Page 23 of The Midnight Secret

‘Yes, it is – albeit second to my love of your climbing ability. I had fallen for you before you even landed in the boat.’

Effie remembered the day she had raced Angus MacKinnon down the sea cliffs, launching herself into the smack with a reckless abandon that belied the fact she could not swim. She had been at her most feral, wild and free – and most herself.

He kissed the top of her head. ‘For the avoidance of your many doubts, I’m glad you’re not like the girls in there, Effie. Life with you is going to be infinitely more varied and exciting.’

She looked up at him. He was an eternal optimist. ‘Perhaps, but at what cost to you?’

‘Effie—’

‘I know – you think everyone’s like you. You think they must love me because you do. But when they hear about tonight – me, a wildling in a castle, throwing drinks over a gentleman—’

‘He was no gentleman!’

‘But you know how it looks,’ she persisted. ‘Tonight I’ll have lived down to their expectations. And what if it gets back to your parents? They might change their minds about me.’

Sholto’s face fell at the prospect. ‘...That’s not going to happen,’ he said in a strangled voice. ‘Besides, you’re ignoring the context, Effie. I would have done exactly the same in your position, and anyone who dares bring it up with me will learn in short order that as far as I’m concerned, your actions tonight spoke to your character, defending your friend’s good name. And you’ve got me, Gladly, Colly, Campbell and Atholl as witnesses. We’ll not hear a word against you – or Flora.’

But Flora had already had her first taste of the dark side of fame. Not so long ago,The Timeshad run a headline – courtesy of Mr Bonner again – linking Paris’s newest cabaret sensation with the murder scandal back on St Kilda. People assumed that was why Flora had vanished, leaving the show in the lurch. But in light of what she now knew about James’s return and Flora’s frantic phone call about Mary that night, Effie had to wonder...were they in pursuit of their child?

Sholto’s chauffeur stopped the car in front of the steps and opened the door. Sholto handed Effie in before walking round to the other side.

‘You know,’ he said, settling himself as the driver pulled them away, ‘we could just elope.’

Effie’s head whirled at the suggestion. ‘...What?’

‘Yes. We could run off to Gretna Green and do it right this minute. No one will be able to judge you once you’re my wife. You’ll be able to stop fretting, and we can begin to live our lives together properly.’

‘But we already are, aren’t we?’ she asked him, reaching for his hand and admiring his handsome face in the moonlight. ‘You said you wanted me to meet all your friends before the wedding.’

‘Yes, but...you’ve met so many of them now as it is, and really, what does it matter what any of them think?Idon’t care! I just want you to be my wife once and for all.’

Effie laid her head upon his shoulder and sighed. ‘Well, apart from the horror of robbing Bitsy and Peony of a grand wedding,’ she deadpanned, ‘surely your parents would be disappointed if we ran off to Gretna in the middle of the night? No mother should be denied the chance to see her son stand at the altar, especially when he’s one of the scions of Scotland. Not to mention, they might holdmeresponsible for stealing you away like that. And what a start that would be to our life together! It would be like marrying under a curse.’

A small silence blossomed. ‘...You’re right, of course,’ he said finally, kissing her hair. ‘I just want you to be mine, that’s all.’

‘I’m already yours,’ she smiled up at him. ‘But as you’re so impatient, let’s at least set a date.’

He cupped her face, kissing her gently. ‘We will. But you’re right. Let’s stick to the plan and get through the rest of the Grand Tour first.’ He widened his eyes jokingly at their nickname for their prolonged jaunt through Scotland. ‘I must learn to be a patient man.’

‘And I must learn to be a lady,’ Effie murmured into the darkness. ‘Starting tomorrow.’

Chapter Six

FLORA

Early December 1930

RMSEmpress of Britain, Atlantic Ocean

‘There you are. I was about to send out a Man Overboard call.’ James bent and kissed Flora’s forehead, his lips warm against her chilled skin.

Flora looked up at him from her huddled position in a deckchair, reaching for his hand and clasping it to her cheek as he sat beside her with a worried look. She was wrapped in the black coat they had bought her in Paris, her chin nuzzled into the plush fur collar, but she still wasn’t warm enough. It was bitterly cold out here, on the top deck. Most of their fellow passengers were sheltering in their suites and she knew she ought to be doing the same, but she’d had an unstoppable urge to feel the wind and fresh air on her face. She had adapted quite easily to a life of riches, but a life spent indoors was more challenging.

She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting up here alone, her gaze locked on the horizon. For almost a week it had been an unrelenting grey line; now they were in sight of land oncemore, and she couldn’t tear her eyes away from it. Her earthly happiness lay somewhere in that indistinct grey smudge, and it was all she could do to sit out the final minutes until they docked there.

They had crossed an entire ocean at twenty-four knots – an impressive speed, but still nowhere near fast enough. By Flora’s calculations, they were twenty-one days behind Mary. James had only shown himself alive ten days ago, but in that time they had left Paris, travelled back to England, headed straight to Southampton and now been at sea for five days. They hadn’t wasted a single minute since they had learned of Mary and Lorna’s emigration to Canada, and yet time was dragging with iron hooks. With every hour that passed, those two women were taking Flora and James’s son deeper into the unknown. Wee Callum – she would never call him Struan, the name she had heard Mary give him aboard the HMSHarebell– was barely twelve weeks old, and already he was in a foreign country without his parents.

How could she ever have thought she could live without him? Paris had been a delirium, a dizzying whirlwind, exactly as she had hoped: Flora’s every waking moment had been caught up with rehearsing and putting on the show. There hadn’t been a second to think, much less feel. But here, in the languid splendour of the ocean liner, all she could do was lie around and think, sit and wait – and it was torture. She could scarcely sleep, and when she did, she always awoke with a gasp, her heart racing and the sound of a newborn’s cries ringing in her ears. Her arms ached to hold him; her milk had long since dried up, but she felt still his heaviness in her womb, a footprint upon her soul.

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