“As if Balfour has two tuppence to rub together to support a bride,” Gray snarled. “Can you even imagine him marrying?”
Unfortunately, Isla could. Shehad. Something hot and tasting of ash settled on her tongue at the vision of Captain Balfour taking another bride.
This would not do. She would not feel jealous over Captain Balfour’s future—and surely past—paramours.
The longer she spoke with Gray, the more Isla was convinced this week would be a blessing. She would see Captain Balfour every day and be able to compare him to Colonel Archer. To understand, quite clearly, why she had disavowed Tavish Balfour in the first place.
This was her chance to confront and finally bury any lingering tendresse forthat manbefore he disappeared into the wilds of America forever.
Isla folded her arms. “You are angry because you know I am right.”
Gray didn’t deny it. He merely continued his pacing.
“I want to know Colonel Archer better. You want to court Lord Milmouth as an ally. Both of those objectives become more difficult if Captain Balfour leaves. We can be civil for a week, Gray.”
“But can he?”
“Of course, he can. He is just as changed as I am. Neither of us will return to what we once were.”
But just saying the words caused that pang again. That fathomless old grief that rippled below her surface.
“And whatwereyou, precisely, to one another, Isla?” Gray paused, a hand braced on the mantelpiece.
The question caused Isla to take a step back.
Everything.
The answer surged forward with no effort.
We were everything. An entire universe unto ourselves.
Gray might have uncovered the fact of her relationship with Tavish, but he had never known the profound depth of it.
“What does it matter?” she whispered through a throat gone dry. “It has been dead and buried for seven long years.”
Her brother lifted an eyebrow, pinning her in place with his hazel eyes.
Silence stretched, pulling taut.
Finally, Gray spoke. “For your sake, as well as his, I hope you are correct.”
10
Tavish descended the stairs for dinner, his mood as sour as the wine Ross had once made out of grapes from an abandoned vineyard outside Cadiz.
Fletch had been there, too, come to think of it.
Damn and blast.
Seeing Isla standing in the entrance hall, Gray thunderous at her side . . .
The saber that flayed his upper cheek had been somehow less jarring.
But, as of yet, Lord and Lady Milmouth had not asked Tavish to leave, though his effects had been discreetly relocated to another bedroom two floors up from where he had been. The footman who saw to the move flushed when Tavish asked him why.
“I b-believe her ladyship wished for more s-space between yourself and His Grace,” the man had stammered.
Of course. Tavish could hardly fault Lady Milmouth for moving him as far as possible from Grayburn. Heaven forbid the duke encounter Tavish at random. His Grace’s tranquility was not to be disturbed.
