“Please, lass. Don’t do this. I want ye as my wife.”
She heard the pleading in his voice, but something had fractured within her. Some deep mooring that Gray’s cruelty had loosened. And now with the harsh battering of Tavish’s plans, her ties to rationality snapped entirely.
“Go then! Go and never come back!”
“Isla—”
“You cannot call me a child, and yet consider me a wife in the same sentence. You cannot tell me to behave like an adult, and yet dismiss my reasons as immature. I might be achild—” She leaned on the word with acidic scorn. “—but even I know that this isn’t what a marriage should be.”
“We’re both new to this, lass, but that—”
“No! We stand together. We go together. That’s the only marriage I want!”
“Isla. Please stop.”
“Don’t bother sending for me. I won’t come! Don’t write me, as I surely will not write you!”
She hated that her self-pitying demands sounded like those of a child. Angry and taunting.
“Ye will change your mind, Isla. Ye must!”
“I won’t!”
“I’ll write ye as soon as I can. I’ll arrange some way for ye to receive—”
“No! Do not write me! I don’t want to hear from you. I shan’t read anything you send. I’ll burn it unopened!”
The following silence rang with the echo of her fury.
She could hear the harsh exhale of his breaths. As if, like her, he was seconds from screaming his rage.
Finally, Tavish shifted on his feet, lungs settling, gaze shuttering. His actions declared that, unlike her weak, juvenile self, he was capable of controlling his emotions.
“Very well, Isla. I won’t write ye. I will wait for you to write me.” So measured and precise those words, maturely shifting the decision back into her hands. “Ye can send me letters through Mariah. She doesn’t know about us. No one does. But I know she will help, if ye explain—”
“Go to the devil, Tavish Balfour.”
Spinning on her heel, Isla picked up her abandoned valise and walked home.
Isla returned toDunmore as if in a fog.
She unpacked her bag, crawled into bed, and didn’t stir.
Once again, food was sent back down to the kitchen, uneaten. Not born of stubbornness but of a deep melancholy of spirits.
Tavish refused to listen to her. To understand why she couldn’t bear remaining under Gray’s merciless thumb.
Instead, when faced with the loss of his inheritance, Tavish had accepted Gray’s offer and left for a separate life—one that wouldn’t contain her.
What did Tavish think she would do without him? What future did he envision for her? What waiting? His plan sounded like more hope than any logical reasoning. At best, it was a thin excuse to abandon her, as if she were a burden he regretted taking on.
Tavish was gone and would likely be killed.
She would never see him again.
What was the point of life?
Her thoughts probably were childish. Petulant, even. But her heart simply overflowed with too muchfeeling, and Isla didn’t know how to channel it.
