“Oh, it’s not ... not important. Just my imagination,” Miss Morningstar said hurriedly. She stumbled a little then, and Sinclair wondered if she’d done it on purpose to distract him. Her next words, though, drove those thoughts straight from him with the force of a sledgehammer.
“I heard Rose moan and cry out, but I couldn’t get through all the debris.”
“How badly do you think she’s injured?” Panic, sharp and metallic, ripped through him.
“I ...” Miss Morningstar glanced in his direction. He did not know what she saw in his expression, especially given that the only illumination came from the pale moonlight and her lantern, but whatever it was, she decided to continue. “I believe it is one of her attacks.”
An attack?New fear scorched Sinclair. “Is someone in there with her? Are they dangerous?”
“No—nothing like that. She has experienced these ... episodes since her return from the Western Front. In soldiers, they call it shell shock.”
“She was in France during the war?”
“Yes. As a volunteer ambulance driver. Toward the end, her unit was assigned to pick up blessés from a poste de secours near some of the most intense fighting. She drove under heavy shelling and was gassed several times—once fairly badly.”
Respect roared through Sinclair along with the familiar guilt. So many people—good men and women—had risked and sacrificed so much while he had remained safe and sound in Orkney. Duty had kept him far away from the trenches, and he would make the same choice again. But that did nothing to dull the pervasive sense that he should have fought.
Miss Van Etten had. Not with a weapon but with a vehicle. She’d driven men to safety, putting her own life at risk. He’d always known she’d raced automobiles and speedboats, but this ... this explained so much. Her intensity. Her agility. Her focus. All had been hardened on war-torn roads with deadly bombs and toxins dropping from the skies.
“Are her lungs damaged from the mustard gas?” Sinclair asked, the words hard for him to even say.
“We believe so. She also had a bout of camp fever—perhaps even the Spanish flu. Ever since then, she’s found it difficult to smoke. But she hasn’t had any other issues—not that she’s told me at least. Rose doesn’t like admitting any weakness, and she won’t be too happy that I told you about her shell shock. But you were bound to learn about it if this particular attack is as bad as I fear it is. The cave-in must have triggered her old memories, and she can get lost in them.”
“How does she find her way out?” Sinclair asked. His throat had tightened so much he did not know how the question made it through his corded muscles.
“She’s always been a spitfire, and she manages to battle through it.”
But that fight would come with its own costs.Sinclair had punched down enough of his own demons to understand that. He knew the internal injuries they left in their wake—the wounds scabbed over, some of them even scarred, but others kept breaking anew.
A memory of Miss Van Etten’s laughter as she sped through the water onThe Briaror over the sand in her Raceabout drifted through his mind. He’d thought it alluringly carefree, but now ... now he realized the underlying strength.
The urgency inside Sinclair increased—hot and fierce. They’d reached the entrance to the cairn now. The rocks he’d placed to obscure the entrance from the exciseman had been moved aside—most likely the efforts of Miss Van Etten and Miss Morningstar. It didn’t matter right now that the two lasses had almost certainly discovered the illicit still. The only thing that Sinclair was focused upon was saving Miss Van Etten.
“Rose? Rose?” Miss Morningstar called into the rubble. “Can you hear me?”
No response.
“Step back, lass,” Sinclair told Miss Morningstar gently. “I’ll start digging.”
He quickly surveyed the jumble before hefting the first rock. It wouldn’t do to cause more of the entrance to collapse, especially when he didn’t know what had caused the cave-in in the first place. Thankfully, it took only a second for him to devise his strategy. Then he set about methodically moving each one.
“Can I help? I am more able than I look.” Miss Morningstar hovered behind him, her nervousness a palpable force. “I do a lot of excavating in my profession.”
Sinclair wasn’t one to underestimate the power of a lass. He’d witnessed too many widows and their female offspring eking out a livingfrom this windswept isle. But the entrance was narrow, and it would be faster for him to work alone.
“We’d just be stepping over each other, Miss Morningstar.” Sinclair hefted one of the bigger rocks and set it to the side.
“Is there someone else I can call upon to assist or at least give you relief?”
“There’s no need.” Sinclair shook his head. “Only one person can work at a time, and I’ll be fine. I’ve spent more than one day doing nothing but building stone walls or digging drainage ditches. I can clear this tunnel.”
And if the damn thing was going to collapse on anyone, he didn’t want it to be any of the other islanders.
“Okay.” Miss Morningstar breathed out the Americanism as she fidgeted behind him. He didn’t blame her for anxious impatience. Not when he felt it so keenly himself.
“You can head back for a shovel, though,” Sinclair said. “You’ll find one in my byre.”
He did not know if he could even risk using the implement, but it at least gave Miss Morningstar something to do other than fret. As she dashed into the darkness, he kept heaving away stones and scraping dirt. His fingers started to bleed, but he paid them no mind. That pain he could deal with; thinking of Miss Van Etten trapped in the dark with only the nightmares of war for company he couldnottolerate.
