“Are you certain, miss?”
She waved her gloved hand in the air. “We are currently cuddled under the same blankets, and you now know about my shell shock. I think Christian names are in order, but I shall still call you Mr.Sinclair if that is what you desire.”
“Sinclair.” He swallowed. “Just Sinclair.”
“Do you prefer that to Thorfinn?”
Did he? A sneering, cultured voice from Sinclair’s memory ripped through the fragile sense of contentment that had been building inside him.
No one should call the boy Thorfinn. Naming a bastard after gods and legends? Tell the servants to cease this nonsense. It has persisted too long. I am tired of hearing it. Just use the whelp’s mother’s surname.
“Other than the bairns, only my mother called me that.”When she could.
“Then Sinclair it is,” she said. “Although I shall likely always think of you privately as Thorfinn. It just suits you so.”
“Because I’m a Viking?” he asked, his voice thickening as he remembered Miss Morningstar calling him Rose’s. He wasn’t sure what answer he wanted to hear, but the question had slipped out all the same.
“Well, there’s that.” Rose grinned and then sobered. “But mostly because it is a powerful name, and from what I have seen, you are a man of great strength.”
Sinclair’s entire body stiffened as fissures of energy seemed to flow over his flesh. “You do not find it a presumptuous appellation for a mere crofter?”
Rose’s lips tilted upward at the corners, and she looked like a fae selkie come to tempt a mortal man. Sinclair knew the tales never ended well for the human, but he’d already sunk too deep tonight.
“There’s nothing mere about you, Thorfinn Sinclair.”
Thorfinn.Something about how Rose said his name made it roar through him. She’d called him powerful, strong. Attributes he’d never ascribe to himself. Aye, he could heft rocks, single-handedly haul up a full net of fish, and spend the entire day cutting peat with nary a break. But they both knew that wasn’t the kind of stoutness Rose meant.
“I am no hero, Rose. I’ve never been farther than Kirkwall, not even to visit mainland Scotland. Some may even call me a coward. I had a chance to be a batman in the war. I turned it down.” The confession spewed out of him before he could stop it. But he couldn’t have her thinking him some sort of a paragon. Not when he knew better.
Rose leaned forward to study him. Unconsciously, he moved to rub his scar, but she stayed his hand. Despite her gloves, he could feel the warmth of her fingers against the inner skin of his wrist.
“It does not take courage to rush to war. I should know. I was one of the adventurers who did.” A note almost like self-recrimination had crept into Rose’s voice.
“You saved soldiers’ lives.”
“Andyoukept an entire island from starving,” she countered.
“That’s a peedie overdramatic,” Sinclair protested.
“It hasn’t escaped my notice how many farms are run only by widows. During the war, even more were operated by the wives of soldiers and sailors. True, there were other able-bodied men on Frest during the fighting, but they are all older and would have had enough trouble maintaining their own croft without the aid of their sons. Everyone we visited mentioned how you’ve pitched in whenever there was a shortage of hands.”
Sinclair shrugged, struggling to accept the praise she offered. It felt like when his brother had convinced him to try on an elegant evening jacket as a lark. Even with Reggie being older by two years, the seams had felt so tight that Sinclair had worried that he’d cause them to burst if he moved his arms a scant inch. “I did what needed doing.”
“I don’t know why I went overseas.” Rose’s voice grew rough and dark—so different from her blithe, carefree tone. Her melancholy scraped against Sinclair’s own as Rose shifted her body toward the ocean. “So many of us rushed to the war not knowing why, looking for some sort of adventure, maybe validation even, and all we found was mud, deprivation, and death.”
Validation.Something Sinclair had been seeking his entire existence. He hadn’t expected that an infamous adventuress would be searching for the same thing.
“But you stayed,” Sinclair pointed out.
“We all did,” Rose said, “an entire generation of us. And now it’s over. And those who are left are supposed to return home.”
“What’s home to you?” Sinclair asked, wondering again why she was here on this windy, remote isle instead of back in the gilt of industrialized America’s high society.
“Now,thatis the difficult question.” Rose twisted her head so she was staring up at him, her lips just inches below his. “But I wager you know exactly where home is for you.”
“Right here,” he said without hesitation.
“Is it okay if I kiss you, Thorfinn Sinclair?” Her words were low and earnest. “I need to taste some of the goodness in the world right now. Will you help me banish the memories, even if it is just for tonight?”
