herself on the line.
‘Grandmère?’ Lotty’s throat tightened unaccountably at the sound of her grandmother’s voice.