‘Pamela Anstruther,’ the dainty brunette seated beside him said chattily. ‘And you’re…?’
‘Kirsten Ross, ‘ Kirsten filled in shyly, well aware of who the other woman was.
After all, Pamela’s ancestors, the Drummonds, had built Strathcraig and lived there for a couple of hundred years. Unfortunately for Pamela, however, her father’s debts had forced the sale of the estate while she was still a child, and the family had moved down to London.
‘You’re very wet. Take this…’ Shahir passed Kirsten a pristine white handkerchief in a graceful gesture. Wet, her hair was the colour of gunmetal, and accentuated the dramatic symmetry of her oval face.
Kirsten pushed a sodden strand of hair off her cool brow and dabbed awkwardly at her rain-washed face. Only then did she dare to steal a glance at him, doin
g so with as much guilt as though it was a forbidden act.
Her eyes, as luminous as jewels, collided unwarily with his narrowed dark golden gaze, and her heartbeat increased as if someone had punched a switch. ‘Thank you…’
‘It was nothing,’ Shahir murmured politely, lush black lashes semi-veiling his spectacular eyes.
Her soft pink lips curved into a helpless smile of appreciation.
Pamela Anstruther coughed, and Kirsten instantly dragged her attention from Shahir. Realising that she had been caught in the act of staring, Kirsten turned cherry-red and dropped her head.
‘Prince Shahir mentioned that you’re on the cleaning staff at the castle,’ Lady Pamela remarked brightly. ‘You look like a very capable young woman. Do you think you could manage work that was a little more testing?’
‘I hope so…but this is my first job.’ Kirsten was already looking anxiously out of the window to see where they were, not wanting the limo to take her right to the door of her home. Her father would almost certainly make a fuss about her having accepted a lift.
‘Oh, I’ve just had the most wonderful idea!’ Lady Pamela carolled. ‘Why doesn’t Kirsten help me to organise the party at the castle?’
Kirsten’s attention settled back on the brunette in astonishment. ‘Me…?’
‘Why not? You could run errands for me, and handwrite the invitations. It would be run-of-the-mill stuff—nothing you couldn’t handle.’
‘I’d love to help.’ Kirsten was thrilled by the prospect of doing something other than cleaning.
Lady Pamela rewarded her with a smile. ‘I really love acting as the Prince’s social hostess, but there is a lot of work involved and you could be really useful to me.’
‘I’m not sure the housekeeper would be willing to spare me, though.’
Kirsten wanted to look at Shahir, who had said nothing throughout this exchange. But why should he be interested? He might be her employer, but she was at the bottom of a large staff pyramid and she was not so naive as to believe that he had any firsthand knowledge of the castle’s domestic arrangements. He paid others to take care of such practicalities, and no doubt Pamela Anstruther was quite free to pluck a junior member from the lower ranks if it suited her to do so.
The limousine came to a halt. Kirsten glanced out of the window and froze, her face draining of colour: her father was glowering on the doorstep, his ruddy face rigid with dour disapproval.
‘Oh, dear, who’s the nasty old codger?’ Lady Pamela asked with an appreciative giggle. ‘Ye olde farm labourer?’
Kirsten had already risen to leave the car. The quip mortified her, but she was not surprised that her father’s scowling stance had roused such amused comment.
Shahir’s attention rested on Angus Ross’s aggressively clenched fists. His measuring gaze was cool and his jawline squared. He vacated the limo only a step in Kirsten’s wake. As she hovered in obvious apprehension while her bike was being unloaded, Shahir introduced himself to her father. Prompted by Shahir’s careful courtesy, Pamela awarded the older man a gracious wave of acknowledgement from the limo. Kirsten was intensely relieved to see her parent’s anger banished by the attention he had received from his landlord.
‘So the Prince has got that harlot working for him,’ Angus Ross commented with an unpleasant laugh when he went back indoors. ‘The nerve of yon woman, waving at me like she’s the queen! She’s hoping to wed the Prince and get the castle back into her family, but she’s wasting her time. He must know she’s a greedy trollop!’
‘Aye, I’d think so. They say he’s no fool,’ Mabel, a thin-faced woman in her early fifties, agreed with sour enjoyment. ‘Before that husband of hers died Lady Pamela had one man after another staying up at that lodge with her! Naturally Sir Robert left her next to nothing on his death.’
‘It was God’s judgement on her,’ the older man pronounced with satisfaction.
Kirsten fondled Squeak’s greying ears and wished that her father and her stepmother would be a little more charitable about other people. There were few secrets in so small a community, and she knew the brunette’s history too. A good ten years had passed since Pamela had married Sir Robert Anstruther, a wealthy businessman more than twice her age. Pamela had returned to the glen that had once belonged to her family but spiteful tongues had been quick to suggest that she was an unscrupulous gold-digger.
For years Sir Robert had owned an old hunting lodge in the glen, which he had used as a holiday home. Keen to take up full-time residence there, Pamela had renovated and extended the lodge. And while her husband had continued to spend most of his time in London, she had often entertained friends at their highland home. When the older man had died, the gossip had become even more malicious after it became clear that Sir Robert had left the lion’s share of his worldly goods to the children of his first marriage.
Kirsten, however, believed that Pamela Anstruther deserved the benefit of the doubt. The other woman had seemed perfectly pleasant to her, and, after all, nobody that Kirsten had heard spreading scandal had ever seen any definitive proof that the lively brunette had been an unfaithful wife or was a gold-digger.
‘I’m really not interested inbeing photographed,’ Kirsten proclaimed impatiently, four days later, when she was waylaid in the quadrangle that lay behind the service wing.