The laughter came again, tinkling and happy.
He frowned. Truly, this place could play fae tricks.
Walking around the corner of the castle, he looked to the cairn beyond. The views were always the best from its summit. Perhaps the higher elevation would give him some metaphorical perspect—
A shushing sound had him looking left.
Later, Tavish would wonder how that particular faint rustle had garnered his attention. But as a former officer of the 95th Rifles, a regiment of snipe shooters, he had spent years honing his instincts—slipping through forests like a phantom, attentive to the slightest noise.
Regardless, that soft swish stood out as significant.
He froze.
As if summoned, she emerged from the surrounding trees.
Tavish’s. . . she.
Lady Isla Kinsey.
A jolt pinned him into place. Like lightning shocking his muscles and stealing his breath.
She looked ahead, eyes on the cairn. She certainly didn’t see him, pressed into the shadow of the tower.
Why was she here, a Kinsey on Balfour lands?
His pulse pounded against his eardrums.
Tavish cataloged her differences. The passage of years had changed everything . . . yet nothing.
She was older, obviously—her expression more firm, her face settled into the defined lines of womanhood, the curves of her body more pronounced and, well, curved.
Unlike the girl she had been, Lady Isla now wore the height of current fashion—a blue satin spencer over a white gown of flowing muslin with a matching blue satin bonnet on her head. An ensemble that only the most expensive of modistes could create.
Lady Isla had spent considerable time in London, he realized.
Eejit. Of course, she had. What did he think she had been doing all these years? Sitting in the vast drawing room of Dunmore, embroidering bed curtains and swapping bonnet trimmings?
Lady Isla was the previous Duke of Grayburn’s only daughter and sister of the current duke. No doubt, she was the most sought-after heiress in Polite Society. While Tavish had been urging his men through the muddy slop of the Peninsula—fighting hunger, low morale, and French rebels in equal measure—she had attended dinners and routs and balls. Watched the fireworks at Vauxhall and danced the night away in silk slippers. Surely some half-drunk swain had stolen a kiss or two.
The thought curdled his stomach.
Naturally, the clouds decided in that moment to part. The sun blazed through . . . illuminating Lady Isla in a beam of light.
Tavish nearly rolled his eyes.Truly?he longed to ask the Universe.Isn’t this laying it on a wee bit thick?
Enough.
She was the reason he had returned here. They had unfinished business, the two of them. Why put off until tomorrow what he could accomplish the now? Tomorrow was hardly a guarantee.Carpe diemthoughts—those of a rifleman too accustomed to living in the shadow of Death.
Pushing off the stone, he walked toward her.
She startled—her gaze whipping to him, a hand pressing to her stomach in surprise.
Drawing near, he noticed her eyes were, as ever, the pale blue of Loch Cairnbeg in winter. And the framing bits of blonde hair on either side of her face still militantly refused to hold their curl, hanging defiantly straight.
Even seven years on, Lady Isla remained the bonniest lass he had ever seen—pointed chin, button nose, a smattering of freckles atop her cheekbones.
Tavish stopped a respectable four feet in front of her, his heart thumping against his ribs.
