Mrs Campbell certainly did not seem to share my dislike of Mr Sinclair. Indeed, as the journey progressed it seemed to me that Mr Sinclair’s company was the only thing that made the whole thing tolerable from her point of view, for she hated to travel and had never been further than Inverness in her life. The two of them chatted away easily, about the weather and the state of the roads and the journey time between Applecross and Glen Clair, whilst I sat in my corner and wondered how a man like Mr Sinclair could get away with charming the chaperons into thinking he was not remotely dangerous.

It was another beautiful day. As the carriage climbed the track out of the village I watched the turquoise sea tumbling on the rocks far below and the black silhouette of the Cuillins of Skye against the sun. The air was full of the scent of gorse and hot summer grass. Presently I realised that Neil Sinclair was addressing me and withdrew my attention from the scenery with reluctance.

‘I beg your pardon, sir?’

‘I was asking, Miss Balfour, whether you had travelled much in the past?’

‘I have been to Edinburgh with my father on several occasions, sir,’ I said, ‘and I have sailed to Skye and the other islands more times than I can recall.’

‘And are you a good sailor?’

I saw Mrs Campbell nod a chaperon’s encouragement at this blameless conversation.

‘No, sir,’ I said. ‘I was sick in a bucket on all but one occasion, when the sea was as flat as a mirror.’

Mrs Campbell frowned.

‘Are you a good sailor, Mr Sinclair?’ I enquired. ‘One would hope so, since you are in the Royal Navy.’

Neil Sinclair smiled without mockery for the first time—a real smile that reached his eyes and made my heart jump, and almost made me forget that I disliked him.

‘No, Miss Balfour, I am not,’ he said. ‘I, too, was sick as a dog on my first few voyages, but unfortunately there was no bucket to hand.’

I smiled, too. ‘You said that you know my uncle, sir,’ I said, on impulse. ‘What manner of man is he?’

Mr Sinclair was silent for so long that I started to feel nervous. ‘Your uncle is a dour man,’ he said at last. ‘You’ll have little conversation out of him, mistress.’

That was not encouraging. ‘And my aunt?’ I asked, wondering if I wanted to know the answer.

‘Mrs Balfour suffers from her nerves,’ Mr Sinclair said.

I did not really understand such a complaint, having not a sensitive nerve in my body, or so I had been told. Lady Bennie, who suffered from nerves herself, mostly when Sir Compton spent time with his mistress in Inverness, had commented sourly on my lack of sensibility on more than one occasion.

‘Oh dear,’ I said. ‘And my cousin Ellen?’

Mr Sinclair smiled. ‘Miss Balfour is delightful,’ he said.

I felt an unexpected rush of jealousy and wished I had not asked.

The conversation waned. Mr Sinclair seemed disinclined to speak any further of my relatives, and I was sufficiently discouraged to think of my dour uncle and delicate aunt that I did not persist in my questioning. It did not sound as though a very warm welcome awaited me at Glen Clair, and I wondered once again why they had offered to take me in.

That night we stopped at the inn in Sheildaig, a building of whitewashed stone on the harbour. The bedchambers were clean and the linen fresh, if threadbare. I wanted to open the window, because the room felt stuffy and unaired, but when I pushed the creaking casement open the smell of gutted fish blew in and overwhelmed me. It takes a great deal to put me off my food—grief had certainly increased rather than diminished my appetite—but the rotten fish smell almost robbed me of any. I washed and went down to the parlour, where I took a little bread and cheese for supper and then retired for the evening. Mrs Campbell seemed relieved to see me go, for I think she was exhausted from a day’s travel on poor roads. Mr Sinclair got politely to his feet and came to the bottom of the stairs with me to light my candle, then wished me a goodnight.

A thunderstorm was brewing as I prepared for bed, the wind rising from the west battering the eaves and whistling through the cracks in the windowframe. When I was undressed to my shift and petticoats I did not immediately get into the bed, but sat on the window seat with my elbows on the sill. The stinking harbour was in darkness now, and the view was a deal more appealing than the smell had been. Half the sky was clouded over with the gathering storm, and the rain was sweeping in over the islands out to sea, but to the north the moon rode high on ragged clouds, attended by a scattering of stars and laying its silver path across the black waters. I stared, enchanted.

The noise from the taproom downstairs was growing now as the fishermen came in. I was tired from the jolting of the coach and my head ached. I took my tincture of lavender from my bag and rubbed my temples, breathing in the sweet, strong scent. Tomorrow a carriage would come to meet me and take me to Glen Clair and my father’s family. Mrs Campbell would return to Applecross on the drover’s cart. And Mr Sinclair…Well, from the conversation I had overheard between him and Mrs Campbell earlier, I understood that he was posted to a naval station some way up the coast at Lochinver, but since the signing of the Treaty of Amiens the previous month he had been granted some leave.

I wondered idly where he would be spending it, and with whom. Perhaps he would choose to spend the time with his family at Strathconan? Or perhaps he might go to Edinburgh to enjoy the entertainments of the city? Inexperienced as I was, I did not for a minute doubt that Neil Sinclair lacked for female companionship when he had the opportunity.

There was the scrape of a step in the inn doorway beneath my window. The lantern swung in the rising wind. A movement caught my eye and I looked down. Neil Sinclair himself was in the street directly below my window. He was looking up at me. And in that moment I realised what I must look like, with the candlelight from my chamber window no doubt turning the thin linen of my shift quite transparent and my unruly red hair loose about my face.

Neil Sinclair did not look away. He held my gaze for what seemed for ever, as the hot colour flamed to my face and my traitorous limbs turned to water. I could not move. Then he smiled, his teeth showing very white in his dark face, and raised a hand in deliberate greeting.

Suddenly freed from the captivity of his gaze, I stumbled back from the window and closed the shutters with such a sharp snap that I almost pulled them from their hinges. I realised I was shaking. Of all the foolish, immodest and downright dangerous things to do—leaning from my window like a wanton Juliet! I should have realised that someone might see me. I should have thought how abandoned I would look. But the trouble with me, as I already knew, was that I almost always acted first and thought later.

There was a knock at the door. Assuming that it was Mrs Campbell, come to help me with my laces, I went across and opened it.

Neil Sinclair stood there. I realised that he had come directly up to my chamber. Though I had been thinking of him only a moment before, I could not have been more shocked had it been Mrs Campbell herself running down the inn corridor in her shift.

Before I could prevent it, he stepped inside the room and closed the door.

I found my voice—and grabbed my gown to my chest to cover my near nakedness.

‘What do you think you are doing, sir? Leave this room at once!’

He smiled again, that lazy, intimate smile that had such a distressing effect on my equilibrium. I felt my legs tremble a little.

‘Do not be afraid, Miss Balfour,’ he said. ‘I merely wish to speak to you.’

‘This,’ I said, ‘is not the time nor the place to talk, sir. You are no gentleman to stand there staring at a lady in a state of undress!’