‘I’m beholden and fully intend to make it up to you. I can’t leave here in good conscience knowing you can’t swim. If anything should happen, I’d never forgive myself. Besides, we’ll be going in the sea to clean up anyway. We can kill two birds with one stone.’ He gave her a glittering look. ‘Although knowing you as I now do, you can probably kill ten birds with one stone.’

Effie couldn’t keep from smiling back.

The gaiety that had characterized their first moments together had returned and they were both giddy with joy. ‘How about you, Mr Mathieson – can you swim?’

‘Well—’

‘Come, I can teach you too,’ Sholto said with exuberance.

‘I can swim well enough already, sir.’

‘You don’t want to learn a new stroke, perhaps? I’m a strong swimmer myself. I’d be happy to teach you what I know. In fact, I’d consider it a public service, something you could then pass on to the islanders too. It would be a way for me to give back after their hospitality.’

‘You’re very generous, sir,’ the factor muttered. ‘But with this being our last day, I shall need to tie up my loose ends with the men before I return at the summer’s end. There have been a lot of distractions on this trip, what with doing the sheep and then Donald McKinnon’s injury.’

‘Ah, of course, yes, I’d not considered that. Well, that’s a pity,’ Sholto said, without any hint of regret. ‘It shall just have to be you and me then, Effie. I hope you don’t mind?’

‘Not at all, sir—’

‘Sholto,’ he guided, before she could slip back into old habits.

‘. . . Sholto,’ she echoed.

Chapter Ten

‘People are watching.’ She could see faces at the window of the featherstore and the manse, by the postmaster’s hut, in the Street.

‘Let them. We’re not doing anything wrong.’ His hands were around her waist, holding her up in the freezing cold water. ‘We’ve offered for them to join us. I’m happy to teach any one of them.’

‘But you know they won’t accept.’

He shrugged.

Neither one of them wanted to get out, in spite of the breathtaking temperature; but they both knew it was like being on the ropes – sooner or later they’d be forced back to the wider world. They couldn’t exist indefinitely in these hidden margins, concealed from prying eyes off the edge of a cliff, or underwater.

‘Now kick again, let’s at least give them a show.’