Page 41 of A Tartan Love (The Earls of Cairnfell #1)

T he kiss had been a mistake.

Isla knew it the moment she heard Gray’s aristocratic voice coming up the path.

The following hours only proved her right.

She endured Gray’s lecture on the evils of being caught alone with Tavish. Never mind that had she been snugged with Colonel Archer in a grotto in the woods, Gray wouldn’t have said a word.

She wrote to Mr. Cranston and outlined her plan for assisting Mrs. Tippets and her children.

Over dinner, Isla smiled at Colonel Archer and talked with Lady Milmouth and watched Miss Crowley flirt relentlessly with Tavish.

All the while, reliving that life-ruining kiss.

It had been a horrific mistake, Isla decided, but not for the obvious logical reasons.

Because, in hindsight . . . it had scarcely even been a kiss. The faintest touch of lips. So light and quick, it was over before she had properly registered its occurrence. An indistinct caress, as hazy and vague as shadows drifting through mist.

In summation—the most dissatisfying kiss in the history of womankind.

It hadn’t been enough of a kiss for objective comparison to Tavish’s past kisses. It certainly hadn’t been enough to resurrect his ghost, much less banish it forever. It most definitely hadn’t quenched her curiosity or desire.

Quite the opposite, in fact.

Their brief kiss felt akin to the lingering coals of a fire. Just enough heat to set a fuse to smoking, but hardly sufficient to ignite a blaze.

And now that fuse of desire smoldered. It smoked and glowed and craved the final hot spark needed to burst into flame.

Isla knew she should smother that flicker of desire. Shut the metaphorical chimney flue and suffocate it entirely. No good would come of fanning the spark into a conflagration.

Worse, she kept replaying Tavish’s tortured whisper of her name—

“Isla . . .”

In her mind, ellipses trailed off the end leading . . . where? What words had he intended to say at the end of those dots?

Maddening.

And even more maddening, she would likely never know.

Their week at Kingswell House ended in just three days. Tavish would continue his preparations for America and whatever he intended to do there. She would return to Dunmore with Gray and envision a life as Mrs. Archer of Malton Hill.

She would, perhaps, see Tavish once he had a hearing with the procurator fiscal, at which time she would tell Gray about her marriage. Isla and Tavish would likely have to appear before a judge . . .

. . . and that would be that.

Her marriage would dissolve, and Tavish would leave, never to cross her path again.

And that felt . . .

It felt . . .

The only word she could summon was unbearable .

Unendurable .

It would not do.

Isla struggled to swallow the thousand unanswered questions hovering on her tongue.

What were Tavish’s plans in America? How, precisely, had he ended up in the 95th Rifles? What series of events had led to the scar on his cheek? Had he ever, as he charged into rifle fire or reloaded behind a barricade, thought of her and wished desperately for one more hour in her arms?

Had this past week—the weight of their glances, the brush of their hands, the barest press of their lips in the grotto—unmoored him as thoroughly as it had her?

Yet, despite these questions, she spoke not a word to him.

Malton Hill. That is your goal, she reminded herself. Stay in Gray’s good graces, retain your dowry and the lady you have fought to become.

For his part, Tavish mirrored her actions. He didn’t speak to her directly and rarely even looked her way. Heaven knew what Gray had threatened.

But Tavish was clearly just as aware of her as Isla was of him.

The morning after their kiss-that-was-scarcely-a-kiss, the company congregated in the breakfast room. Gray had yet to make an appearance, thank goodness, improving Isla’s mood. Miss Crowley insisted Tavish sit between her and Isla, placing Tavish on Isla’s left side.

Across the table, Miss Forsyth kept up a steady barrage of impertinent questions regarding Gray.

“Do you think he intends to marry soon?”

“I cannot say.” Isla stirred her tea.

“Have you noticed him favoring a specific young lady?”

“My brother is the soul of discretion, Miss Forsyth. He would never raise expectations.”

The girl was relentless. The longer her interrogation went on, the more frustration built in Isla’s chest. She didn’t want to discuss her brother, but neither did she wish to give Miss Forsyth a stern set-down. Such was not Isla’s way.

“But if His Grace were to show partiality toward a young lady, what would he do or say?” Miss Forsyth asked .

Before Isla could respond, she felt a warm weight pressing into her thigh under the table—Tavish’s leg resting against her own, steady and supporting.

I’m here , it said. I see ye.

It was a shocking breach of etiquette but one unseen underneath the tablecloth.

Isla sipped her tea, steadying her breathing and willing her blush away. She dared a peek at Tavish from beneath her lashes.

His lips were slightly pinched, as if suppressing a grin. As if he found this situation rather absurd.

Abruptly, she found herself fighting a smile of her own. Miss Forsyth’s increasingly brazen questions about Gray were ridiculous, now that Isla considered them in that light.

“A gentleman will always keep his feelings close, Miss Forsyth,” Tavish said, drawing the girl’s attention. “It is to Lady Isla’s credit that she does not break her brother’s confidence. Miss Crowley has suggested boating on the lake today. What say ye?”

The conversation shifted after that, but Tavish kept his leg pressed to hers. Isla was sure he meant it as a silent bolstering, but the touch abraded her already frayed nerves.

The next day, Isla lost one of her gloves while on a walk.

It was a favorite glove, and she and the ladies spent the better part of an hour retracing their steps in search of it, but to no avail.

They told their woes to the gentlemen over lunch, who made suitable noises of sympathy. Tavish didn’t say a word.

But lo, when Isla went to retire that night, there was her glove—muddy and a bit worse for wear—waiting on her dressing table.

She found a note inside, written in their code.

Because I ken how much ye detest cold hands.

The dear man.

How was she to manage the pang beneath her breastbone? With each kindness, each act of caring, a bit more of her succumbed to him. She may not know the man Tavish had become, but the soul of him, as he said, was the same .

But how she longed to know the man, too.

To relearn the crags and valleys of his heart.

To bask in the warmth of his deep baritone and simply listen.

She would see him smiling with Miss Crowley or offering to assist Lady Milmouth or sharing a memory with Captain Ross .

. . and that pang would intensify. A craving to claim Tavish as her own once more.

It was the purest madness.

On the final day of the house party, Isla could scarcely think.

She felt as if she walked the cliff’s edge of Cairnfell itself. A thin line where one wrong step could send her tumbling into catastrophe.

She and Tavish had leapt from that cliff’s edge once and had both paid a heavy price.

Remember Malton Hill became her almost hourly chant.

It was the only thing that saved her sanity—pondering her community and work there. The one that marriage to Colonel Archer could give her.

The colonel had hinted on two separate occasions that he wished to speak with her. Alone.

Isla had pretended to misunderstand his meaning both times.

If he proposed, and if Isla said yes, Lady Milmouth would insist upon an impromptu celebration. Isla couldn’t bear forcing her current husband to celebrate her impending nuptials to another man.

The final evening drew to a close, and they all said brief goodbyes in the drawing room, promising to see one another in the morning before departure.

Tavish had slipped from the room unnoticed an hour before.

There would be no goodbye between them.

A dreadful weight lodged in Isla’s stomach as she made her way upstairs.

Gray rapped on her chamber door just before she climbed into bed.

“Archer has requested a private audience with you before we depart tomorrow,” her brother said without preamble.

Though entirely expected, the announcement landed with the clang of a prison door.

Isla could scarcely say why .

Colonel Archer represented the future she wanted—Malton Hill and her stewardship of its lands and people. She had known this was coming. And the timing was excellent, as she sensed Tavish would be gone before sunrise.

Gone.

Just conjuring the word caused her grief to ripple.

“Of course,” she said through lips gone numb.

She would have to tell the colonel of her marriage before accepting him. Honor demanded no less. The hour of reckoning bore down on her like a runaway carriage.

“Excellent. I will inform Archer that he may have an audience after breakfast. I had planned to leave before luncheon, but perhaps we should consider extending our stay for a day or two. Permit you and Archer to celebrate and plan your life together.”

“Of course,” she repeated on a nod.

“Good night, Sister. Sleep well.”

Gray closed the door behind him. The warning in his tone hung in the air. Sleep soundly and stay put was his unspoken demand.

Isla crawled into bed and snuffed her candle. The bed canopy loomed overhead.

She thought of Malton Hill and the woman she was there—strong, independent, flourishing.

She could easily imagine her steward, Mr. Cranston, pushing his spectacles up his nose as they discussed wool yields and plans for refurbishing tenant cottages along the river.

Or hear the rattle of her chatelaine as she counted silver with the housekeeper and went over the household accounts.

How she wanted that life!