Anxious for his mother’s safety, he spent as much time as possible at the house, but was torn, too, between the demands of his job at the base and his longing to spend more time with Flora.
He sighed. ‘Maybe things will be better for us all once the war is over. My father will go back to spending most of his time in London and it’ll be easier for Ma again.’ He reached for her hand. ‘Please, Flora, you have to believe in us, as I do. The one good thing to come out of my engagement to Diana was the realisation that I could never feel about anyone the way I do about you. Last night was a ghastly ordeal for both of us. But one day, I promise you, you will be the mistress of Ardtuath House and you will take your rightful place at that table.’
By way of an answer, she entwined her fingers in his, tracing the sinews across the back of his hand with her thumb. She felt safe with him here. But as they sat looking out across the loch towards the western hills, the sky there began to haze over as clouds piled in from the ocean beyond, swallowing the sun. In spite of the warmth of the summer evening, Flora shivered slightly. The solid wall of the cottage she was leaning against still radiated the heat of the day. But she knew full well that this home – the only one she’d ever known – could be taken from her just as suddenly as the sea could change its mood, should Sir Charles’s anger at their relationship make him decide that it was time to let his gamekeeper go.
Flora’s duties at the naval base mainly involved driving officers to and from the jetty, or delivering and collecting the personnel who manned the lookout posts that had been built around the loch. On occasion, too, she drove larger vehicles – trucks and ambulances – when the need arose. She was sitting in the NAAFI with Mairi when the order came to take an ambulance round to Cove, on the far side of Loch Ewe. A Tilly – the nickname they gave to small utility vehicles in the services – had gone off the road and ended up stuck in the ditch, and its occupants had sustained minor injuries.
Flora drove, with Mairi at her side, and they sped along the shore to where the road narrowed to a single track beyond Poolewe. A mile further on they came upon the car in the ditch, listing alarmingly to one side. A sub-lieutenant was trying to wedge a large stone under one of the back wheels. His colleague – an ordnance officer deputed to service the anti-aircraft gun at the lookout point – sat dazed at the side of the road, with none other than Bridie busily attempting to fashion a sling out of what, on closer inspection, appeared to be a strip torn from her petticoat.
The two girls jumped down from their vehicle. ‘Bridie! Are you all right? What happened?’ Flora asked.
‘A sheep in the road,’ Bridie replied cheerily. ‘Had to swerve to miss it. I got away with just a few bumps and bruises, but I think this poor laddie’s arm is broken. The sheep’s fine, though,’ she added.
‘Here,’ Mairi said. ‘Let me take a look.’ She gathered dressings and a proper sling from the back of the ambulance and knelt beside the officer. Deftly, she examined his injury and strapped his arm gently but firmly to his chest to immobilise the wrist, which was already beginning to swell.
Leaving Mairi to attend to the casualty, Flora helped the other young officer to attach a rope to the bumper of the Tilly. Reversing the ambulance, she managed to pull the car free of the ditch, righting it so that they could have a good look at the damage.
‘Oops,’ remarked Bridie, ‘that rear axle doesn’t look too healthy.’
‘It doesn’t look at all safe to drive. We’ll need to tow you back and get it seen to,’ said Flora.
The young man glanced at his watch. ‘I’m overdue to relieve the lookout at the point. D’you think you could drop me there and then come back for this lot?’
‘Of course. Jump in.’
She drove past the row of whitewashed crofts at Cove – those same cottages that she and Alec had seen from the water on their visit to the rocky arch beyond Firemore beach in the spring –