Page 11 of A Tartan Love (The Earls of Cairnfell #1)

Pettercairn, Scotland

I sla sat immaculately still as Reverend Stronach preached on the certain damnation of liars and deceivers—every word flying like a barbed arrow straight to her heart.

She bore it all without a hint of a blush or a telltale clutch of her reticule. Given the weight of her guilty conscience, it was an acting performance worthy of Drury Lane.

Isla felt inordinately proud of herself.

Another sin to repent of, no doubt. The good reverend would assuredly have strong opinions on the evil of feeling pride over one’s ability to hide iniquity.

Voices whispered behind her, followed by a giggle. Gray scowled and shifted in his seat at her side, gaze remaining militantly forward .

The Balfours were seated one pew behind them to the left. If Isla canted her head the tiniest bit, she could see the graying head of Lord Northcairn seated beside Lord Cairnfell and Lady Mariah. Captain Balfour sat closer to the aisle between the twins, Master Edmund and Lady Elsie.

The twins giggled again. A muscle in Gray’s jaw twitched.

Isla resisted the urge to fidget.

She needed to tell Gray about her illicit marriage. Every day she delayed was one more nail in her coffin.

And yet . . .

Fear was a powerful motivator, she pondered for not the first time. Gray burned hot when it came to the Balfours.

Another giggle sounded, chased by a loud shush.

Gray took in a slow breath at her side, his hands flexing where they held the brim of his hat.

Isla could feel the leashed energy in him. Just sitting in the same room as Tavish had Gray itching to toss the entire Balfour clan out of the kirk. And that was without knowing Isla had married the man. How incandescent would her brother be once he learned the truth?

She could imagine Gray rising to his feet and shouting her perfidy from the rafters, denouncing her before pointing a finger at the Balfours and demanding justice. Tossing her to the wolves without so much as a scathing look in her direction.

Unbidden, a memory rose. The three of them—herself, Matt, and Piers—lounging in the drawing room together on a lazy July afternoon.

Piers was maybe sixteen and down from school. As ever when with family, he wore only loose breeches and shirtsleeves. Even then, he had seized any opportunity to discard as many layers as possible.

Matthias, at fifteen, was the opposite. He was always immaculately attired, his right sleeve neatly folded and pinned. With every passing year, he had become quieter and, more often than not, refused to leave the house. Everyone stares , he had whispered to Isla.

Isla, at age ten, had sensed change on the wind. Both their parents had been more and more absent, but never at the same time together. The duke was currently in London doing whatever dukes do in London. Their mother was in Shropshire, visiting friends .

“I think our parents have abandoned us,” Matt said. “It’s easy to see why.” He lifted his right arm with its pinned sleeve at the elbow.

Piers had snorted. “Our parents aren’t here because they are a sorry lot and prefer to escape their duties rather than face them. It has little to do with us.”

“Do you truly think that, Piers?” Matt asked.

“Of course. Mother refuses to tolerate Father’s presence.

Father pines for her instead of seeing to his lands and bemoans his fate to all who will listen.

Both of them heap scandal and ridicule on our family name.

Gossip that the Balfours are far too eager to discuss with our neighbors.

All the things I will not tolerate once I’m duke. ”

Piers sat up, bracing his elbows on his knees and causing his shirt to gap open at the collar. His keen hazel eyes met first Matt’s and then Isla’s.

“I won’t be able to correct the wrongs thrust upon our family by myself,” Piers said. “I will require your support. We need to band together, us three. To be as unbreakable as we can. What say you?”

“You will always have my support,” Matt said on a rush. “Why would you think otherwise?”

“I don’t. I guess I . . .” Piers let out a slow breath, dragging a hand through his tawny hair. “I guess I simply wanted to hear that nothing would ever change between us.”

How like Piers , Isla had thought at the time. Thinking of others.

“I will always love you, Piers.” Isla had rushed to hug him. “You and Matt will always be the bestest brothers.”

He had laughed and hugged her back.

Of course, once Piers became Grayburn, his promise of support had really only strung in one direction—from Isla and Matt to Gray. Her ducal brother’s approval came with rigid stipulations and expectations. As long as Isla didn’t deviate from those, Gray would back her.

But the moment a Balfour came into the picture . . .

Gray held no room in his heart for calamitous errors in judgment, such as Isla’s marriage.

No. He would never forgive her for it.

Only Matt, with his own demons and struggles, had remained true to her. The only person to witness her fracturing after Tavish enlisted and left. The only person to stretch a hand into the darkness and plead with her to grab hold.

After all, Matt had been the one to take her to Malton Hill.

Isla had arrived at Malton Hill a mere shell of a person, prone to staring into space for hours on end. Even eating had become an unwelcome chore.

Her love affair with Tavish had disintegrated mere weeks beforehand. Melancholy clung to her back, a gremlin she hadn’t the energy to cast off.

Matt knew something had occurred with Tavish Balfour to kindle Gray’s wrath.

But Matt had never asked her about it. Perhaps Gray had told him.

Or perhaps, in his quiet way, Matt knew that the minutiae of her relationship with Tavish were rather moot now he had accepted an officer’s commission and exited her life.

Regardless, Matt had accompanied her south to Gloucester.

“A change of scenery,” he had insisted. “A new place with new memories hovering in the wings.”

Though Malton Hill was promised to her in her dowry, Isla had never visited the place.

She needed a male guardian to accompany her and, as the estate was far from both Scotland and London, none of her male relations had been interested in escorting her there.

Until Matt, that was. She knew leaving the sanctuary of Dunmore had cost him dearly, but for her, he had done it.

She would love him forever for the sacrifice.

Isla could easily recall that first glimpse of Malton Hill—its honey-colored limestone aglow in the warmth of an English sunset, gables contouring the light and painting windows in streaks of gold and rose. The house had hummed with an ancient promise, as if anticipating her arrival.

It had been, Isla realized years later, a moment of genuine rebirth. A crack in her chrysalis, one just big enough for her to glimpse a new world .

No one at Malton Hill knew of Tavish Balfour.

They didn’t know she had once loved a gray-eyed boy with a laugh like summer sunshine.

They didn’t know her heart was an open wound, throbbing in her chest, or that she lay in her bed at night, staring at the canopy overhead, desperate to think of anything but him.

No one at Malton Hill had any preconceived notion of her at all. She wasn’t the sum of the mistakes Gray laid at her feet, or a host of charms to watch grow into womanhood.

To most, she was Lady Isla, the elegant mistress of an elegant estate. The aristocratic owner who had finally arrived to address problems that had been ignored for too long.

Though the estate was to be Isla’s, her father had badly neglected it. The old steward was indolent in his duties, cruel in his collection of rents and slow to authorize repairs. The land languished, and tenants suffered.

For herself, Isla had never been taught how to run an estate as a whole. A household? Yes. An entire estate? No.

When faced with the enormity of it all, she discovered something about herself:

She wasn’t timid or compliant.

She might be unsure and untrained in this particular task, but determination roiled in her breast.

So, despite feeling desperately young and out of her depth, Isla had rolled up her sleeves and set to work.

She was intelligent and capable. She merely needed to learn estate management.

Matt, as ever, refused to deal with people or leave the house, but he had an excellent listening ear and provided advice.

He propped her up as she learned to spread her untried wings.

The old steward was let go and a new one hired—a younger man, Mr. John Cranston, who brimmed with energy and clever ideas for modernization that assisted tenants instead of penalizing them.

With Matt and Mr. Cranston guiding her actions, Isla authorized repairs and mediated disputes.

She discussed planting schedules and tallied account sums until her eyes ached.

Some days, it felt as if all she did was breathe through one catastrophe after another.

But slowly, through trial and error and an astonishing amount of work, she brought the estate back to life. Leaking roofs were rethatched, and crumbling harling refreshed. Crop yields dramatically increased, and her tenants smiled more readily.

Most importantly, witnessing the changes filled Isla with an almost holy sense of purpose and protectiveness.

She had begun the task as a way to channel her grief over Tavish Balfour.

But it had ended with Isla discovering entirely new horizons within her heart, as well as carving out a place for herself in a new community.