She blinked once, slowly, and then glanced away.I will collect it.
Exiting the church, Isla greeted a few acquaintances and then casually made her way around the building to her parents’ impressive grave monument—two carved granite tomb boxes arranged side-by-side. Gray had added a marble canopy over the whole, complete with gothic arches and finials. It was all rather fussy and ostentatious.
Isla placed a hand on the granite, as if communing with the dead. Leaning forward, she braced a gloved hand against the stone and pressed a kiss to her mother’s name engraved on the side of her tomb. The motion allowed Isla to palm the scrap of foolscap slid into a small gap between sculpted decorations.
She waited until she reached the safety of her bedchamber before unfolding the paper with trembling fingers.
EQQV EQ YV VPQ OCOYW . . .
It was written in the cipher she and Tavish had memorized years before. How appalling that after seven years, she easily substituted the letters, words jumping out at her.
Meet me at the usual place and time, if you can. There is much to discuss.
Nothing more.
Isla swallowed. Why were her hands shaking and her heart thumping? Why, after everything, did Tavish Balfour have any sway on her emotions?
Also . . . how arrogant of him to simplyassumethat she would remember their “usual place and time.” She did, of course, but still—
This had to cease.
Much to discuss, he said.
Yes, there was. Namely, how quickly she could rid herself of him as husband.
She would meet him, insist on a divorce, and finally—finally!—put the follies of her youth behind her.
Malton Hill awaited.
Often, Isla wondered if her love for the estate rivaled that of a mother for her children—the willingness to fight tooth and nail to nurture and protect.
In this, Isla perhaps found an unexpected kinship with the returned Captain Balfour. They were both soldiers, battle-hardened and prepared to defend their people.
6
Eight Years Earlier
November 3, 1809
Pettercairn, Scotland
Isla raced up the steep path leading to the top of Cairnfell.
Please, be there!
She was late to meet Tavish, but Gray had been in such a temper today—it had been impossible to slip away unnoticed before now.
Rain drizzled from the sky, making the path slippery under Isla’s boots. She staggered sideways before righting her footing.
Almost there.
She and Tavish had been trading notes via her parents’ tomb for months now. Clandestine meetings on Cairnfell, usually discussing nothing of import and, yet, everything of importance to them both—heropinion of current skirt lengths, his views on Napoleon and the war on the Continent, the likelihood of Widow James marrying for a seventh time. It felt like no topic was too small, esoteric, or scandalous to discuss. Unlike her brothers, Tavish treated her as an equal, not a child to be coddled.
But today, Isla needed answers.
Did Tavish know what had happened? Could he fill in the silences that punctuated Gray and Matt’s conversations whenever Isla wandered into the room?
Something had occurred in London. Something dreadful. Something that involved Tavish’s family—his older sister, Lady Mariah, in particular. Gray had brawled with Lord Cairnfell over it, and Tavish’s older brother had badly broken Gray’s nose. The physician had set it, but they all knew that Gray would now have a bump in his previously patrician feature.
