“Have I arrived at an inopportune moment?” Fletch lifted an eyebrow, his normally open expression guarded. “Your letters led me to believe my presence would be welcome.”
“Nae. Ye ken I am right glad to see ye. I am merely puzzled, is all.”And eager to be off to collect my wife, Tavish didn’t add.
Fletch studied him before sighing. “Do you have any libations in this castle of yours?”
“Alcohol? For breakfast?”
“I have never known you to forgo a wee dram, as you describe it, regardless of the time of day.”
Tavish shrugged, as if to say,Ye have me there. “We can drink while I finish cleaning my rifle.”
He poured a finger of whisky into a pair of crockery mugs.
“So?” Tavish asked once they were seated across from one another before the fire. Lifting his rifle, he continued to scour rust spots off the barrel. He knew his friend—former friend?—hadn’t come all this way as a courtesy call. “Ye seem to be less angry with myself?”
Fletch shrugged, sipping his whisky and watching Tavish’s hands as he worked. “You are a difficult man to remain angry with, Balfour, and well you know it. I was on my way south to London and thought I’d stop in.”
Tavish said nothing, waiting for Fletch to get to the point.
“Lady Isla is well?” Fletch asked.
Wasn’t that the question of the hour? “I presume so. She is with Grayburn at present. I am preparing to go fetch her.” Wrapping a bit of muslin around the tip of the rifle ramrod, Tavish began to clean the interior rifling of the barrel.
Fletch shot a pointed look at the rifle. “Were you?”
“Aye.”
“And how are matters between you and the lady?” Fletch laid the question down carefully, as if it were a cocked pistol with a dodgy trigger—liable to fire at the slightest jolt.
The question caused Tavish to frown. “I wrote ye about it, as I said. Earlier this week.”
“Ah. I must have left Kingswell before receiving your letter.”
Then why are ye here?Tavish wondered.
“Isla and I have . . . mended fences,” he said.
Fletch tilted his head. “Truly?”
“Aye.” Tavish couldn’t stop a love-drunk smile. “Isla is . . . remarkable. I’m humbled that she has chosen to remain my wife.”
“You love her.” A statement, not a question.
Tavish nodded. “More than life. And she, even more surprisingly, claims to love me in return.”
“What do you plan to do?”
Tavish winced at that. “That part of the plan, we are still trying to piece together.”
They spoke for a few minutes. Or rather, Fletch listened, and Tavish talked as he poured gun oil onto a clean bit of muslin and rubbed it into every metal surface of the rifle.
He recounted his relationship with Isla as a lad and his joy at their renewed devotion. He described his tentative hopes that Lord Matthias might join the venture to Pennsylvania and the thought that, one day, Tavish might pursue politics in Great Britain or maybe even Pennsylvania.
“I don’t suppose it matters what I do,” Tavish finished, setting down his rifle and moving to the washbasin to clean his hands. “With Isla beside me, everything feels possible.”
“Congratulations. I am truly happy for you both.” Fletch’s cheerful blue eyes brimmed with honesty.
Tavish dried his hands on a hanging towel.
