When the Dawn Breaks

by Emma Fraser

Genres: Historical Fiction; Sagas; War & Military

Synopsis

Two women. One secret. A heart-breaking choice.

Skye, 1903. Jessie, the young daughter of a local midwife, is determined to become a nurse one day, but family loss and heartache jeopardise her dreams. Isabel, the doctor's daughter, is planning to follow in her father's footsteps - even though medicine is not considered a fitting career for a woman. And then there's Archie, Jessie's older brother, whom Isabel just can't stay away from. After an unsettling encounter in the woods, Archie disappears, and all their lives are irrevocably changed...

Years later, Isabel is a qualified doctor and Jessie is a nurse and when their paths cross again, neither is certain what the other woman knows about that fateful day. But when war breaks out and they find themselves working shoulder to shoulder, they have no option but to confront all they have kept hidden.

Taking in Skye and Edinburgh, France and Serbia, When the Dawn Breaks is a sweeping wartime story of two determined women and the dark secret that will bind them forever...

Release date: August 15, 2013

Publisher: Little, Brown Book Group

Print pages: 432

Sample

Jessie and Isabel stood over the shallow grave with their heads bowed.

Jessie blinked the snow from her eyes and looked around. Bodies littered the ground as far as she could see yet they had left thousands more behind them – dead not from bullet wounds, shrapnel or even disease – but cold and starvation.

A few feet away, a woman lay curled around the body of her child. Her shawl, still wrapped around her head, fluttered in the breeze, revealing a face that might have been beautiful had her mouth not been frozen in a frightful grimace of death.

Not far from them, propped against a tree, the stiff corpse of a soldier still held his tin mug as if he were about to sip some beef tea.

An infantryman left the column and crunched across the field, his footsteps leaving pockmarks on the snow. He bent over the woman and child and for a moment Jessie thought he was going to bury them, but instead he removed the shawl and wrapped it around his neck. Too exhausted to protest, she watched as he continued towards the dead soldier and dispassionately relieved him of his coat and boots.

On his return he passed close by them and hesitated. He tugged the scarf from his throat and held it out to Jessie. ‘For you, Sister.’

She took it from him, her numb fingers seeking the warmth of his skin that still clung to the material. The soldier touched his hat to them and rejoined the dead-eyed men trudging along the path.

The sound of Bulgarian cannon to the east was louder now, and to the north were the advancing Austrian and German armies – perhaps just hours away.

Their only hope lay to the south and the narrow track through the black Montenegrin mountains; hundreds of miles of mud, snow and almost certain death.

Jessie’s feet were frozen. Last night she had tried to thaw her boots over a fire made of straw, but within an hour of pulling them back on they were solid again. Isabel’s, she knew, would be the same.

‘We must go on,’ Isabel urged. ‘One day we will return and mark the grave properly, but there is no more we can do here now, and the longer we wait the greater the chance that the Germans will be upon us. We have to make the most of the daylight.’

Jessie sucked in a breath. Isabel was right. If they were to survive, they had to keep moving.

Isabel passed the haversack with what remained of their supplies to Jessie, then picked up her medical bag.

Once three and now two women, Jessie thought, depending on each other for their lives and bound by a secret, that, even if they survived, could yet destroy them both.

She pulled the haversack onto her shoulders and raised her head to the snow-darkened sky. ‘Lord have mercy on us all,’ she whispered.

Quite early on I knew I wanted to write about a Scottish woman doctor in the early twentieth century but when I started to research medical training at this time, I stumbled on the story of Dr Elsie Inglis and the Scottish Women’s Hospitals (SWH).

As an ex-nurse, the name Elsie Inglis was familiar to me. I trained in Edinburgh and at that time the Elsie Inglis Memorial Hospital was still taking patients.

What I didn’t know, however, was that at the outbreak of the First World War, Dr Elsie Inglis had gone to the British Army to offer her services abroad. She was promptly told ‘to go home and sit still.’ This however, wasn’t in the Scotswoman’s nature. Undeterred, she immediately approached the French and Serbian governments who accepted her offer with alacrity.

Within weeks she had recruited doctors, nurses, orderlies, cooks and chauffeurs for her women-only unit and by December the SWH units were in France and setting up a hospital at Royaumont Abbey. This was followed by units in Serbia until, at the end of the war, the Scottish Women’s Hospital had fourteen units in total. They weren’t the only all-women units, nor were they staffed only by Scotswomen. The SWH units included women from across the commonwealth and even working guests from the USA.

Although many know the story of the women’s units in France, less is known about their work in Serbia. Following the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, the Austrians declared war on Serbia and by early December had occupied Belgrade. Two weeks later, the Serbian capital had been regained by the Serbian army and forty thousand Austrian soldiers captured. Many Austrian prisoners-of-war, particularly those who spoke Serbian, had no heart for the conflict and were content to live out the war as orderlies in Serbian hospitals. At that time, Serbian hospitals were over-crowded, badly run and had few, if any, trained nurses and welcomed the Scottish Women’s Hospitals and other female units with open arms.

By October 1915, the Austrian and German armies had invaded Serbia and two weeks later, Bulgaria attacked from the east. The women, along with those from the Serbian Relief Fund, were forced to retreat across the Montenegrin mountains, along with thousands of refugees and soldiers, many of whom died along the way. Miraculously only one of the nurses died when her cart slipped down the mountainside.

The women who remained behind in Serbia, Dr Inglis included, were captured by the Germans and when they were eventually released they were forced to retreat too. (In fact Dr Inglis was captured a second time during the war, this time in Russia.)

No feat I describe in my book does justice to the resilience and courage of these women. There are however other facts I have changed slightly to fit with my story. In Part One, I describe the village of Galtrigill on Skye as being a cleared village. In fact it was Borreraig, the village next to it, that was cleared. Evidence of the clearances can still be seen all over the Highlands and Islands of Scotland.

Dunvegan Castle (Sir Walter Scott was really a guest) is still the home of the MacLeods. However, it was empty for a time. The 25th Chief, having given away a substantial part of his wealth to provide work and food for his people, was forced to take a job as a clerk in London and no chief resided at the castle again until 1929. The Maxwells are of course fictitious although there were many landowners just like them in Skye at that time. The story of the Glendale Martyrs is true.

The Americans were doing blood transfusions during the First World War – but it was still experimental and risky and therefore not widely used until much later. Antibiotics did not exist at this time. Infection killed more soldiers than bullets, bombs or shrapnel.

The Edinburgh Royal Infirmary was considered the leading hospital in Europe, even the world, at the beginning of the twentieth century. Women were not permitted to take lectures alongside men until 1916, four years after the date I use in the book. The attitudes to women medical students from their male counterparts and the professors was every bit as antagonistic – if not more – as I describe.

Finally, I use the spellings of the towns as the women used them in their diaries, for example Nish and Kragujevatz.

If you are interested in finding out more about any of the topics I cover in my story, I include a list for further reading.

Jessie MacCorquodale looked up as Miss Stuart entered the room and banged on her desk with a ruler. The children shuffled their feet and giggled nervously as they took their seats. Quiet fell. Miss Stuart was young but she was strict, and many of them, Jessie included, had suffered the leather tawse on their hands to prove it.

Their teacher wasn’t alone. Standing next to her was a tall girl with plaited golden hair and eyes that were much the same colour as the chocolate velvet collar of her smart cream frock. Clutched in her hands was a narrow-brimmed hat with a cherry-red band. Although she couldn’t have been more than a couple of years older than Jessie, she wore stockings instead of knee-length socks. Her buttoned, calf-length boots were polished and, as far as Jessie could tell, without holes. Jessie placed one of her feet over the other to hide the toe that was poking out of the front of her left tackety boot. Her own mud-coloured dress was a hand-me-down from an older cousin and had been darned so many times by Mammy that it was more thread than cloth. She ran a hand over her own wayward curls, which refused to lie flat. For the first time she was embarrassed by the way she looked.

‘Isabel is coming to join us for the last couple of weeks of term,’ Miss Stuart said. ‘I hope you will all make her welcome. Her father is Dr MacKenzie.’

So this was the doctor’s daughter. Mammy had been talking about a Dr MacKenzie coming to Skye to replace Dr Munro, who had gone to Glasgow to start a new practice. In Mammy’s opinion, Dr Munro was dangerous.

‘Dr MacKenzie is not long back from the Boer War,’ Miss Stuart was saying. ‘Who can tell me where the Boer War took place?’

Jessie’s hand shot up as her admiration for the new girl grew. Isabel’s father had been in a war – just like her own daddy! Except his war had been against the Earl of Glendale’s father and Daddy had gone to prison, along with the other martyrs from Glendale. Mammy had said that usually people would be ashamed of having a father in prison – like the McPhees, whose daddy had been taken to Portree and locked up for a couple of nights for being drunk and disorderly – but Jessie had to be proud of hers because he’d been locked up for a Good and Righteous Cause.

Miss Stuart picked on Archie, who didn’t even have his hand up, to answer the question and who, of course, answered correctly. It was so unfair. Her brother was three years older than her and bound to know more. Archie should be in a separate class but there was only one teacher, two if you counted the head, Mr MacIntyre, for almost seventy children, so they were all taught together.

Miss Stuart turned back to Isabel. ‘Find a seat, my dear. I’m sure you’ll get to know everyone’s names in time.’ She frowned at the class. ‘Isabel doesn’t have the Gaelic, so when you speak to her, mind your manners and talk in English, please.’

Jessie smiled at Isabel, hoping that the new girl would choose the empty seat next to her. Fiona wasn’t at school today. Indeed, half the class was missing. It was a good day and most of them would be out with their mams and dads helping to turn the hay. It was only on a bad day, when the rain and wind lashed the land, that there was full attendance at school. Not that her daddy ever let Jessie miss school: he wasn’t having his children scrape a living from a land that bled the life from a man. He said education was the only way out, and Jessie planned to work hard enough to win a scholarship to the secondary school in Portree. Clever-clogs Archie had already won one and was going to Inverness after the summer to study for his senior school-leaving certificate.

Jessie closed her eyes and sent a quick prayer heavenwards: Please, please, let the new girl sit next to me.

She heard a rustle and opened her eyes to find that Isabel had taken the seat right at the front. God hadn’t listened. Probably because she shouldn’t have been asking for things for herself. It served her right. Daddy said she should only pray for other people.

Even from two rows behind the new girl, Jessie caught the scent of oranges. Isabel was like one of the heroines out of the penny novels she borrowed from Fiona’s mam, although she was bound to be more interesting. And she already had breasts! Jessie was always studying her own flat chest, wondering when they’d start to grow and be big like her mammy’s. Mind you, some of the women Mammy helped birth had breasts that hung almost to their belly buttons. Too many children, Mammy said.

Miss Stuart had laid aside the cue she’d used to point to South Africa on the map and was ready to start the lesson.

There was more rustling as everyone cleaned their slates. Flora McPhee, who was sitting to the left of the new girl and right in front of Miss Stuart, so the teacher could keep an eye on her, spat on her cloth to clean her slate. Jessie hoped Isabel hadn’t noticed. She didn’t want her to think they were all like the McPhees. The MacCorquodales might not have much money, her mammy said, but that was no reason not to be clean and mind your manners.

She was glad when Mr MacIntyre clanged the bell for playtime. Hunger had been gnawing at her for a while – the porridge and boiled egg she’d had after she’d milked Daisy had been hours ago.

As the class spilled outside, Jessie scurried to the outdoor toilet, hoping to make it before the big boys. They spent ages in there and left it smelling worse than ever. By the time she’d come out and washed her hands under the tap in the courtyard, everyone was in the playground. As usual Archie was organising a game of football. It irked her no end that he always ignored her when he was with his friends. He wasn’t like that at home.

Searching the crowd of laughing, squealing children for Isabel, she spotted her sitting on a rock, her back straight, knees and feet neatly together as she unwrapped her lunch from a piece of brown paper. Flora McPhee, who wasn’t in her usual spot behind the wall, well out of Miss Stuart’s and Mr MacIntyre’s sight, said something in Gaelic to her friends and they laughed and pointed at Isabel.

‘Who does she think she is, with her fancy ways?’ Flora said loudly, in English this time. ‘That just because she’s the doctor’s daughter she’s better than the rest of us?’

Jessie’s heart started to pound. Flora McPhee was a bully, but if you stood up to her she’d back down soon enough. Isabel was ignoring Flora, seemingly intent on the package that lay open on her lap.

Flora and her gang moved closer until they were standing in front of the new girl. Isabel looked up at them with steady brown eyes.

‘What fancy food do you have there?’ Flora asked, curling her lip in a way that made her look ridiculous.

Isabel smiled politely and held out the package. ‘It’s a scone with cheese. The maid gave me too much. You’re welcome to some, if you like.’

Jessie cringed. Isabel shouldn’t have mentioned a maid. Now there’d be no stopping Flora’s spite. Flora’s older sister, Agnes, had applied for a job at Dunvegan Castle and been turned down. The only people this had surprised had been the McPhees, who had boasted to anyone who would listen that their Agnes would get a job there and be set up for life. The McPhees had a terrible reputation and should have known that no one in the big house would employ anyone without checking with the minister; he was hardly likely to recommend any of the McPhees since they were the only villagers who didn’t attend either one of the two Sunday services – a shame even worse than Mr McPhee being in gaol, her daddy said. Mr McPhee had hated Daddy ever since Daddy had warned him not to hit Flora’s mam.

Jessie dithered, not knowing what to do for the best. Should she go over or would her presence make it worse for Isabel? If Flora had an audience apart from her friends she might be less likely to back down. Jessie spun around, hoping to see Miss Stuart or Mr MacIntyre. No luck. Her eyes shifted to her brother. Archie, expertly dribbling the ball between his feet, glanced in her direction before his gaze slid past her. He trapped the ball under his foot and narrowed his eyes.

Flora was too intent on her prey to notice Archie watching. She grabbed the scone out of Isabel’s hands and tore it in two. She offered some to her friends, who shook their heads. Flora popped a piece into her mouth, made a show of turning up her nose and spat it onto the ground. She flung the rest after it and a seagull swooped, snapped it up and flew off with it in its beak.

It might still have been all right, if Isabel hadn’t stood up. Now she towered over Flora, who, although stocky and strong from lifting peats, was forced to look up at the doctor’s daughter.

‘I don’t mind if you want to share my lunch,’ Isabel said, ‘but I do mind if you waste it.’

The wind had dropped and her voice carried across the playground. The children nearby stopped what they were doing and turned to stare.

‘You can mind what you like,’ Flora said. She moved closer to Isabel, but the new girl was either too stupid or too brave to retreat. Instead she held her ground, looking at Flora as if she were a cowpat on the sole of one of her highly polished boots. Now there was bound to be trouble. Flora was a dirty fighter.

‘Leave her alone.’ Archie’s voice was quiet.

Jessie’s attention had been fixed on Isabel and Flora so she hadn’t heard him approach. She let her breath out. Archie was there. Everything would be fine now.

Although he was a year older than Flora, Archie wasn’t much taller and a lot scrawnier. But Flora knew better than to take on Archie. A year ago he had lifted her bodily and dropped her in the burn after she had hit Jessie. And it wasn’t just that. Jessie had seen the way Flora looked at him – in the silly way that the girls who had breasts seemed to look at all the boys, and at Archie in particular. Mam had said it was because he would be a fine catch for any woman when it was time for him to take a wife – he’d inherited his father’s good looks and grit and would, no doubt, with a good education behind him, make something of himself one day. Jessie didn’t consider her brother good-looking. He had the same wide mouth and wild dark hair as herself, and was far too skinny. His hands and feet looked too big for his body, but Mam said it was only a matter of time before he grew into himself. Admittedly he had a nice smile and his eyes were a deeper, much nicer shade of blue than her own – cobalt, according to the label on a discarded box of almost finished watercolours she’d once found on the moors.

‘I said, leave her alone, Flora,’ Archie repeated softly, in Gaelic.

Flora looked at him and flushed a deep red. She was pretty under the grime, with her jet-black hair and light blue eyes, and Archie might have walked out with her if she wasn’t so dirty – or so nasty.

Flora tossed her head. ‘I was only having some fun, Archie.’

‘Well, away you go and have fun somewhere else,’ he replied.

Flora muttered something under her breath to Isabel before she moved away, her friends following in her wake.

Archie grinned at Isabel and said something to her that Jessie couldn’t hear. Whatever it was, it made Isabel smile, and the transformation in her face, from shy and almost plain to quite beautiful, made Jessie ache inside. Why couldn’t she look more like Isabel? Why had she inherited her mother’s curly brown hair that wouldn’t do as it was told, blowing this way and that when it was windy, which was pretty much all the time? Why couldn’t she have unusual brown eyes instead of the boring blue shared by most of the village? But, most of all, why couldn’t she have a smile that made people look at her in the way that Archie was looking at Isabel?

Isabel curled up on the window-seat in her bedroom and gazed across the water at Dunvegan Castle. A shaft of sun split the clouds and wrapped the castle in a golden, mystical light. She would ask Papa who lived there. Perhaps a girl of her own age. Someone like Lucy, the heroine of Sir Walter Scott’s The Bride of Lammermoor. A girl she could be friends with. Whatever Papa said, he couldn’t expect her to be friends with the local people. Most didn’t even wear shoes. And the girl who had snatched her scone was simply vile. Thank goodness she’d be going to a proper school in Edinburgh after the summer.

Skye was a funny place and she wasn’t at all certain she liked it. So far, the only good thing about being here was that Papa was living with them again. She was still a little shy of him, although she’d missed him terribly when he’d gone to South Africa to help look after the wounded soldiers. He’d been away for three long years and she’d almost not recognised him when he’d returned six months ago. Oh, it had been Papa, all right, even if his whiskers were now grey at the edges, but in her memory he was a tall man with a vigorous walk and a ready smile. The man who’d come back to them seemed smaller and, although he still laughed and teased her, so much sadder. And now he walked with a limp. A sword wound to his leg, he’d said. He’d got one to his chest too, and it sometimes made his breathing loud and harsh; the smog that hung over Edinburgh worsened it. That was why they’d come to live on Skye. The air here, he said, was much cleaner.

Her mother hadn’t been happy to leave Edinburgh. Before they’d departed for Skye, Isabel had overheard her telling Papa that he had no right to uproot them and take them away from all her friends and her work. She wasn’t sure what Mama meant by ‘work’ unless it was the endless committee meetings she attended. But Papa had put his foot down. He had said that he was the head of the household and would make the decisions. Andrew would stay at school in Edinburgh and live with his and Isabel’s older brother, George, and his family but Mama and Isabel’s place was beside him in Skye.

‘You don’t intend that Isabel should go to the local school? Really, William! What are you thinking of? Have you forgotten that your daughter is the great-granddaughter of a countess?’

‘No, my dear. I doubt I could forget,’ Papa responded drily. ‘There are only a few weeks left of school before the summer holiday. In the autumn she will return to Edinburgh to complete her education. Until then I want my daughter with me.’ There was a rustle as he shook his newspaper. ‘You’ve overindulged her, Clara, while I’ve been away. If she still wants to be a nurse, it will be to her benefit to see how the common people live. They will be the people she’ll look after – not countesses and ladies.’

Although Isabel heard the smile in his voice, his words made her burn with indignation. How could Papa say she was overindulged? And she was used to common people. They had servants, didn’t they?

‘I have the impression our daughter thinks nursing is about mopping fevered brows and little else,’ he added.

Isabel’s cheeks became hotter. Of course she knew that there was more to nursing than that. She’d read the stories about Florence Nightingale. Papa didn’t know her at all!

‘William, I have no intention of allowing Isabel to become a nurse.’

‘I don’t imagine you’ll have to worry about it for long, but our daughter is headstrong, so perhaps it would be as well not to forbid it.’

Every word made Isabel more determined. She would show him. He would find out she was not a girl who could be put off her course once she’d made a decision.

Not long after that conversation, they had packed up the house in Edinburgh and taken the train to Kyle of Lochalsh, then a small boat across to Skye. It had been almost dark when they’d arrived and Isabel had had only the briefest impression of clean air, scented with sea and a sweet smokiness.

After spending the night at a local inn they’d continued their journey, by carriage, the following morning. The mist had lifted and on either side of the road the sea and lochs glistened in the sun, sending sparks like miniature shooting stars into the air. Mountain ridges, their spines like the backbones of prehistoric animals, loomed over them. They passed several villages with people working outside, mending creels or carrying enormous baskets laden with clumps of dark earth on their backs. Small boats, some with their sails unfurled, bobbed along the shoreline.

As the carriage trundled along in the shadow of the mountains, Papa pointed to his left. ‘There are fairy pools over there. One day soon, Isabel, we must come to see them and have a picnic.’

‘Don’t be silly, Papa. I’m almost fourteen and I know perfectly well that fairies don’t exist.’ Really! Sometimes he treated her as if she were a baby.

‘You can’t know anything for certain, Isabel.’ Her father’s eyes creased at the corners. ‘A lot of people here still believe in things they can’t see.’

Several hours later, the carriage turned down a tree-lined track. Isabel craned her neck, eager to catch the first glimpse of her new home, but, hidden beyond a wood of ash, oak and beech, it was several more minutes before it came into view.

The lichen-encrusted house sat, hugged by the sea, on its own small peninsula. If she threw a stone from where she was sitting it would land in the water.

The carriage drew to a halt and, while the servants lined up to greet them, Papa jumped down to assist Mama, who was studying their new home with a frown of disapproval.

Inside, the house was big – bigger even than the one in Edinburgh – although much plainer. On the ground floor there were the usual reception rooms, and another room, close to the front hall, with a desk and a long, narrow steel table.

‘This will be my consulting room,’ her father said. ‘The patients will wait in the hall.’

Mama’s mouth twisted as if she’d sucked a lemon, but she didn’t say anything.

Upstairs there were seven bedrooms, one for each of them, including Andrew when he came home from school; Mama would use another as her sitting room, and the remaining two, she said, would be kept for visitors. ‘If anyone ever comes to this god-forsaken place to see us,’ she’d added, but quietly so Papa wouldn’t hear.

Now, only a week after they’d arrived, Isabel had already had enough of sitting in her room after school was over, doing nothing except read, read, read. As the discordant cry of a seagull came from outside her window, she let her book drop to the floor and uncoiled herself from the seat.

Deciding not to ask Mama’s permission, lest she say no, she slipped out of the house, found a narrow, well-trodden path behind the stables and set off up a hill. It would have been easier to take the dirt road but then people would have seen her. Although it was unlikely that Mama would be talking to the villagers – or even notice that she’d left the house – someone might mention to her father that she’d been out on her own and he wouldn’t be pleased either. He’d been very insistent about her staying close to the house and not wandering off, telling her that the cliffs could be dangerous, especially when the mist came down. Papa and Mama worried too much. The sun was shining, with barely a cloud in sight, and Isabel could see for miles.

Skye was so different from Edinburgh. Here, it was as if someone had come along with a big broom and swept away the hustle and bustle until there was nothing left but land, sky and water.

The track became increasingly overgrown with bracken, making it much more difficult to find her way. Sometimes the hill fell away sharply, and when she’d peered over the edge she’d been alarmed to find that the cliff dropped vertically into the sea.

On her other side, huddled in the shoulders of the hills, she could see a scattering of crofts. At times a house would disappear from sight with only the chimney smoke to identify its presence; then it would come suddenly and dramatically back into view, as if the fairies the islanders believed in had waved their magic wands. Even when she lost sight of the cottages, the clanging of metal on metal, the dull thud of an axe on wood, the voices of women calling to one another over the occasional squeals of children were reassuring.

Then, from the direction in which she was heading, she saw someone walking along the track towards her.

As the figure drew closer, she recognised him. It was Archie, the boy from her class. He was wearing the same wool jacket with patches on the elbows, but his trousers had large holes in both knees and were held up around his waist with a piece of string. His bare feet were stained with peat and grass. However, if he felt discomfited by his appearance he didn’t show it. He might have been wearing a dinner jacket, complete with starched shirt and bow-tie, if his bearing was anything to go by.

He carried a gun in one hand and a brace of rabbits in the other. Although Isabel hadn’t spoken to him since that first day, she’d been aware of him watching her in class and in the playground where she spent the breaks reading.

‘Hello,’ he said, with a smile. ‘What are you doing out here?’

She liked the way he spoke, almost as if he were singing, or as if each word was a precious object to be savoured.

‘I was just walking,’ she said.

‘On your own?’ He lifted an eyebrow.

As if it were any of his concern! ‘You’re on your own.’

‘But I know these hills like the back of my hand,’ he said. ‘There are places where you could sink to your knees in a bog or go over a cliff, if you don’t look out. Anyway, I didn’t think girls from the big houses were allowed out without a chaperone.’ The way he said it, with a sarcastic curl to his mouth, made her bristle.

‘I’m allowed to go where I please,’ she lied. ‘Now, may I pass?’

Instead of moving aside, Archie fell into step beside her. ‘I might as well come with you.’

She considered ordering him to leave her, but there was something about his otherness and his casual acceptance that he was no different from her that she found intriguing.

‘How do you like it here, then?’ he asked, his eyes tracking the flight of a crow with evident displeasure.

‘I prefer Edinburgh.’

Archie whistled through his teeth. ‘I can’t imagine anyone liking a place better than Skye.’

‘I take it you’ve been to Edinburgh to have such an opinion?’

His eyes darkened. ?