irritably.
He had known Lotty would be a distraction, but he couldn’t have guessed just how great a one she would prove to be. He couldn’t shake the image of Lotty in the bath. It was as if the curve of her throat, the slim shoulders, the delicate line of her clavicle were burned into his mind. He could still see the wet, pearly skin, the arms clutched over her breasts, her soft mouth open in shock, her eyes huge and startled.
If only he wasn’t so aware of her all the time. Even when he was ripping up floorboards or knocking down walls, he could see Lotty, slender, eyes shining, smiling that smile that made something stir queerly inside him. He could still picture her wrinkling her nose at a mug of tea or chewing her lip as she studied a recipe.
Much as he would like to dismiss her as a pampered brat, Corran couldn’t deny that she was a hard worker. There was a steely resilience to her that he hadn’t recognised at first, a stubbornness to the way she lifted her chin and refused to give in. He had pushed her unfairly hard, Corran knew, but she hadn’t uttered a word of complaint about the conditions. Corran didn’t know anyone else who would have put up with so much.
‘I’ll go to the supermarket on the way back,’ he told her. ‘Is there anything else you want?’
Lotty sat back on her heels and wiped her forehead with the back of her arm. ‘Proper coffee,’ she said.
‘You’ve already put that on the list. Three times. And we don’t need coffee,’ he said. ‘We’ve got plenty of tea.’
Lotty made a face, and he grinned at her, a brief, flashing smile, before he turned for the door. ‘I’ll see you later,’ he said. ‘Work hard.’
Princess Charlotte was hardly ever alone. There was always a footman outside the door, a lady-in-waiting with letters to be answered, her private secretary to discuss visits, a maid to help her dress.
So Lotty didn’t mind being left on her own at all. She hummed as she tackled the grime on the skirting boards and tried to forget about how Corran had looked when he smiled. The grin made him look younger, warmer, more attractive.
Much more attractive.
She wasn’t supposed to be noticing that he was attractive, Lotty reminded herself crossly. Hadn’t he already warned her off? And hadn’t she already remembered that she would be going home to Montluce before too long, and that she had had quite enough new experiences to keep her going for a while?
Losing her virginity was just going to have to wait.
It would be a shame to spoil things. In spite of everything, she liked Corran. She liked the fact that he made no concessions to her. He might be rude, but she could be rude right back. She could say whatever came into her head, and Corran wouldn’t mind at all. In an odd way, they were friends. Lotty had never felt as comfortable with anyone before, that was for sure. She didn’t want to spoil that by making an unwelcome pass that would embarrass him and humiliate her.
It was enough that he had let her stay.
And that she had kept her part of the bargain too. If she could finish washing down the paintwork, the cottage would be ready for painting by the end of the day and she would have done what she had promised to do, Lotty reminded herself. She should be thinking about that, not Corran’s smile.
But she couldn’t help the alarming dip of her stomach when Corran came back earlier than she had expected. He appeared in the doorway of the cottage bedroom, all austere angles and hard planes, and in spite of herself Lotty’s pulse kicked up a notch.
Eyes narrowed critically, he looked around the room. The floorboards were swept, the walls bare, the paintwork dingy with age but clean.
‘Not bad,’ he said.
‘Not bad?’ Lotty echoed, because it was easier than thinking about how lean and hard and untouchable he looked. How could she have even thought about trying to attract a man like Corran? He was too tough, too uncompromising, too dauntingly self-contained.
She rested her fists on her hips. ‘Is that all you can say? Not bad?’
‘What would you like me to say?’
‘For a start, you could say, “I’m sorry, Lotty, you were right and I was quite wrong when I said you wouldn’t be able to get the cottage ready for painting in a week.”’
Something that might have been a smile hovered around Corran’s mouth. ‘All right, I was wrong about that. There, satisfied?’
‘Not quite. You also have to say, “and I was completely wrong about you not lasting a day”. In fact, you might as well admit that you’re well on your way to losing that bet we made.’
‘That was for a month,’ he reminded her. ‘A lot can happen in three weeks.’
Lotty put her nose in the air. ‘Well, I hope you didn’t spend too much money in Fort William today, because you’re going to have to save to take me out for that dinner!’
The dent at the corner of Corran’s mouth deepened. ‘You’re a long way from earning that dinner, but I will give you a night off cooking. I splashed out on a ready-made curry.’
Not having to prepare the meal meant that Lotty could linger in her bath that evening, and she made the most of it. She was getting sick of putting on the same thing every evening but, short of ringing the changes between a camisole and a silk vest, she didn’t have much choice. On went the jeans, on went the raspberry pink cardigan that clashed so horribly with her red hair. She hadn’t thought about that when she threw a few clothes into her rucksack before she set off on the walk. She hadn’t thought it would matter what she wore in the evenings.
It didn’t matter. It was just that it might be nice to look more…feminine, more desirable.
Catching herself sighing, Lotty gave herself a mental slap. Pushing her feet into pumps, she shrugged on the cardigan and went downstairs to the kitchen, where Corran was heating up the curry.
‘Can I do anything to—’
She stopped. A spanking new cafetière sat in the middle of the kitchen table, a packet of freshly ground coffee propped against it.
‘I only bought it because I’m sick of you moaning about the instant coffee,’ said Corran before she could say anything.
Lotty couldn’t believe it. ‘You bought coffee! Real coffee! Oh, thank you!’ Without thinking, she threw her arms around him and hugged him, but even before her hands touched that solid body, she knew she’d made a mistake.
A big mistake.
Now, instead of imagining, she knew that he felt as hard and strong as he looked. She knew how safe he felt, how steady. She could feel the steady beat of his heart, smell clean cotton and clean skin and something that was just Corran.
And for one tiny moment, his arms closed around her and he held her against him. It was an instinctive response to her throwing herself at him, Lotty was sure, but it felt so good, she let herself hope foolishly that he would never let her go.
He did, of course. A beat, another, three, and then he snatched his arms from around her and stepped sharply back.
Mortified,
