Page 48 of A Tartan Love (The Earls of Cairnfell #1)

She noted the flex of his biceps against the thin linen of his shirtsleeves.

The ease with which he balanced on the balls of his feet, calves flexing in his woolen stockings, gently coaxing the fire to life.

The confident way he cut the bread into uniform slices and slipped them onto a skewer for toasting.

Colonel Archer’s words to Tavish on that fateful night would not let her be— I’ve never seen you touch a woman. You are as celibate as a monk!

Was that true? Had Tavish spent the past seven years as chaste as a priest, loyal to her and their marriage vows?

The notion held a lovelorn sort of ache.

As she was growing and changing at Malton Hill and planning a future without him, he had been doggedly faithful to her.

Year after year, as he slogged through winter mud in Portugal and baked beneath summer sun in Spain, Isla had been there, in his thoughts and desires.

If she pondered it too long—Tavish languishing in some far-off clime, heart stalwart and true—a stone lodged in her stomach.

And then to see him now—still beside her, still loyal—his broad shoulders flexing as he lifted a slice of bread from the fire . . .

Finally, she could bear the wondering no longer.

“Is it true what Colonel Archer said?” she asked, leaning forward on the sofa .

“Pardon?”

He handed her a plate of perfectly toasted bread slathered in a thick layer of soft crowdie cheese, topped with a drizzle of marmalade and a sprinkle of salt. It smelled heavenly.

“Is it true that you never touched a woman in all your years in the army?” she asked.

Tavish shifted on his stool before the fire, toasting iron extended over the flames. He spared her a glance over his shoulder.

“Of course. Ye think I would betray ye like that?” His tone held a hint of incredulity.

“I wouldn’t have blamed you if you had.” She touched the crust of her bread on her plate.

He was silent for a moment.

“Because ye kissed Fletch?” He asked the question without inflection, not a trace of accusation.

Which somehow made it worse. Because his anger, she could counter. She could use it to stoke her own ire. But to feel his understanding and perhaps a hint of melancholy . . .

That merely added more weight to her regret.

“Yes.” Just the once , she wanted to add . It meant nothing.

She didn’t. Because, though it was the truth, saying the words felt too much like a child brushing off bad behavior. And at the time, the kiss hadn’t meant nothing. She had hoped it would be a beginning to something. A promise of sorts.

Though now, in hindsight, she had to wonder.

Colonel Archer’s kiss had been pleasant, but certainly not the all-consuming incineration she experienced with Tavish.

Which type of kiss was the result of genuine, long-lasting love? She couldn’t say.

“And others?” He rotated his own toast over the flames, as if her answer mattered not at all. But the white grip of his knuckles on the skewer betrayed him. “You kissed others?”

“And others,” she whispered.

He glanced at her again, as if he had heard her regret that time.

She took a bite of her toast. The contrasting warm crunch of the bread, the creamy tang of the crowdie , and the sweet yet bitter punch of the marmalade should have quickened her senses.

Instead, the whole stuck in her throat.

He pulled his toast off the skewer with practiced ease, setting the hot bread on a plate balanced on his thigh. Pushing aside the cloth-covered plate, he reached for the crock of crowdie .

She watched as he prepared his own slice as he had hers— crowdie , marmalade, and a pinch of salt. And then, as was his wont, he took an obscene bite.

That peek of her Tavish felt like a gleam of sun in January—the faintest echo of summer . . . of a season, now lost, when life had burst with bright happiness.

To think, she was the last woman he had touched.

Well, of course, she was. It had only been four days since they had nearly combusted in each other’s arms.

But before that. From their first kiss almost eight years ago to this moment, she had been the only woman whose cheek he had caressed, the only one who had made his body crackle with heat and his chest rumble with desire.

The very idea felt almost too large to accept. To think he esteemed her to such an extent, even after all this time.

The well of her shame sank deeper.

“Don’t,” he said, swallowing. “There is no need to mire yourself in guilt. What’s done is done.”

She nodded. And then, on a deep breath, offered him an olive branch.

“I have realized this week that those other gentlemen were all weak imitations. Somehow, I had diminished . . .” She motioned to the space between them. “But now . . .”

She drifted off. Because trying to say the words aloud sent the truth of them burrowing deep.

In a very real sense, after Tavish left, she had needed to reduce what they were to each other in order to preserve her sanity.

Because if what they had together had splintered so easily, what did that say about her?

About him? Surely, the fault had to have been in the shallowness of their relationship in the first place .

But now . . . she didn’t know.

She waited for that pang of grief to tremor as it always did when she thought of their past, of what she had lost . . . but in the present moment—sitting before him, watching him watch her—nothing came.

Perhaps these past days had scoured the pain away.

Toast in hand, Tavish unfolded his large body from the stool before the fire and, after a moment’s debate over where to sit—an armchair or the sofa—he sank down beside her on the sofa. Their bodies didn’t touch, but she felt the heat of him everywhere regardless.

They each took a bite of their toast, chewing slowly.

Tavish swallowed. “Ye have lived years of experiences that I cannot fathom, just as I have lived events that you cannot imagine. But as I’ve said, ye still know me better than anyone before or since.

I consider ye the person closest to my heart.

I would never—I could never—taint the memory of our past love—” Deep breath.

“—by seeking comfort in another’s arms. It would be akin to dining on pig slop after a rare and most elegant feast.”

Isla watched as he took another bite of toast. The afternoon sun filtered through the window behind them, burnishing his auburn hair. Vividly, she remembered the silken texture of it against her palms. How, when her nails scraped his scalp, he had growled, low and deep.

He brushed a loose crumb from his lips and then set his plate aside before angling his body toward hers.

“Isla, the truth is . . .” He took in another long breath before meeting her eyes.

Her heart stuttered.

His gaze was pure Tavish. Her Tavish. The open, sweet boy she had known. The boy, she was rapidly realizing, who had not vanished but had simply grown into this remarkable man.

“The truth is . . . ,” he swallowed, “as long as we are married . . . I would not want my first experience with . . . with intimacy to be with anyone but yourself.”

It took a moment for the impact of his words to land.

First experience . . .

Did he mean . . . ?

She turned to the left.

Set her own plate down on a side table.

Stared ahead for the space of three heartbeats.

And then looked back to him.

“First experience with intimacy?” she repeated.

He nodded, an eyebrow lifting as if to say, Yes, it is precisely as ye be thinking.

“But . . . I had always assumed, given your father and Callum and their behavior, that you had . . . before we married, of course . . .”

A blush scalded her skin. She had never asked him. At sixteen, she had been far too shy—too timid , forever that word—to voice such a probing question.

Tavish shook his head. Slowly, so slowly, he reached for her hand where it lay between them on the cushion. His fingers engulfed hers, the rough calluses on his palms brushing over her skin and flaring gooseflesh up her arm.

“Sometimes—” His index finger traced a blue vein on the back of her hand.

“—sometimes, seeing such lascivious behavior in a father or a brother has the opposite effect. I didn’t want to behave like them—to view women as mere things to be consumed by my lust. And once you and I became friends .

. . I couldn’t imagine being with anyone but yourself. ”

He smiled at the end of that—a sad, forlorn gesture. As if to say, more the fool me.

“So we’re both virgins?” For once, Isla chose to be direct.

He nodded.

It shouldn’t have mattered. Not really. It changed nothing. And yet . . .

Somehow, it did.

It meant that they were equals. That they had both, from the beginning, held on to the promise of one another. Even herself, try as she might to let it go.

Again, no grief thrummed at the thought. No pain at their youthful ignorance.

Instead, Isla felt . . .

She felt something akin to gladness. A sense of relief that the girl she had been wasn’t simply naive and suffering from a blind devotion she had mistakenly labeled as love.

No.

Tavish Balfour had been worthy of her heart. He had been true and loyal and resolute in his devotion, then and now.

She sat with that feeling for a long moment. Remembering how thoroughly she had loved him.

Colonel Archer was correct—Tavish was the most honorable of gentlemen.

He sat back on a sigh. “It is of no import now, I ken. But I felt ye should know.”

His words were casual, as if he expected they would drop the topic. As if it held no more interest for him.

But for Isla, she feared she was now blinking into the light of a new dawn.

Because if her love for him was not some tainted facsimile—if it had, indeed, been soul-deep and true—what was she to do now? How was she to weigh the very real needs and wants of her future against the power of that remembered love?

He brushed the back of her hand one last time before releasing his grip. Twisting, he lifted the cloth-covered plate off the side table, setting it on the couch between them.

Isla raised her eyebrows in question.

“I ken that in the bustle of everything, ye have forgotten.”

“Forgotten?”

“Aye.” He lifted the cloth off the plate, revealing a lovely iced Savoy cake, prettily decorated with sugared pansies.

“A cake?” Isla laughed.

Tavish smiled, small but tender. “Happy birthday, Isla.”

Oh!

She blinked, mind rapidly counting the days.

“Is it truly the twelfth?”

“Aye.”

“Why . . . I utterly forgot!” she laughed. “You procured us a cake!”

He chuckled. “Mariah helped. I merely asked. ”

Isla stared, emotions racing by so fast she struggled to catch hold of any one—surprise, bewilderment, gratitude.

“Also, there is this.” He tugged a small velvet pouch from his pocket. “A wee gift.”

Shaking her head in astonishment, Isla took the velvet bag. “When did you possibly have the time to acquire a gift?”

“I bought it for ye years ago in Portugal . . . on our first birthday apart.”

“And you kept it all these years?”

“Of course, I did. I’ve kept everything, lass.”

There was a weight behind his words that caused emotion to tighten in Isla’s throat.

Fingers trembling, she tugged open the pouch and tipped its contents into her palm. A round locket of deep blue enamel tumbled out. Isla gasped, examining the lovely bit of jewelry—royal blue enamel on one side, and a golden spiked sun nestled into the center on the other.

“Because ye have always been akin to the sun to me—a cheery bit of happiness.”

Isla swallowed back tears.

Pressing the small clasp, she opened the locket, finding it empty.

“I had intended to place a lock of my hair in the center, but . . .” Tavish trailed off on a shrug.

Isla turned the locket over in her hand, reveling in the solid heft of the gold, the smooth enamel cool against her skin.

“You carried it all these years?”

“Aye.” He gave another soft smile. “I couldn’t discard it any more than I could purge your memory. The locket is yours now.”

“Thank you. I will treasure it.” She gently tucked the locket back into the velvet bag, clutching the whole in her fist.

Turning, he reached for a knife to cut the cake.

“But it’s your birthday, too,” Isla murmured. “And I have nothing . . .”

Abruptly, it felt the cruelest thing . . . that he had remembered and wanted to ensure her birthday didn’t go uncelebrated. While at the same time, neglecting his own.

It was such a . . . a Tavish thing to do .

“I have a pudding.” He pointed a knife at the Savoy cake. “I don’t need much else.”

“Tavish—” she began and then broke off.

He met her gaze.

What was she to say? I fear I might be falling in love with you again ?

That wouldn’t be kind.

And yet, she couldn’t stop staring at him. At the wee mole near his left eyebrow that she had loved to kiss. The whorl in his wavy hair near his nape where she used to press a finger.

He met her gaze for a long moment before focusing his attention on the cake between them. “Ye can’t be giving me looks like that, lass.”

“Looks?”

“Aye. Your whole heart in your eyes.”

She nodded, as that was an accurate description. A tear slipped out. She turned from him to brush it away.

“Ye don’t want me,” he continued, tossing those words back at her once more. He cut a large slice of cake, sliding it onto her plate.

“No . . . no, I misspoke that night,” she whispered.

Pausing, he looked at her.

“It’s not that I don’t want you, Tavish.” I want you more than I can express . “It’s that I want . . . I want my home more.”

“Your home?”

“Yes. Malton Hill.”