A vision of the storm cleit flashed through her mind again, the one that woke her almost every night, and she got back up as if jabbed by unseen spikes. She walked to the mirror and regarded her own reflection once more. She couldn’t help but feel disappointed by what she saw. She had expected to look somehow fiercer, wilder than this. Had she looked different last week, before? She felt the memories of that last night shift and stir like nocturnal creatures rising with the moon – they were always there now, never quite gone, even though she refused to give them space in her mind. It had taken three days for her body to climb down from fight or flight mode – for the shakes to stop, for her breathing to steady, for proper sleep to come. It had been the earl’s offer of refuge here that had salved her traumatized mind.

She stared into her own eyes, trying to see into her very soul. All that was behind her now, she told herself. She was free. She had done what she had to do and freed herself. He wouldn’t hurt her again. No one would. She remembered how she had taken her leave of Mrs Buchanan five days earlier – she had made a point of walking into the barn late the next morning, dressed defiantly in her brother’s climbing tweeds again, no boots. She had let the mealy-mouthed woman fly at her again but this time, when her hand had sliced towards Effie’s cheek, she had caught it firmly in her grip – the way she did when she wrung a guillemot’s neck – and calmly asked for her single day’s wages. Without further explanation, she had then crossed the courtyard, paid the butcher and discharged her meagre debt. She had precious little but she had her honour and she had left as she had arrived, under the weight of curious stares. She wasn’t like the rest of them, but their mistake had been to assume that she wanted to be.