With an angry sigh, he jerked his thumb upwards, indicating the latter. He had lost. What good was there in riding back with them now? She would only crow her victory at him.

Uncle Hamish nodded, understanding perfectly what had just happened between them. It was a man’s look, the kind that cut her out, but what did she care? With a satisfied smile, Effie sat on the bench, pulling out her hair tie and wringing her long hair. Seawater puddled in the dinghy floor.

‘Heavens above!’ a voice said. ‘It’s a girl?’

She twisted back to face the visitors properly at last. In all her ambition to beat Angus, she’d forgotten who they were trying to impress in the first place. The three men seated towards the back were staring at her in wide-eyed amazement: Frank Mathieson, the factor, and the two men she’d glimpsed from behind earlier.

‘Well, I can’t climb in a skirt, sir,’ she grinned, wringing out her tweed breeches as best she could.

‘It wasn’t just your clothes that fooled me. The speed! I’ve never seen a spectacle like it. You scaled that cliff like a squirrel down a tree!’ It was the older man speaking. He was portly, with a dark moustache, lightly salted. Spectacles made it difficult to see his eyes past the reflection, but he appeared friendly as well as impressed. ‘Do you mean to say females climb here, too?’ he asked their skipper.

‘Only this one,’ Uncle Hamish said with a resigned tone, untying the rope from the mooring rock and beginning to row. ‘This is my niece, Euphemia Gillies.’

‘Effie is Robert Gillies’s daughter. They live at number nine,’ the factor added, as if that information was somehow enlightening. ‘How are you, Effie?’

‘Aye, well, sir, thank you for asking.’

‘Becoming bolder, I see.’

‘If by bolder you mean faster.’

He laughed. ‘Allow me to present the Earl of Dumfries and his son, Lord Sholto,’ he said. ‘I’m sure you will be aware that they are great friends of Lord MacLeod.’

‘Ah,’ she said blandly, although she was aware of nothing of the sort. Who their landlord kept as friends was no business of hers, though it confirmed Lorna’s observation that the visitors were rich.

‘They were visiting his lordship at Dunvegan when they heard I was planning on making the voyage here—’

‘It’s been something of an ambition of mine to get over here,’ the earl said brightly, interrupting. ‘I’m a keen birder, you see, and Sir John very kindly agreed to my proposal that we might sail Mr Mathieson here ourselves. Two birds, one stone and all that.’

‘Aye.’ She could feel the younger man watching her keenly as she talked, but for as long as the others spoke, she had no such opportunity to cast her gaze openly over him. ‘So will you be staying for long, then?’