LITMIR.BIZ

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think I might—’

      ‘Look.’ Ignoring him, she pulled a copy of Glitz from the top of the pile on the counter. A Royal Rush Into Marriage! was splashed across the cover over a picture of Prince Philippe and Lotty’s friend, Caro. Philippe and Caro Wed This Weekend.

      ‘Very nice,’ said Corran. ‘Could I have—’

      ‘And here’s our lassie.’ Betty folded the page back and showed it to Corran. ‘She looks peaky, doesn’t she?’ Her sharp blue eyes rested on Corran’s face.

      Corran didn’t answer. He’d forgotten about milk and bread. He was staring down at the picture of Lotty. She looked strained, but beautiful still, standing next to some chinless wonder in a dinner jacket. Charlotte and Kristof: Another Wedding in the Offing?

      There was another picture of Lotty on her own. The caption to that one read, Charlotte’s Bump: Could She be Pregnant?

      He picked up the magazine with hands that weren’t quite steady and looked more closely at Lotty’s stomach. It did look like a bump. Was it possible? But how long before a pregnancy showed? It was three and a half long, long months since Lotty had left.

      Corran did the sums in his head and stiffened. Crushing the magazine in his hand, he stood for a moment staring unseeingly ahead of him before he turned on his heel and stalked out of the shop without thinking to pay for the magazine, or remembering the milk and biscuits left abandoned on the counter.

      Betty McPherson smiled gently and put them back on the shelf.

      The palace was alight with excitement. Lights blazed in the windows and the staterooms were filled with a hubbub of conversation as representatives from every part of Montluce mingled with the glamorous guests and visiting royalty who had been invited to see Prince Philippe marry Miss Caroline Cartwright the next day.

      It was a long time since Montluce had seen a royal wedding, and the country was making the most of it. In spite of the snow, huge crowds had gathered outside the palace to ooh and aah at the guests as they arrived, and many had staked their claim on the roadside to watch the procession the next morning.

      Lotty was working her way round the room, trying to talk to as many people as possible. She had pulled out all the stops to celebrate Caro and Philippe’s wedding and was looking regal in a ball gown made of heavy Italian red silk. Her shoulders were bare except for the ancestral ruby and diamond necklace and she wore a tiara in her dark hair. The beautiful cut of the dress had been specially designed to draw attention away from her bump, but she had draped a chiffon stole over her arms as a further distraction.

      Lotty wasn’t ashamed of her pregnancy, but this party was in honour of Caro and Philippe and she didn’t want anything to attract attention away from them tonight. Already there had been some speculation in the papers. Most of the reception guests were too polite to stare directly at her stomach, but Lotty could tell that they were wondering if the gossip was true or not.

      So she smiled and chatted and hoped that nobody could see how tired she felt.

      Standing up to her grandmother’s fearsome will had been harder than Lotty had imagined. The Dowager Blanche had been devastated by Lotty’s pregnancy and was unable to comprehend how she could even contemplate having the baby on her own. Her latest plan was to marry Lotty off to Count Kristof of Fleitenstien.

      ‘He would raise the child as his own,’ she assured Lotty. ‘He understands how these things are done.’

      Lotty didn’t want things done. The baby was hers and Corran’s. She wasn’t going to pretend anything else. She wasn’t going to pretend to love anyone she didn’t. She had had enough of pretending.

      Across the room, Lotty watched Caro and Philippe circulating amongst their guests. She was so happy for them, but whenever she saw the easy way they touched each other, the way they caught each other’s eye in a moment of private amusement, she felt so lonely she could hardly breathe.

      She missed Corran so much. She ached for him, hungered for him, like now, when the longing to be back at Loch Mhoraigh, pressed against him, was like a great hand closing around her throat. Sucking in her breath at the pain, Lotty closed her eyes without thinking.

      ‘Altesse? Can I get you anything?’

      Lotty’s eyes snapped open and she fixed a smile automatically back into place. ‘No, thank you. I’m fine.’ From somewhere she summoned a name and set out to charm, but all the time she was remembering how different it had been with Corran, who never minced his words, who was caustic and abrupt and treated her exactly the way he treated everyone else.

      Her gaze fixed courteously on the guest’s face, she didn’t at first register the commotion at the door, but as his gaze widened at something over her shoulder, she turned.

      And froze.

      There, pushing his way through the footmen, was Corran.

      Corran, unmistakable, even in a dinner jacket and bow tie. Corran, grim-faced, looking tall and forbidding and utterly out of place under the glittering chandeliers in spite of his clothes.

      Lotty stared, paralysed by shock, disbelief and incredulous, astounded joy.

      He was striding across the ballroom, shaking off the footmen who hurried after him, searching the throng of guests with his eyes.

       Looking for her.

      Then he saw her. Even through the crowds, she could see the blaze of expression in his pale eyes as he checked, and headed straight for her. At the same time, security officers were converging on him from all sides, muttering hastily into the radios on their wrists, while the startled guests fell silent around them.

      Lotty pulled herself together. She had to stop things before they got out of hand. They couldn’t have a major security issue in the middle of Caro and Philippe’s party.

      Stepping forward, she gestured the security officers back before they could wrestle Corran to the ground, and he strode the last few yards unmolested until he stood right in front of her.

      ‘There you are,’ he said.

      There was a rushing in Lotty’s head and her vision darkened as a great tumble of emotions crashed through her. She didn’t know whether to throw herself into Corran’s arms or beat at his chest in fury. She was spinning wildly in a turmoil of anger and ecstasy and confusion and, leaping through it all, the astounding, wonderful knowledge that it was him, it was really him, he was there and nothing else mattered.

      She couldn’t faint. Lotty gripped the edges of her stole so tightly that her knuckles showed white. This was Caro and Philippe’s party. She couldn’t spoil it by making an exhibition of herself. Already half the room seemed to be turning to stare and a space was forming around them.

      From somewhere Lotty found her princess smile and pinned it on.

      ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked through stiff lips.

      ‘Is it true?’ Corran demanded fiercely.

      She knew what he meant, of course she did, but couldn’t answer, not here in front of everyone. ‘We can’t talk about this now,’ she said with an edge of desperation, and then, to her relief, Caro and Philippe were there, supporting her, looking from her to Corran and back again.

      ‘Is everything all right?’ Philippe rarely put on airs, but he could be daunting when he wanted to be.

      ‘Yes,’ said Lotty automatically.

      Just as Corran snarled, ‘No.’

      He took hold of Lotty by the wrist. ‘No, it’s not all right,’ he told Philippe flatly. ‘I don’t want to break up the party, but Lotty and I are going somewhere we can talk.’

      Philippe took a protective step forward, but Caro had been watching Lotty’s face and she put out a hand to hold him back. ‘I think this must be Corran,’ she said with a faint smile. ‘I’m glad you’ve come,’

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