“We’ll take a seat on the deck, shall we?” Donald jumped on board, holding out a hand to help her. The boat rocked gently, then settled as they sat on one of the wooden benches. The air was still unseasonably warm, though there was a faint trace of autumn in the freshness of it, and the leaves on the trees which hugged the shores of the loch were just beginning to turn.

“In New York in the fall, the leaves hang on until the very first frost. One day the trees are golden, the next day they’re quite bare. I prefer the way they take their time to modestly undress here.”

“That’s a very literary turn of phrase.”

“I’ve been commissioned to write a journal-style series for the English Woman’s Domestic Magazine, comparing life here and in New York, I might use it for that.”

“What else are you writing, apart from the journal for—is it Demorest’s?”

“Mary Louise Booth, the editor of Harper’s Bazar, has some ideas she wants me to think about, and then there’s the Victoria, which I think I told you about last night. Oh, and I have been asked by another publication to serve as their dispenser of wise words and sage counsel—you know the kind of thing, never share an umbrella with a man unless you are betrothed.”

Donald burst out laughing. “No, I don’t know the kind of thing. Did you invent that?”

“Unfortunately not.”

“Will all of this work be published under your own name?”

“Most of it. Are you wondering what my father will make of it? My mother says that provided I don’t become a journalist for the Times, he will simply ignore my journalistic efforts.”

Silence descended between them once more, but it was becoming tense again. Tomorrow she would return to Edinburgh, and what then? Margaret didn’t want to leave Achnacarry without an inkling of what the future held for them—if anything. She had to speak, to say something, no matter how difficult it was.

“I’m twenty-seven next month, Donald,” she began, pausing to clear her throat. “I’ve been living on my own now for almost four years. I am no longer the impulsive young woman who ran away from her own betrothal party with no thought of the consequences.”

“It’s obvious to me how much you have changed.”

“Yes, but I’m going to sound as if I’m being impulsive again. We’ve only just become reacquainted, and we are both older and wiser, in some respects much changed, too. But I know how I feel, and I’d rather we—because if I’m wrong and you don’t feel the same way, then it would be better for both of us if we said so now, don’t you think?”