‘I don’t dance. I’ve never danced… totally useless. In fact I don’t know my left foot from my right. I was afraid I’d flatten your toes. So were you sulking that I didn’t dance with the prettiest girl in the room?’

He was teasing her and she had to smile. Why was it she could say anything she liked to this stranger? Why was it that she felt he’d been sitting on this beach all her life, like Dougie and all the other lads from Stratharvar? Yet why was it when she looked into that dark stubbly face, at those grinning eyes and that mop of hair, she couldn’t breathe for the thudding in her heart? This was something strange and new, something she had never experienced before. Why did it feel like an ache inside her, it was so strong? It was easy to plonk herself down and talk about her dreams of designing dresses when this drab war was over and colour would flood back into life again.

He sketched the outline of her face as she gabbled on. Then he told her about his own life in Glasgow College of Art and the travel scholarship that he had sacrificed to do his army service. He had no family left, and the wealthy aunt who had reared him in the Borders had sent him away to England to sharpen his manners and get this artistic nonsense out of his head. It hadn’t worked, of course. How could a boy who had been named after his distinguished forebear, Sir Henry Raeburn, the famous portrait painter, not fulfil his instinct to capture the world on canvas? He had built up a portfolio that got him his place at the famous College of Art but the war had intervened and now he must wait for its end to continue his studies.

‘We have to set the heather on fire, Miss Nichol. Make our mark however small… leave something more than footprints in the sand or it’s all a waste of time. I’m not one for life after death. You saw me in the kirk today but that was out of politeness to my kind hosts – and I knew somehow you’d be there. So if you want a carpet slippers sort of suitor, Miss Nichol, I’m no the man for you!’ He peered at her intently and she felt a stabbing feeling deep in her stomach.

‘Who says I’m wanting any suitor? I’ve my own plans too. I want to train up with the best dressmakers, have my own business and set my own footprints one day.’