Книга - The Secret Princess

The Secret Princess
Jessica Hart


ROYAL EXCLUSIVE: “Perfect” princess goes AWOL! Frustrated with the merry-go-round of political dinners and enforced good behavior, Lotty’s determined to try a normal life on for size. However, she’s completely unprepared for her sexy new boss, Corran McKenna. Bored with people bowing and scraping, Lotty doesn’t mind Corran’s frowns, but his wicked grin causes trouble!A no-strings fling with the only man who’s ever seen the real—rather than the royal—her is irresistible, but what will happen when her real identity becomes headline news? With Prince Charming just around the corner, trading places has never been so much fun!












Praise for Jessica Hart


‘Strong conflict and sizzling sexual tension

drive this well-written story. The characters are smart

and sharp-witted, and match up perfectly.’

—RT Book Reviews on

Cinderella’s Wedding Wish

‘Well-written characters and believable conflict

make the faux-engagement scenario work beautifully—

and the ending is simply excellent.’

—RT Book Reviews on

Under the Boss’s Mistletoe

‘Hart triumphs with a truly rare story…

It’s witty and charming, and [it’s] a keeper.’

—RT Book Reviews on

Oh-So-Sensible Secretary




About the Author


About Jessica Hart

JESSICA HART was born in West Africa, and has suffered from itchy feet ever since, travelling and working around the world in a wide variety of interesting but very lowly jobs, all of which have provided inspiration on which to draw when it comes to the settings and plots of her stories. Now she lives a rather more settled existence in York, where she has been able to pursue her interest in history, although she still yearns sometimes for wider horizons.

If you’d like to know more about Jessica, visit her website: www.jessicahart.co.uk




Also by Jessica Hart


Ordinary Girl in a Tiara

Juggling Briefcase & Baby

Oh-So-Sensible Secretary

Under the Boss’s Mistletoe

Honeymoon with the Boss

Cinderella’s Wedding Wish

Last-Minute Proposal



Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk


The Secret Princess





Jessica Hart






















www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


For my dear niece, Suzy, with love on her engagement.




CHAPTER ONE


WAVING her hands around her head in a futile attempt to bat the midges away, Lotty paused for breath at the crest of the track. Below her, an austere granite house was planted between a forbidding sweep of hillside and a loch so still it mirrored the clouds and the trees clustered along the water’s edge.

Loch Mhoraigh House. It looked isolated and unfriendly and, according to all reports in the village, its owner was the same.

‘He’s the worst boss I’ve ever had.’ Gary had been drowning his sorrows in the Mhoraigh Hotel bar all afternoon and his words were more than a little slurred. ‘Not a smile, not a good morning, just straight to work! I told him if I’d wanted to work in a labour camp, I’d have signed up for one. It’s not as if he’s paying more than slave wages either, and he won’t get anyone else. I told him what he could do with his job!’

‘Quite right too.’ Elsie, the barmaid, polished glasses vindictively and warned Lotty against making the trek out to Loch Mhoraigh House. ‘We don’t want Corran McKenna around here. The Mhoraigh estate should have gone to his brother, we all know that,’ she said, hinting darkly at some family feud that Lotty didn’t quite follow. ‘Nobody from the village will work for him. You go on up to Fort William,’ she told Lotty. ‘You’ll find a job there.’

But Lotty couldn’t afford to go any further. Without her purse, she was penniless, and when you needed money, you got yourself a job, right?

Or so she had heard. The truth was that until an hour earlier, when she had realised that her purse was missing, Lotty had never in her life had to think about money at all.

Now she did.

It was Lotty’s first challenge, and she was determined to rise to it. Her life was so luxurious, so protected. She understood why, of course, but it meant that she had never once been tested and, until you were, how did you know who you were and what you were made of? That was what these few short weeks were all about. Was there any more to Her Serene Highness Princess Charlotte of Montluce than the stylish clothes and the gracious smile that were all the rest of the world saw?

Lotty needed to know that more than anyone.

Here was her first chance to find out. When you didn’t have any money, you had to earn some. Lotty set her slim shoulders and hoisted her rucksack onto her back. If everyone else could do it, she could too.

Three miles later, she was very tired, tormented by midges and, looking doubtfully down at the unwelcoming house, it occurred to Lotty, belatedly, that she could be making a terrible mistake. Loch Mhoraigh House was very remote, and Corran McKenna lived alone out here. Was it safe to knock on his door and ask if he could give her a job? What if Elsie had been right, and he was a man who couldn’t be trusted? Elsie’s dislike of him seemed to be based on the fact that he wasn’t a real Scot, and she had implied that he had acquired the estate under false pretences.

It wasn’t as if she didn’t have a choice, Lotty knew that. One phone call, and a close protection team would be on its way within minutes. A helicopter would swoop down and scoop her up, and take her back to the palace in Montluce. There would be no midges there, no money worries, no need to put herself at risk. There would just be her grandmother to face, and the knowledge of her own uselessness. She would be the princess who ran away and couldn’t last a week on her own.

Lotty grimaced at the thought of the humiliation. Three months, she had agreed with Philippe and Caro. Three months to disappear, to be anonymous, to see for herself what she was made of. She couldn’t give up at the first difficulty, and slink home with her tail between her legs.

She was a princess of Montluce, Lotty reminded herself, and her chin lifted. Her family hadn’t kept an iron grip on the country since the days of Charlemagne by giving up the moment the going got tough. She had been raised on the stories of the pride and courage that had kept Montluce independent for so long: Léopold Longsword, Princess Agathe who had been married off to a German prince nearly fifty years her senior in order to keep the succession safe, and of course the legendary Raoul the Wolf.

They had faced far greater challenges than Lotty. All she had to do was find herself a job. Was she going to be the first of the Montvivennes to accept defeat?

No, Lotty vowed, she wasn’t.

Lotty adjusted her rucksack more comfortably on her back, and set off down the rough track towards Loch Mhoraigh House.

The house loomed grey and massive as Lotty trudged wearily up to the front door. An air of neglect clung to everything. Weeds were growing in what had once been an impressive gravel drive and the windows were cold and cheerless. It was very quiet. No lights, no music, no sign of anyone living there. Only the crows wheeling above the Scots pines and the cry of some bird down by the loch.

Lotty hesitated, looking at the old-fashioned bell. What if Corran McKenna wasn’t there? She wasn’t sure her feet could take her back up that hill.

But what if he was? Lotty chewed her bottom lip uncertainly. She had never had to persuade anyone to give her a job before. She’d never really had to persuade anyone to do anything. Normally people fell over themselves to give her whatever she wanted. She led a charmed and privileged existence, Lotty knew, but it made it a lot harder to prove that she was a worthy successor to all those doughty ancestors who had fought and negotiated and bargained and married to keep Montluce free.

They wouldn’t have been deterred by a simple no, and neither would she.

For these few weeks, she had abandoned her title and her household. There was no one to arrange things for her, no one to make sure she got exactly what she wanted.

She was going to have to do this for herself.

Taking a deep breath, Lotty pressed the bell.

She could hear it clanging inside the house somewhere. Immediately, a furious barking erupted. It sounded as if there was a whole pack of dogs in there, and instinctively Lotty took a step back. There was a sharp command and the dogs subsided, except for a high-pitched yapping that continued until it was suddenly stifled as a door was shut firmly on it.

A few moments later, the front door was jerked open.

A tall, tough-looking man, as forbidding as the hills behind the house, stood there. He was younger than Lotty had expected, with dark, uncompromising features and a stern mouth, and his eyes were a pale, uncanny blue.

‘Yes?’

‘I’ve c-come about the job,’ said Lotty, cursing the stammer that still resurfaced at times when she was nervous. Raoul the Wolf wouldn’t have stammered, she was sure.

His fierce brows snapped together. ‘Job? What job?’

‘I heard in the hotel that you needed help restoring some cottages to let.’

‘News travels fast…or did Gary stop at the bar on his way back to Glasgow?’ Corran added with a sardonic look.

Lotty brushed at the midges that clustered at her ears. Raoul the Wolf wouldn’t have put up with being left on the doorstep either, but she could hardly insist that he invite her inside. She concentrated on sounding reasonable instead. ‘He said you didn’t have anyone else and that you’d be stuck without anyone to work for you.’

‘And did he also say that it was the worst job he’d ever done, not to mention being the worst paid, and having the worst boss?’

‘Something like that.’

‘And yet you want to work for me?’

‘I’m desperate,’ said Lotty.

The pale eyes inspected her. Lotty had never been the subject of that kind of unnerving scrutiny before and, in spite of herself, she stiffened. No one in Montluce would dare to look at her like that.

‘Forgive me for saying so, but you don’t look desperate,’ said Corran McKenna. He nodded at the high tech walking trousers and microfleece she’d bought in Glasgow only four days earlier. ‘Those clothes you’re wearing are brand new, and the labels tell me they weren’t cheap. Besides,’ he said, ‘you’re not suitable for the job.’

‘Why not?’

‘You’re not a man, for a start.’

‘That’s not a good enough reason,’ said Lotty, who might not want to rely on her royal status to protect her, but didn’t have to like his dismissive tone. ‘I think you’ll find there’s such a thing as sex discrimination.’

‘And I think you’ll find I don’t give a toss,’ said Corran. ‘I need someone strong enough to do physical work, not someone whose most strenuous activity is probably unscrewing her mascara.’

Lotty’s eyes sparked with temper. All at once she could feel her celebrated ancestors ranging at her back.

‘I’m not wearing mascara,’ she said coldly, ‘and I’m stronger than I look.’

For answer, Corran McKenna reached out and took her hands, turning them over as if they were parcels so that he could inspect them. His fingers were long and blunt, and they looked huge holding her small hands. He ran his thumbs over her palms and Lotty burned at the casualness of his touch.

‘Please don’t try and tell me that you’ve ever done a day’s rough work in your life,’ he said.

‘That doesn’t mean I can’t start now.’ Lotty tugged her hands free. ‘Please,’ she said, trying to ignore the way her palms were still tingling. If she looked down, she was sure she would be able to see the impression of his fingertips seared onto her skin. ‘I really need this job.’

‘I really need someone suitable,’ said Corran. ‘I’m sorry, but the answer is still no. And don’t bother looking at me like that with those big eyes,’ he added crisply. ‘I’m immune.’

Her jaw actually dropped. ‘I’m not looking at you like…like anything!’

She did astounded very well, but Corran found it hard to believe that she could really be unaware of the power of those luminous grey eyes. They were extraordinarily beautiful, the colour of soft summer mist, and fringed with long black lashes that did indeed appear to be natural when he looked closely.

The kind of eyes that got a man into trouble. Big trouble.

She was very pretty, slender and fine-boned, and she wore her trekking gear with an elegance that sat oddly with the short, garish red hair. A soft scarf at her throat added a subtle sophistication to her look.

Corran had the best of reasons for distrusting sophistication.

Frowning, he looked behind her for a car, but the overgrown gravel drive was empty. ‘How did you get here?’

‘I walked from the hotel,’ she said, eyeing him warily.

‘It didn’t occur to you to ring beforehand?’ he asked, exasperated. ‘It would have saved you a pointless walk.’

‘My phone doesn’t work here,’ she said.

‘If it’s a mobile, it won’t. That’s why we still have landlines,’ he explained as if to a child.

‘Oh.’

She sounded disconcerted. Corran could almost swear she had never used an ordinary telephone in her life. Maybe she hadn’t. Privilege was written in every line of her face, in the tilt of her chin, and cheekbones like that only came from generations of aristocratic inbreeding.

He hardened his heart against the pleading in those huge grey eyes. Desperate? She was probably down to her last hundred thousand.

‘Oh, well…I like to walk,’ she said, recovering.

‘You look ready to drop,’ Corran told her frankly. ‘How far have you walked today?’

‘Sixteen miles.’

Great. Sixteen miles, and he was supposed to let her walk back to the hotel? Corran sighed in exasperation as he faced up to the inevitable. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Lotty,’ she said. A moment of hesitation. ‘Lotty Mount.’

Now why didn’t he believe her? ‘All right, Lotty, you wait there. I’ll get my keys.’

Her face lit up. ‘You’re going to let me stay?’

‘No,’ said Corran, ignoring the disturbing kick of his pulse. ‘I’m going to drive you back to the Mhoraigh Hotel.’

She looked at him in dismay as she waved at the midges. ‘I don’t want to go back there!’

‘Frankly, I don’t care what you want,’ he said, irritated that he had actually started to feel guilty there for a moment, irritated even more by the fact that his pulse still hadn’t quite settled. ‘I want you off my property. There’s no way you can walk back to the hotel and my reputation’s bad enough round here without you collapsing halfway.’

‘I’m not going to collapse,’ she protested. ‘And I’ve no intention of getting in a car with you,’ she added as an afterthought.

‘It’s a bit late to start having scruples, having walked all the way out here,’ Corran pointed out. ‘There’s just me and the dogs.’

‘Well, anyway, I’d rather walk back,’ Lotty said stiffly. ‘It’s a nice evening.’

Corran glanced up at the sky. As so often in Scotland, the day had started murky, but cleared in the afternoon, and now, at almost seven, only a few wispy clouds lurked low on the horizon. At this time of year it wouldn’t get dark for hours yet. The hills were a soft blue, the water still and silver, the air almost golden. Lotty was right. It was a fine evening.

But there was not a breath of air to riffle the surface of the loch, which meant no breeze to blow the curse of the Highlands away.

‘The midges will eat you alive,’ he said, watching her slap at her neck below her ear. ‘If they haven’t already.’

‘I’ll be fine.’ She lifted her chin. ‘I’d rather walk,’ she added and bent to heave the rucksack onto her back. Corran saw her wince at the weight of it on her shoulders, and he scowled.

‘Don’t be ridiculous, woman,’ he said irritably. ‘You can’t walk all the way back if you’ve already done sixteen miles today.’ He pointed a finger at her. ‘Stay there. I’m going to get my car keys.’

He was gone less than two minutes, but by the time he came back Lotty was already toiling up the track.

‘Fine!’ he shouted after her. ‘Be stubborn! Just don’t collapse on my land!’

‘I won’t,’ she called over her shoulder.

Frustrated, Corran stood at the door and watched the slight figure. Her head was held high, but he could tell what an effort it was, and he swore again.

What was she thinking, hiking three miles to a strange house just on the off chance of a job? It wasn’t safe. He could be anybody.

Corran glowered. He had enough problems of his own without worrying about Lotty, if that really was her name, but he watched her with a frown in his eyes until she had rounded the bend. He would give her half an hour or so and then go and see how far she had got. She would have proved her point by then, and would no doubt be more than grateful for a lift.

But when he drove along the track later, there was no sign of her. He went all the way to Mhoraigh, although he didn’t go inside the hotel. The locals had made it quite clear what they thought of him, and if she had made it that far, she was perfectly safe.

The girl wasn’t his responsibility, anyway. Putting the Land Rover into a three point turn, Corran headed back to Loch Mhoraigh House and told himself he wasn’t going to think any more about her.

Still, he slept badly, and he was in an irritable mood when he set off for the cottages the next morning. The dogs ran eagerly ahead, past the old stable block and the walled garden, past the ruined boathouse and the track leading up to the barns and out beside the loch to the dilapidated cottages that had been built by his great-great-grandfather for the estate workers in the days when Loch Mhoraigh had been a thriving estate.

It had rained during the night, and the air was fresh and sweet with the smell of bracken from the hills. Corran thought longingly of the high corries, but he couldn’t afford to take a day off, especially now that he would have to advertise for more help. Gary had only lasted two days. That made him think about the girl, Lotty, and he shook his head. Quite how she had expected to do the job, he didn’t know. She didn’t look strong enough to lift that rucksack.

Although she had, now he came to think of it.

He would finish the plastering in the first cottage, Corran decided, then he would advertise in the local paper—again. He could do that online. He was mentally composing an advert that made the job sound attractive while simultaneously making it clear that the successful applicant would have to work till he dropped for a meagre wage when he realised that Meg had frozen at the cottage door, which stood open although Corran knew that he had closed it when he left the day before.

Meg dropped to her belly and lay alert and quivering as Corran came up. He frowned. ‘What is it, Meg?’ He looked around him, and his brows drew even closer together. ‘And where’s that other damned dog?’

Telling Meg to stay, he stepped inside the cottage. The door on the left led into the living room, and there, sure enough, was his mother’s dog, fawning over the girl who had turned up on his doorstep the night before.

The girl whose stricken expression had sent him on a fool’s errand to the village just to make sure that she hadn’t collapsed in a heap in the middle of the track.

For a long moment, Corran couldn’t trust himself to speak.

She had abandoned her rucksack somewhere, and was in the same clothes she had worn the day before, except that now the scarf was knotted around her head like a Fifties housewife, which should have looked absurd but somehow looked chic instead. Her sleeves were rolled up in a businesslike way. She had clearly been sweeping up sawdust, and she still held the broom in her hands as she crouched down to make a fuss of the dog.

At Corran’s entrance, though, she straightened. ‘Good m-morning,’ she said brightly, and he heard the slight stammer he’d noticed yesterday. Corran guessed that it only happened when she was nervous.

As well she might be.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he demanded, which he thought was fairly restrained under the circumstances.

‘Well, I could see you’ve been working in here, so I thought I could start c-clearing up.’

‘Oh, did you? And what part of me telling you that I wasn’t going to give you a job and wanted you off my property didn’t you understand?’

The soft mouth set in a stubborn line. ‘I wanted to prove that I could do the job. All I’m asking is a chance to show you what I can do.’

‘I drove all the way to Mhoraigh last night in case you’d collapsed on the track,’ Corran told her furiously. ‘Are you telling me you were here all the time?’

‘There was some straw in the barn. I slept there.’

It had easily been the most uncomfortable night of Lotty’s life. In spite of her exhaustion, she hadn’t slept at all. Late in May, the night had still been cool and, even wearing all her clothes, she had been cold and bitterly regretting that she had ever heard of Loch Mhoraigh.

Why hadn’t she tried harder to persuade the hotel to give her a job of some kind, just until she had earned enough to move on to Fort William? But she had chosen to come out here, and now pride wouldn’t let her accept Corran McKenna’s casual dismissal. She might not be using her title, but she was still a princess of Montluce.

Not that pride had been much comfort as Lotty had shivered on the straw and suffered the midges that swarmed through the cracks in the old barn doors. Now she wanted nothing so much as a shower and a cup of coffee.

But first she had to convince Corran to let her stay.

He wasn’t looking at all encouraging. His brows were drawn together in a ferocious glare and his mouth set in what could only be called an uncompromising line. Lotty couldn’t, in truth, really blame him for being angry, but how was she to know that he would be chivalrous enough to drive out and make sure that she was all right? If he was going to be nice, why couldn’t he just give her the job?

It was time to be conciliatory, she decided. Some victories were won by battles, but sometimes negotiation won just as effective a result. Lotty had learnt that from her family history too.

‘Look, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I know I’m trespassing, but I can do this job—I can!’ she insisted at Corran’s expression. ‘Gary—the guy I met at the hotel—told me he’d been cleaning and painting, and I can do that.

‘You don’t even need to pay me,’ she went on quickly as Corran opened his mouth. ‘I heard you can’t afford to pay much in the way of wages, and I’m prepared to work in exchange for somewhere to stay.’

He paused at that, and she pressed on, encouraged. ‘Why not give me a chance? I’m not going to cost you anything, and I’m better than no one, surely?’

‘That rather depends on how useful you can be,’ he said grimly. ‘I hope you’re not going to try and tell me you’ve got any building experience?’

‘I know how important it is to keep a building site clean,’ said Lotty, who had once laid the foundation stone of a new hospital and had been impressed by the neatness of the site. She’d assumed that it had been tidied up for her arrival, as things usually were, but the foreman had assured her that wasn’t the case. He wouldn’t tolerate mess on his site at any time. ‘An untidy site is a dangerous site,’ she quoted him to Corran.

‘And just how many building sites have you been on?’ he asked, clearly unconvinced.

Lotty thought of the construction sites she’d been shown around over the years. Her father, the Crown Prince, had been more interested in Ancient Greece than in modern day Montluce, and after her mother had died it had fallen to Lotty to take on the duties of royal consort.

‘You’d be surprised,’ she said.

Corran studied her through narrowed eyes. ‘Would I, indeed?’

Oh, dear, she was supposed to be allaying his suspicions, not arousing them. Lotty bent to pat the little dog who was fussing at her ankles still.

‘Look, I can see that in an ideal world you’d employ someone with building skills,’ she said, ‘but I gather experienced tradesmen aren’t exactly queuing up to work for you, so why not give me a try until you find someone else? What can be so hard about cleaning and painting, after all? And at least my services will come free.’

Corran was thinking about what she’d said, Lotty could tell. She held her breath as he rubbed a hand over his jaw until she began to feel quite dizzy. It might have been lack of oxygen but it was something to do with that big hand too, with the hard line of his jaw. It didn’t look as if he had shaved that morning and Lotty found herself wondering what it would be like to run her own hand down his cheek and feel the prickle of stubble beneath her fingers.

The thought made her flush and she tore her gaze away and got her breathing back in order. Taking a firmer hold of the broom, she went back to tidying up the curls of wood and sawdust that covered the floor. No harm in giving Corran McKenna a demonstration of what she could do. It might not be the most skilled job in the world, but a quick look round the cottage had shown her that there was plenty of cleaning to be done.

‘I’m not denying that I’ve found it hard to find anyone prepared to stick the job longer than a few days,’ Corran said at last.

‘I gather you might need to work on your management skills,’ said Lotty, still sweeping.

‘I see you and Gary had a good chat!’ Corran snorted in disgust. ‘All he had to do was plaster a few walls. Why the hell would he need managing?’

‘Well, you know, an encouraging word every now and then might have helped,’ she suggested before she could help herself. ‘Not that I’d need any encouragement,’ she added hastily.

‘No encouragement, no money…’ Corran watched her brushing ineffectually at the floor and looked as if he couldn’t understand whether to be intrigued or exasperated. ‘I don’t understand why you’re so keen to work here. Why not look for a job where you’d get paid at least?’

‘I can’t afford to go anywhere else.’ She might as well tell him, Lotty decided. ‘I lost my purse yesterday.’

It had been so stupid of her. She just wasn’t used to being careful about her things. There was always someone who would pick things up for her, deal with settling any bills, check that she hadn’t left anything behind.

‘I haven’t got money for a cup of coffee, let alone a bus fare.’

Corran’s look of suspicion only deepened. ‘When most women lose their purses they go to the police,’ he pointed out. ‘They don’t set off into the wilds to doorstep strange men, insist on jobs they’re not qualified to do, and trespass on private property!’

Lotty flushed. ‘I’m sorry, but I didn’t know what else to do.’

‘What about calling your bank or credit card company for a start?’

How could she explain that a phone call to her bank would likely have led straight back to Montluce, where her grandmother would have the entire security service looking for her?

‘I don’t want anyone to know where I am,’ she said after a moment.

Corran’s black brows snapped together. ‘Are you in trouble with the police?’ he asked.

For a moment Lotty toyed with the idea of pretending she had pulled off a diamond heist, but she abandoned it regretfully. Corran’s eyes were too observant and she would never be able to carry it off.

‘It’s nothing like that.’ She moistened her lips. She would have to tell him something. ‘The thing is, I…I needed to get away for a while,’ she began carefully.

It went against the grain to lie, and her grandmother would be horrified at the idea of her denying her royal heritage, but Lotty was determined to spend the next few weeks incognito.

‘My mother always talked about the time she walked the Highland Way, and I thought it would be a good idea to walk it for her again, the way I always told her I would, and think about what I wanted to do with my life.’

So far, so true. Lotty had spent long hours sitting with her mother when she was dying. She had held her thin hand and kept a reassuring smile on her face all the time so that her mother wouldn’t worry. She’d only been twelve, but she hadn’t once cried the way she wanted to, because her grandmother had told her that she was a princess of Montluce and she had to be as brave as all the princesses before her.

There was no need to tell Corran about giving her close protection officer the slip in Paris, or about the crossing to Hull, where she was fairly sure she wouldn’t meet anyone she knew, and where she’d had her hair cut in a funny little place upstairs on a side street.

She had dyed it herself that night, just to make sure she was unrecognizable, but the colour wasn’t anything like it had promised on the box. She had been horrified when she looked in the mirror and saw that it had gone bright red. She looked awful! The only comfort was that no one would ever, ever associate Princess Charlotte with red hair. She was famous for her sleek dark bob and stylish wardrobe, and there was certainly nothing sleek or stylish about her now.

Apart from the hair fiasco, Lotty had been pleased with herself that night. She had got herself across the Channel, and she was on her own. Not a huge adventure for most people, but for Lotty it was a step into the unknown. She was free!

Only sitting in that tiny hotel room, Lotty had realised that now there was no one to organize her day for her, she didn’t quite know what to do with herself. That was when the idea of walking the Highland Way her mother had loved so much had jumped into her head. She had taken a train to Glasgow the next day, left her case in a locker at the station, and set off with a rucksack on her back.

‘It was wonderful,’ she told Corran. ‘There’s a very clear track, and other people are walking. I was having a great time, until I stopped for lunch yesterday. I had a sandwich at a pub, so I must have had my purse there, but when I got to the hotel at Mhoraigh I realised that I didn’t have it any more. They were so kind at the hotel, and looked up the phone number of the pub for me, but, when I rang, they didn’t know anything about my purse. I’d hoped someone might have found it and handed it in.’

She actually looked surprised that her purse, clearly stuffed with cash and platinum credit cards, hadn’t been handed back to her intact! She was the most extraordinary mix of sophistication and naivety, thought Corran.

He’d been listening to her story, unsure what to make of her. Clearly, she wasn’t telling him everything with all this vague talk of getting away. It occurred to him that she might be a celebrity who needed to hide away from the media for a while. Not because he recognised her—Corran had no interest in the so called high life, as his ex wife could attest—but because there was a starry quality to her somehow, a certain purity to her features and a luminous presence that even her dusty, straw-flecked fleece and the insect bites on her face couldn’t disguise.

She reminded him of the roe deer he had seen from his bedroom window early that morning. It had paused in a pool of light and lifted its head, graceful and wary. Lotty had the same kind of innocence in her eyes, an innocence that didn’t go with the expensive clothes and the style with which she wore that ridiculous scarf around her head.

Then he caught himself up. What was the matter with him? Any minute now he’d be spouting poetry when what he should be doing was remembering just how easily a beautiful woman could tie you up in knots. Corran scowled at the memory. Nothing Lotty had told him had made him any less suspicious of her motives.




CHAPTER TWO


‘GO on,’ he said grimly. ‘You’re at the hotel, and have discovered that—incredibly—nobody has handed in your purse.’

‘So I was stuck,’ said Lotty. ‘But then I met Gary, and he told me about this job, and it seemed meant. I needed a job, you needed someone to work for you. I walked all the way out here, but then you wouldn’t even consider me, and I just couldn’t face going back to the hotel, so I found somewhere to sleep and, if it’s any comfort, I got bitten to death by midges.’ She showed him her bare forearms, where she had been scratching.

Corran refused to be sympathetic. ‘Serves you right,’ he said callously. ‘If you’d been sensible, you could have had a lift back to the hotel and called someone from there.’

‘I’m not going to call anyone,’ Lotty said, her face set. ‘I can’t explain, but I just can’t.’ She turned the full force of those lovely grey eyes on Corran, who had to physically brace himself against them. ‘Oh, please,’ she said. ‘Please let me stay. It would just be for a few weeks.’

‘Weeks?’

‘Until you can get someone else, at least,’ she amended quickly.

Corran managed to drag his eyes from hers at last and sighed. ‘Come with me,’ he said, making up his mind abruptly.

Propping her broom against the wall, Lotty followed Corran out of the cottage where they were met by a black and white collie.

‘This is Meg,’ said Corran. ‘She does what she’s told.’

Lotty thought that she was being obedient too but, after a glance at Corran’s face, she decided not to point that out. He was as formidable as the bare hills that rose on either side of the loch. It was a shame he didn’t smile more, especially with that mouth…

Hastily, she looked away.

It didn’t matter whether Corran smiled or not as long as he let her stay. The alternative was to admit that she really was just a pampered princess who couldn’t cope on her own. All she would have to show for her rebellion would be four days walking.

Compared to that, what did it matter if Corran smiled or not?

He led her to one of the other cottages strung out along the lochside. It was the same sturdy shape as the others, with low, bumpy stone walls, their white paint now flaking sadly, and dormer windows set in the roof like a pair of quirky eyebrows.

‘Take a look,’ said Corran, opening the front door and gesturing her through with an ironic flourish of his hand.

Lotty stepped cautiously inside. The cottage was filthy. It was cluttered with broken furniture and shrouded in ghostly grey cobwebs. In the kitchen, the sink was stained and rusty, there was mould growing under the old fridge, and the floor was covered with mouse and bird droppings. A window hung open, its glass cracked and dirty, and the banister was smashed. Afraid to trust the creaking floorboards, Lotty turned slowly in one spot.

‘What do you think?’ asked Corran.

‘It…needs some work.’

‘Of all five cottages, this is the one in the best condition.’ A grim smile touched the corners of his mouth at Lotty’s expression. ‘At least it doesn’t need major work, and the roof is sound enough. I’ve got three months to get them all ready to let before September.’

‘Three months? It would take three months to get rid of the dirt in this one room!’ said Lotty.

‘It’s a pity you think that, because I was going to offer you a deal,’ said Corran.

‘A deal?’

‘You get this cottage cleaned up and ready for painting by the end of the week, and I’ll let you stay. I don’t for a minute think you’ll last that long, but, if you do, then you can paint it too, and then you can move on to the other cottages.’ He looked at Lotty. ‘Think you can do that?’

Lotty pursed her lips and pretended to study the room as if she were calculating how long it would take her, although the truth was that she had no idea how she would even begin to clean up that mess. Corran had clearly set her what he thought was an impossible task.

Raoul the Wolf wouldn’t back down from a challenge like this, and neither would she.

‘And in return?’ she said with a fair assumption of casualness.

‘In return you get board and lodging. You said you’d work for free, so that’s the deal. Take it or leave it. Frankly, short of carrying you bodily back to the hotel, I can’t think of another way to get rid of you!’

Nobody had ever spoken to Lotty the way Corran did. And no one was ever that unreasonable either. There was no way she could get this cottage ready for painting in three days. That was why he had set it as a challenge, one he knew she would fail.

She was just going to have to show him how wrong he was.

‘I’ll take the deal,’ she said.

‘You’ll regret it,’ Corran warned.

Lotty lifted her chin and met his pale eyes. ‘Well, we’ll see, won’t we?’

‘We will,’ he agreed. ‘I’m betting you won’t make it to the end of the day, let alone the end of the week.’

‘And I’ll take that bet as well,’ said Lotty defiantly.

Perhaps it wasn’t fair. The man wasn’t to know that he was betting against a descendant of Léopold Longsword, after all. Fairness had been dinned into Lotty almost as thoroughly as pride and duty but, right then, she didn’t care. ‘I say I’ll still be here at the end of the month!’

Corran’s mouth twisted in a sardonic smile. ‘You’re really prepared to bet on that?’

‘I am.’ The grey eyes were bright with challenge. ‘How much?’

‘Well, as we know you don’t have any money, that’s not much of an issue, is it? What have you got to wager?’

Lotty thought of her wealth, safely squirrelled away, of her expensive car and designer wardrobe, of the antiques and valuable paintings that filled her palace apartment, of the priceless jewellery she had inherited as Princess of Montluce.

‘My pride,’ she said. He wasn’t to know just how important self-respect was to her right then.

Corran held her gaze for a moment. ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘If you’re prepared to risk it, that’s up to you.’

‘And what will I get when I win?’ she asked him.

‘It’s academic, but what would you like?’

Lotty searched her mind desperately. ‘When I’ve been here a month you have to…to…to take me out to dinner,’ she improvised.

Corran didn’t exactly smile, but there was a glimmer of amusement in the pale blue eyes. ‘It looks like we’ve got ourselves a deal, then,’ he said. ‘And you’ve got yourself a job—for as long as you can stand it.’

You’d have thought he’d offered her a diamond necklace instead of three days of unrelenting, dirty work for no pay.

‘Oh, that’s wonderful!’ she said, her face lighting with a smile. ‘Thank you!’

Corran’s chest tightened foolishly as he looked into her eyes, and for one ridiculous moment he forgot how to breathe properly. It was only a second before he got his lungs firmly back under control but, even so, it was an alarming feeling. She had only smiled, for God’s sake!

Yanking his gaze from hers, he took out his confusion on the dog, who was worrying at a hole in the skirting board. ‘Pookie! Get out of there!’ he snarled, and the dog frisked over to him, its silky coat filthy now with dust and cobwebs.

Lotty looked at Corran. ‘Pookie?’

He set his teeth. ‘He’s my mother’s dog.’ He eyed Pookie’s not-so-white fluffiness with disgust. ‘If you can call that a dog.’

Lotty had crouched down and was encouraging Pookie, who was now in a frenzy of excitement at all the attention, his little tail circling frantically as she ruffled his soft coat. ‘He’s sweet,’ she said.

‘He’s not sweet,’ snorted Corran. ‘He’s a nuisance. He’s never been disciplined, and he’s always filthy. I mean, who in their right mind has a white dog? I tried telling my mother this wasn’t a suitable place for him, but she wouldn’t listen. No, I have to put up with him for four months while she goes off on some world cruise! It’s her fourth honeymoon, or possibly her fifth. I’ve lost count.’

‘Well, he seems happy enough.’ She studied the roughly shorn coat. ‘I’m guessing he normally has a long coat?’

‘And a ribbon to hold the hair out of his eyes,’ said Corran sourly. ‘I haven’t got time to deal with any of that nonsense. I cut his coat as soon as my mother had gone. She’ll have a fit when she comes back, but that’s too bad. This is a working estate, and it’s humiliating for Meg to be seen with a ball of fluff with a ribbon in its hair.’

Lotty laughed as she straightened. ‘I can see Pookie doesn’t do much for your image!’ She looked around the filthy cottage. ‘Well, I’d better get started if I’m going to get this ready for painting,’ she said. ‘Can I borrow the broom from the other cottage?’

‘You might want to change your clothes first,’ he said, frowning. ‘It’s going to be dirty work.’

‘I don’t have anything else with me. I just brought what I could carry in my rucksack.’

‘I could probably find you an old shirt,’ said Corran gruffly.

‘Well…thank you,’ said Lotty, with the smile that was famous throughout Montluce. ‘If you’re sure. I don’t want to be any trouble.’

‘It’s a bit late for that,’ he grumbled. ‘You’d better come up to the house. I don’t suppose you’ve had any breakfast either?’

‘No,’ she admitted and he blew out an exasperated breath.

‘How were you expecting to work if you hadn’t had anything to eat? You’re no good to me if you’re fainting with hunger.’

He stomped back to the house, Lotty following meekly in his wake, while Meg trotted beside him and Pookie scampered around in circles, yapping with excitement.

At the back door he kicked the mud and dust off his boots and snapped his fingers to the dogs. ‘I’ll feed these two, and maybe that will shut Pookie up. If you want to make yourself useful, you can make some tea. The kitchen’s through there.’

He disappeared down a corridor hung with battered waxed jackets and mud-splattered boots, the dogs at his heels. There was something so incongruous about the big man with the fluffy little dog that Lotty couldn’t help smiling as she watched them go. Corran might look tough, but he was also a man who couldn’t say no to his mother. That made her feel better.

The kitchen was a square, solid room with fine proportions and a ceiling festooned with old-fashioned drying racks, but to Lotty it seemed bare and cheerless.

Not that she knew much about kitchens. All her meals were sent up from the palace kitchens, and if she wanted a cup of tea, she rang a bell and one of the maids made it in the servants’ galley.

There was no bell to ring now, and no useful maid. Lotty looked around dubiously. She had never made tea or coffee before, but how difficult could it be?

Well, there was the kettle, at least. She carried it over to the sink, filled it and set it back on the base, resisting the urge to brush her hands together in self-satisfaction. Eat your heart out, Raoul the Wolf, she thought. He wasn’t the only Montvivennes who could rise to a challenge.

Now, where was the tea? Aha! Lotty pounced on a pack, and was feeling pretty confident until she realised that the kettle wasn’t getting hot. She put her hand on it, and had just bent her head to see if she could hear anything when Corran walked in and raised his brows at the sight of her with her ear pressed against the kettle.

‘I don’t think it’s working,’ she said as she straightened.

Corran looked at the kettle and then at her. Without a word, he reached round and clicked on a switch at the back of the kettle. Immediately, a light came on and there was a rushing noise.

Lotty bit her lip. ‘I haven’t used a kettle like this before.’

‘Have you put a tea bag in a mug and poured over boiling water?’ Corran asked sarcastically.

She hoped she didn’t look too grateful for the tip. Bag, boiling water. She could do that. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any coffee?’

‘There’s instant.’ He tossed her a jar, which she caught more by luck than science. ‘Sorry, I’m fresh out of luxuries,’ he said, correctly interpreting Lotty’s look of dismay. She would have sold her soul for a cup of freshly ground coffee right then.

‘I’ll have tea,’ he told her, opening a cupboard. ‘The mugs are in here.’

‘Have you just arrived?’ Lotty took out two, leaving a single mug marooned in a vast cupboard. ‘You don’t have much stuff.’

‘I moved in a couple of months ago.’ Corran tossed a couple slices of bread in the toaster and slammed it down. ‘I’ve never been a big one for stuff,’ he told her. ‘You don’t acquire much in the Army, and my ex wife kept the house and all its contents when we got divorced.’

So he was divorced. Lotty filed that little bit of information away. She would have liked to have known more, but didn’t want to sound too interested. It was hard to imagine Corran McKenna unbending enough to ask anyone to marry him.

Not her business, of course, but Lotty couldn’t help wondering what his ex-wife was like as she put a tea bag in a mug and hoped she looked as if she knew what she was doing. What sort of woman would crack that grim façade? What would it take to bring a man like Corran McKenna to his knees? To make that hard mouth soften and the icy eyes warm with desire?

Lotty stole a glance at him as he opened the fridge and fished out butter and jam and a pint of milk, which he sniffed at suspiciously before putting it on the table. She wasn’t at all surprised to hear that he had been in the Army. He had that tough competence she had seen in all her close protection officers, most of whom also came from a service background. They were all lean, hard men like Corran, men with absolute focus and eyes that were never still.

But she had never noticed their mouths before, or speculated about their love lives. Just looking at Corran’s mouth made Lotty’s stomach jittery. Why had she started to think about him kissing? Now warmth was pooling disturbingly inside her.

Lotty made herself look away and concentrated on unscrewing the jar of coffee granules instead.

‘It’s a shame this room is so bare,’ she said to break the silence. Her voice sounded thin, as if all the air had been squeezed out of it. ‘It could be a lovely kitchen.’

Corran grunted. ‘The kitchen is the least of my worries at the moment. The rest of the house is just as bare. I’m more concerned about getting the estate up and running again. I can live without furniture until then.’

‘You don’t have any furniture?’

‘Just the basics. This table. A couple of beds.’ He nodded his head at the armchair by the range. ‘That old chair my father’s dog used to sleep on.’

‘Then this was your father’s house?’

‘Yes,’ said Corran, a curt edge to his voice. ‘I inherited the house and the estate from him.’

‘Isn’t it usual to inherit the furniture as well as the house?’

He shrugged. ‘My stepmother took everything when she moved to Edinburgh.’

‘Why did she do that?’

‘You’d have to ask her that,’ he said distantly.

Lotty sniffed cautiously at the jar of coffee, unable to suppress an involuntary moue of distaste. She was trying to remember what the barmaid had told her at the Mhoraigh Hotel. ‘I heard there was some kind of family feud,’ she told Corran.

‘It takes two to feud,’ he said in a flat voice. ‘I’m not feuding.’

Lotty had been spooning coffee granules into a mug, but stopped when she saw Corran’s expression. ‘What?’

‘You like your coffee strong.’

Uh-oh. Clearly she had overdone it. ‘Er, yes…yes, I do.’ Surreptitiously, she spilled the last spoonful back into the jar. ‘They say the estate should have gone to your brother,’ she said to distract him.

‘My half-brother,’ he corrected her sharply. ‘Who told you that? Oh, you’ll have got it from the hotel in Mhoraigh, of course,’ he answered his own question. ‘That well-known centre of unbiased information!’

‘Is it true?’

‘No, it’s not true.’ Corran scowled as he threw a couple of plates on the table and rummaged in a drawer for knives. Why should he care what Lotty thought? She had pushed her way in here, and if she didn’t like it, she could leave. It didn’t matter if she believed that he wasn’t entitled to the estate, but still he found himself saying, ‘I’m my father’s eldest son.’ The words sounded as if they were pushed out of his mouth. ‘I was born here.’

She had found a warm spot in front of the range and was leaning against it, her arms spread along the rail. ‘You don’t sound Scottish,’ she commented.

‘My parents divorced when I was six. My mother took me to London after that.’

‘So Loch Mhoraigh isn’t really home to you?’

‘Yes, it is!’ As always, the suggestion caught Corran on the raw. Mhoraigh was the only home he had ever had. ‘I spent part of every summer here when I visited my father.’

Lotty was frowning. ‘Then why is there a question mark over you having the estate? Doesn’t the eldest son usually inherit?’

‘It’s normal, yes, but Andrew—my halfbrother—is very popular around here. Especially at the hotel, where he seemed to spend most of his time as far as I can gather,’ Corran added evenly. ‘Everyone would much rather he had inherited the estate.’

‘Why not you?’

He sighed. ‘Are you always this nosy?’

For a moment she looked taken aback. ‘I suppose I’m used to asking a lot of questions,’ she said.

‘As part of your job?’

Something uncertain flickered in her eyes. Good, thought Corran. Let her see what it was like being on the receiving end of an interrogation for a change!

‘Yes,’ she said after a tiny hesitation. She cleared her throat. ‘I suppose you could say I’m in public relations.’

‘Does that mean you’d be happy discussing your family with a stranger?’

That strange expression flitted across her face again. ‘No, perhaps not. But we’re not going to stay strangers, are we? We’re going to be working together for a whole month so I can win that bet,’ she reminded him. ‘We might as well get to know something about each other. And I’d rather know the truth than rely on gossip.’

‘The Mhoraigh estate is mine,’ said Corran. ‘That’s all the truth you need.’

‘I don’t understand why they don’t like you in the village.’

‘Not everyone falls for my charm,’ he snarled at her, and then wished he hadn’t when she chuckled. She looked startlingly pretty when laughter warmed the patrician looks.

‘Oh, I can see they might be able to resist your sunny disposition,’ she said, ‘but most people like things to be fair and, if you’re the eldest son, it’s fair that you inherited, surely?’

Corran blew out an exasperated sigh. He might as well tell her or she would never shut up about it.

‘My father always intended to change the entail on the estate,’ he said, making sure his voice was empty of all bitterness. He didn’t want Lotty concluding that he was screwed up about all this, no matter how pretty she looked when she smiled.

‘Andrew was his favourite. Everyone knew that. He had the huge advantage of not reminding him of my mother. My father never forgave her for leaving him, and every time he looked at me, he saw her. It made my visits…difficult.’

Lotty’s lovely grey eyes darkened with sympathy. ‘That must have been hard on you.’

‘Please spare me the violins,’ said Corran curtly. He couldn’t bear people feeling sorry for him. He especially didn’t want Lotty feeling sorry for him.

‘I was perfectly happy as long as I could be here at Mhoraigh.’ He had told himself that so often, he even believed it. ‘I knew how my father felt and that the estate would go to Andrew eventually, and I’d accepted that. That’s why I joined the Army. If I couldn’t live here, I had no roots, and the military life suited me fine for a while. When my commission ended, though, I wanted to come back to the Highlands. I was thinking about buying a place of my own, and then my father sent for me.’

He stopped, remembering the last time he had seen his father. The churning bitterness and regret he had denied for so long. Why was he telling Lotty all this? What did it matter? He had come to terms with his father’s rejection long ago.

Hadn’t he?

‘He told me that he wasn’t going to change the entail after all. I still don’t know why. Perhaps he thought the estate would be too much of a liability for Andrew. Mhoraigh would be mine, he said, but he was leaving everything else to my stepmother and Andrew. The trouble was that there was no money left after the way they’d all been living these past few years. I daresay Moira thought all the furniture was the least she deserved. Hence the empty house,’ said Corran.

Lotty was a good listener, he realised. She kept her eyes fixed on his face and her head was tilted slightly to one side as she concentrated on what he was saying.

‘It must have been a difficult situation for everyone,’ she said.

‘It wasn’t difficult for me,’ said Corran, rescuing the toast, which had started to burn. He flicked both slices onto a plate and offered them to Lotty, who pushed herself away from the range and came to sit at the table.

‘I didn’t care if they stayed or not, as long as I didn’t have to actually live with them. I offered Moira Loch End House, which is a perfectly decent house, and said she could take any pieces of furniture she wanted, but she chose to go to Edinburgh instead, telling everyone that I’d thrown her out of her home.’

Lotty frowned. ‘Why don’t you tell everyone that’s not the true story?’

‘Because I don’t care,’ Corran said in a flat voice. He put more bread in the toaster and came back to sit at the table opposite Lotty. ‘I understand why Moira is bitter. She always resented the fact that I existed when in her mind Andrew should have been the eldest. I was supposed to go away and not come back, but Mhoraigh was in my blood too.’

He didn’t want to think about his annual visits to see his father, which he had longed for so much and hated at the same time. Andrew was seven years younger than him and the two boys had nothing in common. As a child, he had been bitterly aware that neither his father nor his stepmother wanted him there. Only the hills had welcomed him.

‘As for the village, well, they’ve already made up their minds about me, and I haven’t got the time or the inclination to try and make people like me. I’ve got enough to do keeping this estate afloat.’

Corran eyed Lotty with a mixture of resentment and frustration. He had been perfectly happy to keep all this buried until she had started asking her questions. What was it about her that made you want to tell her, to make her understand? It had to be something to do with that shining sincerity, that luminous sense of integrity that made you trust her in spite of the fact that you knew nothing about her.

‘So what about you?’ he asked, wanting to turn the tables once more. He pushed the butter and jam towards her. ‘I suppose you come from a big, happy family where everybody loves each other and behaves nicely?’

Lotty understood the sneer in his voice. She understood the ripple of anger. She had heard a lot of sad stories in her time. No matter how people tried to dress them up for a royal audience, the pain was always there, and her heart ached for Corran as it did for everyone she met who had suffered and endured and who made her feel guilty for not having done the same.

She could only imagine what it had been like for Corran, loving this wild place but feeling unwanted here. No wonder there was still something dark and difficult in his face. For as long as she could remember, wherever Lotty went, people had tidied up and given her flowers and waved flags and clapped her just for existing. She might long for anonymity sometimes, but never had she been made to feel unwelcome.

She was lucky.

‘I can’t claim a big family,’ she said, buttering her toast. The extended family wasn’t even that big now, she thought, and it wasn’t that happy either. She wondered what Corran would make of the so-called curse of the Montvivennes, which had seen such tragedy over the past couple of years.

‘I’m an only child. I’d have loved to have had a brother or sister,’ she added wistfully. It would have been wonderful to have shared the responsibility, to have had someone else who understood what it was like. ‘My mother died when I was twelve, and my father last year.’

There was a pause. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Corran gruffly. ‘I shouldn’t have said that about happy families.’

‘It’s OK. Both my parents loved me, and they loved each other. That makes us a happy family, I think.’

‘So you’re on your own too,’ he said after a moment.

Lotty had never thought of it like that before. As a princess, she was rarely alone.

‘Well, there’s my grandmother,’ she said. ‘And my cousin.’ Philippe was like a brother, she thought.

And of course there were thousands of people in Montluce who loved her and thought of her as one of their own. She had no grounds for feeling alone.

‘No husband? No boyfriend?’

‘No.’ Aware of Corran’s eyes on her, Lotty felt the telltale colour creeping along her cheeks. She spread jam on her toast and took a bite. ‘No, there’s no one.’

‘So who are you running away from?’

Still chewing, Lotty put down her toast. ‘I’m not running away.’

‘You said you needed to get away,’ he reminded her.

She had. Lotty sighed. How could she explain to Corran the pressure to be perfect all the time?

Of course she wasn’t running away from anything bad. Her life was one of unimaginable luxury and Lotty had always known that the price of that was to do her duty, and she did it.

Since her mother’s death, her grandmother had controlled her life absolutely. Every minute of Lotty’s day was organized for her, and Lotty went along with it all, because to protest would be childish and irresponsible.

How selfish would she be to insist on her own life when so many people looked forward to her visits? How could she behave like a spoilt brat when her own grandmother had devoted her entire life to the service of the country and endured bitter tragedy without complaint? The Dowager Blanche had lost two sons and a great-nephew in quick succession. Compared to that, how could Lotty say that she didn’t want to open another hospital, or spend another evening shaking hands and being nice?

Until Philippe came back and the Dowager Blanche had decided that Lotty’s duty to the country extended to marrying a man who didn’t love her. Philippe had understood. It was Philippe who had encouraged her to escape. ‘Your grandmother is the queen of emotional blackmail, Lotty,’ he’d said. ‘You deserve some fun for a change.’

‘I’ve always been a good girl,’ Lotty told Corran. ‘I’ve always behaved well, and done what’s expected of me. I just want a chance to be different for a while. I want to take the kind of risks I never take. I want to make my own mistakes. I want to see if I’m as brave as I think I am, and if I go home now I’ll know I’m just a coward.

‘I’m not running away,’ she told him again. ‘I just want to do something by myself. For myself.’

‘Then you’re going to learn what I learnt a long time ago,’ said Corran. ‘If you want something badly enough, the only person you can rely on is yourself.’

To Lotty, it sounded a cold philosophy, but how could she argue when she had no experience of relying on herself?

‘And you want Mhoraigh?’ she said.

Corran nodded. ‘This used to be one of the finest estates in the Highlands,’ he told her. ‘But there’s been no maintenance for years, and gradually its wealth has been frittered away. My father liked to act the laird, and he was big on shooting parties and keeping up traditions, but he didn’t believe in getting his hands dirty, and Andrew’s the same. He looks the part, but the land was just a source of income for him.

‘But Mhoraigh’s mine now,’ said Corran, setting his jaw, ‘and I’m going to make it what it was.’

‘On your own?’

‘On my own,’ he agreed. ‘Of course, it would be easier if I had some financial reserves, but between alimony payments and all the ready assets going to Moira and Andrew, I can’t begin to improve the breeding stock or even keep up with the maintenance.

‘That’s why I need to get the cottages up and running as soon as I can,’ he said, drumming the fingers of one hand on the table. ‘Holiday lets are a good source of income, but the summer is my only real opportunity to get the work done. This is a working estate, and there’s farming to be done too. We’ve finished lambing and the sheep are out on the hill now, but come September I need to be taking them to market. Then I’ll be buying tups, and the cattle will go in October. And all that’s apart from the forestry and routine maintenance.’

‘Hmm,’ said Lotty through a mouthful of toast. ‘I can see why you need some help.’

‘And instead I’ve got you,’ Corran said with a sardonic look.

She met his eyes across the breakfast table. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘You’ve got me.’




CHAPTER THREE


AFTER breakfast, Corran showed Lotty to a room upstairs. He had warned her that the house was bare, but it was still a shock to see how thoroughly it had been stripped by his stepmother. There were no carpets or curtains, hardly any furniture, and tired patches on the walls marked where pictures had once hung.

It made Lotty feel sad to think of how bitter his stepmother must have felt to have left the house in such a state. Corran put on a good show of not caring what anyone thought, but Lotty had seen the bitter curl of his mouth when he had talked about being the unwanted son. Small wonder that he had grown into a grimly self-sufficient man.

Like the rest of the house, her bedroom was sparsely furnished, with just a bed and a straight-backed chair on the bare boards, but it was light and spacious and from the window there was a lovely view of the loch. Lotty, who had spent her life in the most luxurious of accommodation, was delighted with it.

She would have to collect her rucksack from the barn later, but for now Corran had provided her with an old shirt. Lotty took off her fleece and T-shirt and shrugged the shirt on over her bra, uncomfortably conscious of the feel of it against her bare skin. The cotton was worn and threadbare at the cuffs and collar, but it was clean and it smelt very comforting. She rolled up the sleeves and tried not to think that the skin the shirt had touched had been Corran’s. It felt disturbingly intimate to be wearing his clothes.

Back at the cottage, she squared her shoulders determinedly and set to work, glad of the gloves she had brought in case the weather turned unseasonably cold. She would show Corran McKenna what she could do, but that didn’t mean she had to like touching all the filth and horrible cobwebs.

She spent the first two hours dragging the clutter of old furniture in the living room outside. One or two of the bigger pieces would have to wait until she could persuade Corran to help her, but in the meantime at least she could start to make an impression. She rolled up rugs, coughing and spluttering at the dust, and then gritted her teeth before tackling the cobwebs on the ceiling with a broom.

Some of the spiders were enormous, and she had to jump out of the way as they scuttled irritably across the floor. Lotty hated spiders, but she wouldn’t let herself scream. Princesses didn’t squeal or shriek or make a fuss, and they were never afraid. Her grandmother had taught her that.

Once the spiders were dealt with, she even began to enjoy herself. She was grimy and hot and the dust made her wheeze, but there was no one to charm, no one waiting to shake her hand, no one expecting anything of her except that she get this job done. No deference, no sycophancy, just Pookie, who seemed to have attached himself to her and was snuffling happily around, scrabbling at holes in the skirting boards and growling at imaginary rats.

At least Lotty hoped they were imaginary.

When Corran found her at lunchtime, she was sweeping up piles of dust and rubbish and singing tunelessly in French while Pookie pounced on fluff balls. Neither of them noticed him at first, which just went to show what a useless excuse for a dog Pookie was.

From the doorway, Corran watched Lotty wielding the broom inexpertly. She was swamped by his shirt, and she wore that scarf twisted up and knotted in two corners, so she should have looked ridiculous. Instead, the rough shirt just emphasised the delicacy of her arms and the pure line of her throat rising out of the worn collar, while she managed to make even the scarf look chic.

And she was singing! She wasn’t supposed to be happy. She was supposed to be overwhelmed by the task he had set her, and disgusted by the dirt. She was supposed to be giving up and going away. He needed help, yes, but he needed someone practical, not this slight, elegant figure with her spine of steel and her speaking grey eyes. Lotty was too…distracting.

Look at how she had made him talk over breakfast, pushing him to think about the past, and look at him now, breaking off to make coffee, just to make sure she stopped for a few minutes! He didn’t have time to worry about her.

Corran scowled and rapped on the door with his knuckles. ‘I’ve brought lunch,’ he said curtly.

Startled, Lotty swung round in mid-song, and Pookie came scampering over to yap and fawn at his knees to cover his embarrassment at being caught unawares.

‘Quiet!’ Corran bellowed and the dog dropped back on its haunches, ears drooping comically in dismay at his tone.

‘He’s just pleased to see you,’ said Lotty, smiling. She propped her broom against the broken banister, pulled off her gloves and dropped them on the bottom step, and came towards him, brushing her hands on her shirt. On his shirt. ‘And I am too, if you’ve got lunch with you!’

When she smiled, her whole face lit up and Corran felt something tighten around his heart for a moment. It was a long time since anyone had looked happy to see him.

And how pathetic was it that he had even thought of that?

‘Don’t expect me to make a habit of it,’ he said, glowering. ‘It’s just that I’ve finished plastering and I thought I might as well throw some sandwiches together. I want to start baling silage this afternoon, and there’s no point in stopping for lunch once I get going.’

‘I didn’t think I’d be allowed the time for lunch,’ she said. ‘I certainly didn’t think you’d make it. I’m impressed by the service!’

That was right, Corran thought, hunching a shoulder. Make a big deal of it, why didn’t she? Next she would be suggesting that he was worried that he might have asked her to do too much.

‘It’s not too bad outside,’ he said stiffly. ‘I thought we could eat down by the loch.’

‘That’s a wonderful idea!’ said Lotty. She took a deep breath of fresh air, glad to get out of the musty cottage for a while, although she had no intention of admitting that to Corran, of course. Putting her hands to the small of her back, she stretched, unable to prevent a tiny grimace at the twinge of her muscles.

‘Had enough?’ said Corran.

‘Certainly not,’ she said, determined not to let him guess how grateful she was for the chance to stop for a while. ‘You were the one who stopped for lunch!’

Lotty’s shoes crunched on the shingle as she made her way back up the little beach after washing her hands in the cool, clear loch. Corran was unwrapping a packet of sandwiches on the rocky outcrop.

‘It’s nothing fancy,’ he warned as he held out the packet to her.

Lotty took one and perched on the rock beside him. ‘It looks great to me,’ she said honestly. She couldn’t believe how hungry she was, after all that toast at breakfast too.

The sandwich was little more than a piece of cheese thrown between two pieces of ready-sliced bread, but Lotty had rarely enjoyed a lunch more. It felt good to be outside. The air was cool and faintly peaty and she pulled off her scarf so that the breeze could ruffle her hair.

Taking a mouthful of sandwich, she turned up her face to the sun that was struggling through the clouds. ‘Good,’ she mumbled. Even that small rebellion felt wonderful. Princesses never talked with their mouths full. When she went home she would have to remember her manners, but right now she could do whatever she wanted. It was an exhilarating thought.

Corran was pouring coffee from a flask into plastic mugs, but he put it down so that he could brush a cobweb from Lotty’s shoulder. ‘You’re filthy,’ he said.

It was a careless touch, but Lotty’s skin tightened all the same and she was conscious of a zing of awareness.

‘That’s what happens when you try and get rid of forty years’ of dirt,’ she said, embarrassed to find that she was suddenly breathless.

It wasn’t as if Corran was particularly attractive. He was as hard and unyielding as the rock they were sitting on. The dark brows were drawn together over the pale, piercing eyes in what seemed a permanent frown. And yet one graze of his fingers was enough to send the blood skittering around in her veins, one look at his mouth and her heart bumped alarmingly against her ribs.

Unaware of her reaction, Corran handed her a mug. ‘I couldn’t remember how you took your coffee this morning, so I put milk in.’

‘It doesn’t make much difference to me,’ said Lotty, glad of the excuse to shift her position on the rock. She wrinkled her nose as she looked down in the mug. ‘I don’t want you to think I’m not grateful, but this isn’t what I call coffee.’

‘I might have known you’d turn out to be a princess,’ said Corran, and Lotty jerked, spilling most of the mug over his shirt.

‘What?’

‘You’re very particular about your coffee.’ His eyes sharpened suddenly. He was clearly putting something together. ‘You were singing in French just now… I didn’t guess because your English is perfect, but you’re French, aren’t you?’

Perhaps it would have been easier to have pretended that she was French, but pride in her country was ingrained in Lotty. ‘I’m from Montluce,’ she corrected him, chin lifting.

‘Isn’t that part of France?’

Lotty bridled. People always thought that. ‘No, it isn’t! We speak French, but Montluce is an independent state with its own monarchy.’

‘And a big chip on its shoulder?’ Corran suggested with a sideways glance.

‘Not at all. We’re small, but we have a very high opinion of ourselves!’

The corner of his mouth lifted. ‘I see. Does everyone in Montluce speak such good English, or is it just you? I wouldn’t have guessed if I hadn’t heard you singing.’

‘I was sent away to school in England after my mother died,’ she told him. ‘You soon pick up the language when you have to.’

‘Must have been tough to lose your mother and be sent to a strange country at the same time,’ said Corran.

‘It wasn’t the best time of my life,’ Lotty allowed, ‘but I just had to get on with it.’

She had begged her father to let her stay with him in Montluce, but it was her grandmother who had dealt with all the practicalities of life after her mother’s death. Lotty needed to speak English, the Dowager Blanche had decreed, and it would do her good to have a change of scene. The child was much too nervous as it was. She couldn’t be allowed to mope around Montluce. Yes, her mother’s death was sad, but Lotty had to learn to deal with whatever life handed her. There were to be no tears, no complaints. She was a princess.





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