Page 43 of A Tartan Love (The Earls of Cairnfell #1)

T avish staggered sideways, whirling to a crouch. Every sense alert, cataloging the danger.

His heart was a kettle drum against his ribs.

Grayburn filled his vision—a silk banyan thrown over shirtsleeves and trousers—mouth twisted in rage.

“Damned mongrel curr!” the duke snarled, lunging for Tavish. The abrupt motion sent both the man’s mule slippers flying, pitching Grayburn forward.

Isla screamed.

Tavish dodged again, pivoting as Grayburn stumbled and fought to regain his balance, roaring obscenities.

“Gray! Stop!” Isla sobbed, drawing her own dressing gown around her body.

Tavish darted to place himself between his wife and her brother. As ever, instinctively protecting her.

Grayburn bellowed, taking three uneven steps before having his elbows seized by Ross and Fletch, who Tavish finally noticed were in the room as well.

“You miserable. Scheming! BASTARD!” Grayburn raged, pulling against the hands that held him. “I will see you hanged for this! I will destroy you! How DARE YOU TOUCH HER!”

Isla was weeping at Tavish’s back, deep hiccupping sobs.

Chest heaving, Tavish’s military training snicked into place. He assessed the room with clinical precision.

Someone had placed a large candelabra on a chest beside the open door.

Grayburn continued to pull against the other men’s hold, the maroon of his banyan matching the red of his face.

He was barefoot, his slippers discarded.

Tonight marked the only time Tavish had ever seen the duke without shoes, making the lacking two-inches of his right leg glaringly apparent in the slope of his shoulders.

Holding Grayburn’s right arm, Ross looked at Tavish with understanding and pity.

But it was Fletch, grasping Grayburn’s left arm, who held Tavish’s attention.

His friend appeared shattered—the very image of heartbreak. Good, kind Fletch who had saved Tavish from enemy fire at the Battle of Badajoz. The man who had rallied Tavish’s spirits and championed him at every step and never once wavered in his loyalty.

Grayburn shrugged free, straightening his banyan with brisk movements, his face shuttering in the candlelight. The duke’s icy facade had been restored. Limping, he rammed his feet back into his slippers, the thick sole of the right mule instantly correcting his gait.

He turned back to Tavish with a sneer. “I would challenge you to a duel, Balfour, but your carcass isn’t worthy of the honor of me filling it with lead.”

Tavish only half-heard Grayburn’s threats. The man’s rancor was an ancient thing, well-worn and expected.

But Fletch’s devastation . . . his look of bewilderment and confusion. Like the entire world had turned upside down, and he couldn’t make sense of reality .

“I don’t understand.” Fletch shook his head.

“Ross and I caught Grayburn coming out of Lady Isla’s room.

She had vanished, and His Grace was convinced that she was with you, Balfour.

Which . . . I assumed to be laughable. Ross and I followed His Grace to your room, certain we would find you there, fast asleep.

Because . . . I know you. You would never—”

“He’s a dishonorable bastard, Archer,” Grayburn spat. “I’ve been telling you this in no uncertain terms all week. This isn’t the first time Balfour has been sniffing about my sister.”

“No . . . b-but . . . I don’t . . .” Fletch stared at Tavish.

“I don’t understand, Balfour. In all the years I’ve known you, I’ve never seen you touch a woman.

You’ve never even looked longingly at a lady, no matter how comely.

You are as celibate as a monk!” His voice picked up steam.

“You told Ross and me that you were married! Married! That you would honor your vows to your wife! And now you do this?!” He pointed toward Isla.

“Seduce the woman you know I am courting? Have you gone mad?!”

Tavish was watching Grayburn as Fletch spoke. The word married struck the duke as true as an enemy barrage. His Grace took a staggering step backward, his wide and horrified gaze dropping to his sister.

It was easily the most raw emotion Tavish had ever seen the man display.

I suppose he is human after all , some part of Tavish mused.

“ Isla! ” Her name emerged from Grayburn’s lips as half curse, half horror.

Fletch looked to Grayburn and then back to Tavish, his expression confused . . . before the truth dawned. His jaw went slack.

“Ye are correct, Fletch. I will always honor my marriage vows. That has not changed.” Tavish took in a slow breath, his head helplessly tilting to Isla hiding behind him. “However, there is no dishonor in a man kissing his wife.”

Grayburn continued to stand frighteningly still. As if he had just been dealt a mortal wound and, though his intellect knew himself done for, his body had yet to crumple. His gaze darted from Isla to Tavish and then back again.

Fletch shook his head, equally as stunned. “You’re married . . . to Lady Isla? ”

Tavish nodded.

“How long?” Fletch asked.

“Seven years.”

Grayburn’s nostrils flared.

Fletch winced. “I kissed her.” He pointed to Isla. “She let me kiss her, even knowing that she was . . .”

He trailed off.

Tavish briefly closed his eyes, the sting of Fletch’s words biting deep.

Isla sobbed anew.

“At least you were more loyal to her than she was to you,” Fletch continued, voice hurt and baffled.

Grayburn had gone from red-faced to white-lipped.

Isla touched Tavish’s sleeve, her chest hiccupping.

“ G-Gray? ” she gasped around his arm.

Tavish hated the pleading in her tone. The fear and worry.

Without a word, Grayburn pivoted and left the room, the silk of his banyan flaring behind him.

“Gray! No! Wait!” Isla called, dashing after him.

“Isla!” Tavish reached for her.

Why? He didn’t know. Only that Grayburn was in a towering fury and would not be kind to her gentle heart. And Tavish, more than anything, wanted to spare her more pain.

She pushed out of his grip and raced after her brother.

Tavish took one step to follow, only to be stopped by Fletch’s fist punching with brutal force. Pain exploded in Tavish’s cheek. He staggered sideways from the blow and looked back at his friend.

Fletch stood shaking out his hand.

“That was for not telling me!” he raged. “I deserved to know! You owed me that much, Balfour!”

“I should have told ye,” Tavish nodded, wiping away blood from his nose. “Not that it’s an excuse, but Isla begged me not to. She wanted to control how and when ye learned. I think she intended to tell ye this morning, when ye proposed.”

“Your wife, you mean?! When I proposed marriage to your wife !” Fletch was pacing now.

“Aye. My wife. ”

A flurry of footsteps sounded in the hallway. Lord Milmouth appeared in a nightshirt and cap, a banyan loosely drawn around his shoulders and a candle held aloft. The ladies crowded behind him, standing on tiptoe, eyes wide.

His lordship’s gaze flicked between his son still shaking his hand and Tavish dripping blood.

“I say,” his lordship rumbled, “what the blazes is going on? Lady Isla in hysterics and Grayburn in a thunderous fury? And now this?”

Tavish looked at his two friends. Somehow, despite everything, they still understood each other. Fletch jerked his chin toward the door, turning to stare out the window.

“Later, my lord.” Ross politely, but firmly, shut the door in their faces.

“But what happened?!” Tavish heard Miss Crowley say, a bit too loudly. “Why is Captain Balfour bleeding?”

Ross handed Tavish a handkerchief, which he took with murmured thanks. His eye would be properly black and blue by tomorrow. He could already feel it pulsing.

“You knew!” Fletch pointed an accusing finger at Ross.

Ross held up his hands, palms out. “I put the clues together a few days ago, Fletch. I haven’t known long. Balfour requested that Lady Isla be the one to tell ye. I wasn’t going to betray the lady like that.”

Fletch growled and returned to his pacing.

“I’ve hurt my hand,” he muttered, flexing his fingers. “Damn you and your hard head, Balfour. You won’t even permit a fellow the pleasure of punching you properly.”

Tavish watched Fletch as he crossed from the fireplace to the window and back again.

“I still intend to divorce her, Fletch.”

“After that panting display?!”

“She doesn’t want me.”

Fletch laughed. A caustic burst of sound. “If that kiss wasn’t the very definition of wanting, then I haven’t the foggiest notion of what the hell wanting is! She certainly didn’t kiss me like that.”

Tavish flinched, but soldiered on. “I have nothing to offer her, Fletch, as well ye know. I’m no better than a pauper. That hasn’t changed. ”

Fletch continued in his pacing.

“Well, at least I know now you’re human,” his friend muttered. “I had wondered at times.”

Tavish dabbed at his nose. “Far too human.”

Human enough to feel the reverberating cracks of the evening’s events.

He was well and truly wrecked . . . in every sense of the word.

Finally, Fletch stopped and faced him. The man’s expression hardened, moving from that of a friend to the fierce colonel the French army had feared.

“I think you and Ross should leave at first light.” Fletch crossed to the door. “After the events of tonight . . . I need some space to ponder my next steps and whether my future will include either of you at all.”

He exited with a loud clack .

Isla pounded on Gray’s bedroom door.

“Gray! Speak with me!”

She had flown down the hallway after her brother, nearly colliding with Lord Milmouth and the rest of the guests coming upstairs. Apologizing, she had pushed past them, trying to catch Gray. He was limping badly, a sure sign of his wrath.

He had slammed into his room and locked the door before she could reach him.

“Gray!” she called.

She needed to speak with him. To explain what had happened before he made a rash decision.

Of all the ways for him to learn of her marriage . . .

Lungs hiccupping, she leaned her forehead against the cold wood. The tears continued to fall.