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Corry’s laugh was more startled than mean-spirited. “Ye canna row yerself.”

James felt his neck prickle, the old mix of shame and anger.

Isobel, Corry, Rabbie, Davie, the Balfours, all the islanders—to them he was always the incompetent prig.

“I will row myself,” he repeated, stopping in his tracks. On either side of the path, wildflowers bloomed, the same kind Isobel had picked to frame her door. Meadowsweet.

Corry stopped too and faced him. “There’s a whirlpool that sends up walls of water. And to get around, you risk hitting spikes of rock.”

“I’m aware. I’ve been crossing the strait my whole life.”

“Aye, with strong lads to row ye. Lads who read the tides like lads in Londontown read the papers.”

True. All true.

Also, true: James needed to make this trip alone.

“I appreciate the warning.” He bent his lips into something like a smile. “My London solicitor is Mr. Nicholas Briggs of Dumbarton Court. If I end up at the bottom of the sea, write to him and have him direct funds for a glass-domed cottage to Miss MacKinnon. Include this as proof of my approval.”

He tugged off his signet ring and pushed into Corry’s hand.

“Happy smithing,” he said.

He started walking again, and this time, Corry didn’t follow.

James soon discovered that the blacksmith held the majority opinion. When he reached the shore, he walked along the shell-lined road and spoke with a dozen men spreading kelp to dry on a low stone wall.

They spoke to him in Scots, but he gleaned their meaning well enough.

“Nae,” they said, one after the other, each shifting away his gaze, scratching under his cap. “Ye’ll hae yerself droond.”

“I won’t drown,” he responded, again and again. And finally: “I went to Oxford. I think I can row a boat.”

The men only shrugged and spread more kelp.

James walked down to the beach proper and bribed two young boys oystering in the shallows.

He shoved off in their father’s skiff, pulling at the oars. The sky was clear, the clement weather heralding smooth transit.

No one had told the sea.

It threw its whole weight against him, the slow swells beating the boat back. He couldn’t row out but instead found himself moving sideways, too near the shore, approaching the headland. He went light-headed from the effort of rowing, even as his arms turned to lead.

He rested the oars on the gunwale and shrugged out of his borrowed coat, tanned sheepskin, too heavy and far too hot. The boat accelerated, sucked into a current between two ominous pyramidal towers of basalt.

He gripped the oars again—too late.

A hard thud knocked him from the bench to his knees in the skiff’s hull.

He’d run aground, only a few hundred yards from where he’d started, run aground in a tiny cove. No one there to witness his disgrace.

No one but the girl who always witnessed his disgrace.

Isobel MacKinnon was staring straight at him. Her gaze drew his, so bright with fury, he didn’t notice the obvious until she screamed and crouched, arms crossed over her breasts.

“Where are your britches?” he asked.

“I was about to bathe.” Tib could barely speak. She was choking with rage.