The Secret Princess. Jessica Hart
and massive as Lotty trudged wearily up to the front door. An air of neglect clung to everything. Weeds were growing in what had once been an impressive gravel drive and the windows were cold and cheerless. It was very quiet. No lights, no music, no sign of anyone living there. Only the crows wheeling above the Scots pines and the cry of some bird down by the loch.
Lotty hesitated, looking at the old-fashioned bell. What if Corran McKenna wasn’t there? She wasn’t sure her feet could take her back up that hill.
But what if he was? Lotty chewed her bottom lip uncertainly. She had never had to persuade anyone to give her a job before. She’d never really had to persuade anyone to do anything. Normally people fell over themselves to give her whatever she wanted. She led a charmed and privileged existence, Lotty knew, but it made it a lot harder to prove that she was a worthy successor to all those doughty ancestors who had fought and negotiated and bargained and married to keep Montluce free.
They wouldn’t have been deterred by a simple no, and neither would she.
For these few weeks, she had abandoned her title and her household. There was no one to arrange things for her, no one to make sure she got exactly what she wanted.
She was going to have to do this for herself.
Taking a deep breath, Lotty pressed the bell.
She could hear it clanging inside the house somewhere. Immediately, a furious barking erupted. It sounded as if there was a whole pack of dogs in there, and instinctively Lotty took a step back. There was a sharp command and the dogs subsided, except for a high-pitched yapping that continued until it was suddenly stifled as a door was shut firmly on it.
A few moments later, the front door was jerked open.
A tall, tough-looking man, as forbidding as the hills behind the house, stood there. He was younger than Lotty had expected, with dark, uncompromising features and a stern mouth, and his eyes were a pale, uncanny blue.
‘Yes?’
‘I’ve c-come about the job,’ said Lotty, cursing the stammer that still resurfaced at times when she was nervous. Raoul the Wolf wouldn’t have stammered, she was sure.
His fierce brows snapped together. ‘Job? What job?’
‘I heard in the hotel that you needed help restoring some cottages to let.’
‘News travels fast…or did Gary stop at the bar on his way back to Glasgow?’ Corran added with a sardonic look.
Lotty brushed at the midges that clustered at her ears. Raoul the Wolf wouldn’t have put up with being left on the doorstep either, but she could hardly insist that he invite her inside. She concentrated on sounding reasonable instead. ‘He said you didn’t have anyone else and that you’d be stuck without anyone to work for you.’
‘And did he also say that it was the worst job he’d ever done, not to mention being the worst paid, and having the worst boss?’
‘Something like that.’
‘And yet you want to work for me?’
‘I’m desperate,’ said Lotty.
The pale eyes inspected her. Lotty had never been the subject of that kind of unnerving scrutiny before and, in spite of herself, she stiffened. No one in Montluce would dare to look at her like that.
‘Forgive me for saying so, but you don’t look desperate,’ said Corran McKenna. He nodded at the high tech walking trousers and microfleece she’d bought in Glasgow only four days earlier. ‘Those clothes you’re wearing are brand new, and the labels tell me they weren’t cheap. Besides,’ he said, ‘you’re not suitable for the job.’
‘Why not?’
‘You’re not a man, for a start.’
‘That’s not a good enough reason,’ said Lotty, who might not want to rely on her royal status to protect her, but didn’t have to like his dismissive tone. ‘I think you’ll find there’s such a thing as sex discrimination.’
‘And I think you’ll find I don’t give a toss,’ said Corran. ‘I need someone strong enough to do physical work, not someone whose most strenuous activity is probably unscrewing her mascara.’
Lotty’s eyes sparked with temper. All at once she could feel her celebrated ancestors ranging at her back.
‘I’m not wearing mascara,’ she said coldly, ‘and I’m stronger than I look.’
For answer, Corran McKenna reached out and took her hands, turning them over as if they were parcels so that he could inspect them. His fingers were long and blunt, and they looked huge holding her small hands. He ran his thumbs over her palms and Lotty burned at the casualness of his touch.
‘Please don’t try and tell me that you’ve ever done a day’s rough work in your life,’ he said.
‘That doesn’t mean I can’t start now.’ Lotty tugged her hands free. ‘Please,’ she said, trying to ignore the way her palms were still tingling. If she looked down, she was sure she would be able to see the impression of his fingertips seared onto her skin. ‘I really need this job.’
‘I really need someone suitable,’ said Corran. ‘I’m sorry, but the answer is still no. And don’t bother looking at me like that with those big eyes,’ he added crisply. ‘I’m immune.’
Her jaw actually dropped. ‘I’m not looking at you like…like anything!’
She did astounded very well, but Corran found it hard to believe that she could really be unaware of the power of those luminous grey eyes. They were extraordinarily beautiful, the colour of soft summer mist, and fringed with long black lashes that did indeed appear to be natural when he looked closely.
The kind of eyes that got a man into trouble. Big trouble.
She was very pretty, slender and fine-boned, and she wore her trekking gear with an elegance that sat oddly with the short, garish red hair. A soft scarf at her throat added a subtle sophistication to her look.
Corran had the best of reasons for distrusting sophistication.
Frowning, he looked behind her for a car, but the overgrown gravel drive was empty. ‘How did you get here?’
‘I walked from the hotel,’ she said, eyeing him warily.
‘It didn’t occur to you to ring beforehand?’ he asked, exasperated. ‘It would have saved you a pointless walk.’
‘My phone doesn’t work here,’ she said.
‘If it’s a mobile, it won’t. That’s why we still have landlines,’ he explained as if to a child.
‘Oh.’
She sounded disconcerted. Corran could almost swear she had never used an ordinary telephone in her life. Maybe she hadn’t. Privilege was written in every line of her face, in the tilt of her chin, and cheekbones like that only came from generations of aristocratic inbreeding.
He hardened his heart against the pleading in those huge grey eyes. Desperate? She was probably down to her last hundred thousand.
‘Oh, well…I like to walk,’ she said, recovering.
‘You look ready to drop,’ Corran told her frankly. ‘How far have you walked today?’
‘Sixteen miles.’
Great. Sixteen miles, and he was supposed to let her walk back to the hotel? Corran sighed in exasperation as he faced up to the inevitable. ‘What’s your name?’
‘Lotty,’ she said. A moment of hesitation. ‘Lotty Mount.’
Now why didn’t he believe her? ‘All right, Lotty, you wait there. I’ll get my keys.’
Her face lit up. ‘You’re going to let me stay?’
‘No,’