‘We’ve a few of those,’ she agreed. ‘Ma Peg’s not to be messed with either and Old Fin can still spit in your eye from ten paces.’

Both men looked shocked by the comment and Effie had a sense again that she’d been . . . embarrassing. But they laughed again in the next moment.

Effie watched as the earl pulled a small box from his knapsack; he knelt down and pulled at some moss and grass, padding the box with it before setting the egg in the middle. She watched on, discomfited. It wasn’t a hobby she understood. She could see the beauty of it, but for her – for all St Kildans – eggs were food, not pretty objects to collect. She was no hypocrite; she knew she had and would continue to take thousands more eggs from their nests than either of these men ever would, but that was a matter of her survival; it struck her as somehow against the natural order to take an egg from the nest, the only egg the bird would lay this breeding season, just for the sake of display. It felt very close to avarice.

She watched Lord Sholto pluck a stalk of rye grass and begin to chew on it, his eyes flitting to her again and settling there as he found her gaze already upon him. She felt, again, that sense of being lifted, of the ground dropping away beneath her, and it made her stomach swoop. She didn’t understand the feeling. She was a St Kildan, an intrepid climber who swung from the ropes without a care; but for the first time in her life, she understood what others felt when they watched her as a spider on the wall: the fear of falling.

Chapter Three

They returned to a village very much at rest. With the menfolk away, the women were moving about with a rare leisured air as the sun sank softly behind Mullach Bi. The children were playing hide and seek behind the dyke, their shouts echoing around the glen, water pails ready filled for the morning, their chores done.

Effie could see the smoke puffing from their chimney on the approach, her father sweeping the threshold, his body stooped. Along with Archie MacQueen, who had rowed back from dropping the men, he and Old Fin were the only village men left on the island – Old Fin on account of his age, her father on account of his bones. Mad Annie was sitting on the low wall, knitting as she talked to him. Several dogs were strewn about her dangling feet. Effie could see her father’s white shirts, including his Sunday best, were still pegged to the line. She would need to take them in, the dew would be coming soon.

‘So did you enjoy today, sir?’ she said to the earl as they stepped into the Street. She was determined to earn and keep her two shillings.