Mariah broke off with a start as her gaze landed on Isla and then fluttered up to Tavish’s swollen eye.
The butler, Jameson, finally appeared, his gray hair fluttering in his haste to reach the door.
“So sorry, Lady Mariah.” The man panted. “I was polishing silver in the kitchen and didn’t hear the bell . . .” He, too, trailed off.
Tavish smiled, though he was rather sure it came off as more of a grimace. He hazarded a glance at Isla. She was staring past Mariah’s shoulder, her gaze unfocused, face sagging in exhaustion.
Mariah—good, gentle Mariah—walked down the steps and took Isla’s hand. “Welcome to our home, Lady Isla. I think . . .” She cleared her throat. “A servant from Dunmore delivered a trunk here a few hours ago without saying a word. I’m rapidly gathering the trunk is yours.”
“Oh,” Isla said, the merest puff of sound.
Her eyes filled with tears. Tavish had never been a violent man, but witnessing Isla’s misery yet again . . .
More than once over the past two days, he had imagined lying in wait for Grayburn and burying a bullet in his thick skull. Anything to enact retribution for Isla’s pain.
“Thank ye, Mariah,” Tavish murmured.
His sister nodded, glancing once more at his black-and-blue face. “Come. Let us get ye settled with a wee bit of dinner in your bellies. Afterward, I’m sure Da’ will have questions.”
“Ye’ve gone andmarried who?!” Lord Northcairn sat forward in his leather armchair, his face turning a deep shade of red. “Surely, I didn’t hear ye right just now, Tavish. Because no son of mine would act with such incredible stupidity.”
Tavish barely avoided rolling his eyes at the irony in their father’s accusation.
In the chair opposite their father, Callum set his tumbler of whisky down on a side table with a clatter.
For her part, Mariah stared into the fire, her feet tucked against the stool where she sat.
Only Tavish was standing, a glass of much-needed whisky in his hand.
Candles cast long shadows on the walls. Two floors above them, Isla slept in a guest bedroom. The house had been in such an uproar after Tavish’s arrival, it had taken some settling before he had a chance to face his father with the news.
“Seven years ago, I married Lady Isla Balfour,” Tavish repeated. “A handfasting. Outside Stonehaven.”
Callum pinched the bridge of his nose.
Mariah closed her eyes, as if in pain.
Their father, however, lurched to his feet, his expression a thundercloud. “Married? Ye married a spawn of that . . . that . . .” He glanced at Mariah, censoring what would likely have been a spectacularly profane epithet. “After everything that Grayburn has done to this family. His cruelty to Mariah and dishonor toward your brother. Ye would betray us all by allying yourself with . . . with . . . them?!”
“Allying myself?!” Tavish snapped, the strain of the past week catching up to him. “I assure ye, Grayburn is no happier about this than yourselves!”
He resisted mentioning that Isla wasn’t actually a Kinsey, in the end. So technically, Tavish hadn’t allied himself withthem. He doubted that wee detail would matter to his father. Or if it did, Lord Northcairn would crow the fact of old Grayburn’s cuckolding from the rooftops, ensuring everyone knew of Isla’s illegitimacy.
“Och, that’s a fine lie to tell yourself, lad!”
“Is that what happened to your eye?” Callum asked. “Grayburn’s displeasure?”
“Nae, this is courtesy of my friend who was courting Lady Isla.”
Mariah made a helpless noise of distress.
“Lady Isla and I intend to divorce on the basis of desertion,” Tavish continued.
“Divorce?!” Lord Northcairn turned a rather alarming shade of puce. “Divorce?! Ye would add scandal to betrayal, after everything we have already endured? Have ye no sense of your duty to this family at all?!”
“Da’,” Callum said, reproof in his tone.
Tavish clenched his jaw, tossing back the last of his whisky. Bitter words stacked on his tongue, angry accusations about his own inheritance and Callum’s ruinous behavior and their father’s utter disregard for Tavish’s future.
