Effie shook her head again, but this time Flora stopped her with a nod. ‘It wasn’t a question. He’s going to and you have to be ready for it. You can’t allow it, Eff.’

It felt like an age before Effie could get the words to her throat. ‘. . . Why can’t I?’

‘You know why. Nothing can come of it.’

Effie stared at her, feeling rage at her friend’s words and the finality in them. She had longed for the moment to confide her feelings, her confusion, in her worldly friend, but without even getting the chance, this thing that hadn’t yet taken a breath was being condemned. ‘But it has with you and James! He’s rich! He’s from another world!’

‘Aye. But he’s self-made. It’s different. He can choose his path. That man . . .’ Flora jerked her thumb over her shoulder in the direction of the village. ‘He may as well be the king.’

‘But you just said I was allowed to flirt with the son of an earl!’

‘That was before I saw you together. That was no game. It can’t happen.’

Effie felt devastated by the wholesale dismissal of her dreams. ‘I never said it would.’

‘You didn’t need to! It’s plain as day what’s going on between you and where it’s heading.’ Flora looked back at her fiercely. ‘Why did you not say anything to me? You could have come over the ridge! You could have told me at the bull’s house! On the way here!’

‘I was going to. I tried to earlier at the bull house.’ The factor had interrupted them. ‘Nothing’s happened,’ she repeated, her voice shaky. ‘He hasn’t said a word to me that’s been . . . inappropriate. Or intimate.’

‘Because he’s a gentleman. But he’s no actor, I’ll tell you that.’

Effie looked away. ‘You’re worrying about nothing. Even if it was as you say, I’m not to go near him. The factor says I’ll embarrass him in front of the laird’s friends. I’m to stay away.’

Flora stared at her. ‘So that’s why you stood there just now and broke his heart? Because the factor said?’

Effie shrugged. ‘He keeps talking about our rent arrears. I can’t risk angering him.’

‘Eff, you know I’d never willingly agree with that bloody man,’ Flora sighed. ‘But in this instance he’s right – not because you’re an embarrassment, but because this can only have one ending, and I don’t want to see you get hurt. The stakes for him are different to you.’ She gazed at Effie with soft eyes. ‘This rarely ends well for girls like us.’