Knowing the children would be curious, he carefully scanned the occupants of the boat. The ladies were both elegantly dressed—the fair-haired one in a smart wool coat, and the brunette in head-to-toe fur. Almost immediately Sinclair identified which aristocrat was rumored to be Mar’s intended bride.
It wasn’t by her beaverpelt ensemble or even by the way she was expertly conning the ship. No. It was the way she scanned the shore, taking inventory of it. The blonde woman only studied the howe, but the other lady ... shesurveyed.
It was a look Sinclair recognized, and a bit of his pity for her dried up. Her expression was one of ownership, of possession, of dominion, but not one of love or even appreciation of the land stretching before her. She was obviously taking stock of the isles that would become hers upon marriage to the earl. She was like Mar, and his father before him, and the laird before that. They came during fair weather and took what they wanted. They did not reside in Orkney, nor did they work the soilor lay lobster traps in the waters. Yet they thoughttheywere the custodians of the bounty of Hamarray and Frest.
Aye, the potential new mistress possessed a fae beauty, but so did Mar have a handsome face. His gilded mien hid a fetid, boggy soul. Although Sinclair had no way yet of judging the contents of this woman’s heart, he wasn’t about to be fooled by any outward frills—no matter how much those trappings glittered.
Miss Van Etten caught sight of him, and she steered her pleasure craft in his direction. She and her passenger waved eagerly. Sinclair reluctantly responded with a hesitant salute. It never boded well when one of the toffs showed an islander any attention. He’d much rather the newcomers ignore him, like proper misses.
“Hi!” Miss Van Etten called out in the informal, overly enthusiastic way of Americans. “You have a beautiful island!”
He just cupped his ear and leaned forward, as if trying to hear.
“I said you have a beautiful island!” she shouted even louder now. “Is that your boat you’re working on? Are you a fisherman?”
Sinclair shot her a polite half smile. He added a helpless shrug and pointed toward his left ear for good measure.
The determined lass finally took the hint. Her grin slipped slightly, but she still gave a blithe wave before she revved the throttle of her fine craft. Leaving naught but seafoam in her wake, the woman guided the vessel through the water with the ease of the mythical, magical finfolk. He wasn’t surprised by her skill—all the earl’s wealthy sycophants had the leisure time to perfect their “sporting” affectations. It was the first time, though, that he felt a reluctant twinge of admiration for the ability of one of their kind. Proficiently conning a small vessel was much more useful than shooting imported deer trapped on a peedie treeless islet.
Turning a journey that would take Sinclair an hour to row into a matter of mere minutes, Miss Van Etten quickly reached the docks of Hamarray. As soon as she and her companion set foot on the strand, the wind began to pick up. By the time they’d started climbing the steephill leading to the mansion overlooking the cliffs, the air began to howl, and the waters grew rough.
A wry smile touched Sinclair’s lips. The finfolk were known for bringing bad weather and chasing away the fish. Perhaps Mar’s intended did have a bit of dark magic in her after all.
Sea spray doused Sinclair, but he ignored it as he again set to work on cleaning the motor of his sloop. The cranky piece of machinery needed all the coddling Sinclair could give it. The cheap petrol he could afford kept clogging the filter, and he’d learned to clean it regularly even if it meant losing precious daylight during the short winter days. Though the days had lengthened a bit, he found himself now working against the weather.
Between Sinclair’s focus on the task and the thunder of the gale, he didn’t notice his stepcousin’s approach until he spied Astrid’s boots. After placing his rag in a bucket, he stood up to greet her. She’d been the only one of his stepfather’s family other than her grandmother to embrace him, and over the years they’d become as close as siblings.
“Did you catch sight of the new Lady of Muckle Skaill?” Astrid asked without preamble, using the Orcadian words forbig hall, which was what the locals had dubbed Mar’s home. Even though Astrid practically shouted in Sinclair’s ear, he had to strain to understand her with the loud gusts buffeting them.
“Aye. How’d you hear?” Astrid and her grandmother’s croft was on the other side of Frest, and they did not have a good vantage point of this part of the sea.
“Ron Inkster saw her on his way back from bringing in the day’s catch, and he stopped to tell Nana and me. He said she was a chatty one, even hollering hello to him and asking him questions he didn’t wish to answer. Was the boat she arrived in as fancy as he said it was?”
“Fancier.” Sinclair grunted as he leaned over to put the motor back together. A splash of rain had already hit his cheek, and he wanted tofinish before the deluge. He didn’t mind the rain himself, but it would do no good to get water in the persnickety engine.
Astrid sat down on a nearby stone wall. Despite being in her twenties, she bounced her feet off the side just as his young half sisters did. “He said that the woman steered the vessel like one of the finfolk.”
“At least the earl’s intended isn’t a stranger to the sea.”
“You know for certain that she was at the wheel? Miss Van Etten could have been the passenger.” Astrid’s expression had turned downright curious. It was the same one she wore when a rare bird decided to rest its weary wings on their isle before continuing north or south. It was also one Sinclair didn’t like directed at him.
“She had the right look about her.” Sinclair tried to keep defensiveness out of his voice, but a bit crept in.
Astrid quirked one of her red eyebrows as she leaned forward, her hands gripping the stone to balance her body as she peered at him. “Ron said both ladies were bonny lasses but that the woman operating the boat looked as fetching as a mermaid.”
No use denying it—not when Sinclair had noticed the same. “Aye.”
His response made Astrid tilt so far forward that she looked ready to topple onto her nose. Sinclair ignored her scrutiny and focused his attention entirely on cleaning up his tools. Astrid, however, did not grant his unspoken request for her to leave it be.
“You know what the old islanders say about a fair mermaid.” Astrid hopped down from her rocky throne to stand near him. “They are always scheming for a way to trap poor mortal men into doing their bidding.”
Sinclair snorted, even though he’d predicted that his stepcousin would allude to the old legend. It was said that female finfolk abducted human men to save themselves from lives of drudgery as finwives. If a mermaid married a finman, the ethereal beauty would turn into a hag within seven years. “A union with the earl would be worse than to one of the seafolk.”
Astrid frowned. “That’s why she might set her sights on someone more of her own age—someone shethinksshe can toy with. The earl’s guests are always looking to stir up trouble, and I suspect Miss Van Etten will be no different, even if she’s female. She might think it a lark to make the earl jealous—or that it might bring him up to scratch faster.”
“I’m sure she’d pick better quarry than the likes of me.” Without thinking, Sinclair reached up and touched his face. His fingers first brushed his eye patch and then trailed over the puckered scar that ended at the corner of his mouth—a gift from the Earl of Mar.
Astrid’s eyes followed the path of his hand. He froze, but it was too late. With the war having claimed Reggie’s life, Astrid was now the person who knew him best. The concern in her green eyes had shifted, becoming more intense.
