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‘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.’
