Page 23 of A Tartan Love (The Earls of Cairnfell #1)

He wanted to speak with her. Alone. Isla was sure of it.

The fact discomfited her. She didn’t wish to be so attuned to his thoughts. To know with just the briefest of glances what he was thinking.

She didn’t dare look in his direction again, but it didn’t stop her from watching him in reflection—the mirror over the fireplace, the gleam of a silver vase, the panes of the large windows overlooking the back garden.

The week promised to be a long one.

As Isla intuited , she found a folded bit of foolscap slipped under her bedchamber door when she retired for the night. It gleamed a stark-white on the edge of the Aubusson carpet .

She snatched it up with trembling fingers.

Foolish man.

Captain Balfour would get them both in trouble.

Thankfully, he had the wisdom to write his message in their cipher. At least if the paper were discovered, Isla could plead ignorance.

Still.

NQ EOCV CKQYT . . .

Unlike his last message, this one encompassed several lines of text and took a minute to decode.

We must speak. There is an empty bedchamber directly above your own. Meet me there at one a.m. Be discreet.

Isla blew out an exasperated breath.

Be discreet?!

Not meeting at all would be discreet! A clandestine assignation was the very definition of in discreet.

She did not enjoy being treated like one of his soldiers—a green recruit who would jump to obey his commands.

Perhaps, she would write her own message in reply.

FJ!

He would understand the word No! well enough.

Instead, she tucked the message into her traveling desk and brooded, staring into the fire until her lady’s maid arrived to help Isla undress and prepare for bed.

She shouldn’t meet with him. It only encouraged his domineering behavior.

She wouldn’t meet with him.

No, she would not. Let him stew, for once.

She tucked into bed with that very intention. But questions tossed and turned in her brain, making sleep elusive.

What did Captain Balfour have to say to her? He was to have met with a solicitor in Aberdeen already. Perhaps there was news to report ?

How did he know that the bedchamber above hers was empty? Had he bribed a pretty housemaid?

Isla glared at her bed canopy in frustration.

Regrettably, curiosity got the better of her.

When the mantel clock struck one, Isla was already out of bed, pulling on her dressing gown, wrapping a dark shawl around her shoulders, and shuffling in stockinged feet to her bedroom door.

The hallway outside her door loomed in shadows. Nothing stirred.

On soundless steps, Isla moved down the hall to the staircase.

She wanted to be indignant and furious. Summon all the righteous anger she would need to fend off the confusion Captain Balfour inspired.

Instead, her heart beat swiftly, and the tiniest thrill chased her spine.

Was she . . . ?

Was she excited , dash it all?

She could feel it rising inside her . . . an enlivening of sorts. Or, perhaps, a lost fragment of self.

It wasn’t a swell or a torrent. More like a gentle trickle of anticipation. A faint echo of the sensation she had felt when racing up the path to Cairnfell. That eager chasing of something forbidden.

Perhaps those years ago, she had merely been swept up in the exhilaration of an illicit connection—notes written in secret code, hidden messages, a handsome boy who filled her ears with honeyed words and the intoxicating rumble of his laughter.

And if Tavish had been Colonel Archer or Captain Ross or some other gentleman, would she have felt the same excitement?

Isla truthfully couldn’t say.

The knowledge was a rather appalling insight into her character. Her future needed to be based on something other than reckless thrills and a desire for entertainment.

Her association with Tavish Balfour couldn’t end soon enough.

She found the empty bedroom easily. It was the only one with the door slightly ajar.

Isla pushed it open.

A bed sat to the left. A fireplace to the right.

But straight ahead . . .

He rested on the sill of the single window, the shutters opened to let in moonlight. The dim glow streamed around his broad shoulders and painted him in hulking shadows. Only the quicksilver of his eyes glittered, mirroring the starlight at his back.

He felt . . . elemental. Solid. If her Tavish had been laughter and sunrise, Captain Balfour was steel and midnight.

It should have terrified her. Or, at the very least, been cause for a modicum of trepidation.

But that disturbing solitary thread of thrill remained.

Isla closed the door and leaned back into it. Her hands remained behind her, clasping the door handle. As if it could spare her the force of him. Or steady her in the onslaught of memory. Or, at the very least, provide a quick escape.

“Why am I here?” she whispered. “I assume you spoke with your solicitor and set things in motion with the procurator fiscal, as you said you would. Has anything changed from our last conversation?”

He shook his head, a single stroke to the left.

She gripped the door handle tighter.

Pushing off the windowsill, he crossed to her. Isla drew herself up, standing as tall as possible. He still loomed. Not threatening, per se. Just . . . large.

“Then why summon me here?” Isla continued, tongue darting out to lick her lips. “We risk much if we are caught.”

That seemed to amuse him. His lip pillows quirked upward in the low light.

“The horror,” he deadpanned. “What would follow should we be found together, yourself and I? A duel for your honor? Demands that we marry?”

Darkly ironic, those words.

“A marriage that might stick this time, you mean? I don’t think you want that outcome any more than I do.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Pardon?”

“I count Edward Archer among my closest friends. He has saved my life—and I his—more times than I can quickly count. I would die for that man.” A pause. “I did not, however, expect to hand him my wife .”

Tavish watched his words land, emotions fluttering across Isla’s face.

Surprise and resolve.

That was how Tavish would label the flare of her eyes and slight lift of her jaw.

Aye, the light was dim, but she faced the window, capturing what there was of the waxing moon.

“And what of it?” Her chin edged higher. “Your esteem of Colonel Archer only does him credit and proves my good sense. I anticipate that you and I will both remarry eventually. Colonel Archer is an excellent choice. I should think you happy to see me well-married and content.”

Tavish ground his teeth, as he could scarcely disagree. Fletch was the best of men.

“You seemed to find Miss Crowley’s ample bosom alluring this evening,” Isla continued. “I am sure it will be no hardship to unearth a lady to console you in the wake of my loss.”

As you have no doubt done in the past , her tone added.

Her words slashed outward. Tavish felt their bite, the cut unexpected and stinging.

Was this the woman she had always been fated to become? This withdrawn and caustic creature?

Fletch thought of her as everything elegant and refined—more complimentary words than cool or unfeeling —but Tavish had once known the wild color within her. He had reveled in it.

What happened to that girl? Or had she never really existed? Tavish would not be the first man to see only what he wished in a woman.

He didn’t disabuse her notion that he might have sought solace elsewhere. She clearly had not been loyal to him or their marital vows—in thought, certainly, if not in some small deed.

A man did have his pride, after all.

“You have no right to this fit of jealousy,” she finished .

“Jealousy? This has naught to do with jealousy, lass, and everything to do with communication.”

At least, that was the reason he told himself.

“Communication?” she scoffed.

“Aye! Like it or not, your actions still affect myself. If ye go dragging another innocent gentleman—”

“Another?!”

“—into this quagmire, it may prove a fly in the ointment.”

Her eyes narrowed at him.

“Our current course for divorce depends upon us both presenting unimpeachable reasons for wanting to secure said divorce,” he continued. “If ye are betrothed to another, it undermines everything.”

“How? Because this still sounds like you’re simply jealous.”

“How?! Och , ye go from a wife deserted by her husband to a scheming shrew intent on more money than I can provide. And given that both Fletch and I are the second sons of an earl, our case would prove easy to—”

“Fletch?”

“Archer,” Tavish amended. “His nickname is Fletch.”

“I see. And what is yours?”

“My what?”

“Your nickname?”

“Not bastard , as I’m sure you’re thinking.”

“Truly? But it is so fitting.”

Tavish couldn’t stop a startled laugh.

“Hush! Someone will hear.” She glanced toward the door at her back.

“Unlikely. I’m the only guest on this floor, as it was determined that the stench of my presence was too close to your august elder brother. The other bedchambers are empty. And your room is the one below this one.”

“How do you know?”

He tapped his nose. “Reconnaissance.” He took a step toward her. “Fletch being in the middle of this complicates everything. Have ye told him you’re married?”

She shook her head just once— No.

Dread sank through Tavish’s bones.

“Lass, I cannot keep this secret from Fletch. He is one of my closest frie—”

“You must. Our marriage isn’t your secret alone to disclose. I do not wish to tell Colonel Archer about it until he and I have decided we suit. Until then, the point is moot.”

“Fletch will view it as the most craven betrayal on my part when he finds out. More importantly, I don’t ken he will react favorably to ye keeping the fact of your marriage from him. He will justly view your actions as duplicitous.”

“Perhaps, but I am the one who will have to deal with the aftermath of Colonel Archer’s reaction.” She tapped her chest. “And I would like to tell him in my own way and my own time. You owe me that, at least.”

The dread tightened around Tavish’s ribcage.