The driver opened the door for her and she climbed in. The car was unlike the one she had travelled in at Lochaline in that there was only one bench seat, not a front and a back. She sat down as Sholto climbed in on the driver’s side. He started up the engine, the sound of it amplified in the garage like a thunderclap in a bottle, and they pulled away, leaving the chauffeur staring after them.

She was silent as he turned out of the garage and started along the estate road, his hands gripping the wheel, eyes dead ahead. They picked up speed quickly, the house already receding behind them, trees whizzing past, her hair lifting off her neck and beginning to fly. She saw him glance at her as she tried to catch it.

They drove over the sweeping Robert Adam bridge and she saw a swan gliding on the deep, black waters below them, moorhens in the reeds. For a moment, as the road curved, she could see the house between the trees – all its vastness, all its glory – before they swept out of sight, through the woods.

She stared at the road, watching the huge estate gates loom ever larger, squat lodges flanking either side. She knew he must concentrate, that driving a car would be complicated and difficult – though he made it look easy – but could he not talk at all? Was he going to drive the whole way in silence?

She glanced across, her mouth already parted to say something, but there was something about the set of his jaw that stopped her. She fell back into silence too, her gaze dropping to her hands, idle in her lap, his thigh just a handspan away from hers.

They were on the public road now and she tried to focus on the landscape she had been living in and yet still not explored. There were distant hills to the west, more stone cottages like hers with brick-red front doors, some people standing talking on a green, other cars less shiny and sporty than this one . . .

She could stand it no longer. ‘Thank you, for helping me last night.’

He glanced across, but his eyes were hard. ‘It was nothing. You’d had a shock. You needed to rest.’

‘No, I didn’t mean that. I was referring to your kindness when Lady Sibyl was laughing about my dress.’ She put her hands to her head, trying to trap down her hair as she looked at him.

‘Oh. That.’ He tapped a finger on the wheel. ‘Yes, well, she was being unkind. It wasn’t fair. She can be a . . . bully, sometimes.’

‘Well, I was grateful to you.’

‘I don’t want your gratitude, Miss Gillies.’

She stared at him, stung by his sharp words. Calling her Miss Gillies even when they were alone? ‘Miss Gillies?’ she echoed. ‘. . . Are we not even to be friends, then?’