Effie flopped down where she was standing, his son too, all of them leaning their elbows on their knees as they took in the view over the glen and out to sea.

‘You’re lucky to call this home, Miss Gillies,’ the earl said once he’d got his breath back, a sense of wonder in his voice.

‘Aye, I am,’ she sighed, looking down upon the smoking settlement, her kingdom, with pride.

‘Have you ever left here?’

‘Why would I do that, sir? I have all that I need here.’

‘Quite so.’ He smiled, seeming bemused by her reply. ‘Still, for all its wild majesty, it’s not an easy way to live. Sir John often shares the problems you face living somewhere so remote – the failed crops, the sickness and lack of medical care.’

‘There is that. But the beauty outweighs the problems.’

‘So you’ve never thought of moving elsewhere?’

‘Only during the particularly bad storms.’

‘I imagine they can be quite wild. The rain last night was ferocious.’

‘It’s the winds that are really fierce. We’ve had roofs ripped off, the boat flipped over . . . It’s not much fun if you get caught away from home, I can tell you.’

‘Do you take shelter in the cleits?’

‘Aye. If the sheep don’t beat us to it.’

Lord Sholto gave a low laugh. He seemed entertained by her conversation.

‘But you’re still not tempted by an easier life?’

She sighed. ‘Oh, sometimes we get visitors over who tell us stories about your side of the water and I get to wondering what it must be like not to . . . struggle. But this is what I know. It’s what I am.’ She stared down at her home, her eyes tracing the long wall of the head dyke behind the cottages, the symmetrical roundness of the burial ground’s high wall, these dots and dashes the small impressions made by her ancestors into this landscape. Nature had carved, whittled and whipped this rock in the sea into a home. And that home had shaped her, its wild forces honing her like a parent.

‘Besides, my father would never leave here and I would never leave him, so . . .’ She gave a shrug.

‘Then he’s a lucky man to have such a loving daughter.’

‘He’d prefer a living son.’ The comment was out before she could stop it. She gave a tight smile, seeing the visitors’ surprised looks. ‘. . . Sorry, sir, I shouldn’t have said that. I forget, sometimes, not to say every thought that comes into m’ head.’

‘Please, my dear, speak freely,’ the earl said. ‘If we cannot be free here in the middle of nowhere, then where?’

‘This isn’t the middle of nowhere,’ she protested with hurt pride.

‘No?’

‘It’s the middle of everywhere – for me anyway.’

‘Of course. My apologies. My remark was tactless.’

Lord Sholto was regarding her with interest. ‘Are you an only child too, Miss Gillies?’