The Secret Princess

‘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.