Sinclair didn’t even turn from milking Sally. The sun had sunk nearly below the horizon, but he was acclimated to working in the darkness ... just as he’d become long accustomed to being considered a fool by his stepfather. Typically, though, the older man conveyed his low opinion only with grunts and well-timed coughs.
“I have no intention to be one, sir.” Sinclair tugged at one of the cow’s teats, and the milk hissed into the empty pail.
“You wouldn’t be the first to go daft over a pretty face.” Sigurd sat heavily down on the older milking stool that the children sometimes used when they joined Sinclair.
“Aye, but I won’t.”
“You cannot let her go poking about Frest. There is something strange about her suddenly buying Mar’s estate and the old bastard just up and leaving.”
“Aye. Miss Van Etten is a difficult one to decipher.”
“If you can’t understand her, it isn’t likely any of us other folks shall.” The words were edged with the sense that Sinclair didn’t truly belong to the people of Frest—not with his sire’s English blood rushing through him, thoroughly drowning his mother’s Orcadian roots.
“I’ll make sure she stays far away from Fornhowe,” Sinclair promised.
“She doesn’t seem like the superstitious sort. I doubt the tales that we use to warn off the daft authorities will work on a fae lass like her.”
“She doesn’t seem the type to go on rambles and poke into ancient mounds either.”More likely she’d just drive her automobile over it.
“Aye. You’re probably right.” Sigurd sighed wearily. “I don’t like her interest in Frest, though.”
Sinclair didn’t respond at first as he moved on to another two teats. Sally shot him a look before she docilely went back to chewing her fodder. When he’d first learned how to milk a cow under Sigurd’s tutelage, the previous bovine had been a temperamental beast and new to being milked. Sinclair probably would have had his arm broken a time or two if he hadn’t been so good at dodging blows up at Muckle Skaill.
“Her attention might prove useful,” Sinclair said carefully, knowing that his stepfather would disagree. But he’d watched Miss Van Etten’s discussion with Margaret. She hadn’t been dismissive of the child’s concerns. She’d actually listened. And if she could be solicitous to a mere bairn, mayhap she would be attentive to the requests of an adult.
“If you believe that nonsense, then you truly are a gappus. You could never fully see what a danger Reginald was either.”
His stepfather had despised Sinclair’s friendship with his half brother almost as much as it infuriated the earl. But they’d been the best of friends ... until the day that Sinclair had found Reggie kissing Astrid. They’d fought then with blows and words. They’d only just begun to make up when Britain had declared war on Germany, and Sinclair had refused to follow Reggie to the Front as his batman. They’d never spoken again after that, although Sinclair had spotted his older sibling from a distance when he had returned to Hamarray to convalesce after his first capture.
But Reggie had refused to see Sinclair and had barely spoken to Astrid. She’d said that the normally happy-go-lucky Reggie had beencagey and steeped in secrets and darkness. Sinclair had always wondered what had made his brother return to the Front so suddenly and if ... and if he could have prevented Reggie’s death.
“Reggie had plans for Hamarray and Frest.” Sinclair didn’t know why he was still making this argument to his stepfather. His brother was dead, along with the ideas they’d dreamed up together, from reclaiming boggy land to purchasing a mechanized thresher for the crofts. It no longer should matter what Sigurd thought of Reggie—but it still did. At least to Sinclair. He owed his brother that much, especially since he hadn’t been there to physically protect him.
“Humph.”
Aye, Sinclair’s stepfather had no need to actually call him a ninny, not when Sigurd could do so emphatically with a mere sound. The elderly man leaned forward on his cane, his eyes fairly boring two holes into Sinclair’s skull.
“Reginald was quick enough to drag your name through the muck when you ceased dancing to his tune.”
ThatSinclair could never deny. His brother had gone to a pub in Kirkwall and gotten completely blootered. Reggie had never held his drink or his temper well, and he’d complained to all and sundry about how cowardly Sinclair was. Eventually, Reggie had staggered back to Frest with a jug of Orcadian beer in his hand. He’d shared his drink with anyone willing to listen to his complaints against his lily-livered half brother. The pain of Reggie’s betrayal had never quite gone away ... neither had the feeling that perhaps Reggie had not been completely wrong about Sinclair’s character. So Sinclair said nothing in response to Sigurd as he squeezed the last of the milk into the now-brimming pail.
“Outsiders are all the same, seeking to use us until they grow bored of their playthings. The tales about selkies and mermaids might just be stories, but there’s a real warning in them—one you would do well to heed.”
“I won’t let Miss Van Etten spirit me away from here, if that’s what you’re worried about.” Sinclair rose from his own milking stool and then pivoted slowly, careful not to spill a drop. When he faced his stepfather, he realized his blunder. The man detested his dependence on Sinclair.
“Everyone knows nothing will ever make you leave Frest. You’ve nary an adventurous bone in your entire body. Even if a mermaid leaped upon your boat and dragged you down into the sea, you’d find a way to pop back up like a piece of flotsam.”
And there it was. The veiled accusation all the crofters felt. Sinclair was a feartie for staying while the other menfolk died. Never mind that he’d had a duty here. For if Sigurd admitted that, he would have to acknowledge his own reliance on his stepson, the offspring of a man he loathed.
Sinclair rubbed the bridge of his nose, wishing he were not having this conversation with Sigurd. They’d rarely had deep ones and certainly none filled with fatherly advice. True, Sigurd had taught him how to croft, shear a sheep, and fish from the sea. Sinclair owed him for that, but other lessons—like those involving becoming a man—those topics had never been broached.
“You’ve been nominated as the crofters’ representative, and I don’t want you leading them astray,” Sigurd chided.
“I want what isrightfor the people of Frest.” Sinclair stood in front of his stepfather, wishing that once, justonce, he would be seen as one of the island folks with no ties to the Earl of Mar.
“Your notions can be troublesome at best.” The tip of Sigurd’s cane thudded into the sod. Even with the left side of his body still partially paralyzed from the stroke, he moved with determined authority. The man’s strength and will were among the things Sinclair respected about him—along with how well he cared for his own children and how he’d practically worshipped Sinclair’s mother.
“We need investment in our land if we are to modernize and keep up.” Sinclair tried to make the stubborn man understand. “We will nolonger have thousands of hungry and thirsty sailors at our doorstep to improve our economic situation.”
