“I went for a stroll and saw you here by chance.” He bent to pick up a small shell, which he offered to Sean, still splashing about in the little pool.
“Solving puzzles in your head again?” She tried to seem cool and detached, but seeing Dougal Stewart with Sean had made her catch her breath.
“There are a few puzzles I need to solve,” Stewart replied quietly. He dropped another pretty shell into Sean’s hand, then wiped a clump of sand from the boy’s fingers.
That gesture melted her heart, but she could not surrender. She scowled instead.
“I see Lady Strathlin has arrived on Caransay,” he said.
“Mmm.” She tried to sound noncommittal, shading her eyes as she watched the waves.
“Now that the lady is here, perhaps I will be welcome to call on her.” He looked toward Berry, paddling paddled contentedly in the gentle waves, her swimming costume ballooning around her. “I seem to have found her at a most inconvenient time.”
Sean giggled. “You found Lady Strathlin! Here she is!”
“Sean,” she said more sternly than she meant, “the hole you dug over there for your shells is filling with water as the tide comes in. You had better go save them.”
Sean started off, then turned. “May I wade in the water, Mama?”
“Do not go in higher than your knees.” She wished he had not called her that.
“Mama?” Stewart asked as the boy ran off.
She felt her cheeks burn. She had an honest nature, but life and society had forced her to keep secrets, and Dougal Stewart was putting that to the test. She hated that she must hide parts of her life, disliked feeling hollow and vulnerable when all she wanted was to tell Stewart the truth and clear the air.
But she could not trust him yet. She could not risk losing Sean.
“Anyone on Caransay will tell you that I lost my husband years back,” she said.
His gaze was steady and curious and keen. The wind ruffled his rich brown-and-gilt hair. His smile was rueful. “I am sorry to hear that. Was he—ill? If I may ask.”
“There was a storm. A great storm.”
He hesitated at that, but then nodded, and as the moment passed, she breathed out in relief. “I am sorry. But it is good to have kin here, grandparents and parents too, I presume?”
“My parents are gone. My mother was from the mainland. She came to live here for love of my father. But she died of illness when I was eleven, just after my father died—out there.” Shenodded toward the sea. “I wonder if she died of a broken heart.” Why had she shared so much?
“I am sorry,” he murmured. “It is hard to lose parents at a young age, so close together.”
She nodded, watching the waves. “A storm took him.”
“Out on the reef?” he asked. “It happens a great deal here.”
“Too much, aye. I thought Mother would take me back to the mainland to live with her father. He was—very well off, and was always displeased that his daughter had gone on a summer holiday to the Isles, fell in love with a fisherman, and stayed.” She shrugged.
“I understand,” he said.
“Do you mean falling in love out here?” Why had she said that? She blushed furiously. Had he fallen in love out here—or had he pretended it for one night. She scowled.
“I mean losing someone on the reef. I lost my parents on the Caran reef too,” he said. “Shipwreck.”
“Oh!” She set a hand to her chest. “I had no idea. I am so sorry.”
“A long time ago. What of Sean?” he asked.
“Sean?” she repeated, surprised. Alarmed. She had said too much, tried to cover it up, yet had opened herself to questions.
“Is he like his father?”
