“Nae.”
“Are we expecting visitors?”
“Nae.”
His clever wife arched a pretty eyebrow. “Then why, Husband, must we wait for darkness? I have been led to understand that nighttime is hardly a requirement for marital consummation.”
Tavish laughed, the sound thrumming through his veins like quicksilver.
“Tavish Balfour, I have waited seven long years to be your wife in truth. I will be very put out if you make me wait another seven hours.”
Isla took his hand in hers and pulled. Laughing, he permitted her to drag him into the bedroom. He kicked the door shut behind them and then, taking both her hands, stretched them wide.
He surveyed her, this beautiful, remarkable woman.
“What is it?” she smiled.
“Just trying to understand why a creature as vivid and lovely as yourself would take up with me.”
“Now you are being ridiculous.”
“Perhaps.” He met her gaze and tugged, bringing her closer. “I love ye, Isla. I intend to love ye until I am old and gray.”
His brilliant wife did not reply.
Instead, she wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him.
Tavish would alwaysremember the next hours as some of the most beautiful and sacred of his life. The awe of giving himself wholly to another, and she in return.
Yes, there was passion, but also laughter and tenderness. A sense of a beginning just waiting to unfold.
They dozed in the aftermath, content to simply be in one another’s arms.
Eventually, Tavish prepared their long-forgotten lunch, setting the tray on the bed. Resting back against the headboard, Isla’s head on his shoulder, Tavish fed her tidbits of ham and slices of ripe pear.
“I’m sorry about Malton Hill,” he said, cutting another strip off the pear and holding it to her lips. “I am sorry for ye to lose something ye love so well.”
“I am, too, but . . . well, I’m not sure Malton Hill specifically is what I wanted, in the end.”
Tavish listened as she told him of her revelation. That she mostly loved the person she was at Malton Hill—competent and in charge of her own destiny. That it was more about who she could become as a human being rather than the actuality of the place itself.
“It’s why I love you so thoroughly,” she finished. “Because when I am with you, I am in a constant state of becoming. You see me as Isla, nothing less or more, and will always encourage me to be my fullest self.”
Tavish kissed her. “Ye know I will always love every version of ye.”
“And I, you.”
He smiled, lifting the lunch tray off the bed before pulling her back to his shoulder. “So . . . how many children are ye thinking we will have, lass?”
His clever Isla lifted her head to look at him in astonishment. “Tavish! You wish to discuss that now?”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
He arched an eyebrow.
“Because I expect that we will be eagerly engaged in child-making activities for the foreseeable future, and I want to be prepared.”
