‘I’m sure we shall be quite sorry to see you go, sir,’ she said, keeping her eyes dead ahead. She could see the factor looking back to shore from the boat and knew he still wasn’t happy that she would be guiding their most esteemed visitors, no matter what he’d said to the contrary. In the six years that he had occupied the role as MacLeod’s factor, there hadn’t been a single visit when he hadn’t called her ‘a wild thing’, as though she was an animal and not a girl. ‘We always take care to say proper goodbyes, for there are never any guarantees we’ll be reunited.’

She turned to walk back up the beach, but he moved too and walked with her. He had changed from his suit into climbing tweeds.

‘But they are not going far. The isle is just over the way, is it not?’

‘Aye but you don’t need to go far for danger. We had three men drowned right here in the bay and we couldna’ save them.’

A deep frown puckered his smooth brow. ‘That’s terrible, I’m sorry. Was it recent?’

‘No. Fourteen years past now, but to their families it is like yesterday.’

‘Was there a storm?’

‘Not a bad one, but there was swell. They went out to catch some birds off the stack over there. Stac Levenish. The men were tied to one another, ready to climb. One fell in . . .’ She shrugged.

‘And the others went down with him,’ he murmured. ‘Could they not swim?’

‘None of us can.’

‘None—?’ He looked shocked.

‘We’ve no need to go in the water. The waters are too heavy to fish in any numbers. We can fish a little off the rocks but it’s why we mainly hunt the birds instead.’

‘But yesterday, coming down the cliff . . . You leapt into the boat.’

‘Aye.’ She looked back at him blankly.

‘If you had missed . . .’

‘But I didn’t.’

‘You barely made it, though.’

‘Barely was still enough,’ she shrugged. ‘But perhaps if I had really needed it, you might have thought to save me, sir.’

He laughed at her wry tone. ‘I hope you know I wouldn’t have hesitated.’

She shrugged.

‘And are you going to tell me you risked your life just to beat that fellow who was racing you?’

‘It was important that I won.’

‘But worth dying for?’

‘Well, I would always prefer not to, naturally.’

He laughed again.

The earl, who had been watching the departure from the window of the factor’s house, stepped out, and she headed for him. ‘Are you ready, sir?’ she asked.

‘Indeed. Though I should warn you – my son may be up to keeping up with you on the ropes and slopes, but I’m afraid those days are very much behind me.’