“No! You are most certainlynotthankful! You are a wailing child, upset that you have been caught. You dislike having to face the consequences of your poor choices.”
The grief rose. The wall of emotion rushed toward her with terrifying speed, white caps frothing and churning.
“Gray! Piers, please, if you would just—”
“Isla, you have recklessly put yourownsensibilities and desires before your duty and responsibility to our family name. You have taken the Kinsey name—the one my father and I have so generously allowed youto keep—and slathered it in the foul stench of scandal, proving once and for all that you are no better than your illegitimate birth. And now, like my father before me, I am forced to shelter and care for a duplicitous woman. It is not to be borne!”
Gray shook his head now, teeth grinding in anger.
“No,” he muttered, almost to himself. “I will not bear it.”
He fixed her with a long, weighty stare. All the fine hairs on Isla’s arms flared to attention.
Her chest heaved, the raging tempest towering overhead.
“I think, dear sister . . . it is time you understood the consequences of the choice you have made.”
The merciless timbre of his voice cut deep.
Isla tried to speak, to plead her case.
But the monster of her grief crashed, burying her under its weight.
Isla crumpled to the carriage floor, tears drenching her skirts.
25
Well, I must say that visit could have gone a wee bit better,” Ross sighed, clucking his horse. “I’m not sure Fletch is going to forgive ye.”
Tavish nudged Goliath forward, resisting the urge to answer with a grunt. His left cheek throbbed, and his eye was half-swollen shut. For once, his exterior appearance matched the wretchedness of his internal one.
However, given that Ross was still at Tavish’s side, the man deserved better than a guttural reply.
“Perhaps not,” Tavish said. “All I can do is hope for a mending of our friendship given time.”
To his dying day, Tavish would regret how Fletch had uncovered the fact of his and Isla’s marriage. It had been as cowardly and selfish an act as Tavish had ever committed.
Fletch was more than justified in his anger.
Tavish had awakened to find a note pushed under his bedroom door. At first, his foolish heart had assumed it was from Isla. That she wished tospeak with him, or reconcile, or throw herself upon his chest and profess her love.
More theeejit, him.
Instead, he had found Fletch’s black scrawl. A wounded diatribe against Tavish and his betrayal of their friendship. The letter ended with a bleak parting shot:
Given the breach of trust between us, I think it best to sever both our financial ties and those bands that once bound us tight as brothers.
Flowery but to the point—we are no longer friends, and I will not be going into business with ye.
As if Tavish’s spirits could sink any lower.
Isla had departed at dawn with Grayburn.
She had fallen upon Tavish like his lips held the meaning of life. Like she were famished and his body the only sustenance that would satisfy.
And then she had left without a word.
Tavish struggled to feel anger over her actions. Instead, he harbored a bone-deep sadness. He had always known this was how things would end with them. She had made her intentions clear from the beginning—I don’t want you.I don’t want the life of poverty and hardship you offer.
