“Implicating my father along the way.” She touched his face.
“Yes.”
“Are you still convinced of Hadley’s guilt?” she asked, voice tentative.
Isolde didn’t wish her loyalties to be conflicted between her husband and her father. Perhaps it was better not to know?
Tristan was a long time answering, as if carefully choosing his words.
“Convinced of Hadley’s guilt?” he finally repeated slowly. “I cannot say. There are letters between solicitors and your father that appear damning. It is why I wished Lords to further investigate the matter.”
“But you didn’t have to pursue it. You had prior reason to question my father, to cast doubt on him. I would love to know where your rancor began.”
His shoulders sagged as he looked away from her.
“Tell me, Tristan,” she urged. “Please.”
On a sigh, he nodded.
Isolde listened as he outlined how her father had systematically laid waste to the dukedom’s finances. How it had taken years of work onTristan’s part to restore losses and rectify the trouble. And then, beginning about when Isolde returned from Boston, Hadley began a campaign to embarrass and demean Tristan at every turn. Tristan described his own ill-advised speech in Lords, full of his youthful pride, and Hadley’s subsequent public mockery and condemnation.
And all the thousands of stinging cuts since.
“Ye have been at one another’s throats for a long while,” she said when he had finished. “Perhaps it is time tae bury the hatchet.”
“Yes. I suppose it is.” He trailed a hand through her hair. “And I have your loving spirit to thank for it.”
Isolde smiled at him.
She could have saidI love youin that moment.
But Tristan kissed her so lushly, so thoroughly, Isolde quite forgot her own name, much less her intended words.
However, in the days that followed, she couldn’t shake the sense that something had upset him in the letters he had received in Ullapool.
Was his lovemaking more desperate than amorous? Did he appear anxious to cling to her?
She couldn’t say.
Time.
They had both experienced tremendous changes in a matter of weeks.
She simply needed to be patient and help Tristan settle into this new way of being.
And surely, given time, she would seize the perfect moment to tell himI love you.
29
The Duke of Kendall has not relinquished his vendetta against Lord Hadley, despite his marriage to the earl’s eldest daughter. We learned Wednesday last that Kendall sent more damaging evidence to the impeachment committee. Will anything stem the feud between son and father-in-law?
—article inThe London Times
The white walls of Dunhelm Castle, Sir Rafe Gordon’s Highland residence, gleamed atop a cliff and reflected the golden light of the evening sun.
Tristan studied the structure from the deck of theSS Statesman.
The castle appeared a startling jewel, perched dramatically on a wee peninsula, water lapping the base of black basalt cliffs on three sides. The hills of the Caithness coast rose behind, framing the turrets and gables in green heather and gorse.
