It was such a . . . aTavishthing to do.
“I have a pudding.” He pointed a knife at the Savoy cake. “I don’t need much else.”
“Tavish—” she began and then broke off.
He met her gaze.
What was she to say?I fear I might be falling in love with you again?
That wouldn’t be kind.
And yet, she couldn’t stop staring at him. At the wee mole near his left eyebrow that she had loved to kiss. The whorl in his wavy hair near his nape where she used to press a finger.
He met her gaze for a long moment before focusing his attention on the cake between them. “Ye can’t be giving me looks like that, lass.”
“Looks?”
“Aye. Your whole heart in your eyes.”
She nodded, as that was an accurate description. A tear slipped out. She turned from him to brush it away.
“Ye don’t want me,” he continued, tossing those words back at her once more. He cut a large slice of cake, sliding it onto her plate.
“No . . . no, I misspoke that night,” she whispered.
Pausing, he looked at her.
“It’s not that I don’t want you, Tavish.”I want you more than I can express. “It’s that I want . . . I want my home more.”
“Your home?”
“Yes. Malton Hill.”
27
Tavish stilled at Isla’s words.
“Malton Hill?” He searched his memory, cutting himself a slice of the Savoy cake. The scent of citrus, butter, and brandy wafted upward. “The estate that is part of your dowry?”
“Yes.”
He might have felt stung over her admission—that he mattered less to her than a pile of masonry and adjacent land—but something in the fervor of her tone stopped him.
She answered the question in his eyes.
“I went there after we parted, and . . .” She held her plate with her own slice of cake. “Matthias accompanied me. I was so distraught, so melancholy . . . even Gray must have been concerned, as he made the plan for us to go.”
Tavish mentally winced, relaxing back into the sofa. “How selfish of me not to inquire after yourself. I grieved your loss during my first two years in the army. Perhaps even longer. I waited for a letter from ye,hoping against hope that ye would write. That we could mend what had broken between us.”
It felt bleak to recall those years. The letters he would scribble to her and then toss into the fire before he was foolish enough to post them. The dangerous risks he took as a soldier simply because he didn’t value his life enough to be careful.
“At times,” he continued, “I think being transferred to the Rifles is the only thing that saved me. It gave me a higher purpose at a time when I needed it most. Of course, ye would have searched for a similar sense of purpose.” He took a bite of cake, but it tasted more of regret than sugar and lemon.
“Yes.” She nodded, eyes going bright once again, though no tears fell. “I did. Need a purpose, that is. And I found one at Malton Hill.”
Tavish let out a long breath, trying to order his riotous thoughts.
First, Isladidwant him. That knowledge felt momentous. Like he should cup her cheek and bring her in for a pulse-pounding kiss.
