Nothing occurred to spur her to action.
But that bit of fuse continued to smolder. To crave and yearn.
She tossed and turned. Events of the past week played over and over in her mind.
The flash of Tavish’s rifle.
Gone.
The clutch of his palm at her waist in the water.
“Isla . . .”
The faint, feather-touch of his lips.
She wanted to wrench open the shutters, toss up the sash, and scream into the summer night.
Argh!
She drummed her feet against the mattress, instead.
This simply wouldn’t do.
With an exasperated huff, she tossed off the counterpane and drew on her dressing gown. Slipping out her door, she glided on bare feet down the hall and up the stairs.
The vacant bedroom beside Tavish’s was just as quiet as it had been the first night of the house party.
This was as near to him as she dared come. To sit in the room beside his—a wall firmly between them—and whisper her goodbyes.
It would have to be enough.
She closed the door behind her with a softsnick.
Directly opposite the door, the window stood with shutters open, light from the full moon flooding the room.
A four-poster bed rested to the left, curtains tied back and counterpane neatly pressed. It was a sizable piece of furniture—thick, rectangular bedposts supporting a heavy wooden canopy. The sort of furniture at home during the reign of the Stewarts.
To the right sat a marble fireplace with a clock ticking the hour on the mantelpiece. A painting hung on the wall above—the wall that separated Tavish’s bedroom from this one.
Was he lying in bed there, thinking of her? Wishing for a few last words, but unwilling to risk it?
As she stepped farther into the room, the ghostly shadow of her reflection flickered in a mirror to the right of the window. Her eyes appearedhuge, wide and apprehensive. A glance out the window revealed the kitchen garden and the lake in the distance, bathed in moonlight.
She felt him even before he turned the door handle.
Staring into the mirror, she watched Tavish close the door and lean against it. An echo of her position that first night of the house party, when his note had summoned her here.
Ah.
So he had been lying awake, too.
Slowly, she turned around.
The sight of him clubbed her senses.
Tall and broad, of course. That same cleft in his chin. The same pillow lips. The same eyes gleaming in the low light.
But tonight, his auburn hair was tousled, as if he had been tugging at it. His clothing was in a similar state of disarray. He wore only breeches, braces loose and dangling to his knees, and a shirt—tucked but unbuttoned and sagging open to mid-chest. Like herself, he was barefoot. Even in the low light, she could see the column of his throat and the line where his neckcloth always sat, separating the tan of his neck from the lighter skin below.
