she said on a breath. ‘Yes, I do.’
Three months, she had agreed with Philippe, who was only standing in as regent while his father, the Crown Prince, was recovering from a major illness. The moment his father was better, Philippe would be leaving Montluce, he had told Lotty frankly, and that meant the country would need a first lady once more. Who better than Princess Charlotte, who had spent years doing the job for her own father? She had the perfect combination of warmth and dignity. The people loved her.
Ever since she was a child, Lotty had had the importance of duty and responsibility dinned into her. Her grandmother hadn’t hesitated to point out that Lotty would be monumentally selfish if she insisted on her own life after her father had died. How could she even think about refusing and letting the new Crown Prince down? How could she think about letting her country down?
She couldn’t. This was the only rebellion Lotty could allow herself.
‘I have to go back,’ she said. ‘I don’t have a choice.’
‘But not yet?’
Was that a hint of anxiety in his voice? Lotty swivelled in her seat to look at him, longing to believe that it was true. His eyes were flickering between road and mirrors, but his jaw was set. She could see the tension jumping in his cheek.
‘No,’ she said slowly, ‘not yet.’
THREE months, Lotty had given herself. She had been here for three weeks already…was she going to make the rest of the remaining time?
It was all very well deciding to do something about the lust that had her in its grip, but how exactly was she going to go about it? Lotty squirmed in her seat, mentally rehearsing scenes.
Should she just grab Corran once they got back to the house and hope he got the idea? She couldn’t see herself having the nerve to do that, descendant of Raoul the Wolf or not.
Or she could lead up to the question in a diplomatic fashion. I was wondering what your views were on brief flings? she could ask him, and then if he said that he was all for them, that would give her an opening at least.
Or perhaps she should be grown up and discuss the matter openly as two consenting adults.
Yes, grown-up was good, but the more Lotty tried to think about how such a conversation might go, the deeper she lost herself in a morass of euphemisms. Perhaps the grabbing option wasn’t such a bad one, after all.
One thing became clear to Lotty during that interminable drive. It had been a mistake to bottle up the physical attraction she felt. Something about being shut up in the Land Rover with Corran for so long seemed to have acted as a pressure cooker, and choosing furniture together had merely lifted the lid on her feelings, which were now threatening to explode out of control.
Lotty was alarmed by the way her hands were twitching and she had to clutch them together in her lap in case they wandered over to Corran of their own accord. She felt physically ill: giddy and slightly nauseous, her heart pounding, her throat dry. Was it normal to believe that the only way she could ever feel better again was if she could touch him?
If only she had more experience, she would know what to do. Was the chance of being able to coil herself around him and press her mouth to that pulse beating in his throat worth the risk of making a monumental fool of herself? Lotty couldn’t decide. She couldn’t think. She could just sit there and give up on the idea of pretending that she didn’t want him, while the air in the Land Rover grew tauter and tauter with every mile.
When they drew up in the stable yard behind Loch Mhoraigh House, Lotty practically threw herself out of the Land Rover to gulp at the fresh air, only to find that her legs were so weak that she had to hang on to the door.
Perhaps she really was ill?
Lotty told herself to get a grip. She was distracted for a little while by unpacking the shopping, and she made herself breathe deeply: in, out, in, out. Not too difficult once you had got the hang of it. She was very glad Corran had left her to it while he took the dogs out. Pookie was thoroughly overexcited after being left all day.
‘I’ve put your case upstairs,’ Corran said briefly before he left.
She would be able to change into something decent for a change. Lotty clung to the hope that wearing clothes from her old life would remind her that she was a princess, not a skittish, fever-eyed girl in a frenzy of lust. She would put on the clothes she wore in the palace, and she would miraculously become sensible and dignified again.
Only it didn’t work out like that.
Lotty remembered packing her most casual clothes, but everything she pulled out of the case looked far too smart for Loch Mhoraigh House. She was half inclined to put it all back, but having made such a fuss about getting the suitcase back, it would look odd if she didn’t wear anything from it.
She chose the most relaxed outfit she could find—a pair of loose trousers and a silk knit top, a scarf knotted casually at her throat—but, far from restoring her to her normal regal self, the slip of the luxurious materials against her skin only made her feel more edgy. Every cell in her body seemed to be jangling with awareness. She didn’t know what to do with her hands, or her feet, and she couldn’t settle to anything.
Corran was checking the oven but he glanced up briefly when Lotty went into the kitchen, and then did a double take. Closing the oven door, he straightened slowly.
‘You look very elegant,’ he said.
Elegant. It was a horrible word, Lotty decided. It was cold and restrained. She didn’t want to be elegant. She wanted to be foxy. She wanted to be sexy. She wanted to be hot.
And elegant didn’t belong at Loch Mhoraigh either. Elegant was out of place, just like she was, Lotty thought miserably.
They had bought a ready meal to heat up for supper, but Lotty was too tense to enjoy the break from cooking. The soft trousers whispered against her legs whenever she shifted in her seat, and with every stretch of her arm, every lift of her hand, the silky top caressed her bare skin. She wished she had her old jeans and pink cardigan on again, or—even better—her filthy working clothes. Anything would be better than sitting there, simmering, unable to think about anything except her own body and Corran sitting across the table.
She was preternaturally aware of him, of his fingers holding the foil packet steady as he helped himself, of the broad, strong wrists. She couldn’t risk looking into those iceberg eyes, but her gaze skittered around the rest of his face, from the dark brows to the forceful nose, across his cheek to his temple, along the uncompromising line of his jaw, and always back to his mouth.
That mouth.
Lotty’s pulse was roaring in her ears. She couldn’t believe that she had spent every other evening sitting at this same table, happily chatting to Corran. At least, she had chatted happily and Corran had offered caustic comments, but it had been comfortable.
It wasn’t comfortable now.
How could one day have changed so much? It wasn’t as if anything had happened. All they had done was
