amongst their guests. She was so happy for them, but whenever she saw the easy way they touched each other, the way they caught each other’s eye in a moment of private amusement, she felt so lonely she could hardly breathe.
She missed Corran so much. She ached for him, hungered for him, like now, when the longing to be back at Loch Mhoraigh, pressed against him, was like a great hand closing around her throat. Sucking in her breath at the pain, Lotty closed her eyes without thinking.
‘Altesse? Can I get you anything?’
Lotty’s eyes snapped open and she fixed a smile automatically back into place. ‘No, thank you. I’m fine.’ From somewhere she summoned a name and set out to charm, but all the time she was remembering how different it had been with Corran, who never minced his words, who was caustic and abrupt and treated her exactly the way he treated everyone else.
Her gaze fixed courteously on the guest’s face, she didn’t at first register the commotion at the door, but as his gaze widened at something over her shoulder, she turned.
And froze.
There, pushing his way through the footmen, was Corran.
Corran, unmistakable, even in a dinner jacket and bow tie. Corran, grim-faced, looking tall and forbidding and utterly out of place under the glittering chandeliers in spite of his clothes.
Lotty stared, paralysed by shock, disbelief and incredulous, astounded joy.
He was striding across the ballroom, shaking off the footmen who hurried after him, searching the throng of guests with his eyes.
Looking for her.
Then he saw her. Even through the crowds, she could see the blaze of expression in his pale eyes as he checked, and headed straight for her. At the same time, security officers were converging on him from all sides, muttering hastily into the radios on their wrists, while the startled guests fell silent around them.
Lotty pulled herself together. She had to stop things before they got out of hand. They couldn’t have a major security issue in the middle of Caro and Philippe’s party.
Stepping forward, she gestured the security officers back before they could wrestle Corran to the ground, and he strode the last few yards unmolested until he stood right in front of her.
‘There you are,’ he said.
There was a rushing in Lotty’s head and her vision darkened as a great tumble of emotions crashed through her. She didn’t know whether to throw herself into Corran’s arms or beat at his chest in fury. She was spinning wildly in a turmoil of anger and ecstasy and confusion and, leaping through it all, the astounding, wonderful knowledge that it was him, it was really him, he was there and nothing else mattered.
She couldn’t faint. Lotty gripped the edges of her stole so tightly that her knuckles showed white. This was Caro and Philippe’s party. She couldn’t spoil it by making an exhibition of herself. Already half the room seemed to be turning to stare and a space was forming around them.
From somewhere Lotty found her princess smile and pinned it on.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked through stiff lips.
‘Is it true?’ Corran demanded fiercely.
She knew what he meant, of course she did, but couldn’t answer, not here in front of everyone. ‘We can’t talk about this now,’ she said with an edge of desperation, and then, to her relief, Caro and Philippe were there, supporting her, looking from her to Corran and back again.
‘Is everything all right?’ Philippe rarely put on airs, but he could be daunting when he wanted to be.
‘Yes,’ said Lotty automatically.
Just as Corran snarled, ‘No.’
He took hold of Lotty by the wrist. ‘No, it’s not all right,’ he told Philippe flatly. ‘I don’t want to break up the party, but Lotty and I are going somewhere we can talk.’
Philippe took a protective step forward, but Caro had been watching Lotty’s face and she put out a hand to hold him back. ‘I think this must be Corran,’ she said with a faint smile. ‘I’m glad you’ve come,’ she said to Corran. ‘I hoped you would.’
Lotty found her voice. ‘Corran, this is—’
‘We’ll do introductions later,’ he interrupted her. ‘Right now, you and I are getting out of here.’
Keeping a firm hold of her wrist, he turned without a further word to Philippe and Caro and dragged her towards the doors but, before he could reach them, he was baulked again. This time it was the Dowager Blanche herself who stepped into his way.
Lotty’s grandmother was small and elderly, but she had a presence that could stop even Corran in his tracks. More than one person watching flinched at the expression on her face as she fixed Corran with gimlet eyes. She was, Lotty thought, far more frightening than the security officers on either side of her who were sliding their hands to their shoulder holsters.
‘Take your hands off my granddaughter,’ she said in freezing accents. ‘Do you know who she is?’
Corran had stopped, but he didn’t let Lotty go. ‘I do,’ he said, looking the Dowager Blanche right in the eyes. ‘Do you?’
‘This is Her Serene Highness Princess Charlotte!’
‘No,’ said Corran. ‘This is Lotty.’
Lotty sucked in a breath and tried to interrupt before her grandmother annihilated him. ‘Grandmère…’ she began, but it was too late.
‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ Her grandmother’s voice was like a lash. ‘And how dare you talk about my granddaughter in that vulgar way?’
‘I dare because I know her better than you do,’ said Corran.
‘You are impertinent!’
‘I’m also right,’ he said. ‘I bet you don’t know how out of tune she is when she hums or how she sticks her tongue out of the corner of her mouth when she’s concentrating. Do you know how stubborn she is, how hard she works? How she stretches when she’s tired, how grouchy she gets when her scones don’t turn out? Do you know the exact angle she puts her chin in the air when she’s crossed?
‘I didn’t think so,’ said Corran when the Dowager looked astounded. ‘Well, I do. I know the Lotty you’ll never know. The Lotty who’s fussy about her coffee and snappy if I forget to wipe my boots. Who smiles when she washes up and who hates cleaning her paintbrushes.’
His eyes went to Lotty and the two of them might as well have been alone, although all pretence at conversation had died around them and the entire ballroom was listening.
‘The Lotty who’s sweet and true and funny, who made me happy and who left me all alone because I was too stupid to tell her how I felt.’
He turned back to the Dowager and his face hardened. ‘You only know the princess. I know the woman. I may not know Princess Charlotte, but I know Lotty.’
His
