LITMIR.BIZ

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outside.’

      Corran thought about that. ‘I can’t afford new furniture.’

      ‘We can use some of the stuff we bought for the cottages,’ said Lotty. ‘As long as we’ve fully furnished a couple of those, they’ll get the idea. We just need a couple of sofas and a coffee table. We’ll keep it simple.’

      She shook the onion in the pan, excited by the possibilities. ‘It wouldn’t take long to strip off the old wallpaper so you can’t see the marks where the paintings were—that would make a big difference!—and we could sand the floorboards. I can make it look nice.

      ‘If you want to impress this guy, Corran, you need to make sure you welcome him properly,’

      she said. ‘I know what I’m talking about,’ she promised him.

      ‘I suppose you did this kind of thing in your PR job,’ said Corran, and she bit her lip. She’d forgotten about her imaginary career in public relations.

      ‘Something like that,’ she said.

      A thought occurred to her. ‘How long are they going to stay?’ she asked Corran, not sorry to change the subject. ‘Not the night?’

      The pale eyes gleamed with understanding. ‘No, he said they were planning to spend the night in Fort William.’

      ‘Phew! At least I won’t need to produce a fancy meal.’

      ‘I’ll suggest a cup of tea,’ said Corran. ‘Just buy a packet of shortbread or something.’

      But Lotty had no intention of giving the Rowlands shop-bought anything. She might not be up to cooking a gourmet meal, but surely she could manage something for tea. What better occasion could there be for some perfect little scones? And they would be perfect this time. She would go back to Betty McPherson and learn how to make them properly if it was the last thing she did.

      It would be the last thing she did for Corran, and Lotty was determined to do it right. While she was doing her royal duty, she wanted to think of him here, on a thriving estate, doing what he needed to do. And if this investment helped him to achieve that, she would do whatever she could to make it happen.

      Lotty was really pleased with the cottages when they were finished. Corran had put in new kitchens and bathrooms and done the tiling, while she had cleaned and painted them all. Now new carpets had been laid, and the rooms were simply but stylishly furnished. With that spectacular setting too, how could the Rowlands not be impressed?

      Corran wanted to concentrate on the outside after that, but Lotty set about pulling the tired wallpaper off the drawing room walls. The house had much bigger rooms than the cottages, of course, and the high ceiling proved a new challenge. She had to balance precariously on ladders to reach the wallpaper underneath the coving, until Corran came in and shouted at her for taking unnecessary risks.

      ‘It is necessary,’ Lotty protested from the top of her ladder and he clicked his tongue in exasperation.

      ‘I’ll do it, then. Get down from there at once! I haven’t got time to deal with you if you break your neck,’ he grumbled.

      It was almost like it had been before.

      Almost.

      Lotty couldn’t quite put her finger on what had changed, but something had. There was an edge of desperation to their love-making now and, although they still talked and Corran was still grouchy, sometimes a constraint crept into the silences between them. Now those pauses in the conversation which had once been companionable seemed to be weighted with all the things they weren’t talking about, like what would happen after the Rowlands had been.

      Like the future, when they would go their separate ways.

      Like saying goodbye.

      Lotty was making more of an effort to keep in touch with Montluce, hoping that she would start to feel homesick. She wanted to remember all the things she loved about her country: the history and the proud independence of the people, the gentle lakes and the wooded hills, the cuisine and the markets and the chic way the women wore the most ordinary of clothes.

      She emailed Caro more regularly, and was one of the first to hear when Philippe defied his father and the Dowager Blanche to refuse permission for the proposed gas pipeline that had caused unprecedented protests in the country. The environmental impact was too great, Philippe had decided, and astounded observers by negotiating a new agreement that miraculously satisfied the activists and those who were more concerned by the impact on the economy.

      ‘Montluce has hit the headlines,’ said Corran, who’d read about it on the internet. ‘Your Prince Philippe is being hailed as a hero of the environment.’

      ‘See, there’s a point to him after all,’ said Lotty, but she was wondering what was really happening in Montluce.

      She hadn’t heard from Caro for a while. The Dowager Blanche would be furious. Lotty’s father hadn’t taken much interest in anything beyond Ancient Greece, so it was her grandmother who had been running the country behind the scenes for years. She was the one who had made the original agreement for the pipeline, and she wouldn’t take kindly to her will being crossed.

      Expecting a crisis, Lotty was a little puzzled when none seemed to materialise but she had other things to think about. In spite of all her efforts to reconnect with Montluce, she was absorbed in life at Loch Mhoraigh. Sanding floorboards, walking the dogs, washing dishes, poring over a recipe, sweeping and tidying… Lotty clung to the ordinary things while she could, committing the simple joy of day-to-day life to her memory.

      And when the day’s tasks were done, there were the long, sweet nights with Corran. She hoarded every moment. Each touch, each kiss, each gasp of wicked pleasure was dipped in gold and stored in her head for the future when memories would be all she would have.

      How could she think about Montluce when there was Corran, his sleek, powerful body, his mouth—his mouth—and those strong, sure hands? Lotty wanted to burrow into him, to hold on to him as if he could stop the hours passing and make it always now, and never then.

      But the clock kept ticking on and, just when Lotty had let herself forget about life in Montluce, she received an email message from her grandmother that jolted her back to reality.

      Caro, it seemed, had gone back to England and everything had gone wrong. Where was Lotty when she was needed? Her grandmother missed her. Please would she come home soon.

      It was a querulous message, so unlike the indomitable Dowager Blanche that Lotty was instantly worried. Her grandmother never begged, never admitted that she needed help.

      Lotty bit her lip.

      Unseeingly, she looked out of the office window. It was a dismal evening with rain splattering against the glass and an angry wind rattling the panes, but Lotty was thinking about the palace in Montluce. Did her grandmother need her now? Had she been selfish long enough?

      ‘May I use the phone?’ she asked Corran, who was in the kitchen, poring over figures for his breeding programme.

      He looked up, and his brows drew together at her expres sion.

      ‘Of course,’ he said.

      Lotty went back to the office, took a deep breath, picked up the phone and dialled the palace’s number. As soon as it was answered she gave the code word which put her call immediately through to the Dowager Blanche’s office, and then there was a click and her grandmother herself on the line.

      ‘Grandmère?’ Lotty’s throat tightened unaccountably at the sound of her grandmother’s voice.

      ‘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

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