Did he mean . . .?
She turned to the left.
Set her own plate down on a side table.
Stared ahead for the space of three heartbeats.
And then looked back to him.
“First experience with intimacy?” she repeated.
He nodded, an eyebrow lifting as if to say,Yes, it is precisely as ye be thinking.
“But . . . I had always assumed, given your father and Callum and their behavior, that you had . . . before we married, of course . . .”
A blush scalded her skin. She had never asked him. At sixteen, she had been far too shy—tootimid, forever that word—to voice such a probing question.
Tavish shook his head. Slowly, so slowly, he reached for her hand where it lay between them on the cushion. His fingers engulfed hers, the rough calluses on his palms brushing over her skin and flaring gooseflesh up her arm.
“Sometimes—” His index finger traced a blue vein on the back of her hand. “—sometimes, seeing such lascivious behavior in a father or a brother has the opposite effect. I didn’t want to behave like them—to view women as mere things to be consumed by my lust. And once you and I became friends . . . I couldn’t imagine being with anyone but yourself.”
He smiled at the end of that—a sad, forlorn gesture. As if to say,more the fool me.
“So we’re both virgins?” For once, Isla chose to be direct.
He nodded.
It shouldn’t have mattered. Not really. It changed nothing. And yet . . .
Somehow, it did.
It meant that they were equals. That they had both, from the beginning, held on to the promise of one another. Even herself, try as she might to let it go.
Again, no grief thrummed at the thought. No pain at their youthful ignorance.
Instead, Isla felt . ..
She felt something akin to gladness. A sense of relief that the girl she had been wasn’t simply naive and suffering from a blind devotion she had mistakenly labeled as love.
No.
Tavish Balfour had been worthy of her heart. He had been true and loyal and resolute in his devotion, then and now.
She sat with that feeling for a long moment. Remembering how thoroughly she had loved him.
Colonel Archer was correct—Tavish was the most honorable of gentlemen.
He sat back on a sigh. “It is of no import now, I ken. But I felt ye should know.”
His words were casual, as if he expected they would drop the topic. As if it held no more interest for him.
But for Isla, she feared she was now blinking into the light of a new dawn.
Because if her love for him was not some tainted facsimile—if it had, indeed, been soul-deep and true—what was she to do now? How was she to weigh the very real needs and wants of her future against the power of that remembered love?
He brushed the back of her hand one last time before releasing his grip. Twisting, he lifted the cloth-covered plate off the side table, setting it on the couch between them.
Isla raised her eyebrows in question.
