Corran made himself ask.
She hesitated, then shook her head. ‘Not yet. I don’t think there’s much I can do for now. I’ll stay until after the Rowlands have been.’
‘And then?’
Lotty drew an uneven breath. ‘Then I’ll have to go.’
‘This looks…incredible.’ Corran stared around the drawing room, amazed at the transformation.
Having banished Lotty from ladders, he had painted the ceiling and coving, and helped her carry in the furniture, but everything else she had done herself. The dusty floorboards had been sanded until they were a warm honey colour, and she had painted the walls a pale yellow so that the room seemed to be filled with sunshine even on the dullest of days.
Lotty had chosen two of the simple sofas they had bought for the cottages, and set them on either side of the fireplace with a sturdy coffee table between them. The only decoration was an arrangement of wildflowers in the grate. Bare the room might be still, but it looked stylish and welcoming too.
‘Incredible,’ said Corran again, remembering how sad the room had looked before.
‘Let’s hope the Rowlands think so,’ said Lotty. ‘Now all we need is a nice day so they can see Loch Mhoraigh at its best.’
That last morning, Lotty woke early. She lay for a while blinking at the morning sun that striped the bed and glinted off the hairs on Corran’s chest. He was still asleep. Her face was pressed against his warm shoulder, and she could hear him breathing slow and steady.
Lotty’s hand drifted down his arm. She didn’t want to wake him, but she had to touch him. His muscles were firm beneath her palm, and her fingers played with the flat hairs on his forearm before curling around his wrist. How many more minutes would she be able to lie like this, drinking in the scent of his skin, comforted by his size and solidity and strength, loving him?
Of course she loved him. Lotty hadn’t wasted time trying to deny it to herself. She even thought Corran might love her too, but not enough to give up Loch Mhoraigh. She knew what this place meant to him. She wouldn’t ask him to leave it to live in Montluce with her, even if she had the courage to tell him who she was. Corran would hate the formality of the palace, and her grandmother would be horrified.
And how could she turn her back on her grandmother and her country to stay here when Corran had made it so clear that he was looking for quite a different kind of woman to share his life?
No, they had agreed to a temporary affair, and it had been wonderful, more wonderful than Lotty could ever have imagined, but it would be better for both of them if they left it at that.
If only Dick Rowland was impressed enough to invest in the estate. Lotty told herself that it would be easier to leave if she knew that Corran would have the money to bring Loch Mhoraigh back to life. He would be happy here.
And she would be happy in Montluce. Somehow.
LOTTY’S stomach churned and she shifted uneasily. She had been feeling queasy a lot recently. She’d tried to convince herself that it was anxiety about the Rowlands’ visit but, deep down, she knew that it was dread at the prospect of saying goodbye. Once today was over, she would have no excuse to stay. She had promised her grandmother that she would go home, and that was what she would do, but oh, it was going to be hard!
‘You’re fretting,’ Corran said lazily without opening his eyes.
‘I thought you were asleep.’
‘How can I sleep with you twanging beside me?’ he grumbled, but he pulled her hard against him. ‘Stop worrying,’ he said as his hands slid possessively over her. ‘It’ll be fine.’
Lotty wasn’t sure about that, but she let herself be distracted. She let him banish apprehension with skilful hands, let pleasure blot out all thought, and afterwards she pretended that nervousness about the day was all it had been.
She spent the morning fussing around, and made Corran change into a better shirt, although he refused point blank to put on a tie.
‘I’m supposed to be a working farmer,’ he said. ‘Farmers don’t wear ties.’
Lotty agonized for a while about her own outfit. She was afraid that some of her Montlucian clothes would look too elegant. As Corran pointed out, if she could afford clothes like that, it would look as if they didn’t need investment, but she could hardly wear her old working clothes either. In the end she settled for her faithful jeans and the raspberry pink cardigan she had worn every evening when she first arrived.
‘What do you think?’ she asked Corran. She offered a nervous twirl. ‘Is this casual enough?’
Corran looked her up and down, and his pale eyes were warmer than Lotty had ever seen them before. ‘You look perfect,’ he said.
Lotty was still glowing with his approval when the Rowlands arrived.
With its encouraging tax regime, Montluce had an impeccable reputation as a centre of international finance and Lotty had met plenty of financiers over the years. She had expected Dick Rowland to fit the same suave mould, but he turned out to be a bulky Yorkshireman with a meaty face and small, sharp eyes. His wife, Kath, was blonde and bubbly. She started talking before she was even out of the car and barely drew breath after that.
At least she seemed to like what she saw. ‘Oh, this is gorgeous!’ she exclaimed, looking around her. ‘What a wonderful place to live.’
Her wide blue eyes came back to rest on Lotty’s face with a slight frown. ‘Sorry, am I staring?’ she said when Corran introduced Lotty as his partner. ‘You look so familiar… We haven’t met before, have we?’
Lotty’s heart took a nosedive. Please, God, don’t let them have visited Montluce, she prayed. Why hadn’t she thought of that as a possibility? She had hosted countless receptions for visiting bankers at the palace. What if the Rowlands had been to one?
She fixed a smile on her face. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I’m sure I would remember if we had.’
‘Maybe you look like an actress,’ said Kath, still puzzling. ‘Who does she look like, Dick?’
To Lotty’s relief, Dick ignored his wife. He was talking to Corran about the state of the track. ‘You need to do something about that,’ he said. ‘I thought I was going to lose my sump at the very least on the way here.’
‘I’ve included the cost of upgrading the track in the financial plan,’ Corran told him.
Lotty offered coffee, but they agreed to begin with a tour of the estate. Corran drove them all in the Land Rover, which had been specially cleaned for the occasion. After admiring the cottages, he took them on a bumpy ride up the hillside to where he could point out the features of the estate and tell Dick about his plans for improvement.
It was a bright, breezy day. Billowing clouds bustled past the sun and sent great patches of light and shade sweeping across the hills. Far below them, the loch shone silver and Lotty remembered her first sight
