to Loch Mhoraigh House that afternoon. She had had such a lovely time pushing a supermarket trolley along the aisles. Even queuing to buy cheese from the delicatessen counter was fun. Lotty had never queued before, and it was a thrill to take a ticket and wait for her number to be called like everyone else.
On the way home, she stopped in the village to buy the basic items she could get at the shop there. Corran always shrugged off any suggestion that he try and improve his relationship with the community, claiming that he had more important things to do, but Lotty thought it was a shame. The least they could do was support the local shop, she said. He was lucky to have one so close.
Not that the shop offered a big range of stock.
It had a post office counter at the back, and a small selection of basic goods. A plump woman with tightly permed grey hair and winged glasses presided behind the counter. She eyed Lotty with interest as she carried over milk and butter.
‘You’ll be working up at the big house?’
Unused to the way information travelled in village communities, Lotty was amazed. ‘How did you know?’
‘That’s Corran McKenna’s Land Rover you’re driving,’ she said, which was a pretty big clue when Lotty thought about it. ‘Besides,’ she went on as she rang up the milk and butter, ‘they said at the hotel that you’d gone up there. We’d all expected to see you back before now.’
‘No, I like it there,’ said Lotty. ‘I’m hoping to stay a couple of months. Corran’s doing a great job,’ she added loyally.
‘Aye, well, his heart was always there, even as a wee boy.’
‘Oh, you know him?’
‘I did. I was Cook up at the big house for a while.’
‘You’re Mrs McPherson?’ said Lotty in delight.
‘I am.’
‘Corran told me about your scones.’
Mrs McPherson flushed with pleasure and settled herself more comfortably against the counter. ‘I used to make them for him specially,’
she confided. ‘I felt sorry for the lad. It was shameful the way they treated him, it was. I’m not saying he was an easy boy, but that child practically brought himself up. His father had no time for him, and his mother never cared what anyone thought of her. What a minx she was!’ She sniffed disapprovingly. ‘She was English, you know.’
Then she paused, evidently realising what she had said. ‘Of course, not like you.’
Lotty couldn’t help smiling at her discomfiture. ‘I’m not English,’ she reassured her.
‘Is that so? You sound English.’
‘That’s because I went to school in England. I’m actually from Montluce.’
She waited to be told that Montluce was part of France but, to her consternation, it turned out that Betty McPherson was an avid reader of gossip magazines, and knew all about Lotty’s country and the crisis in finding a successor to her father.
‘What a time that poor family has had!’ she said, shaking her head.
‘Yes, it’s been difficult for them,’ said Lotty, beginning to wish that she had kept her mouth shut. But she couldn’t bring herself to deny her own country.
Mrs McPherson seemed to have followed the crisis in such detail that Lotty had a few moments’ anxiety in case she was recognised, but the older woman didn’t seem to have made the connection between the elegant Princess Charlotte and the scruffily dressed girl who stood in front of her. It was partly a question of expectation, Lotty knew, but she was glad that she had had her hair cut nonetheless, and perhaps the red hadn’t been such a bad idea after all.
As soon as she could, she changed the subject by asking for Mrs McPherson’s scone recipe. Her first attempt to make scones had been a disaster and left the kitchen full of smoke. Fortunately, this proved to be an effective diversion, and it was some time before she was able to escape, sent on her way with lengthy instructions.
‘And don’t forget to dust the baking tray with flour,’ was Mrs McPherson’s parting shot, which meant nothing to Lotty. She smiled anyway and waved from the door, hoping that she was going to be able to remember it all.
As soon as she got back to Loch Mhoraigh House, she rushed into the kitchen and tried to put Mrs McPherson’s instructions into effect, but if anything that batch of scones were worse than the ones she’d made before.
And that was saying something.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Corran, but Lotty wouldn’t give up. How hard could it be to make scones?
Mrs McPherson made it sound so easy. The recipe books made it sound easy. So why couldn’t she do it? Was she really so lacking in any talent or ability? The more she thought about it, the more depressed Lotty got.
What, really, was she good for? Smiling and shaking hands. That was it. She was going to have to go home to Montluce and all she would have to show for it would be some broken fingernails. Yes, she had acquired a few basic skills like peeling a potato or painting a wall, but neither was exactly challenging. Lotty was terribly afraid that when it came down to it, she was just the pampered princess that the anti-royalists thought her after all. A smiling face. A walking clothes hanger. Nothing more than that.
What if that was all she was?
Raoul the Wolf would be ashamed of her.
Lotty kept thinking about her grandmother, whose spine of steel never bent, who would never, ever admit that a member of the royal house of Montluce was beaten.
So she kept on making scones, as if that would prove something, although whether it was to her grandmother or herself or her illustrious ancestors Lotty was never quite clear.
And the scones kept turning out flat and hard.
‘I really don’t understand why it matters so much,’ said Corran, as Lotty gazed despondently at that day’s flat offering.
‘I just want to be able to do something well,’ she tried to explain.
‘You do lots of things well,’ said Corran impatiently.
‘Like what?’
He hesitated. ‘See?’ she pounced on him. ‘You can’t think of anything!’ Her face crumpled. ‘I’m useless!’
‘You’re not useless. What a ridiculous thing to say!’
Corran glowered at her. He wanted to tell her how she had changed the feel of the house just by being there. How he looked forward to coming in at the end of a long day and seeing her at the range, stirring some sauce with a dubious expression. How she lit up a gloomy day with her smile.
But he didn’t know how to say it without making it sound as if he wanted her. Which he didn’t.
Much.
Lotty was the last kind of woman he wanted to get involved with, Corran had to remind
