The Secret Princess

by Jessica Hart

  ‘Charlotte!’

  The Dowager Blanche, realising that her granddaughter was on the line, proceeded to give Lotty a lecture on how selfish and irrational she had been.

  Lotty bore it, insensibly reassured to hear that her grandmother was still on her usual intransigent form. From what she could tell, the Dowager was unsure who to be more cross with, Caro, Philippe or Lotty herself. It seemed that they were all ungrateful and irresponsible. Caro had gone back to England—not that the Dowager cared!—and Philippe was moping around. She was beaten and tired, her grandmother told Lotty, but she didn’t sound it. She sounded like an old lady whose will had been thwarted and who didn’t understand what was going on.

  ‘When are you going to stop this nonsense and come home?’ she demanded at last.

  ‘Soon, Grandmère, I promise. There’s just something I need to do here.’

  ‘What sort of something? And where is here? What kind of granddaughter won’t even tell her grandmother where she is?’

  The querulous note in her voice stabbed at Lotty’s conscience, but she steeled herself. ‘I’ll tell you about it when I come home.’

  She ended the call and sat for a while, holding the phone against her chest, before she set it back in its cradle and went to find Corran.

  ‘Problem?’ he asked, looking up from his papers.

  Lotty hugged her arms together. ‘No…I’m not sure,’ she confessed. ‘Things seem to have gone wrong. My grandmother sounds OK, but I think she needs me.’

  ‘Do you want to go home?’ Corran made himself ask.

  She hesitated, then shook her head. ‘Not yet. I don’t think there’s much I can do for now. I’ll stay until after the Rowlands have been.’

  ‘And then?’

  Lotty drew an uneven breath. ‘Then I’ll have to go.’

  ‘This looks…incredible.’ Corran stared around the drawing room, amazed at the transformation.

  Having banished Lotty from ladders, he had painted the ceiling and coving, and helped her carry in the furniture, but everything else she had done herself. The dusty floorboards had been sanded until they were a warm honey colour, and she had painted the walls a pale yellow so that the room seemed to be filled with sunshine even on the dullest of days.

  Lotty had chosen two of the simple sofas they had bought for the cottages, and set them on either side of the fireplace with a sturdy coffee table between them. The only decoration was an arrangement of wildflowers in the grate. Bare the room might be still, but it looked stylish and welcoming too.

  ‘Incredible,’ said Corran again, remembering how sad the room had looked before.

  ‘Let’s hope the Rowlands think so,’ said Lotty. ‘Now all we need is a nice day so they can see Loch Mhoraigh at its best.’

  That last morning, Lotty woke early. She lay for a while blinking at the morning sun that striped the bed and glinted off the hairs on Corran’s chest. He was still asleep. Her face was pressed against his warm shoulder, and she could hear him breathing slow and steady.

  Lotty’s hand drifted down his arm. She didn’t want to wake him, but she had to touch him. His muscles were firm beneath her palm, and her fingers played with the flat hairs on his forearm before curling around his wrist. How many more minutes would she be able to lie like this, drinking in the scent of his skin, comforted by his size and solidity and strength, loving him?

  Of course she loved him. Lotty hadn’t wasted time trying to deny it to herself. She even thought Corran might love her too, but not enough to give up Loch Mhoraigh. She knew what this place meant to him. She wouldn’t ask him to leave it to live in Montluce with her, even if she had the courage to tell him who she was. Corran would hate the formality of the palace, and her grandmother would be horrified.

  And how could she turn her back on her grandmother and her country to stay here when Corran had made it so clear that he was looking for quite a different kind of woman to share his life?

  No, they had agreed to a temporary affair, and it had been wonderful, more wonderful than Lotty could ever have imagined, but it would be better for both of them if they left it at that.

  If only Dick Rowland was impressed enough to invest in the estate. Lotty told herself that it would be easier to leave if she knew that Corran would have the money to bring Loch Mhoraigh back to life. He would be happy here.

  And she would be happy in Montluce. Somehow.

  CHAPTER NINE

  LOTTY’S stomach churned and she shifted uneasily. She had been feeling queasy a lot recently. She’d tried to convince herself that it was anxiety about the Rowlands’ visit but, deep down, she knew that it was dread at the prospect of saying goodbye. Once today was over, she would have no excuse to stay. She had promised her grandmother that she would go home, and that was what she would do, but oh, it was going to be hard!

  ‘You’re fretting,’ Corran said lazily without opening his eyes.

  ‘I thought you were asleep.’

  ‘How can I sleep with you twanging beside me?’ he grumbled, but he pulled her hard against him. ‘Stop worrying,’ he said as his hands slid possessively over her. ‘It’ll be fine.’

  Lotty wasn’t sure about that, but she let herself be distracted. She let him banish apprehension with skilful hands, let pleasure blot out all thought, and afterwards she pretended that nervousness about the day was all it had been.

  She spent the morning fussing around, and made Corran change into a better shirt, although he refused point blank to put on a tie.

  ‘I’m supposed to be a working farmer,’ he said. ‘Farmers don’t wear ties.’

  Lotty agonized for a while about her own outfit. She was afraid that some of her Montlucian clothes would look too elegant. As Corran pointed out, if she could afford clothes like that, it would look as if they didn’t need investment, but she could hardly wear her old working clothes either. In the end she settled for her faithful jeans and the raspberry pink cardigan she had worn every evening when she first arrived.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked Corran. She offered a nervous twirl. ‘Is this casual enough?’

  Corran looked her up and down, and his pale eyes were warmer than Lotty had ever seen them before. ‘You look perfect,’ he said.

  Lotty was still glowing with his approval when the Rowlands arrived.

  With its encouraging tax regime, Montluce had an impeccable reputation as a centre of international finance and Lotty had met plenty of financiers over the years. She had expected Dick Rowland to fit the same suave mould, but he turned out to be a bulky Yorkshireman with a meaty face and small, sharp eyes. His wife, Kath, was blonde and bubbly. She started talking before she was even out of the car and barely drew breath after that.

  At least she seemed to like what she saw. ‘Oh, this is gorgeous!’ she exclaimed, looking around her. ‘What a wonderful place to live.’

  Her wide blue eyes came back to rest on Lotty’s face with a slight frown. ‘Sorry, am I staring?’ she said when Corran introduced Lotty as his partner. ‘You look so familiar… We haven’t met before, have we?’

  Lotty’s heart took a nosedive. Please, God, don’t let them have visited Montluce, she prayed. Why hadn’t she thought of that as a possibility? She had hosted countless receptions for visiting bankers at the palace. What if the Rowlands had been to one?

  She fixed a smile on her face. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I’m sure I would remember if we had.’

  ‘Maybe you look like an actress,’ said Kath, still puzzling. ‘Who does she look like, Dick?’

  To Lotty’s relief, Dick ignored his wife. He was talking to Corran about the state of the track. ‘You need to do something about that,’ he said. ‘I thought I was going to lose my sump at the very least on the way here.’

  ‘I’ve included the cost of upgrading the track in the financial plan,’ Corran told him.

  Lotty offered coffee, but they agreed to begin with a tour of the estate. Corran drove them all in the Land Rover, which had be
en specially cleaned for the occasion. After admiring the cottages, he took them on a bumpy ride up the hillside to where he could point out the features of the estate and tell Dick about his plans for improvement.

  It was a bright, breezy day. Billowing clouds bustled past the sun and sent great patches of light and shade sweeping across the hills. Far below them, the loch shone silver and Lotty remembered her first sight of it. Now it all felt so familiar.

  It felt like home.

  Lotty wanted to stand and drink in the view while Corran and Dick talked business but Kath Rowland kept chatting in her ear. She was determined to remember who Lotty reminded her of, and worked her way through a number of actresses, none of whom she remotely resembled, before deciding that it must after all be one of the mothers at her daughter’s school. To Lotty’s dismay, Kath appeared to be almost as avid a reader of gossip magazines as Betty McPherson. Why couldn’t she be languid and sophisticated like most of the financiers’ wives she’d met?

  It was a relief when they went back to the house and she could escape to the kitchen to make tea. She had made the scone mix earlier so she just added milk and put them in the range while she boiled the kettle and set the tray. Wondering how Corran was getting on in the drawing room, she nearly forgot about the scones and had to whisk them out of the oven.

  They were perfect.

  She broke one open just to check. It was golden on the outside, light as air in the middle. Lotty could hardly believe it.

  She carried the tray through to the drawing room, and her eyes met Corran’s as she set it down on the low table between the sofas. She saw him register the immaculate scones and they exchanged a private smile.

  ‘I’ve got it!’ Kath’s exclamation made Lotty jump. ‘I’ve been racking my brain to remember who you remind me of, and it’s just hit me. You’re the spitting image of Princess Charlotte of Montluce!’

  Lotty went cold and then hot. ‘Oh, do you think so?’ she said as casually as she could. ‘Doesn’t she have dark hair?’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Kath, frowning in an effort of memory. ‘She has that wonderful signature bob. Still, the resemblance is remarkable. You even have the same name. Lotty’s short for Charlotte, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, it’s quite a coincidence.’ Lotty’s hand shook slightly as she poured the tea. She could feel Corran’s eyes on her face but she didn’t dare look at him.

  Kath was still talking. ‘I feel so sorry for that poor girl,’ she confided. ‘They say that family is cursed. First her father died, then her uncle and his son, and wasn’t there another son who was disinherited? He’s in prison for murder.’

  It was for a drugs offence, but Lotty wasn’t about to correct her. Smiling brightly, she picked up the plate and passed it to Kath. ‘Would you like a scone?’

  ‘Ooh, these look gorgeous!’ Kath took one, but Lotty’s hopes that she might be diverted were soon dashed. Kath had more to say about Princess Charlotte.

  ‘Then she was engaged to Prince Philippe and he dumped her for somebody nobody had ever heard of. Poor thing, it must have been so humiliating for her!’

  Desperately, Lotty offered scones to Dick and Corran, head ducked as if she could make herself invisible somehow.

  ‘They say Charlotte is broken-hearted,’ Kath went on inexorably. ‘She just dropped out of sight.’

  ‘Really?’ said Corran. His voice was empty of all expression, but when Lotty risked a fleeting glance at him she saw that he was watching her steadily and unsmilingly.

  He knew. She could see it in his eyes, which were the clear, cold blue of icebergs. Lotty thought about the warmth she had seen there before the Rowlands arrived and she wanted to weep. You look perfect, he had said.

  ‘Nobody’s seen her for ages,’ Kath was rambling on. ‘Well, she couldn’t hang around and watch her fiancé flaunting another woman, could she? I don’t blame her for lying low.’

  She had to say something. ‘I don’t think they were actually engaged, were they?’ she managed through stiff lips.

  ‘Oh, yes, they were,’ said Kath with all the authority of a regular Glitz reader. ‘She absolutely adored Philippe. It’s not surprising. He’s absolutely gorgeous, although they say he’s a real playboy.’

  They didn’t know anything, Lotty wanted to shout at her, but she had to sit there and listen to Kath speculating about Philippe and Caro, and pitying poor Princess Charlotte who was so beautiful and good and so astronomically wealthy but so unlucky in love.

  ‘It just goes to show nobody can have everything, doesn’t it?’ she said.

  It was a nightmare. Kath went on and on about Montluce and Lotty couldn’t think of a single way to stop her. Her perfect scones tasted like ashes in her mouth.

  After that one glance, she couldn’t bear to look at Corran again. He wasn’t saying anything, but she could feel the cold fury radiating from him as clearly as if he had touched her. They were sitting rigidly side by side on the sofa facing the Rowlands, and the air between them was jangling with such tension that Lotty couldn’t believe that Kath hadn’t noticed.

  ‘She’s probably getting legless on some yacht somewhere,’ Dick Rowland interrupted his wife at last. ‘Corran, have you thought about a fish farm?’

  So then they had to have a long discussion about the merits of salmon versus trout. Lotty crumbled her perfect scone on her plate and couldn’t decide whether she longed for them to go, or dreaded it because then she would have to face Corran.

  It felt as if she sat there for hours before Dick finally slapped his hands on his thighs and announced that they would have to get on the road. He hauled himself to his feet, followed reluctantly by his wife.

  ‘I think you’ve got something here,’ he said to Corran. ‘Send me those figures, and we’ll talk when I get back from Skye.’

  Outside, he thanked Lotty for the tea. ‘Those were the best scones I’ve ever tasted,’ he told her and then turned to shake hands with Corran. ‘You’re a lucky man, Corran, to have found yourself such a good cook!’

  Dick was clearly waiting for Corran to put his arm around Lotty and smile and agree that he was a lucky man, but Corran couldn’t bring himself to touch her. To touch the missing Princess of Montluce. Because of course that was who she was. He’d seen her expression. Only a fool wouldn’t have guessed the truth long ago.

  A fool like him.

  Somehow Corran summoned a brief smile and managed to unlock his jaw enough to thank Dick for coming.

  Face set, he stood next to Lotty—no, next to Princess Charlotte—on the doorstep and waved the Rowlands off. In silence they waited until the car had negotiated the bend in the track.

  ‘Well, I think that went well, don’t you, Your Highness?’ he said at last.

  Lotty flinched at the unpleasant emphasis on the title, but she didn’t deny it. ‘I think it did, yes,’ she said and turned to go back inside.

  Her coolness enraged Corran so much that he grabbed at her arm before he remembered just who she was and snatched his hand back as if he’d been stung. ‘You’ve been lying to me!’

  ‘How?’ Her face was pale, but her chin was up. How could he ever have mistaken her for anything but a princess? ‘How have I lied, Corran?’ she demanded. ‘I told you that I lost my purse. That wasn’t a lie. I told you I needed a job. That wasn’t a lie. I told you that I wanted to get away for a while but that I couldn’t stay for ever. That wasn’t a lie either. I haven’t lied about anything important.’

  ‘What about omitting the tiny little bit of information about you being a princess?’ he said furiously.

  ‘Would it have made a difference?’

  Corran was thrown by her cool challenge. ‘A difference to what?’

  ‘To whether you’d let me stay. To whether you’d have made love to me. To everything.’

  He rubbed a distracted hand over his face. ‘Yes! No! I don’t know!’

  Lotty smiled sadly. ‘That’s why I didn’t tell you,’ she said.

  Wi
thout another word, she turned and went back into the drawing room, where she began to gather up the teacups as if nothing had happened, as if his world hadn’t just been turned upside down.

  ‘You must have thought I was an idiot!’ Corran followed her, too angry and humiliated to let it go. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t see it before. There was so much that didn’t add up. I should have guessed what you were. Who else but a princess wouldn’t know how to make a cup of tea? Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I couldn’t!’ Lotty’s voice rose, and she let the cups and saucers clatter onto the tray. ‘I didn’t want to tell you! I didn’t want you to start treating me carefully, the way everyone else does. Just once, just for a short while, I wanted someone to look at me and see me, not a princess.’ She pressed a fist to her chest. ‘Me!’

  There was a silence. Corran’s gut churned with disappointment and dismay as he stared at her, trying to see the old Lotty in the princess with the flashing eyes and the hectic flush along her cheekbones.

  ‘So what exactly are you doing here?’

  ‘I’m being selfish.’

  Without warning, the fury drained out of her and she dropped onto the sofa as if someone had knocked her legs out from beneath her.

  ‘Everything I told you about my family was true,’ she said, looking down at her hands. ‘Except I didn’t tell you that Papa was Crown Prince of Montluce. He was a gentle man, and I don’t think he ever got over my mother dying when she did. He retreated into his studies, and my grandmother ran the country behind the scenes far more effectively than he could ever have done.’

  Lotty risked a glance at Corran, who had folded his arms and was listening with a grim expression. How was she going to make him understand what her life in Montluce was like?

  ‘Papa was more interested in Ancient Greece than in shaking hands,’ she went on after a moment. ‘That was my job. As soon as I left school, I stepped into my mother’s shoes and became the public face of Montluce. I didn’t have a choice,’ she tried to explain, hating the desperation that curled the edges of her voice. ‘I’m an only child. Papa was wrapped up in his own world, my grandmother is elderly. I couldn’t refuse. I was brought up to do my duty and I did it.