‘Oh, not too long after Lord Sholto chased after you in the garden and Lady Sibyl retired to her room,’ Billy said boldly, flushing her out with a keen-eyed gaze. He looked at her with the same bemused expression she’d seen that time in the servants’ hall, when the matter of where the lilies had been put had thrown the housekeeper into a panic. Effie had been baffled then but she understood it now. She knew Billy knew she had done what she must not, what the minister had inculcated was a grievous sin, what Flora had warned her about, what the factor had paid with his life in trying to stop . . . And she didn’t regret a moment of it.

‘You know, y’ look different these days. You don’t look so . . . lost.’

‘I thought you were going to say wild!’

He laughed. ‘Ha! No! I reckon you’ll always be that, no matter what happens.’

No matter what happens. For all her joy this morning, her future still trembled with uncertainty. Total happiness could be hers and yet . . . total despair hovered too. She couldn’t pretend she was out of the shadow of her past. It fell upon her even in the sunlight, chilling her bones and stalking her dreams. She was free of Frank Mathieson in one way, perhaps, but that didn’t mean she had escaped him entirely. For as long as Weir had that book, the dead could still have their revenge.

‘I’ll be seeing y’, Effie.’ He touched his cap and walked back down the path to the estate track. His bicycle was propped against the stone wall and he threw a leg over. ‘Oh aye . . . talk of the devil. It looks like you’ve another visitor,’ he said, glancing back at her with his customary impish smile.

‘Who is it?’ She hastened from the doorway to see a rider cantering towards them.

Billy threw a wink at her. ‘Boy, I wish I could stay around for this!’

‘Scat!’ she chided, laughing.

He rang his bell and pedalled off as Effie clutched the bundle ever more tightly and stood at the gate, waiting for the visitor to arrive. Sholto nodded as Billy cycled past, lifting his cap deferentially.

‘Effie,’ Sholto said as he approached, pulling on the reins, and at their first look, she could see the joy inside him threatening to escape, just as it did her. It felt irrepressible. It showed her with a single glance that what they had shared last night had been true, not a dream.

She realized she was beaming. That they both were. There was a basket balanced between his legs and he jumped down with it and threw the reins over the gate post as she stepped back to let him pass. His gaze fell to the bundle in her own arms. From his expression, he seemed to know what it contained too.

‘How are you this morning?’ he asked in a low voice.