Shewouldn’tmeet with him.
No, she would not. Lethimstew, for once.
She tucked into bed with that very intention. But questions tossed and turned in her brain, making sleep elusive.
WhatdidCaptain Balfour have to say to her? He was to have met with a solicitor in Aberdeen already. Perhaps there was news to report?
How did he know that the bedchamber above hers was empty? Had he bribed a pretty housemaid?
Isla glared at her bed canopy in frustration.
Regrettably, curiosity got the better of her.
When the mantel clock struck one, Isla was already out of bed, pulling on her dressing gown, wrapping a dark shawl around her shoulders, and shuffling in stockinged feet to her bedroom door.
The hallway outside her door loomed in shadows. Nothing stirred.
On soundless steps, Isla moved down the hall to the staircase.
She wanted to be indignant and furious. Summon all the righteous anger she would need to fend off the confusion Captain Balfour inspired.
Instead, her heart beat swiftly, and the tiniest thrill chased her spine.
Was she . . . ?
Was sheexcited, dash it all?
She could feel it rising inside her . . . an enlivening of sorts. Or, perhaps, a lost fragment of self.
It wasn’t a swell or a torrent. More like a gentle trickle of anticipation. A faint echo of the sensation she had felt when racing up the path to Cairnfell. That eager chasing of something forbidden.
Perhaps those years ago, she had merely been swept up in the exhilaration of an illicit connection—notes written in secret code, hidden messages, a handsome boy who filled her ears with honeyed words and the intoxicating rumble of his laughter.
And if Tavish had been Colonel Archer or Captain Ross or some other gentleman, would she have felt the same excitement?
Isla truthfully couldn’t say.
The knowledge was a rather appalling insight into her character. Her future needed to be based on something other than reckless thrills and a desire for entertainment.
Her association with Tavish Balfour couldn’t end soon enough.
She found the empty bedroom easily. It was the only one with the door slightly ajar.
Isla pushed it open.
A bed sat to the left. A fireplace to the right.
But straight ahead . . .
He rested on the sill of the single window, the shutters opened to letin moonlight. The dim glow streamed around his broad shoulders and painted him in hulking shadows. Only the quicksilver of his eyes glittered, mirroring the starlight at his back.
He felt . . . elemental. Solid. If her Tavish had been laughter and sunrise, Captain Balfour was steel and midnight.
It should have terrified her. Or, at the very least, been cause for a modicum of trepidation.
But that disturbing solitary thread of thrill remained.
Isla closed the door and leaned back into it. Her hands remained behind her, clasping the door handle. As if it could spare her the force of him. Or steady her in the onslaught of memory. Or, at the very least, provide a quick escape.
