Malton Hill guided most of Isla’s decisions at present.
In the wake of Gray discovering her attachment to Tavish—and in turn, Tavish permitting Gray to irrevocably separate them—Isla had fled south to England and Malton Hill, the small estate tied to her dowry.
She had arrived bereft, her heart an open wound. There, she discovered an estate as devastated as she felt. A place that needed her attention and love.
Over the following months and years, Isla had become a tigress, dragging Malton Hill back from the edge of ruin, defending her lands and people. And in the process, she reassembled the shattered pieces of herself into a new form. Into a woman who finally left behind the wordscompliantandtimid.A woman who stood tall in adversity and no longer mourned the loss of a boy.
She loved the woman she had become.
If Isla remained married to Tavish Balfour, she would not see Malton Hill again, much less retain ownership of it. She would lose that vital piece of her sense of self. Her brother would never cede a farthing of her dowry to a Balfour. She only kept Malton Hill if she married with Gray’s approval.
But with her erstwhile husband returned home, she could finally take measures to dissolve her marriage. She could attend the house party, smile and flirt with Colonel Archer, and accept his courtship with a clear conscience.
Despite her feelings as a young girl, sometimescomplying—always a variant of that word—to the role laid out for her by family and tradition was not ill-advised, particularly when her dowry and the ownership of Malton Hill hung in the balance.
First, she simply needed to convince Tavish Balfour to grant her a divorce.
“I am pleased with this house party,” Gray said. “It will allow me to formalize my alliance with Milmouth, and give you a chance to see Archer in his native environment and decide if you will suit.”
“Native environment? At their hunting lodge in the Highlands?” Isla couldn’t help the touch of asperity in her voice. She could scarcely imagine Colonel Archer in any sort of rough or tumbledown setting. An ancient drafty lodge in the foothills of the Cairngorms did not strike her as his “native” environs.
“Kingswell House is hardly a hunting lodge.” A faint smile touched Gray’s lips. “Lord Milmouth’s mother was the only daughter of a wealthy Scottish lord. The estate came into the family as part of her dowry. It is anything but a hunting lodge.”
Ah.A Palladian palace, then, something akin to the Earl of Dalhousie’s stately home outside Brechin.
“You will find the place charming and restful,” Gray continued.
“I look forward to it.” Isla prayed Gray couldn’t hear the quiver in her voice.
She breathed in a slow breath. Anything, really, to mask the agitated pounding of her heart.
One week.
She had just one week to run Tavish to ground and somehow convince him to set her free.
Isla stared out the window at the slashes of purple-shadowed earth rolling past—a field left fallow, exposing the red-brown soil of this corner of Scotland, as if the very dirt itself were rusting away. So unlike the rich loam of Malton Hill, eager to sprout roses and feed spring lambs.
She called up the house, nestled into the Gloucestershire hills. The gleam of sunlight in her study as she pored over the estate books with her steward. The sparkle of crystal and china as she laughed over dinner with friends in the dining room. The fiery light of the woman she was within those walls.
A life that was a vast cry from the uncertainty and mayhem Tavish had proposed seven years ago.
“We’ll run away, you and I. Make our own fortunes in the world. I have a bit of money set by. We can use it to start our life together. Do you fancy New York City?”
In her youthful folly, Isla had thought the idea a grand adventure. Tavish had nearly shone with love for her, and her for him . . . until Gray, until those shredding words, until—
There was no point in reliving their ending.
She had been thirty ways a fool.
A flaw she had no intention of revisiting.
Arriving home, Graycollected his afternoon post off a silver platter in the entry hall and disappeared into his study—limping, wrenching off his neckcloth and unbuttoning his collar. No doubt he was already penning a letter to his solicitor, venting his frustration over Captain Balfour’s return and its implications for the purchase of Cairnfell.
Walking into the drawing room, Isla flipped through the letters that had arrived for herself—missives from friends and an update from Mr. Cranston, her steward at Malton Hill. Apparently, the west fields had flooded, and he had questions about measures to improve the drainage there.
Like Gray, she should retire to her writing desk and pen a reply.
If only her hands would stop shaking.
