Eilidh suspiciously.
Presently, Innes arrived back, bearing a white box.
“But!” said Eilidh, but Innes hushed her and handed it over to Agot.
Eyes wide, she opened it.
Inside were the most perfectly beautiful little pair of skates, white and trimmed with white fake fur, with pink laces.
Agot gasped. “Nooooo!!”
She lifted them out of the tissue paper wrapping as if they were the most stunningly lovely things she’d ever seen. The silver blades caught the light, flashing and glinting in the early winter sun.
“But where is she . . .” started Eilidh.
“Shh,” said Innes.
“And you see here,” said Konstantin, pulling out a pair of skates. “I too have my skates.”
“You brought your skates from your palace in Norway,” said Flora.
“Of course,” said Konstantin, looking confused.
He lent the little girl his arm.
“Would you like to come skating with me?”
And he led her out into the farmyard, to a sight that provoked a gasp from all the others too.
On a flat piece of grassy ground, out by the cowshed, Konstantin had done something very simple. With Innes’s help, he had built a small wooden fence in a rectangle, about fifteen centimeters high. He and Innes had had a conversation the day before and had met in the night. Then they had used an old tarpaulin as a liner, filled it half full with water, waited overnight—and now, Konstantin was using a kettle and a broom to carefully smooth it flat.
It was a perfect little rink.
Agot’s eyes were wide as saucers.
“Now,” he said. “You have to be careful not to trip over the ends. That is why you have to hold my arm.”
“I would like to hold the arm of a prince going around an ice rink,” said Agot gravely, and she sat up in the tractor seat while he tied her laces carefully, and then, after he’d bundled her into her warm clothes, he took her hand and Innes took another, and slowly and steadily, they led the little girl round and round the rink.
Chapter 68
Everybody laughed and cheered as she went round and round, until she finally found the courage to go off by herself, her low center of gravity helping, her tiny knees knocking together.
“I have to get all my friends! For skating!” she shouted, her cheeks pink in the cold and her eyes bright with happiness and desperate to share it.
The others gradually retreated inside as Eilidh took endless hours of footage, and Flora took Fintan’s arm. He was resistant at first, but she dragged him back over to the dairy, normally busy turning out the island’s sensational butter and with the milk suppliers turning up to take the milk, but quiet today.
Fintan spent no time in here these days; it was run by a lad from the village. But he missed the happy days he had spent in here, experimenting with cheese—fabulous, some of it—tinkering and working and simply being his own man.
“What are you showing me this for?”
“I was wondering,” said Flora shyly. “If . . . if you would like it as a gift?”
Fintan frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“Look. Me and Joel have discussed it. I’m useless on maternity leave. It’s not that I don’t love Douglas . . .” she added fiercely.
“Uh, nobody said that,” said Fintan.
“. . . but I love the Rock too, Fintan. I loved what Colton was trying to do, right from the start. It’s where I met Joel. Where I fell in love. Where everyone fell in love. It’s where I’ve had more fun than I can remember. I want his legacy to be right. I want to do it, Fintan. I can do it. If you like . . . I could take over the Rock. As a real job. And you could go back to making cheese.”
He looked at her suspiciously. “What’s the catch?”
“There’s no catch,” said Flora. “The only catch would be if you desperately wanted to keep doing the Rock and didn’t want me to do it.”
“Oh God,” said Fintan, his face brightening suddenly. “I’d love you to do it! Then I wouldn’t feel like I was letting down Colton by selling it or giving it away.”
“You’ll need to pay me,” said Flora.
“No, I realize that. But I don’t . . . I mean, this is . . . this is . . .” He looked at her, eyes red. “Thank you!” he said. “I thought you were just interfering to be a putz.”
“And I thought you were being lazy because you too are a putz,” said Flora.
They grinned