by Jessica Hart
Mrs McPherson flushed with pleasure and settled herself more comfortably against the counter. ‘I used to make them for him specially,’ she confided. ‘I felt sorry for the lad. It was shameful the way they treated him, it was. I’m not saying he was an easy boy, but that child practically brought himself up. His father had no time for him, and his mother never cared what anyone thought of her. What a minx she was!’ She sniffed disapprovingly. ‘She was English, you know.’
Then she paused, evidently realising what she had said. ‘Of course, not like you.’
Lotty couldn’t help smiling at her discomfiture. ‘I’m not English,’ she reassured her.
‘Is that so? You sound English.’
‘That’s because I went to school in England. I’m actually from Montluce.’
She waited to be told that Montluce was part of France but, to her consternation, it turned out that Betty McPherson was an avid reader of gossip magazines, and knew all about Lotty’s country and the crisis in finding a successor to her father.
‘What a time that poor family has had!’ she said, shaking her head.
‘Yes, it’s been difficult for them,’ said Lotty, beginning to wish that she had kept her mouth shut. But she couldn’t bring herself to deny her own country.
Mrs McPherson seemed to have followed the crisis in such detail that Lotty had a few moments’ anxiety in case she was recognised, but the older woman didn’t seem to have made the connection between the elegant Princess Charlotte and the scruffily dressed girl who stood in front of her. It was partly a question of expectation, Lotty knew, but she was glad that she had had her hair cut nonetheless, and perhaps the red hadn’t been such a bad idea after all.
As soon as she could, she changed the subject by asking for Mrs McPherson’s scone recipe. Her first attempt to make scones had been a disaster and left the kitchen full of smoke. Fortunately, this proved to be an effective diversion, and it was some time before she was able to escape, sent on her way with lengthy instructions.
‘And don’t forget to dust the baking tray with flour,’ was Mrs McPherson’s parting shot, which meant nothing to Lotty. She smiled anyway and waved from the door, hoping that she was going to be able to remember it all.
As soon as she got back to Loch Mhoraigh House, she rushed into the kitchen and tried to put Mrs McPherson’s instructions into effect, but if anything that batch of scones were worse than the ones she’d made before.
And that was saying something.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Corran, but Lotty wouldn’t give up. How hard could it be to make scones?
Mrs McPherson made it sound so easy. The recipe books made it sound easy. So why couldn’t she do it? Was she really so lacking in any talent or ability? The more she thought about it, the more depressed Lotty got.
What, really, was she good for? Smiling and shaking hands. That was it. She was going to have to go home to Montluce and all she would have to show for it would be some broken fingernails. Yes, she had acquired a few basic skills like peeling a potato or painting a wall, but neither was exactly challenging. Lotty was terribly afraid that when it came down to it, she was just the pampered princess that the anti-royalists thought her after all. A smiling face. A walking clothes hanger. Nothing more than that.
What if that was all she was?
Raoul the Wolf would be ashamed of her.
Lotty kept thinking about her grandmother, whose spine of steel never bent, who would never, ever admit that a member of the royal house of Montluce was beaten.
So she kept on making scones, as if that would prove something, although whether it was to her grandmother or herself or her illustrious ancestors Lotty was never quite clear.
And the scones kept turning out flat and hard.
‘I really don’t understand why it matters so much,’ said Corran, as Lotty gazed despondently at that day’s flat offering.
‘I just want to be able to do something well,’ she tried to explain.
‘You do lots of things well,’ said Corran impatiently.
‘Like what?’
He hesitated. ‘See?’ she pounced on him. ‘You can’t think of anything!’ Her face crumpled. ‘I’m useless!’
‘You’re not useless. What a ridiculous thing to say!’
Corran glowered at her. He wanted to tell her how she had changed the feel of the house just by being there. How he looked forward to coming in at the end of a long day and seeing her at the range, stirring some sauce with a dubious expression. How she lit up a gloomy day with her smile.
But he didn’t know how to say it without making it sound as if he wanted her. Which he didn’t.
Much.
Lotty was the last kind of woman he wanted to get involved with, Corran had to remind himself every day after yet another night haunted by the image of her in the bath. The pure line of her throat seemed to be etched into his brain and, no matter how hard he tried not to look, his eyes would catch on the sweet curve of her mouth.
She worked with a steely determination that would put many men far stronger than her to shame, but she was beautiful and, even tired and dirty and despondent, there was a glamour to Lotty that made Corran leery.
There was no place for glamour at Loch Mhoraigh House. His own mother had been a perfect example of how disastrous it could be when you took someone out of their natural milieu, and his brief marriage to Ella had simply underscored that. Corran wasn’t making that mistake again. When he had time for a relationship again, it would be with someone who belonged here, someone who could offer practical support and do more than look decorative.
Already he was getting too used to having Lotty around. It made Corran uneasy. ‘You’re just looking for attention,’ he told her crossly.
‘You can’t think of anything, can you?’
Corran could feel himself being driven into a corner. ‘You’re good with Pookie,’ he offered at last.
It was true too. With Lotty to shower attention on him, Pookie had settled down and wasn’t nearly as irritating. He still looked more like a toy than a dog, but he could be appealing enough when he tried. Sometimes when he sat on the sofa Pookie lay beside him on his back to have his tummy scratched and Corran found himself obliging.
Lotty was looking unconvinced. ‘And you’re a whizz with a broom,’ he tried again, but the face she made at him showed what she thought of that as an accomplishment.
‘Those sausages you cooked yesterday were pretty good.’
‘They were burnt!’
‘I read somewhere that charcoal is good for you.’
A tiny smile quivered at the corner of her mouth. ‘You’re just trying to indulge me.’
‘I’ll do whatever it takes to get a meal on the table,’ he said acidly. ‘What gastronomic treat do we have tonight?’
‘Mince again. It’s all we’ve got left,’ she added, seeing Corran’s involuntary grimace. They had been eating a lot of mince recently. It was one of the few things she had learnt to cook without burning and even Corran was getting sick of it.
‘We’ll stock up again tomorrow on the way back from Glasgow,’ he said. ‘We can collect your case, buy some furniture and do a supermarket session on the way home. If we’ve got to waste a day, we may as well do everything at once.’
‘What do you mean, you haven’t got the code?’ Corran looked at Lotty in exasperation. They were standing in front of the left luggage lockers, which were cleverly locked with a digital code.
‘It was printed on a bit of paper and I put it in my purse to keep it safe.’
‘The same purse you left on a pub table?’
She nodded guiltily. ‘I’d forgotten all about it until we got here. I’m really sorry it’s a wasted journey.’
‘You can’t be the only idiot who loses the code. We’re not leaving here without that case,’ Corran said. ‘Stay there,’ he ordered and strode off.
Lotty wasn’t at all surprised to see him come back with a station official a few minutes la
ter. He might not be able to lay on the charm, but he was competent. If something needed to be done, you could rely on Corran to do it.
She clearly wasn’t required to do anything more than stand and look helpless, which wasn’t hard, while Corran told the official how stupid and careless she had been. She did her best to seem crushed, but the truth was that she loved being ticked off.
‘You might at least have the decency to look ashamed,’ Corran said, not fooled by her downcast expression. ‘Look at all the trouble you’ve put this poor man to—not to mention the trouble you’ve put me to!’
Lotty hung her head. ‘You’re right. I’m really sorry.’
Corran looked at her suspiciously but she tucked in the corners of her mouth and kept her lips firmly pressed together until her case was safely retrieved, at which point she offered the official a dazzling smile.
‘Thank you so much.’
‘There’s no need to lay it on with a trowel,’ Corran muttered, carrying her case in one hand and steering Lotty out of the station with the other.
‘Trowel?’ she echoed, puzzled.
‘You know what I mean. Smiling at that poor man, making those big eyes at him…’
Lotty stared at him. ‘I thought you wanted me to thank him?’
‘A simple thank you would have been fine. You didn’t need to fawn over him.’
‘You know you’re being completely unreasonable, don’t you?’
‘I’m just saying.’
‘I would thank you too if you weren’t being so crabby.’ Lotty slid a glance at him under her lashes. ‘Seriously, thank you, Corran,’ she said after a moment. ‘It means a lot to have my case back.’
‘You didn’t need me,’ he said grouchily. ‘All you had to do was smile at that man and he’d have opened every locker in the place for you.’
If she didn’t know better, Lotty might even have thought he was jealous.
‘I couldn’t have done it without you,’ she said, and was afraid that it was true.
Her case safely stowed in the back of the Land Rover, they then spent a trying afternoon buying furniture.
Corran was not a good shopper. The store was a cavernous warehouse with a complicated system of ordering by codes, and he was too impatient to take any interest in the process. ‘God, what a nightmare,’ he said, rubbing a hand over his hair. ‘Let’s do this quickly and get out.’
To everyone else they must have looked like any of the other couples there, Lotty thought. She found herself watching them wistfully, wondering what it would be like to be choosing furniture for your first home with someone you were planning to spend the rest of your life with. How much more fun than moving into palace apartments furnished with priceless antiques and every comfort you could possibly imagine, none of which you had chosen yourself.
She suppressed a sigh. A second glance would certainly have convinced anyone watching that she and Corran weren’t like everyone else. They didn’t touch each other, or confer with their heads together. Instead, Corran marched through the store, determined to get the job done as quickly as possible.
‘A chair is a chair,’ he said briskly, scribbling down the code for the first armchair he came across.
Lotty looked at him in disbelief. ‘That’ll look awful in the cottage,’ she protested. ‘It’s absolutely horrible.’
‘It’s a holiday let. Nobody’s going to care what they sit on.’
‘I care,’ said Lotty firmly. ‘I haven’t done all that painting for you to spoil everything with horrible furniture! You want the cottages to look simple and stylish, not cheap and nasty. If you’re going to charge people to stay, it’s the least they’re going to expect.’
‘Oh, very well,’ Corran grumbled, scratching out the code. ‘You choose, then.’
So it was Lotty who picked out beds and chests and a table and chairs, and a simple colourful sofa for the living room. She added bedding and towels, lamps and tablecloths, and a complete set of kitchen equipment to the list, before handing it back to Corran to go and pay for it all.
He squinted at it. ‘Are you sure we need all this stuff?’
‘If you’re advertising a furnished cottage, you’re going to have to furnish it,’ Lotty pointed out crisply.
And it was Lotty who charmed the assistant into arranging a separate delivery so that they left with just a brightly checked cloth for the kitchen table in Loch Mhoraigh House. ‘Haven’t we spent enough money?’ he grumbled when Lotty picked it up.
‘A few pounds isn’t going to make much difference after all you’ve spent on the cottages,’ she said. ‘The kitchen is so bare at the moment. A cloth will make it look more welcoming.’
‘Welcoming for who?’ demanded Corran, tucking the credit card receipt away in his wallet. ‘We’re the only people who ever see the kitchen.’
‘It’s a shame. It’s a lovely house,’ said Lotty, who was still saddened by the echoing rooms and the bare patches where pictures had clearly been hanging on the walls for generations. ‘It needs a lot of love.’
‘It needs a lot of money,’ said Corran, holding open the door for her as they headed out to the car park. ‘Money I don’t have at the moment. Once the cottages are up and running, I’m going to invite some financial types to come and have a look, see what we’ve done. If they’re impressed and can see some potential, I’m hoping they’ll consider investing in the estate as a whole, but the house is way down my priority list. I need new breeding stock, not tablecloths!’
‘I can see that,’ said Lotty, ‘but I still think it’s a pity the house isn’t more comfortable. It wouldn’t take much to make it nice, and then you could invite people round.’
‘What people?’ asked Corran sarcastically. ‘No one from the village will set foot in Loch Mhoraigh House while I’m there.’
‘Have you asked them?’
Corran’s lips tightened as he opened the passenger door of the Land Rover for her. ‘We’ve been through this, Lotty,’ he reminded her shortly. ‘I haven’t got time to sit around being social. I don’t care if the entire village is queuing up to be invited in.’
Lotty wasn’t ready to let it go. ‘You should be part of the community,’ she said stubbornly. ‘Quite apart from anything else, how are you going to meet that sensible wife when you’re a recluse?’
‘I’m not a recluse.’ Irritation gave Corran’s tone a sharp edge. ‘I’m just busy at the moment. And I’ve certainly got no money to spend tarting up the house for non-existent visitors!’
Lotty held the bright tablecloth on her knees. She hated the thought that the village distrusted Corran so much. If they could just meet him and get to know him, she was sure they would realise that he wasn’t the monster his brother seemed to have painted him.
‘I hope you’ll get round to it one day,’ she said as Corran started the engine. ‘I’d like to think of the house brought back to life as well as the cottages. It must have been wonderful in its heyday. It’s the kind of house that should be full of people, and have lots of children and dogs running around,’ she added wistfully.
‘Well, I’ve got the dogs,’ said Corran. ‘If you can count Pookie as a dog!’
He threw an arm along the back of Lotty’s seat as he put the Land Rover into reverse and swung round to look over his shoulder. Lotty was very conscious of his hand near her shoulder. If he lifted it just a little bit, he could caress her neck.
If he wanted to.
Which he didn’t. She swallowed.
‘I think you’ll miss Pookie when your mother gets back,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen the way you tickle his tummy sometimes when you think I’m not looking! Under that tough exterior, you’re just a softie.’
Corran finished manoeuvring out of the tight parking space before he glanced at Lotty. ‘I only do that to shut him up,’ he said, but there was a definite hint of a smile around his mouth all the same.
How did he do that, smile and not smile at the same time? It made Lotty feel very strange. One loo
k at his mouth doing that not-quite-smiling thing, and she ended up feeling hollow and light-headed and sort of…fizzy.
She made herself look away.
‘Anyway,’ Corran went on, fortunately unaware of her reaction, ‘the chances are that my mother will have forgotten all about Pookie by the time she gets home. She’ll have moved on to some new enthusiasm, and it’ll be, Oh, darling, I’m sure he’d be so much happier if he stayed with you. And then I’ll be stuck with him!’ Corran shook his head. ‘Another ten years or so of calling a dog Pookie! Meg won’t be able to hold her head up with the shame of it! At least she’s a proper dog, who can bring the sheep in off the hill. What’s Pookie good for?’
‘He’s a companion,’ Lotty managed.
‘I don’t need a companion,’ he said. ‘I need a dog who’s some use to me.’
Just like he needed a wife who was some use to him, thought Lotty sadly.
Corran moved the gear lever into first. Now his hand was near her knee. The same hand that could have stroked her neck, if only he had moved it just a little.
Lotty wrenched her eyes away from it. Her mouth was dry. The Land Rover felt as if it had shrunk since they had driven down to Glasgow that morning. Now the sides were pressing in around her, pushing all the spare oxygen out of the vehicle and making the air twang under the pressure.
Nothing had changed, Lotty told herself. She was the same, Corran was the same, the Land Rover was the same.
She had spent too much time watching all those couples, that was all. It had made her twitchy. All that time she had spent reminding herself to be cool and careful around Corran, and now she might as well not have bothered. She was agonisingly aware of him beside her, and she shifted in her seat, desperate to find a way to convince him—or herself—that her heart wasn’t pounding and her throat wasn’t tight. Everything was just the same.
‘The children will love Pookie,’ she made herself say.
Corran stared at her. ‘What children?’
‘Well… I presume you’re thinking of having a family?’
‘I’m not married yet!’
‘Loch Mhoraigh would be a lovely place to bring up children,’ Lotty persevered, not even sure why she was making such a big deal of it. ‘You should have lots, and make sure their childhood isn’t like yours.’
