The following hours only proved her right.
She endured Gray’s lecture on the evils of being caught alone with Tavish. Never mind that had she been snugged with Colonel Archer in a grotto in the woods, Gray wouldn’t have said a word.
She wrote to Mr. Cranston and outlined her plan for assisting Mrs. Tippets and her children.
Over dinner, Isla smiled at Colonel Archer and talked with Lady Milmouth and watched Miss Crowley flirt relentlessly with Tavish.
All the while, reliving that life-ruining kiss.
It had been a horrific mistake, Isla decided, but not for the obvious logical reasons.
Because, in hindsight . . . it had scarcely evenbeena kiss. The faintest touch of lips. So light and quick, it was over before she had properlyregistered its occurrence. An indistinct caress, as hazy and vague as shadows drifting through mist.
In summation—the most dissatisfying kiss in the history of womankind.
It hadn’t been enough of a kiss for objective comparison to Tavish’s past kisses. It certainly hadn’t been enough to resurrect his ghost, much less banish it forever. It most definitely hadn’t quenched her curiosity or desire.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
Their brief kiss felt akin to the lingering coals of a fire. Just enough heat to set a fuse to smoking, but hardly sufficient to ignite a blaze.
And now that fuse of desire smoldered. It smoked and glowed and craved the final hot spark needed to burst into flame.
Isla knew she should smother that flicker of desire. Shut the metaphorical chimney flue and suffocate it entirely. No good would come of fanning the spark into a conflagration.
Worse, she kept replaying Tavish’s tortured whisper of her name—
“Isla . . .”
In her mind, ellipses trailed off the end leading . . . where? What words had he intended to say at the end of those dots?
Maddening.
And even more maddening, she would likely never know.
Their week at Kingswell House ended in just three days. Tavish would continue his preparations for America and whatever he intended to do there. She would return to Dunmore with Gray and envision a life as Mrs. Archer of Malton Hill.
She would, perhaps, see Tavish once he had a hearing with the procurator fiscal, at which time she would tell Gray about her marriage. Isla and Tavish would likely have to appear before a judge . . .
. . . and that would be that.
Her marriage would dissolve, and Tavish would leave, never to cross her path again.
And that felt . . .
It felt . . .
The only word she could summon wasunbearable.
Unendurable.
It would not do.
Isla struggled to swallow the thousand unanswered questions hovering on her tongue.
What were Tavish’s plans in America? How, precisely, had he ended up in the 95th Rifles? What series of events had led to the scar on his cheek? Had he ever, as he charged into rifle fire or reloaded behind a barricade, thought of her and wished desperately for one more hour in her arms?
Had this past week—the weight of their glances, the brush of their hands, the barest press of their lips in the grotto—unmoored him as thoroughly as it had her?
