Page 10 of A Tartan Love (The Earls of Cairnfell #1)

Eight Years Earlier

Pettercairn, Scotland

T oday was his seventeenth birthday.

Tavish kicked at the stones lining the base of Cairnfell Castle.

Another year without his mother.

And this year, his father, sister, and older brother were absent as well. Lord Northcairn had taken Callum and Mariah to London to launch Mariah into society with the help of their aunt.

In short, no adults were present to celebrate his birthday.

Had his mother still been alive, she would have planned something for him. Even if she had needed to be in London, she would have anticipated his birthday .

Instead today, like most other days, saw Tavish forgotten.

Cook had taken pity on him and baked his favorite dessert—a large clootie dumpling that she had first formed into a ball and boiled in a cheesecloth sack before leaving it to dry by the fire.

Tavish had eaten his fill and then stolen another large wedge and wrapped it in a bit of muslin.

Slipping out the back gate of Castle Balfour, he had stopped by the kirkyard to blow a kiss to his mamma and leave a discreet note partially tucked into a crevice of the opulent monument of the former Duke and Duchess of Grayburn.

Then, he made his way up Cairnfell to wait.

Tavish often came here, resting in the quiet of the ruins. The place where, centuries past, the Balfours and the Kinseys had been a single, united family.

He hadn’t spoken a word to Lady Isla Kinsey since their birthdays last August. Granted, he had been at school for most of the year. But he had finished his studies in June, and he didn’t intend to continue on to university. He hadn’t the temperament for law or the church.

What he wanted, at the moment, was to see Lady Isla.

Over the past year, she had gone from a person he scarcely noticed to the lass he saw everywhere.

He watched her stroll down High Street in Pettercairn with her governess, the bespectacled Miss Farnsworth, stopping at the haberdashers and the milliners.

Her bonneted head was directly in his line of view during church services on a Sunday.

He had caught snatches of her in Grayburn’s carriage, swathed in black, mourning the death of her father just four months past.

This would be her first birthday without her father.

And, like his family, her older brother was in London for the Season.

If all their kin were currently in residence, Tavish wouldn’t have dared to arrange a meeting with her. Callum smacked the back of his head if he caught Tavish so much as looking in Lady Isla’s direction.

But Tavish had to try. His sense of fairness forced him to return the compassion she had shown him last year. To bring some happiness to what was surely a difficult birthday for her.

Knowing she would likely visit her parents’ grave today, he had left a straightforward note there :

A wise person once told me that the first birthday is the hardest. If you wish a compassionate ear, meet at the base of Cairnfell Castle this afternoon.

He had not signed it.

If she didn’t realize the note was from him, then the connection he had sensed last year clearly had been one-sided.

Better to know now. As it was, she already occupied too many of his thoughts.

Was she as vibrant as he recollected? The girl last year had nearly sparkled with an untamed energy. Her bubbling laughter haunted his dreams.

Tavish waited for an hour.

Then two.

Just when he thought she might not show, a dark figure emerged from the surrounding forest, walking toward him, a determined lift to her chin.

The mourning black of her gown did dreadful things to her complexion, dimming the roses in her cheeks and lending her skin a sallow color.

Their eyes met, and his heart thumped . . . perhaps its first true beat in a year.

With a start, he realized that Isla was taller than he had supposed. Not looming for a female, but taller than average. Enough that he wouldn’t have to bend too far for a kiss.

Not that he was going to kiss her.

He shouldn’t. He wouldn’t.

But he was a seventeen-year-old male, so kissing and all its attendant activities were rarely far from his thoughts.

She stopped six feet before him.

He doffed his hat and gave a lavish bow—the one his mother had drilled into his manners.

“Lady Isla,” he intoned.

“Mr. Balfour.” She curtsied, elegant and smooth.

“Thank ye for coming.” He grinned, his most winsome expression. Or so Mariah told him .

Lady Isla had been crying, he noted. Her red-rimmed eyes could mean nothing else.

His smile faltered.

“Have you come to cheer up my day?” she asked. He detested the wee warble at the end of her sentence.

There was less of Scotland in her vowels this year. That English governess of hers was erasing all traces of their country.

“Aye, lass. I consider it my sacred responsibility. The proper duty of a birthday twin, as it were. I shan’t consider your birthday properly celebrated until I hear ye laugh.”

She smiled, but not a true one. More of an impoverished cousin to a smile.

Hands clenching into fists, she gave him a bold look, far more direct than he thought her capable. More bold than any other lass of his acquaintance.

“Do you think to use me for revenge?” she asked.

Her question punched the air from Tavish’s lungs.

“Revenge?”

“Yes. Against my family . . . Do you attempt to befriend me in order to wound them? We are enemies, after all.”

Tavish’s jaw worked for a few seconds, unable to form words. The thought hadn’t once crossed his mind, but he could see how his actions might appear to her.

He simply considered her a bonnie, interesting lass whom he would like to know better. And . . . maybe laugh with on occasion.

“Never,” the word coming out more forceful than he intended. He shook his head. “I would never use any woman, much less yourself, so abominably.”

Still, she hesitated, suspicion in her gaze.

He liked her all the more for her careful consideration. It showed spirit and backbone and a strong sense of self. Attributes he applauded.

“I swear it, lass. Upon my mother’s grave.” He crossed his heart. “Are ye using myself?”

“And if I were?” she asked, voice cool.

He mimed a dagger to the chest. “Best to get it over with quickly, then. ”

She shook her head, but a genuine grin picked up one corner of her mouth.

“Come. Let us set aside our familial enmity today of all days.” He beckoned. “I have set a humble birthday party of sorts.”

He led Lady Isla around the base of the castle to a clearing between the towerhouse and the cairn.

Here, he had placed a small table and two chairs, all taken from the lower room of the castle.

Atop the table, he had arranged his large slice of clootie dumpling in the muslin and a jug of small beer he had pilfered from the cold larder.

He held out a chair for her, helping her to sit, before taking his own seat.

“My lady, may I offer ye a wee slice of the best clootie dumpling in this corner of Scotland?”

She smiled again, slightly broader this time. “I should like that.”

“Unfortunately, my hostess skills have not extended to china or cutlery, so we shall have to make do with our hands.”

He broke off a piece of the pudding, several currants and a lone sultana tumbling to the muslin. Peeling off her gloves and retrieving a handkerchief from her sleeve, she set her slice atop it, nibbling at a bite, head bowed.

Tavish detested the wee quiver he noted in her bottom lip. This lass was made for laughter and sunshine. How the stern Kinsey family had birthed a daughter who shone like fairy light, Tavish hadn’t the faintest idea.

“Happy birthday, lass.”

She sniffed. “Thank you.”

Breaking off another piece, she lifted it to her lips before wiping a tear from her cheek with a knuckle.

He wanted to thumb the teardrop from her face himself, to pull her to his chest and let her weep her grief.

“I am sorry about your father,” he said.

She nodded, taking another nibble of cake and wiping yet another tear.

“I would have thought my tears would send a gentleman scrambling for the hills,” she sniffled. “I know my brothers cannot leave the room quickly enough when they find me crying. ”

“I ken a wee bit of emotion to be a good thing. My own mamma said a soul suffers when feelings stay locked tight inside. Feelings are something ye feel . If ye refuse them, they can fester and poison ye from within.”

His words sent more tears tumbling down her cheeks. She wrestled with them, breaking off pieces of the dumpling.

“Can I tell you a . . . feeling?” She raised her head. “I cannot speak of this to anyone else and, yes, it festers within.”

“Of course.”

“You will think me a terrible person.”

“Impossible.”

The opposite , he didn’t add. I think you the loveliest thing.

She sat back. “I’m not sure my father liked me much.”

This surprised him. “How so?”

“My mother was a social creature. She craved the company of others and was always off visiting this place and that. But when she chose to appear in the nursery, she was a warm presence. However, my father . . . my father was a stern, distant figure. He only spoke to me when he found something to criticize.” She poked at her bit of dumpling.

“He definitely showed more interest in my brothers, but I supposed that was to be expected. They’re male—the heir and the spare. I was female and therefore lesser.”

“Regardless of the reason, that’s a right terrible thing to bear.”

“Perhaps, but the day after our father died, Piers . . . or rather Grayburn, as I suppose I must call him now, became just as distant as our father. It was as if a fae spirit had stolen in overnight and replaced kind Piers with dreadful Grayburn.”

“Truly?”

She nodded. “He hasn’t said a kind word to me since. For example, I asked him if I looked ghastly in my mourning blacks. Gray looked me up and down before shrugging and walking away without a word. As if I were of no more note than a buzzing gnat.”

Tavish wanted to whisper that the mourning black itself was, indeed, dreadful, but only because she belonged in colors like those of meadow flowers.

“Piers would never have behaved so abominably,” she continued.

“He would have put an arm around me and told me I looked lovely. But now that he is Grayburn, his former kindnesses have simply . . . vanished. Like a candle being blown out. Is it a requirement when becoming a duke? To put a barrier between yourself and your female relations?”

“I cannot say.”

“Is your father distant and cool toward your sisters?”

Tavish envisioned his father—his larger-than-life Da’ with a boom for a laugh and arms open to sweep anyone and everyone into a hug.

That was part of the problem, Tavish reckoned.

His father was rather indiscriminate with his affections, as barmaids, lonely widows, and the occasional London actress could attest. The man had been anything but discreet since the death of Tavish’s mother.

“Nae. My da’ is open and loving to a fault.”

Lady Isla swallowed, nodding her head again.

Neither of them said anything for a long moment.

“I greatly dislike that our families are enemies,” she said at last.

“Me, too.”

“We should be friends, you and I.” She pinned him with her blue eyes. “Set a good example for our families. Show them kindness is better than hatred.”

Again, so bold.

“I should like that.” He wiped his hands on his breeches and then extended his right hand across the table. “Friends.”

She slipped her slim hand into his.

The warmth of her bare skin against his sent fire licking up his arm.

And yet, her bones were so fragile in his grasp.

A tremendous rush of protectiveness surged through him. If her brothers were not going to look after her properly, Tavish was more than willing to do the job.

“If we are to be friends,” she said, “then we must have a better way of communicating. If someone else had found your note to me . . .”

“Aye. What do ye propose?” Because even if he didn’t know this lass that well, he guessed she might have a knack for planning.

“My governess spoke of ciphers last week as we were discussing Caesar’s campaign against the Gauls. Perhaps we could devise one of our own.”

“A Caesar cipher—the sort where you merely shift the letters of the alphabet by three letters or so, like A becomes D and so on?”

“Or perhaps we create one that is more random. Any learned person would see the scrambled text and assume it to be a Caesar cipher. We can be more intelligent than that.”

“Agreed.” Tavish grinned. Bloody hell, but he adored the quick turn of her mind.

They spent the next hour deciding what their cipher would be. Something simple, but complex—each letter of the alphabet substituted with another letter, seemingly at random. They wrote it out with a bit of charcoal on the muslin cloth of the clootie dumpling.

And Tavish did make her laugh in the end—a rollicking story about Callum getting drunk off sour whisky and tumbling into Farmer McLeod’s pig sty.

The sound of Lady Isla’s giggles twined through the trees of Cairnfell and filled Tavish’s heart with such happiness, he feared the organ would burst.