“I have assisted you, Sister.” A pause. “With your marriage, that is.”
Isla pivoted back to him.
She said nothing, waiting for him to get to the point.
Gray rose from his chair and crossed to the fireplace and the cheery fire burning there. From behind the mantel clock, he pulled a folded piece of foolscap. Unfolding it, he held the paper upright, showing her its contents.
She recognized the paper instantly.
A trickle of foreboding slithered down Isla’s spine.
“My marriage vows.” She crossed to him, reaching for the paper. “How ungentlemanly of you to rummage through my effects and pilfer them.”
Gray lifted the paper high over his head.
Isla glared at him. She would not jump like an eager kitten to retrieve a favorite toy.
The paper represented the signed witness of her marriage to Tavish—one of two copies of the document. The good doctor had used the other to register their marriage with the sheriff.
“What is your point with this display, Gray?”
“Merely this.”
With two quick steps, Gray tossed the marriage lines onto the fire.
“No!” Isla rushed for the paper, but Gray snagged her arm, stopping her.
The paper burned in a bright pillar of flame.
Jerking her arm out of his hold, Isla turned to him.
“Whatever are you doing?!”
“Destroying the proof of your marriage, Isla. Just as you requested.”
Of all the—
“Gray, you cannot toss me out of a carriage in the middle of nowhere, abandon me to an unsure fate, and then act as if you give a fig what happens to me.” She gestured toward the fire. “That isn’t the only proof of our marriage! There were witnesses, not to mention—”
“The sheriff’s registry, I know.” He spoke so calmly, so conversationally. As if they were discussing the weather. As if he hadn’t a single doubt as to the outcome of this conversation.
Isla stilled, a true stab of alarm racing across her skin. She took a step back.
“What did you do, Gray?” she whispered through lips gone numb.
“Precisely as you requested, Isla.I made a terrible mistake, you said.One I have regretted for years now.” He parroted her words in a dreadful falsetto. “You begged me to absolve your marriage in such a way that no one would ever know it had occurred. Once my temper had cooled sufficiently, I saw the wisdom in your request, much as it pained me. I cannot stomach an alliance with the Balfours, nor do I relish weathering the scandal of your divorce. So I acted on your behalf.”
A ringing started in Isla’s ears. “But the sheriff? The witnesses?”
“The good doctor and his wife passed away a few years ago. We were fortunate there, I must say. As for the sheriff . . . a careful review of his records will show no mention of your nuptials nor any copy of your vows. I assure you, I was very thorough.”
“But—”
“But nothing. That document”—he pointed toward the fire—“was the last scrap of proof of yourterrible mistake—again, your words—and I wanted you to see it burn with your own eyes. You are, thankfully, once more Lady Isla Kinsey, with no known connection to Tavish Balfour.”
Isla gasped for air, as if winded from a blow to the stomach. And in a sense, perhaps she was.
Her marriage had . . . evaporated. Ephemeral as dandelion fluff in the wind.
