“I know. He doesn’t think anybody has the right to be on the road but him. Completely selfish, like most men. And he has these odd moments of Catholic guilt—mumbles about needing to go to confession and worries about spending hundreds of years in purgatory. They are a funny lot, aren’t they?”

“So the bloom has gone off the rose, has it?” I smiled.

“To tell you the truth, I don’t quite like playing second fiddle to a boat. I mean, darling, since we’ve been up here he has hardly noticed I’m alive. Except for at night, of course, but then he’s been working so hard all day that he doesn’t have the energy to do it more than once. And he’s talking about needing to go back to his fiancée for her birthday.”

“I’m glad,” I said.

“Glad he’s going back to his fiancée?”

“Glad you haven’t fallen for him in a big way. I wouldn’t want to see you get hurt.”

“Don’t worry about me.” She patted my knee. “I’m a survivor, Georgie. I’m like a cat. I always land on my feet like your mama.”

“I don’t want you to end up like my mama.”

She shrugged. “It’s not such a bad life she’s had. At least she’s never been bored, and boredom is what I dread more than anything. I’m terrified if I got married that I’d be stuck on some dreary country estate and my main excitement of the day would be picking roses and hearing the children recite their party pieces at teatime.”

“You obviously need to marry someone rich,” I said, “then you can have houses all over the place and flit from one to the other.”

“And keep a lover in each place.” Her eyes positively twinkled. Then she frowned, staring past me at the road. “I didn’t know the local policeman had a car,” she said. “I thought they were only issued bikes.”

“He does only have a bike,” I said, turning to follow her gaze. “I expect that’s the plainclothes boys from Aberdeen coming to examine the scene of the shooting at Balmoral.”

“In which case, why are they driving away from Balmoral?” she asked.

“Good point. Perhaps they are heading toward Castle Rannoch to talk to me. I should let them know I’m here.”