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He didn’t need to purchase a captaincy. A lesser commission would do. Anything that got him to the Continent.

He trained his gaze on the sea itself, scattered with uninhabited islets. There was Selchskerrie, jutting from the waves, dark cliffs collared by foam.

His mother loved walking the cliff paths. She loved the extremity of the landscape. The islands concentrated all the wild beauty of Scotland, intensified the contrasts. She came alive during their visits, her elegant reserve blowing away like so much thistledown.

She was happier at Castle Lyon than anywhere else in the world.

His father knew that as well as he did.

The perfidy sickened.

“Hullo!”

James swung around and squinted. A figure angled toward him, cutting across the nearest meadow, arm raised in greeting. Corry Boyd. Blast.

Corry and Isobel were thick as thieves.

James raised a reluctant arm and waved back.

“How’s the view?” Corry hollered it. “Nae so good as when you’re floating twenty thousand feet in the air.”

James dropped his arm.

“Twenty thousand feet. That’s muckle high. Higher than Mount Blanc.” Corry whistled. “Fancy that.”

Wonderful. Isobel had relayed his every word.

James jumped down to the ground and leaned against the boulder, waiting for Corry to close the distance.

“A shame about your balloon.” Corry drew up to him. He was shorter than James but broader, bulked by years of blacksmithing.

“You mean a shame about it incinerating the sheep cote.”

“Aye.” Corry folded his arms. “Except it wasn’t a sheep cote. It was Tib’s cottage.”

James noted the scorch marks on Corry’s heavy boots. He’d gotten closer to the flames with his buckets of water than anyone but Isobel.

James raised his eyes. He had one fight to fight, and it wasn’t with Corry Boyd.

“Tib’s cottage.” He met Corry’s eyes and nodded. Isobel’s nickname felt strange on his lips.

Tib.

Somehow Tib made her sound even more irrepressible. Stubborn. Bloody adorable.

“Aye,” said Corry again, eyebrows inching up. “Tib’s cottage.”

Blast. James snapped to attention. Had he repeated Tib aloud?

“She’s taking the loss hard,” continued Corry. “That cottage mightn’t have looked like much to you, but she put her heart in it.”

“I know.” James sighed. “And I’ll put things to right.”

Corry’s gaze didn’t waver.

“I’ll have it rebuilt,” said James. “With windows and a proper floor. Hell, with a glass-domed roof instead of thatch, if she wishes, so she can watch the clouds go by. And stay on guard against aerial attack.”

“Windows and a glass dome.” Corry whistled. “She’ll need some of them tapestries with the gold thread to keep out the draft.”