Page 44 of A Tartan Love (The Earls of Cairnfell #1)

What was she to do? She refused to abandon Malton Hill and her community .

How could she have behaved so stupidly? Clearly, seven years of regret had taught her nothing. The first chance she got, she had thrown herself into Tavish Balfour’s arms, greedily feasting on his kisses.

That deep grief welled upward at the mere thought of Tavish and everything they had once been. Everything she had lost and forgotten.

As a girl, she remembered hearing of a ghastly flood that had destroyed a Swiss village. Part of the mountain above the town collapsed into a nearby lake, sending a towering wall of water crashing into the village and burying it under hundreds of feet of debris.

If loosed, she feared her grief would swallow her in a similar fashion, burying her so deep, she would be lost forever.

Her chest spasmed, breath coming in stuttering gasps.

No!

Through sheer willpower, she pushed the tide of emotion back down.

She would think about Tavish later . . . about those few transcendent minutes in his arms and the implication of Colonel Archer’s words to him— I’ve never seen you touch a woman . . . celibate as a monk! . . . she let me kiss her, even knowing . . .

A trembling, anxious energy seized her limbs, crushing her ribcage and shaking her shoulders. Her breathing stuttered, and the world went dark at the edges.

Pressing a hand to Gray’s door, Isla forced air in and out of her lungs, anything to stem the attack of panicking terror.

A few minutes later, she heard the other guests retreating downstairs.

She couldn’t endure Miss Crowley’s questions or Lord Milmouth’s reproachful face.

Swiping at her tears, she silently willed Gray to open his door one last time before retreating to her own bedchamber.

Five hours later , as the first light of dawn washed the sky, Isla waited downstairs in the entrance hall, her trunk packed .

She knew her brother.

He would depart at first light with minimal leave-taking. Anything to avoid witnessing the stench of her scandal being paraded before others.

And, for once, she was unsure if Gray would permit her to accompany him.

Slowly, the sun crested the horizon, washing the world in golden sunlight. Her eyes were scratchy and surely red-rimmed but dry. Unlike the last time her world crumbled, she would not tumble into melancholy and listlessness.

No. This time, she had Malton Hill and a reason to fight.

She had to try to make things right with Gray, to at least attempt a reconciliation. Anything, really, to convince him of the necessity of his help in ending her marriage.

As she expected, the ducal carriage rolled around from the stables and stopped before the front stairs.

There was no sign of Gray, but Isla brooked no chances. She ordered her trunk strapped to the back of the carriage and then accepted the hand of a footman who assisted her inside.

Her behavior was a blatant challenge, and well she knew it. But as Gray hadn’t ordered the servants to refuse her . . .

If Gray intended to cast her out, he would have to do it publicly in front of Lord and Lady Milmouth. And Isla was betting her brother was too scandal-averse to make such a scene.

As a peace offering, she sat with her back to the horses. Typically, a gentleman would take the rear-facing seat, ceding the preferred forward-facing side of a conveyance to a lady. But Gray suffered from nausea after traveling too long, particularly when sitting against the flow of motion.

A typical carriage ride would end with Gray slowly turning an alarming shade of green until Isla forced him to sit beside her.

Today, she surrendered her seat in a show of humility.

Gray arrived a short while later, walking stick in hand and gait still uneven . . . which did not bode well for their conversation.

He scarcely glanced at her as he took his seat and rapped the ceiling, indicating the coachman should spring the horses .

Carriage in motion, Gray stared out the window, one hand resting atop his walking stick, his gloved fingers opening and closing around its brass top.

With an irritated toss of his head, he tugged off his top hat, setting it on the seat beside him.

A few minutes later, his gloves followed, landing inside his hat.

He ran a hand through his hair, standing the tawny strands on end before turning back to the window.

Yes. Gray was incandescent with rage.

Usually, he could resist his fidgeting and loathing of confining clothing.

Not today, however.

Isla said nothing until they crossed the gate marking the entrance to Kingswell House.

“Captain Balfour and I intend to divorce.” Isla kept her tone even and factual. “He has already made inquiries into the matter.”

Gray flexed his fingers, jaw tensing. The only indication he had heard her.

“I still intend to marry a gentleman who meets with your approval,” she continued. “Perhaps . . . perhaps even Colonel Archer, if he will still have me.”

That got her brother’s attention.

Ever so slowly, his head rotated toward her, the gold flecks in his hazel eyes flashing fire.

“Before last night, I had considered you to be a lady of some sense, Isla Kinsey. But now?” He laughed, an acidic sound.

Isla recoiled as if scalded.

Gray leaned forward. “What gentleman of reputation, pray tell, would marry a divorced, scandalous woman?” A slice of his head.

“None. Not. One. You are naive in the extreme if you think Milmouth or Archer will even associate with you after this, much less consider allying themselves with your reputation.”

“Perhaps, but—”

“But NOTHING!” Gray roared.

Isla recoiled. This was the Gray of that dreadful night long ago, the last time he caught her kissing Tavish Balfour. The Gray she hadn’t seen since, but lived in fear of. The one who looked like her brother, but was anything but brotherly .

“You idiotic, stupid slattern of a woman! You will drag us all into your disgrace!” he continued, eyes blazing. “And I had thought our light-skirt of a mother to be beyond the pale! At least Father managed to keep that quiet.”

A terrible trembling started in Isla’s legs.

“Once word of this gets out, not one gentleman will have you, Isla. Not. One! You are as good as dead to Polite Society!”

Isla’s natural instinct was to retreat, to cower before Gray’s fury.

But she was no longer that terrified girl.

The woman she had become at Malton Hill reared up within her.

The one who had stood up to angry tenants thinking they could run roughshod over their young landlord.

The one who had argued for better work conditions for the poor house and a school for the village children.

The woman who, just this week, had hatched a plan to save a young widow and her children from penury.

“I’m married, Gray! To the son of an Earl of the Realm. You may hate Lord Northcairn and his children, but that doesn’t diminish the fact that they are members of the Peerage. It’s not as if Tavish and I have carried on in sin! There has been no sinning at all!”

“That kiss was the very definition of sin!” Gray let out a shout of laughter. “It appeared akin to how a sailor falls upon a harlot after too long at sea. The sort of kiss a man bestows right before he tups a woman senseless against an alleyway wall. Or a bedpost, in your case.”

A dreadful blush scorched Isla’s cheeks, her ears burning from his crude language. Frustration and anger and helplessness mounted in her chest, that trembling spreading from her legs to her abdomen to her hands.

Tears clogged her throat. Why, why, WHY as a woman must emotion coalesce in tears? Why couldn’t she scream her rage and pound her fists in fury like a man?!

Instead, she bit the inside of her lower lip, willing back the sting in her eyes. Anything to stop the rising flood. Were it to overtake her, she wasn’t sure she would survive.

She stared at her brother, praying, hoping she could unearth some vestige of the kind heart she knew he had once possessed.

“Piers,” she said, his given name emerging on a tremor .

The name she hadn’t used since he assumed the dukedom.

The name he wore when last he loved her.

He recoiled. Not much, but enough for Isla to see his Christian name had landed with a thwack .

“Please. You once loved me. You once cared about me and about my happiness—” Her voice cracked. A single tear broke loose, splashing on her cheek. “I need your help, Piers. I made a terrible mistake, one I have regretted for years. Please.”

Gray made a dismissive noise, giving her his profile. “Marry in haste, repent at leisure . . . isn’t that how the saying goes?”

Another tear fell.

“Piers, I know that my reputation is potentially damaged. Long ago, you, Matt, and I promised to be one another’s support.

To never turn our backs on one another. I have tried to be that for you.

I have been your hostess during the Season and tended your household.

But now, I need your help in return. If anyone could find a way out of this debacle without the news of my divorce landing in the gossip rags—without it becoming public knowledge—it would be you. Please.”

She wasn’t above begging for her future. For the woman she wished to be.

“That kiss was not one of regret, Isla.” Gray still didn’t look at her. “That kiss was a homecoming, not a departure.”

“And what if it was?!” She threw up her hands, crying in earnest now. “It doesn’t matter. I want Malton Hill and her people. I don’t want a future with Tavish Balfour!”

“Poverty, you mean. You don’t want a future of poverty . The man, however . . . I think you would happily take him if you could have your dowry, too . . . which will never happen as long as my heart continues to beat.”

Isla struggled to draw air. The trembling had reached her chin, causing her words to warble.

“H-he is essentially a s-stranger, Piers.”

“And how well did you know him before you married? His prospects haven’t changed, Isla! He might be an earl’s son, but that is all he has to recommend himself.”

“Please, Piers. If you can find even a single thread of love for me— ”

“Bah!” He looked out the window once more, giving her his shoulder and dismissing the rest of the conversation.

Isla wept . . . silent, fat drops of despair.

That frightening tremor of panic and anxiety rose again, banding her lungs and making it difficult to draw air.

She fought to tamp it down, to avoid sinking into the morass of sorrow and pain and fear she could sense rolling toward her. That immense wall of water and churning debris that would see her subsumed into grief.

Pressing a hand to her stomach, she fought to breathe.

The carriage rolled on, tackle clanking.

Gray’s hand flexed atop his walking stick—once, twice—the inset ruby of his ducal signet ring flashing. A small but potent symbol of his complete power over her.

Finally, he looked back to her, his gaze moving dispassionately over her face. Utterly unmoved by her distress.

“You plead for my love and forbearance, Isla.” His tone was as chilly as his expression.

“But I am not the one who has been inconstant here. I have long considered your future and your happiness. You have always had my support, more than you can comprehend. Despite your bastard status, I have safeguarded your dowry and ensured you are luxuriously clothed and housed and given every opportunity afforded a lady of your station. I have run off fortune hunters—Tavish Balfour being merely the first of a long string of them, I assure you—and made contacts with every eligible gentleman in the ton . I have ignored the lowly stench of your birth and refused to publish my father’s letter.

Instead, I have labored for years to ensure your happiness and well-being! ”

“I am th-thankful for—”

“No! You are most certainly not thankful! You are a wailing child, upset that you have been caught. You dislike having to face the consequences of your poor choices.”

The grief rose. The wall of emotion rushed toward her with terrifying speed, white caps frothing and churning.

“Gray! Piers, please, if you would just—”

“Isla, you have recklessly put your own sensibilities and desires before your duty and responsibility to our family name. You have taken the Kinsey name—the one my father and I have so generously allowed you to keep—and slathered it in the foul stench of scandal, proving once and for all that you are no better than your illegitimate birth. And now, like my father before me, I am forced to shelter and care for a duplicitous woman. It is not to be borne!”

Gray shook his head now, teeth grinding in anger.

“No,” he muttered, almost to himself. “I will not bear it.”

He fixed her with a long, weighty stare. All the fine hairs on Isla’s arms flared to attention.

Her chest heaved, the raging tempest towering overhead.

“I think, dear sister . . . it is time you understood the consequences of the choice you have made.”

The merciless timbre of his voice cut deep.

Isla tried to speak, to plead her case.

But the monster of her grief crashed, burying her under its weight.

Isla crumpled to the carriage floor, tears drenching her skirts.