He lifted an eyebrow and gave her a slow perusal, eyes skimming her person from the brim of her straw bonnet to the toes of her boots. The heat of his gaze ignited tiny sparks across her skin.
He cleared his throat and looked away. “’Twould be no hardship, I assure ye.”
Isla willed a blush at bay. Her Tavish had never been so bold. Or had he? She supposed he had never been shy about his attraction to her. But it had never taken on this edge of . . . of what? Sensuality?
Or perhaps it had always been thus with him, but she had been too young to understand the undercurrent of his meaning.
“I am more than the sum of my appearance, Captain,” she replied with a snap. She had more than enough experience in repressing the unwanted advances of forward gentlemen.
If she thought to offend him, she was disappointed. A smile tugged at his lips, and some emotion finally glinted in his eye.
There’s my lass, his expression seemed to say.
Isla didn’t know what disturbed her more. That he would see her contrariness as proof that she hadn’t changed beyond recognition. Or that she understood his emotions so easily.
She wanted none of this.
“Ye have always been more than the sum of your appearance or your familial connections, Lady Isla,” he rumbled in his deep brogue.
His words didn’t conjure her Tavish per se, but it was a reminder of why, once upon a time, she had fallen in love with him.
Because . . . in this, he was correct.
He had never seen her as the daughter of the Duke of Grayburn witha pretty face and dowry to acquire. A possession to be passed from one man to another.
No, to Tavish, she had always been Isla—a woman who was defined by her own unique dreams and ideas.
She didn’t know how to reply to the compliment. How many gentlemen had flattered her over the years with fawning comments about her beautiful eyes or genteel manner?
None had ever seen beyond the surface of her.
Only Tavish.
Being near him was more painful than she had supposed it would be. She had thought to feel nothing.
Instead, a terrible sort of grief welled up. For the devastated girl she had been. For everything that had been splintered in the wake of his betrayal and abandonment.
He had broken them. Broken her.
And then he had left, galloping off into the world, forcing her to pick up the pieces.
Tavish hated thathe still found Lady Isla so captivating.
I am more than the sum of my appearance, Captain.
The words evoked the girl he had known—fierce and determined. A shooting star of a lass, blazing through his life as rare and brilliant as a comet.
Surely that girl was still inside, clamoring to be freed from her cage of ice. And once free, how would that girl merge with the woman she was now?
As in years past, his emotions pulled at the tight reins of his control—curiosity, lust, fascination.
That hadn’t changed.
She is not for yourself.Ye have no means to support a wife, much less the daughter of a duke.
More to the point, Lady Isla no longer harbored any feelings of tenderness for him. Her relief at the prospect of their divorce more than confirmed this.
“What is your plan then?” She sat so primly, so still, back ramrod-straight, eyes fixed ahead.
