The Secret Princess. Jessica Hart

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