Page 1 of A Tartan Love (The Earls of Cairnfell #1)

The parish kirkyard

Pettercairn, Scotland

T he boy was weeping.

Lady Isla Kinsey might be only fifteen years of age, but she recognized the signs of a good greit .

He knelt before a grave—palms braced on the ground, spine hunched—the earth beneath his knees still black and fresh.

Even thirty feet back and peering between tombstones, Isla could see gusting sobs wrack his shoulders.

They were quiet things, those sobs. Dramatic visually but soundless.

As if the young man were accustomed to grieving in silence.

The thought ached and sighed through her bones.

She recognized him, of course. Even if the grave marker had not proclaimed his identity, his reddish hair, the expensive superfine of his coat, and the black mourning band tied around his right arm all but shouted his name—

Mr. Tavish Balfour.

Isla placed a gloved hand on the wall of the parish church beside her.

She should leave.

No good would come of him seeing her here.

And yet . . .

She had wandered the churchyard often enough to know the words etched into the grave marker before him:

Mary Balfour, Lady Northcairn

Beloved wife of Douglas Balfour,

8th Earl of Northcairn

Born May 22, 1768

Died February 10, 1808

Tavish Balfour wept for his mother, gone these six months.

Something raw and scalding lodged in Isla’s throat.

Her eyes darted left, seeking out her own mother’s grave in the opposite corner of the kirkyard.

Unlike Lady Northcairn, Mamma’s grave loomed over the other tombstones—a rectangular, granite box raised four feet off the ground and covered in carvings of vines and angels.

Isla had cast off her mourning blacks over two years ago, but the passage of time hadn’t lessened the sting of her mother’s death.

It was why she was here today, was it not?

Why she had cut a large slice of Cook’s brandy-soaked pound cake and wrapped it in a handkerchief before slipping out the door, unnoticed.

Today was Isla’s fifteenth birthday—the third birthday without Mamma’s cheery laughter and rose-scented gifts. A third birthday spent in the echoing silence of her loss.

But Isla still wished to pass a part of today with her mother, leaning against the cool stone of her tomb, eating cake and listening to the starlings quarrel overhead—

She glanced down at the piece of cake in her hands. It truly was monstrous. Decidedly enough to share.

Mr. Balfour was sitting back on his heels now, scrubbing at his eyes with both fists.

Isla’s father, the haughty Duke of Grayburn, would be furious were he to learn she had spoken with a Balfour under any circumstance, not to mention alone and unchaperoned.

Normally, Isla would never disobey her father.

But the words compliant and timid circled like vultures above her head.

Several years ago, Isla had overheard her governess, Miss Farnsworth, use those adjectives to describe her to the housekeeper— “Lady Isla? Ah, she is a timid, compliant girl. She never gives me a whisper of trouble.”

Isla had beamed at the compliment. At the pride in Miss Farnsworth’s voice. She had immediately looked up both words in Dr. Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language , wanting to understand these praiseworthy attributes of her person.

COMPLIANT: Yielding; bending.

TIMID: Fearful; wanting courage.

Isla had glared at the definitions.

Yielding.

Bending.

Fearful.

Wanting courage.

This was what Miss Farnsworth found noble in Isla? That she allowed her personality to be molded like clay? That she lived her life in cowardice and fear?

The portrayal of her person was anything but flattering.

Peeking between the gravestones, Isla knew ignoring Mr. Balfour would be the timid, compliant thing to do.

But today, as she faced down all fifteen of her years, Isla found she no longer wished to be passive —a kissing-cousin to timid and compliant.

And so, she pushed off the church wall and crossed the graveyard.

Mr. Balfour whirled at the sound of her pelisse brushing the low-cut lawn.

Their eyes caught and held as Isla continued to approach.

Blushing, he scrambled to his feet. He scrubbed his cheeks with his coat sleeve, but the tear streaks remained, smudging the skin beneath his red-rimmed gray eyes .

He was . . .

Oh, dear.

He was handsome.

Tall and lanky, he topped her by several inches, but the soft down on his cheeks proclaimed him to be a boy still.

And though his hair was decidedly ginger, his skin lacked the ruddy tones and freckles of a typical redhead.

His features looked to be chiseled in marble—sharp jawline, long nose, wide cheekbones, square chin bisected by a deep cleft.

Only his lips, she noted, appeared soft and full. The sort that made one wonder how they would feel to kiss.

She blushed at the indecent thought.

Isla had no memory of studying Tavish Balfour before now. She knew only that he was a Balfour and therefore to be avoided.

The animosity between their families was the stuff of legends.

The Kinseys and the Balfours had once been family in truth—both lines descended from twin brothers born to Robert Balfour, Lord Cairnfell, over two hundred years past. Back then, Lord Cairnfell had ruled his lands from atop Cairnfell itself, a rocky crag jutting upward from the gentle fields of Angus.

The twin brothers, Daniel and David, fought side-by-side with King Charles II during the Great Civil War, and His Majesty rewarded them handsomely.

Daniel, the elder brother, was given the title of Earl of Northcairn, after the river that ran through the traditional family lands north of Cairnfell.

David, younger by only nine minutes, was granted the title Earl of Southcairn, in honor of the river that ran south of Cairnfell.

Southcairn was also granted a large swath of land around his namesake river.

It should have been harmonious—brothers thriving on adjacent properties, the height of Cairnfell rising between them.

However, each brother felt slighted by oversights in the king’s generosity and blamed the opposite party.

Though Northcairn had been elevated to an earldom and granted money to build a new castle, he had been given no additional territory.

Southcairn, however, had received new lands and property, all of it more arable and productive than his brother’s.

And so, twin brothers who had played together—fought together, defended king and country together—became bitter rivals. Two centuries of backstabbing, betrayal, and contention followed. The sort of vitriol only a family could sustain.

Southcairn had used his wealth to marry into the English aristocracy, change his surname, and climb to the title of Duke of Grayburn.

Northcairn had built Castle Balfour north of Cairnfell and upheld the family’s tradition of laird and clan, shepherding their people.

Each side detested the other.

Isla knew this history, yet . . .

As Tavish Balfour straightened beside his mother’s grave, she was hard pressed to see him as an enemy.

No.

He looked like a person just as lost and solitary as herself.

“Hallo,” she said, Scotland making an unwelcome appearance in her vowels. As a rule, the Kinseys did not tolerate even a whiff of a brogue. Miss Farnsworth, with her dulcet English tones, would have a fit of the vapors if she heard Isla at the moment.

Mr. Balfour said nothing. Merely stared.

Swallowing, Isla soldiered on, wincing as that trace of Scotland remained.

“I couldn’t help but notice ye here, uhm .

. .” She drifted off, glancing at the grave beyond his shoulder.

Heat climbed her cheeks at an alarming pace.

“Anyhow, today is my birthday, and I’ve come to visit my own mamma, over there.

” She pointed in the direction of her mother’s tomb.

“And I brought a wee bit of cake. Enough to share, if ye’d like. ”

She held out the cake in its bit of muslin, hating the tremble in her fingers.

His gaze left her face, dropped to the cake, and then lifted back to her eyes.

“’Tis your birthday?” he asked.

He did not ask her identity. Like herself, he surely knew she was a Kinsey, even if they had never spoken a word to one another. Unlike herself, Scotland sang unapologetically through every syllable of his words.

“Yes.”

“Today?”

“Yes.”

This gave him pause. He blinked.

“The twelfth of August? ”

“Yes. That is the date today.” She smiled brightly. Was he a bit addled in the head?

He blinked again. “Today is my birthday, too.”

A laugh startled out of her. “Truly?”

“Aye.”

“We are birthday twins!” She grinned. “How old are ye today?”

“Sixteen.”

“Hah! I turned fifteen. Well then, we shall definitely be sharing this cake.” She lifted the bundle in her hand. “Birthdays should not go uncelebrated, I say, regardless of circumstance.”

Without waiting for an invite, Isla sank into the grass beside his mother’s grave and patted the ground.

He glanced around the kirkyard, as if nervous their clandestine meeting might be observed, before folding his long legs and sitting beside her.

He looked at the cake in eager invitation.

Isla opened the handkerchief and broke the slice of cake in two, handing him the larger half.

“Thank ye.” He smiled—a tentative, quiet thing.

And then, he promptly unhinged his jaw and took an enormous bite of the cake. It was a bit like watching a grass snake devour a mouse.

Isla’s eyes went wide as saucers.

It was . . .

Words escaped her. She would have to consult Dr. Johnson for more.

Her own brothers were a bit older than herself, so she had no true recollection of them as younger men. Certainly not as rag-mannered lads.

But watching Mr. Balfour eat . . . the long slide of his Adam’s apple as he chewed, the muscles bunching in his jaw . . .

Well.

It was rather educational.

Mr. Balfour did not miss her stunned expression.

“It’s goo’ cake,” he said with his mouth full.

It was such . . . boy behavior.