Page 54 of A Tartan Love (The Earls of Cairnfell #1)

Too much love, too much longing and joy and everything to contain.

But . . .

Oof!

No more buts .

No more prevarication and wavering.

Isla Kinsey loved Tavish Balfour. Full stop.

Just as he loved her.

They were woven into the very fabric of one another’s souls.

How dare the man she loved not fight for his soul?

She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her dressing gown and then met her gaze in the mirror of the small vanity.

Huh.

She appeared as undone as she felt—eyes wide, color high on her cheeks, lips still red and bee-stung from Tavish’s kisses.

So this is what love looks like , she thought. True love.

Not a fanciful sort of passion or an inclination. Not a pleasant attachment formed from unity of thought and purpose. Not even the wild infatuation of a young girl lost in the heady delight of her first romance.

No.

This was an I-will-burn-for-you-until-the-day-I-die sort of devotion. A love that reshaped empires and incited wars and shattered two centuries of animosity between a pair of feuding families.

And between one breath and the next, Isla simply . . . knew.

The mere thought of living without him tasted of ash.

She could no more untangle the knot that bound her to Tavish Balfour than she could willfully stop her own beating heart.

Nothing else mattered beyond that. Any life she lived away from him would pale in comparison .

As he had said, he was hers.

And she was his.

Tavish tried to put some semblance of a lunch together.

But it was hard going.

His hand shook as he sliced the ham, leaving the cuts uneven. He didn’t dare attempt the bread.

Finally, he set down the knife and braced both hands atop the sideboard, trying to wrestle his wayward emotions under control.

It was proving a nearly impossible task.

He shouldn’t have given Isla an ultimatum. He shouldn’t have blurted out the truth of his love for her. It was unfair and possibly manipulative.

Her white-lipped, stunned face would haunt his dreams.

Bloody eejit .

Nausea crawled up his throat.

Their situation had become impossible.

The bedroom door opened with a snick .

Clenching his hands into fists, Tavish turned to look at her.

He had supposed her to be changing into a day dress and pinning up her hair. Instead, she wore the same dressing gown, hair still hanging in a long braid over one shoulder. His locket gleamed against her skin. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and her cheeks held the remnants of tears.

Never had she appeared more beautiful.

As ever, his foolish heart panged to see her distress, particularly as his own actions were the likely culprit.

Tavish leaned back against the sideboard, gripping its wooden edge with tense fingers. Anything to prevent himself from reaching for her.

“I’m sorry if I have overset ye,” he began. “That wasn’t my intention.”

“You have overset me.” Tears glittered in her lovely blue eyes. “Therefore, I have a request.”

“Anything, lass. ”

She darted a glance at the hearth. “I don’t want you to sleep in front of the fire anymore.”

His brows drew down. Of everything he thought she might say, this was not it.

“Pardon?”

She took a step toward him. Her hands fisted into her dressing gown, as if she were nervous.

“Husband, I don’t want you to sleep in front of the fire any longer.”

Tavish swallowed, his pulse a stampede of hooves against his ribs.

Surely, she didn’t mean . . .

“If not in front of the fire, then where should I sleep . . . Wife?”

“With me.”

“With yourself?”

She nodded, causing a tear to drop onto her cheek. Several more quickly followed.

Tavish struggled to breathe through the dawning reality of her words.

“Isla—” He took three steps toward her before stopping himself. “Are ye sure, lass? Because I meant what I said—I will not let ye go. I want ye to take all the time ye need to think through this decision. I want ye to have all ye wish for and—”

“Seven years ago, I only had o-one wish—to b-be with you !”

“Aye. I know. Me, too.”

She nodded again, this time more fiercely.

“That is still my strongest wish—to be with you. You say you l-love me enough to set me free.” She dashed a hand across her eyes.

“But I want you to f-fight to keep me, Tavish Balfour! I want you to wage battles and vanquish enemies and destroy every last wall that will ever keep us apart. I want you to claim me as your own and never let me go!”

He managed a stuttering breath, but emotion rose so quickly, it stuffed his throat and nose until it found an outlet in his eyes. Swallowing, he pressed a hand to his face, anything to avoid collapsing to the floor and greiting like a babe.

He hadn’t known.

He hadn’t understood how much he wanted Isla and a life together. How desperately he longed for that outcome.

But feeling the joy of it now . . .

A terrible sob wracked him. And then another.

Damnation.

First blushing, and now this?

He couldn’t remember the last time he had wept.

“Tavish.” Her voice a whisper.

A hand tugged on his wrist, pulling his palm from his face.

And there she was.

His Isla.

Like himself, tears coated her cheeks.

“You c-can’t cry,” she hiccupped, “because then I’ll c-cry, and I won’t be able to s-say what I must.”

“What must ye say, love?”

She smiled, so radiant. “I want you—I want us —to wake up each morning and choose each other.” She pressed a palm to his cheek. “And I want us to keep choosing each other. Over the disapproval of our families and the uncertainty of our future. Today, t-tomorrow . . .”

She drifted off on a gasp of air.

Tavish’s vision turned blurry once more.

“Forever?” he whispered.

“F-forever.”

He cradled her beloved face in his hands. He brushed away her tears with his thumbs.

“Truly?” he whispered.

She nodded.

On a shaking breath, he kissed her. Not a kiss of wild hunger or desperation.

No.

A kiss of agonizing love. Of the hope of their promised life together.

The kiss he had given her after their handfasting.

“Ye truly mean it?” He had to ask again.

“Y-yes!”

She laughed—a choking, hiccupping sound. The sound of more happiness than a heart could contain.

Tavish swept her into his arms, swinging her in a circle with a loud whoop of joy, before setting her down and dropping his lips to hers.

“Darling.” Kiss. “Love.” Kiss . “Wife. ”

His bright, clever wife met him kiss for kiss, caress for caress.

But . . .

“Malton Hill!” Tavish lifted his head, staring down at her. “Ye can’t give up your home, lass!”

“Home is wherever you are, Tavish Balfour.” She pressed a finger into the vertical crease in his chin. “I will mourn Malton Hill, but you asked me that first night here who I would choose? And the answer—” Her eyes went bright once more. “—the answer is you. I will always choose you.”

“My love.” He bent to her mouth once more.

But as much as Tavish wanted to lose himself in her, one more thing needed to be done. He gave her a final deep kiss before stepping back.

“Tavish?” she frowned.

“One moment, darling.” He kissed the wee dent between her eyebrows and then crossed to his saddle bags stacked against the wall beside the sideboard.

It only took him seconds to retrieve what he sought.

“What is it?” Isla asked as he returned to her.

On a deep breath, Tavish opened his fist, revealing the shimmering gold of her wedding ring. The talisman he had carried through the years without her.

“Oh!” Isla gasped. “I thought it lost.”

“Never. I will always keep it safe for ye.”

His fierce wife lifted her gaze to his and then extended her left hand, palm down, fingers spread.

Swallowing back emotion once again, Tavish slid the wedding ring home onto her finger.

To see it there once more . . .

He lifted her fingers to his lips, pressing a kiss to the ring.

“I love ye, Wife.”

“I love you, too, Husband. So much.”

He kissed her again, unable to help himself.

One kiss became dozens became hundreds.

He whispered I love ye over and over into her skin—pressed into her collarbones and nuzzled beneath her ear .

“I fear the wait until sunset tonight will be agonizing,” he murmured against her mouth.

She stilled and tilted her head back to look into his eyes.

“Tonight?” Leaning sideways in his arms, she made a production of scanning the room. “Is there anyone else present?”

“Nae.”

“Are we expecting visitors?”

“Nae.”

His clever wife arched a pretty eyebrow. “Then why, Husband, must we wait for darkness? I have been led to understand that nighttime is hardly a requirement for marital consummation.”

Tavish laughed, the sound thrumming through his veins like quicksilver.

“Tavish Balfour, I have waited seven long years to be your wife in truth. I will be very put out if you make me wait another seven hours.”

Isla took his hand in hers and pulled. Laughing, he permitted her to drag him into the bedroom. He kicked the door shut behind them and then, taking both her hands, stretched them wide.

He surveyed her, this beautiful, remarkable woman.

“What is it?” she smiled.

“Just trying to understand why a creature as vivid and lovely as yourself would take up with me.”

“Now you are being ridiculous.”

“Perhaps.” He met her gaze and tugged, bringing her closer. “I love ye, Isla. I intend to love ye until I am old and gray.”

His brilliant wife did not reply.

Instead, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.

Tavish would always remember the next hours as some of the most beautiful and sacred of his life. The awe of giving himself wholly to another, and she in return .

Yes, there was passion, but also laughter and tenderness. A sense of a beginning just waiting to unfold.

They dozed in the aftermath, content to simply be in one another’s arms.

Eventually, Tavish prepared their long-forgotten lunch, setting the tray on the bed. Resting back against the headboard, Isla’s head on his shoulder, Tavish fed her tidbits of ham and slices of ripe pear.

“I’m sorry about Malton Hill,” he said, cutting another strip off the pear and holding it to her lips. “I am sorry for ye to lose something ye love so well.”

“I am, too, but . . . well, I’m not sure Malton Hill specifically is what I wanted, in the end.”

Tavish listened as she told him of her revelation. That she mostly loved the person she was at Malton Hill—competent and in charge of her own destiny. That it was more about who she could become as a human being rather than the actuality of the place itself.

“It’s why I love you so thoroughly,” she finished. “Because when I am with you, I am in a constant state of becoming. You see me as Isla, nothing less or more, and will always encourage me to be my fullest self.”

Tavish kissed her. “Ye know I will always love every version of ye.”

“And I, you.”

He smiled, lifting the lunch tray off the bed before pulling her back to his shoulder. “So . . . how many children are ye thinking we will have, lass?”

His clever Isla lifted her head to look at him in astonishment. “Tavish! You wish to discuss that now?”

“Of course.”

“Why?”

He arched an eyebrow.

“Because I expect that we will be eagerly engaged in child-making activities for the foreseeable future, and I want to be prepared.”

He pulled her against his chest, bending to kiss her mouth.

On a sigh, Isla melted into him.

And any coherent thoughts Tavish might have had vanished as sure as hoarfrost in the sun.