No, she didn’t. Surely if she meant anything to him . . . He was the one who had come to her home, stepped into her life . . . Only four days earlier she had been oblivious of what love was, but now she knew it in its full spectrum. It was dizzying and electric, painful and agitating, it made her whole and hollowed her out in the same breath. She’d never been so happy, nor so wretched. None of it was fair. If it had been one of the village lads, everyone would be celebrating that – finally! – Effie Gillies’s wild heart had been captured; but lords didn’t count as suitors here. It would be a scandal.

He stepped closer, still huddled in his towel.

‘Effie, if it was down to me I’d have made you mine the moment we got off that dinghy on the first day. I never imagined this could happen, but . . . I can’t make things be different to what they are,’ he said desperately, willing her to understand. She could only look at him blankly. She had no context beyond this isle, this life, and he looked away, frustrated and angry.

He gave a groan. ‘. . . And now someone’s coming.’

She twisted back to see Lorna striding down the path. Her heart sank too.

‘Lorna, I learnt to swim!’ Effie said as brightly as she could, blue-lipped and huddling under the blanket.

‘Was that what it was?’ Lorna asked. ‘It looked like you swallowed the sea from where I was standing.’ There was a shortness to her words, a warning in her eyes, and Effie instantly understood how their ‘swimming lesson’ had been perceived by her neighbours. It wasn’t just the factor who’d be furious.

‘Aye. That too.’

‘Well you’d best get warm – and you too, sir. You both look perished with the cold.’ Lorna spoke firmly and with the authority of the resident nurse.

The dogs went into a higher state of frenzy just as the boat Effie had predicted was coming nosed round the headland. It was Vaila, a trawler well known to the villagers. Callum McGregor was the skipper; he lived at Applecross in Skye and had become a friend to them all when a fierce storm several years back had stranded him with them for a whole week. He had earnt his keep by entertaining them with stories of life on the mainland that sounded like they belonged to another time and not just another place. His visits were always welcome. He fished for cod and ling in the deeper waters and always stopped by Village Bay, their archipelago being the only land between here and the Faroe Islands.

‘How’s Donald?’ Effie asked, stalling for time, even though she couldn’t stop her teeth from chattering.

‘He had a fitful night but he’s growing more lucid and resting well now.’

‘Good. I must look in and send my best wishes to Mary.’