At Rose’s gasp, Myrtle grabbed the binoculars. Rose let her have them. She’d already taken a much longer look than prudent.
“My, my, I am not sure what real Vikings looked like, but he certainly could star in a picture show about one. He makes Douglas Fairbanks look plain.” Myrtle sighed. She started to hand back the binoculars, but Rose declined with a shake of her head; she had the man’s finely chiseled features emblazoned upon her memory. He had the look of an avenging angel with straw-blond hair peeking out from under a flatcap.
He was hale and fit, so different from the blood-soaked, mud-covered soldiers she’d treated—men worn down by the horrific struggle of trench warfare. This man brimmed withlife, perhaps even adventure. He fit this wild land of wind and sea.
A damnable spark flickered inside Rose. She’d experienced nothing this electric since long before the war. But it wasn’t the old excitement. It was stronger. More tempting. And definitely dangerous to a woman intent on infiltrating a den of spies.
Since the age of ten, Sinclair had become accustomed to strangers staring at his visage, especially young children. He paid little heed to itnow, accepting it as part of him, just like the scar itself. He was neither a particularly social man nor a shy one.
But no one had ever watched him like these two lasses, especially Miss Van Etten. Her gaze swept over him, stopping everywhere, it seemed,buthis damaged eye. It wasn’t even that she studiously avoided it, rather that her attention seemed drawn elsewhere. It was deuced disconcerting. The fact that the Earl of Mar intended to marry this woman made Sinclair feel all the more unsettled.
He almost hesitated before he began to mount the last incline, knowing it would place him face to face with the lasses. But he’d stopped allowing aristocrats and their ilk to intimidate him long ago. Marching up the final rise, he prepared himself to meet Mar’s chosen bride.
Then there she was—her more practical beaver coat exchanged for raccoon now that she was out of the salt spray. She was a first-rate beauty steeped in an elegance that spoke of faraway, grand cities, of a world Sinclair had never, and likely would never, see. It was no wonder the earl had chosen this lass. The toff always liked fine, pretty things ... until he inevitably broke and then discarded them.
“I’m Miss Rose Van Etten,” she announced in her clipped Yankee accent as she boldly stuck out her hand. Her forthrightness shocked him. Mar generally had preferred the shyer sort of lass.
“Mr.Thorfinn Sinclair.” He reluctantly took her hand, expecting to find the touch soft and delicate. It wasn’t. Aye, her kid glove was all supple smoothness, but her fingers held a strength he hadn’t anticipated.
Miss Van Etten’s eyes widened. “ThorfinnSinclair?”
“Aye.” He tugged on his flatcap with his free hand. It was a common enough name here in Orkney, where Norse and Gaelic traditions meshed, but he supposed it might be a trifle uncommon in America. And the gentry never did seem to appreciate a workingman like himself having the name of a god and legendary hero.
Still gripping his hand, Miss Van Etten turned in the direction of her companion. “Right as always, Myrtle. We have indeed been invadedby a Viking.” Then she whirled back toward him. She gave his hand one firm pump and then dropped it. “Pleased to meet you, Mr.Sinclair.”
He really should be excusing himself and focusing on his real purpose for visiting Hamarray—discussing the Sheep Problem with the earl before they counted the flock on the morrow. Sinclair knew better than to linger this close to Muckle Skaill, but instead of politely making his adieus, he rather inanely blurted out, “Viking?”
“Yes,” Miss Van Etten said conversationally, as if they were the best of chums, “you were rowing so prodigiously that my friend here, Miss Myrtle Morningstar, likened it to an invasion.”
Miss Van Etten paused just long enough for Sinclair and Miss Morningstar to nod in each other’s direction before she barreled on with the explanation: “Given the recent hostilities, I inquired whether she meant German, and she assured me you seemed more Norse than Goth. She is an archaeologist, you know, and well versed in these matters.”
Sinclair rubbed the bridge of his nose as he tried to follow her conversation. He had come here to talk to Mar aboutsheep. He had no idea how he had fallen into the subject of antiquity with two fae lasses. Did Miss Van Etten mean to purposely confuse him, the lowly farmer and sailor, with her mention of ancient history? It was something Mar would do—setting himself apart, ridiculing those he found beneath him, which amounted to almost everyone.
But his son hadn’t been like that. No. Reggie had smuggled books from the library to Sinclair and shared with him lessons that he’d learned at Eton, from history to mathematics to classic literature.
“And what am I sacking? Rome or an Irish monastery?”
The earl’s mouth always flattened into a hard line whenever one of his sharp-edged barbs had failed to sink into tender flesh. Instead, Miss Van Etten hooted good-naturedly when Sinclair dodged what he’d thought had been a taunt. The sound of her chuckle was bright and deuced unnerving. Miss Morningstar laughed, too, but it did not have the same effect.
“I—” Sinclair paused and cleared his throat, wishing he could settle his pesky reaction to the lass just as easily. “I, well, I came to talk to the Earl of Mar about ...” No, he didn’t want to tellherabout the Sheep Problem. She wasn’t their mistress yet. But she could be, which was why he had to be exceedingly polite. No use in having the new Lady of Muckle Skaill despise him too. “Well ... welcoming you and your friend to Orkney. Officially. On behalf of the crofters. All of us.”
“Thank you, Mr.Sinclair. That is quite kind of you. Miss Morningstar and I are very happy for the warm greeting.”
“That we are,” Miss Morningstar agreed.
Sinclair had known that the women would sense his palpable unease. Their insight wasn’t surprising given his clumsy delivery, but their gracious reactionwas.
“How are you finding Hamarray?” He hated small talk but understood its necessity.
“It is quite charming, which is why I’ve decided to buy it,” Miss Van Etten announced as if she were pointing at a fresh pint of gooseberries at the market in Kirkwall.
“Buy it? Hamarray? You’re going to buy Hamarray?” He sounded like a right gappus, but he simply could not believe her words.
“Yes. And Frest.” Miss Van Etten’s pink lips tightened ever so slightly.
If Sinclair’s early childhood as a servant at Muckle Skaill hadn’t taught him to be aware of shifts in his employer’s mood, he probably wouldn’t have noticed that his instinctual disbelief irked her. Miss Morningstar clearly noticed as well, for she surreptitiously backed away, clearly removing herself from the suddenly tense conversation.
“The earl is selling his holdings in Orkney?” Sinclair could not believe that Mar would part with his realm of pleasure, where he ruled absolute, far from the rules and laws of alleged civilized society.
