“You’re certain?”
“Absolutely, sure as shooting.” She tugged on his hand as the tension in her body returned to the amount of energy that Rose normally experienced before a race. “Come on. I might not mind losing, but Idomind forfeiting.”
Luckily, they managed to get situated before the starting gun was fired. As Rose shifted gears and steered around the sharp bends, she shouted instructions to Thorfinn. With his seafaring background, he instinctually understood how to throw his body to balance the speeding vehicle through the curves. When he hung out the side to balance them as she whipped the wheel to the right and left, she heard him holler in pure excitement.
Once they reached a short straightaway, Rose glanced over at Thorfinn. He was grinning and shouting, his blond hair blowing wildly about his face. He was loving this just as much as she was. Focusing on the road once again, she released her own whoop, and a heady, intoxicating emotion burst forth.
This ...thiswas racing at its best!
Chapter 16
The glow from the simmer dim made it both easy for Thorfinn to keep an anxious lookout for Astrid and her bird-watchers and harder for him to obscure his presence. With a heart heavier than the standing stone that he crouched behind, Thorfinn warily watched the entrance to the old broch where Astrid often brought naturalists to see the fulmars. It made a relatively large and comfortable spot for secret rendezvous. Even if Astrid and her cohorts met instead in the sea caves, Thorfinn’s hilltop hiding spot gave him an excellent view of both the headlands and the rolling countryside that stretched down toward Frest.
Remorse simmered through Thorfinn—guilt that he was having such thoughts about Astrid and pain at the knowledge that hewouldhand her over to the authorities if she was a German agent.
Nothing stirred except for the tammie norries and other auks returning from their day’s hunt for sand eels—leaving Thorfinn alone with the thoughts that burned through him like a thousand funeral pyres.
Unable to bear the agonizing doubts any longer, Thorfinn found the only release he could—he imagined he was back in the Raceabout with Rose, his body hanging over the ground rushing below, the gorse nearly scraping his face.
Oh, it had been glorious. And then, when they’d won, the cheers of the islanders had surrounded them. He knew now what propelled Rose to climb into the steel beasties.
Reggie was right: Thorfinn did need someone to drag him into adventures ... at least thosenotinvolving the fate of the bloody world and the potential destruction of everything Thorfinn held dear. And Thorfinn wanted Rose in his life—not just now, not just for a moment, but forever.
Aye, he loved the lass, fully and truly. He’d known it for days, perhaps even weeks. He just hadn’t had a moment to acknowledge it ... or accept what it meant. For Rose did not desire marriage, and she had made him no promises of a future. When the time came for her to leave, he’d have no choice but to let her go. But he couldn’t stop how he felt, any more than he could force her to change her opinions on love.
A flicker of movement by the strand connecting Frest and Hamarray caused Thorfinn to stiffen. He scanned the landscape, searching for the red blonde of Astrid’s hair. Instead, he merely spotted Sigurd’s familiar flatcap.
Thorfinn relaxed his body against the cool stone. It was just his stepda out on his nightly stroll. Ever since Sigurd’s apoplexy, he had suffered bad dreams that drove him from his bed. The walks gave the older man not only a bit of air but also a peedie dram of his old independence.
Just as Sigurd’s head disappeared behind the last dip before he would reach the crest of Hamarray, Thorfinn spied two figures slipping out of Muckle Skaill. Thorfinn’s blood started to pound, and he frantically glanced back toward where he’d last seen Sigurd. He hoped to hell that the spies didn’t catch sight of his stepfather. Scrambling to think of a way to warn Sigurd without scaring off the twosome, he glanced back toward the mansion. This time his heart was fairly rent into pieces. With the men closer now, he had no trouble identifying them as Astrid’s bird-watchers.
Thorfinn swung his gaze back to his stepda, and he could just see the brown and green of his tweed hat. Thorfinn started to cup his hand to yell to Sigurd to flee down the hill, but before he could shout, his stepfather popped into sight. The two apparent spies immediately turned in Sigurd’s direction, and his stepda waved in greeting.
Thorfinn tensed his muscles. He had no weapon. He hadn’t really expected trouble even though he’d taken the precaution of leaving Reggie’s last letter at the bottom of Freya’s bed with a note on the sealed envelope to deliver the missive to Rose in the morning. Thorfinn had planned to stay well hidden and let the authorities take care of the arrests, but he couldn’t allow his stepfather to enter a trap.
But just as Thorfinn started to dash to the rescue, Sigurd casually met up with the two men. The threesome then disappeared inside the ancient stone walls, whispering together like fast friends ... or conspirators.
It wasn’t just Thorfinn’s heart that plummeted but his soul as well. Denial screamed through him, but he could not ignore the damning evidence. Sigurd—who hated all interlopers to Hamarray and Frest—had just willingly met in the middle of the night two individuals who had the perfect cover for studying Scapa Flow.
With pain and disbelief dousing him in equal measures, Thorfinn silently sped toward a crack in the back of the ancient structure. As he pressed his ear against the narrow slit, he prayed that he would hear nothing but talk of seafowl—yet he already knew in his gut that it was not birds that these men were interested in.
“The admiral and kapitäns are all aware of the plans, then?” a smooth British voice with occasional faint traces of an accent asked. “They will be at the ready when reinforcements arrive tomorrow?”
Thorfinn desperately fought against the yawning ache inside him. He could not allow it to swallow him up and dull his senses. Despite his relief that Astrid did not appear to be involved, the fact that Sigurdwasnearly slayed Thorfinn. He’d always trusted Sigurd to do the right thing, the honorable thing; it was the closest he’d ever gotten to a father-son relationship. And the loss of that belief, that betrayal, felt worse than any blow that the earl had ever inflicted.
But Thorfinn had to remain sharp and ignore his personal agony. It wasn’t just the people of Frest who were depending upon him but the peace of nearly every nation in the world.
“Aye.” It was Sigurd’s voice. “I saw their signal this morning. They are prepared. Five of the battleships and twelve destroyers have communicated that they will be able to raise steam.”
Thorfinn could not think of Sigurd as his stepfather right now, or he could crumble. His stepda was ... most horrifically ... the enemy.
“So few?!”
“Most of the crews will no longer obey their officers. The engines have not been maintained for months. Still, it will be enough for the plan to proceed.”
“No one noticed you with all of the activity at the mansion?” This accent was American.
“Nay. Nobody ever minds an old man with a cane. That’s why you pay me to sneak about, isn’t it?”
