Page 53 of The Midnight Secret

‘But I can’t stay here till then,’ Effie said urgently. ‘I need to go back to Portree.’

‘That would be pointless when all roads north are closed. We need to get you round to Dunvegan.’

‘Then I’ll find a way,’ she argued. ‘I’m used to bad weather.’

Archie looked bemused. ‘I’m sure you are, and if my boat were any more robust, I’d take you up there myself...’ He sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I know this is all terribly bad luck.’

‘What if we were to go now, before the windsreallypick up?’ she said desperately, turning to look out at the view. It was stunning, looking straight across the sound to Skye, with the Red Cuillin mountains – more sedate than their Black cousins – bumping the horizon. Effie refused to acknowledge the white horses already rearing in the open water, the bend and sway of the trees as the wind began to gust and moan. ‘We could still do it.’

He shook his head, unmoved by her pleas. ‘I’m reckless but not suicidal, more’s the pity. I’ll get you back there at the first break in the clouds. Until then...I’m afraid you’re stuck here with me.’

A bath, a long sleep and a brief walk to inspect the fallen telegraph pole – confirming that they were indeed stranded – did much to improve Effie’s spirits. She still couldn’t help but fret about Sholto, but she took comfort in what Archie kept telling her: her fiancé would know she wasn’t drowned,and he would guess that a mix-up had occurred. And at least she knew where to find him, even if he didn’t know where to find her. All they had to do was wait for the winds to drop.

She stared at herself in the bedroom mirror, feeling conflicted by what she saw. It fit her perfectly, and yet...

Earlier, Mrs Robertson had left out a pair of Archie’s trousers, a shirt and jumper for her to put on after her bath. The trousers were comically long and had had to be rolled up several times; he had cracked a one-sided smile of deep amusement at the sight of her as she had walked into the library. ‘Like a glove,’ he had quipped.

Luckily for Effie, she had worn the housekeeper’s gumboots for their walk.

For dinner, however, he had had a brainwave, remembering his dinner suit from his schooldays. ‘It must still be hanging somewhere in one of the wardrobes,’ he had said to Mrs Robertson, who had simply nodded with the expression of someone who knew exactly where everything was hanging.

Effie tugged at the shirt cuffs and left the room, finding her host in his preferred fireside chair with a copy of the local paper on his knees and a tumbler of whisky in his hand. He glanced up and seemed to freeze as she saw a look of genuine shock cross his face – which was saying something. He didn’t strike her as easily shockable. The dinner suit looked as if it had been made for her, but there was something...confusingabout seeing herself, a young woman, her blonde hair spread over her shoulders, in such a masculine item of clothing. Wearing trousers was one thing, but an actual dinner suit? She still wasn’t sure why they had to dress for dinner when it was just the two of them in any case.

‘I couldn’t do up the tie,’ she murmured as his uncharacteristic silence stretched out.

‘No, indeed,’ he said, getting up and coming to stand before her. ‘There’s a...there’s a real knack to doing it...Tricky rascals.’ He bent down and began tying the bow at her neck. It seemed an intricate process and she was very aware of his proximity as she stood there. Of course, they had danced together; she had already felt his hands on her waist, his hands gripping hers, but there was something...intimate in the stillness of this endeavour.

‘No shoes, I see.’

‘I’m a St Kildan, remember?’ she murmured, looking diagonally away from him, not risking eye contact at these close quarters. ‘And the choice was either my dancing shoes or Mrs Beeton’s gumboots, so...’

‘That really is sitting on the horns of a dilemma.’

There was another silence as she felt his fingers working against her throat.

‘How old were you when you wore this?’ she murmured as another silence bloomed.

‘...Thirteen? Before I’d started shooting up,’ he replied, his gaze dragging over her as he stepped back finally and admired the finished result. Barefooted but bow-tied, she saw the heavy rise and fall of his chest as a thick tension seemed to coagulate between them.

‘Do we look like a pair of penguins?’ she asked, needing to defuse it.

He laughed again. ‘I fear we do! But take heart – if we can’t make a lady of you, we’ll make a gentleman for sure. You’re a looker in a gown, don’t get me wrong, but you do rather suit men’s clothes.’

‘I take that as a compliment,’ she preened. ‘I always wore my brother’s clothes back home.’

‘Did you indeed? Didn’t your mother have something tosay about that?’ He wandered over to the drinks cabinet and poured her a whisky, slowly unscrewing the bottle top with a distracted air.

‘My mother died when I was ten. And my brother too, when I was fourteen.’

Archie looked taken aback. For once, there was no sign of a smirk on his lips. ‘I’m terribly sorry to hear that.’

She shrugged. ‘I didn’t wear his clothes before that, obviously...’ She rolled her eyes. ‘He’d have scalped me.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘Climbing accident. The rope snapped.’

‘Dear God, that’s terrible.’

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