The factor inhaled. ‘Well, a lot will depend upon the wea—’

‘Certainly a week,’ Lord Sholto said suddenly, allowing a dazzling smile to enliven his features as she finally met his eyes.

‘A week?’ Effie smiled back at the blue-eyed, golden-haired man. Finally she could see his face at last. And she liked it.

‘Miss Gillies.’

She turned to find the factor hurrying up the beach after her. Uncle Hamish was tying up the boat, the distinguished guests having been appropriated by the minister again the moment they’d set foot on shore.

‘Mr Mathieson.’ She tried not to show her impatience, but her tweed breeches were soaked from her half-swim and she wanted to get back and change. Their progress round the headland had been slow as they’d met the headwinds and she was shivering now.

He stopped in front of her, slightly downhill from where she stood, so that she was aware of standing taller than him. He wasn’t a tall man, stocky but not conspicuously short either, and the consequence of not standing out in any way seemed to work to his advantage; many times an islander had been caught saying things they shouldn’t, not realizing he was within earshot. His relationship with the St Kildans was highly taut, for as the bringer of supplies every spring, and the collector of rents every autumn, he was both carrot and stick to the island community. He could smile and be charming when it suited him, but no one could ever quite forget that the power he wielded over them was almost absolute, and few – apart from Mad Annie – would clash with him. He wore finer suits than the village men and affected the manners of his employer, but reddened, pitted cheeks and the forearms of a wrestler betrayed him as a fighter first.

‘Well, that was quite a display,’ he said.

Effie wasn’t sure this was intended as a compliment. ‘That’s the idea,’ she replied vaguely. ‘They always like it.’ A sudden gust blew her long, wet hair forward and she had to use both hands to pin it back. The sky was growing ominously dark.

‘Indeed.’ He gave what she had come to learn over the years was his customary pause. It preceded a direct contradiction of what came after it. ‘Although I’m not sure such daredevil antics require the added novelty factor.’

It took a moment to understand his meaning. ‘Of a girl climbing, you mean?’

He shrugged. ‘I understand your obligations to your father impel you to undertake men’s work in a regular capacity, but when it comes to making a good impression on visitors . . .’

‘But they seemed to like it.’