This was where Sholto lived? Where he belonged? If she had seen the scale of the house last night, only now was she gauging its grandeur. He was wholly lost to her, she instinctively knew that. She understood finally – at last – why he could never have been hers, nor she his. Never ever. But she had been the only one who’d not known it and she felt a shot of anger that he could have allowed her to believe, even for a few moments, that their stolen kisses might have meant something.

Billy stopped outside a pair of double doors. He knocked twice and waited several moments before opening it, but the confidence with which he moved suggested he already knew the room was vacant. ‘Your kingdom, Miss Gillies.’

It might have been ironic were it not true. She stepped into a room larger than all of the cottages on Hirta put together. The ceiling soared higher than a kirk spire, wooden cabinets fitted floor to ceiling along every wall, some with drawers and others half-glazed, a ladder required to reach the uppermost ones. Behind the glass were stuffed animals in frozen poses. Effie stared at them in alarm for several moments; she’d never seen the like and it was a difficult thing to comprehend.

‘What is this place?’ she murmured, her heavy boots echoing on the floor as she slowly walked in.

‘This is the collection room; his lordship’s had it fitted out to accommodate his . . . collection,’ Billy said with a shrug.

In the middle of the room was a five-man-long polished table with a shelf beneath; it was laden with books and a tower of boxes piled high seemingly indiscriminately. She went over and pulled off the lid of the topmost carton. Inside, nestled in tufts of hay, lay three very small eggs, a pinky-cream colour, covered with tiny dark freckles. ‘Grasshopper warbler,’ she murmured, feeling the corners of her mouth lift in a small smile that she could identify it so easily, though she had never seen the bird herself.

She replaced the lid and wandered over to the cabinets. Idly, she pulled open the nearest drawer and was jolted out of her gentle, wondrous reverie by the sight of dozens upon dozens more eggs boxed in groups. She pulled open another drawer. The same. She looked quickly around the room at the sheer number of drawers – there had to be six drawers per cabinet. She counted quickly – twenty-two cabinets.

‘How many eggs does he have?’ she asked, her eyes wide.

‘I guess you’ll be the one telling us,’ Billy shrugged, tipping his head as he took his leave of her. ‘Have fun.’

‘Fun,’ she murmured. What was that?

The door closed behind him, leaving her alone. She stood there for several moments with no idea where to start. What exactly was it that the earl wanted her to do?