“Will ...” Astrid began to stiffen her shoulders, and then she paused, seeming to slump into herself, as if thinking better of what she was about to say.
“Will I what?” Rose asked. “If I learned anything from eavesdropping on my father’s discussions with industrialists, it is that it’s best to be up front and clear in the beginning of a transaction. It avoids so much unnecessary nastiness down the line.”
“Will you put that in writing?” A thread of hesitancy laced Astrid’s tone, but her voice never wavered.
“Of course. It is the best way to do business.”
Astrid’s tension eased a bit. “I was afraid you were going to say I should just rely on your word, you being a fine lady and all, or some tosh like that.”
“Ah. Did Mar expect you to accept whatever he said at face value because he was a gentleman?”
“Aye, but his word is bruck. All the other lairds were the same—claiming rents, making us harvest seaweed for their profit, not ours—but the old earl, he was the worst of them all. Thought himself a feudal lord, he did. He certainly treated us all like serfs ready to do his bidding. Those who worked and lived at Muckle Skaill suffered the most. I don’t know—”
Astrid broke off suddenly. Her expression once again became guarded as she slid Rose a look. “I have said too much. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
Rose shrugged off the apology, glad that one of the islanders was finally talking without restraint. “I’m not easily upset, and I don’t see myself as a lady. Feel free to continue.”
“Oh, it’s not important.” Astrid’s voice was high and cavalier—toocavalier. Familiar frustration roared through Rose. It was clear that she wouldn’t be unraveling any secrets of the crofters beyond Astrid’s bird-watching venture.
Myrtle poked her head out of the broch. “A friend, then?”
“Oh yes,” Rose said. “This is Miss Astrid Flett—stepcousin to Mr.Thorfinn Sinclair.”
“Ah, another of the Viking’s relations.” Myrtle stepped from the ruined tower, wiping her hands on her skirt before extending her hand to Astrid.
“The Viking’s?” Astrid arched a red eyebrow as her fingers closed around Myrtle’s.
“We nicknamed your cousin that after we spotted him rowing toward Hamarray, looking extremely muscly and preternaturally intense,” Myrtle explained.
This time Astrid’s laugh was entirely free and filled with nothing but mirth. “Oh, please tell me he knows of this.”
“Oh, he does.” Rose smiled, remembering when she’d first encountered Mr.Sinclair. “He did not exactly blush, but his expression was even more priceless.”
“Sinclair needs a bit more levity in his life,” Astrid said.
“Is he the serious sort?” Myrtle asked, sounding intrigued as she shot Rose a speaking look. Rose had always preferred carefree men.
“Sinclair has always had to be. He’s faced more than his share of responsibility,” Astrid said. “Not that you’d ever hear him whinge about it.”
An odd feeling stole over Rose as she thought about how Mr.Sinclair had taken on the responsibility of raising his siblings. He had a deep capacity to care—an emotion she’d rarely witnessed until her time driving ambulances in Belgium and France. Mr.Sinclair’s was a quiet kind of passion but no less steadfast.
“He cares a lot about the folks of Frest,” Rose said, surprised by the softness of her own tone. She could feel Myrtle’s gaze sharpening on her.
“Aye.” Astrid nodded. “He feels it is his duty to save the lot of us.”
Rose rubbed her temples as a thought that had been pestering her bubbled to the surface. “When I met the crofters, everyone was saying how things had improved when the Grand Fleet was stationed here. That even with the young men off to the Front, they were selling more and making high profits on everything from wool to fish to finished goods.”
Astrid nodded, her delicate features as stern as the cliffs of Hamarray. “That is right.”
“But what will happen when the German internment ends and the British Navy’s presence is even further reduced?” Rose asked.
Astrid jerked her head toward the sea, where the massive ships dotted the horizon—powerful remnants of a brutal war. “I do not know. But we are resilient on Frest. We have survived storms, raids, the transfer from one kingdom to another and then to a third, the Enclosures, U-boat attacks, and more. We will weather this as well. Somehow, we manage to make the sea and the land give up what we need from it.”
While the islander focused on the water, Rose glanced back toward the turf, looking over Hamarray and out across the sandspit to the rest of her tiny domain. From this vantage point, she could see the entirety of Frest—spread out before her in a grassy mound. True, it looked as green and fertile as the famed Emerald Isle. Yet it was home to so many people—crowded into a space too small to support a living from the earth. But these people still managed it, using every resource they could—even the seaweed they turned into fertilizer.
Rose had come here to locate the notes that Lord Barbury had left and to help root out a spy ring. She hadn’t planned on the people of Frest tugging on her soul, but they did. Their problems were beginning to haunt her as much as her mission.
As Rose started to turn back to Astrid’s companions, her eyes fell on Muckle Skaill. The run-down, gray monstrosity stretched beforeher—all empty rooms and dust in what should be a grand seaside mansion.
