Her parents hadn’t even expended that effort. Oh, they’d showered her with gifts but in an offhand, unthinking way—like the rocking horse her father had purchased for her when she was twelve and much too big for it. She’d gotten whatever toy that she’d wanted ... but she’d always had to ask for it.
“Well, my parents ... well, they were very busy ...”
Tarnation. Had her voice justquavered? Inpublic? What was wrong with her today?
“You know, Miss Van Etten, we really should start on that walk we talked about before we lose the light.” Mr.Sinclair suddenly pushed back his chair with a loud scraping sound and rose to his feet.
“Walk?” Rose said rather dazedly as she tried to collect her suddenly scattered emotions.
“To take a stroll among your new holdings.” Mr.Sinclair headed over to her chair and crooked his elbow. He hadneveroffered her his arm before. She had always been the one to take it.
“Oh, the amble we were going to take!” Rose said too brightly as she realized Mr.Sinclair was providing her an escape. It seemed like the Viking might have a suit of shining armor too.
As she placed her hand about his arm, she heard a rather scornful sound from Mr.Flett. Clearly, he did not approve of his stepsonescorting her about like a gentleman. Whether that was a reflection on her, Mr.Sinclair, or both of them, Rose did not know, nor did she particularly care. She just wanted outside in the cool spring air—away from the crackling peat fire and the adorable Fletts with their heartfelt questions.
“Do you wish to join us, Miss Morningstar?” Mr.Sinclair asked.
Her friend studied Rose, and it wasn’t hard to detect her concern. To Rose’s surprise, though, Myrtle shook her head at Mr.Sinclair’s offer. “I think perhaps this is a walk best taken just by the two of you. The children and I can have a poke around the howe on your property until you return. I’ve been itching to take another look at it, and I brought my notebook just in case I had the opportunity to record its dimensions.”
Myrtle gave Rose a meaningful nod, and Rose realized that her best friend wanted her to have this moment with Mr.Sinclair, and that shook something else loose inside her. Unfortunately, it was just one more feeling that Rose did not quite know what to do with.
Rose let Mr.Sinclair guide her over the threshold into the still night. The wind was abnormally quiet, which made conversation possible. Thankfully, though, Mr.Sinclair did not mention her emotional reaction.
“So what shall be your first step as Lady of Muckle Skaill?” Mr.Sinclair asked as he led her away from his house and farther inland.
“Don’t you meanourfirst one?” Rose squeezed his arm lightly and tried to lose herself in planning the future that she had rather blundered into. Yet even that didn’t provide a total escape from the conflicting emotions churning inside her. After all, she was purposely partnering herself with a man who could be a spy—a man she might destroy or who might destroy her. “As estate manager, you shall be playing an intrinsic role in many of the decisions. I know nothing of agriculture.”
Mr.Sinclair glanced at her, his gaze searching. “But surely you have some ideas of your own other than the hotel and the lodge. After all, you are the one who decided to purchase the isles.”
Ah, yes, sheshouldhave some dreams for the place, shouldn’t she? It wasn’t as if she could very well tell Mr.Sinclair that her only concrete goal regarding the physical property was to search for secret compartments or passages that might hide Lord Barbury’s paperwork. And even that plan was turning more and more into an ill-conceived whim. She had unearthed nothing but poorly defined suspicions of a people whom she would much rather trust instead.
“Muckle Skaill needs to be repaired,” Rose said finally. “Even if it is not turned into a hotel, it is in terrible condition.”
“I have heard that it is falling down.” Mr.Sinclair’s voice was curiously neutral, just as it always was when talking about the old mansion. Was there something in the building that he didn’t want her to find?
“Are any of the locals good handymen?” Rose asked, determined more than ever to discover what lay in the walls of her new home.
Mr.Sinclair chuckled. “You will find that every single one of us is a jack-of-all-trades. We have to be, living out here like we do.”
“Would Young Thomas be suitable?” The nineteen-year-old had already been a font of information ... and his story had been weighing on Rose for several days now.
“Aye,” Mr.Sinclair said, sounding pleased and a bit excited, “and he needs the work too. What made you think of him, lass?”
“When I met him at his uncle’s windmill, he mentioned that he’d have to go to sea in the summer to earn enough coin. He didn’t seem particularly thrilled to be going but resigned.”
“The lad has always been a landlubber, and he enjoys working with his hands. He’d appreciate the offer,” Mr.Sinclair said.
“If the going wage isn’t what he’d earn on a herring boat, I want you to make sure that we pay him what he would’ve gotten during the fishing season.” Rose increased their pace even though the climb had become steeper. It felt good to feel her heart pumping a bit. “I’m sure you can handle hiring him.”
“Yes, miss.” Mr.Sinclair seemed to practically spring over a clump of bright sea pinks, and Rose’s own heart lifted just a little. After floundering in so many doubts, it felt good to discuss at least one tangible plan with a clear execution and result—even if the contentment was just for a whisper of a moment.
Rose filled her lungs with the salty air and stared at the rising land in front of her. Her gaze landed on the mysterious hump of sod at the very center of Frest with a ramshackle shed on top. Even without having Myrtle’s fascination for old tumbledown things, Rose had to admit that the curiously shaped grassy lump intrigued her. There was something compelling about this bumpy mound at the top of the gently sloping hill with nothing else around it save that one narrow building and some scruffy, disgruntled sheep. With the sun already dipping toward the horizon, casting long shadows over Frest, Rose could almost imagine one of the ancients appearing out of the purplish haze and performing some long-forgotten ritual.
“Do you honestly think that there is nothing but dirt in that particular mound?” Rose jabbed her thumb toward it, recalling her earlier conversation with Mr.Sinclair about the huge piles on Frest.
Mr.Sinclair’s body went even more taut than when she’d first met him. She wondered how he even managed to lift a shoulder into a shrug. He clearly meant the gesture to appear nonchalant, but it exhibited only his tension. Rose’s heart squeezed almost painfully before it kicked into a gallop. Was this odd formation in the ground somehow connected to the secrets that Mr.Sinclair and the islanders were keeping?
“It is only the trick of light that makes you think it is more than just an impressive dome of sod,” Mr.Sinclair said quickly, raising Rose’s suspicion even higher.
