Page 16 of Lady Len and the Mysterious Mac

But a tiny flame inside Si’s chest flared with jealousy for what they shared. Was that how it could be, if he were another man and not Silas MacKenzie, who broke everything he touched?

* * *

Ellen couldn’t get the image of Silas MacKenzie astride his ash-colored horse out of her head. They somehow matched, the horse and he. The beast was the very hue of grey within his plaid, and its black mane shone blue in the noon sun, like the navy that crisscrossed the grey. She could well imagine the MacKenzie riding into the midst of a fearsome battle, and both sides laying down arms in awe.

Like everything else, Ellen was afraid of horses, but she could admire a beautiful one from afar. And a tiny, rebellious part of her even longed to conquer that fear—to pet the beautiful creature, look it in the eye and know it, tame it—to understand what it was like to have such a creature within her power, under her thighs and under her control.

It was wicked, of course, to imagine such things, though plenty of women enjoyed riding, but it must surely be part of some deeper wickedness, the reason the Lord denied her prayers night after night, year after year.

When she was a little girl, almost all of Ellen’s prayers were answered, and when she realized it, she tried very hard to wield such awesome power with only the purest of intentions. At seven years old, she watched from the corner, wrapped in Jory’s arms, as her mother struggled to bring baby Maggie into the world, knowing her aunt had fought the same fight with her littlest cousin Lucy, and in the end, had not survived. And so she had prayed to God, to Mary, and to the little baby Jesus himself to bring her mother and infant sister safely through.

Four years later, when her father whisked them all away to the safety of Moy as Simon Fraser marched on Inverness, Ellen had prayed for the well-being of their neighbors and that her home would be left standing for their eventual return.

Every one of those prayers had come true.

At first it was only the forgotten prayers that haunted her. She must have forgotten to pray for the safe return of Jory’s father in 1715. Or was it worse? Had she failed to do so because deep down she wanted her cousin all to herself?

Then came the matter of the kittens. That was a selfish prayer if ever there was one. She’d begged her mother and father for a little house cat, a lovely grey one with soft, folded ears to call her own. When they refused, she had stubbornly turned to God instead, promising that if her prayer were answered, she’d be ever so good and never ask for anything selfish again.

And her prayer was answered.

A mama cat belonging to none of the townsfolk had found its way into the stable and gave birth to a litter of tiny, perfect kittens. It was the best and worst day of Ellen’s life. It was the day she learned the cost of selfish prayers. It was the day she learned to fear a future at the hands of men, the day she pledged herself to the Lord as a nun. When all was said and done, the kittens had been taken away, and she couldn’t allow herself to consider their likely fate.

Ever since that day, Ellen’s prayers had not come true. Not when she prayed for her dear friend to be spared from a fever, not when she prayed for her mother’s stillborn third child, and not when she prayed to join Jory in the convent by the sea.

Oh, the Lord still answered them, she believed that, but unlike in her youth, the answer was a cold and resounding no. Ellen had abused her power, and now the door was firmly closed, no matter how long she pounded on it from outside.

Perhaps because, at her core, she was only ever selfish. Perhaps she merely prayed to assuage guilt, to prevent her own despair. She longed to devote her life to God and live out her days in a convent, to be sure, but she wanted it in order to avoid the brutality of the marriage bed.

And God knew it, for who else could know her heart more truly than He? She wasn’t worthy of a life in His service, and if she wasn’t good enough for that, then what was she good for?

“What on earth can you be thinking about, Wee Ellen?” Maggie asked, bursting into her thoughts the same way she burst into every room she entered. “Your face looks mighty fearsome.”

For the past three days, the bustle of activity had constantly swarmed around Ellen, never stopping long enough to draw breath. Against the rising surge of panic, she was surprised to realize that she clung to her memory of the MacKenzie on his horse as to an anchor in a raging sea, as though the sheer weight of him might tether her in place.

Now they had all crowded into her bedchamber where she was meant to be resting.

She lifted her eyes to find Jory and Mrs. Leask looking down in concern, so she shook her head and pasted on a smile that only deceived her sister.

“What indeed,” Jory murmured to shush Maggie.

“Pondering my strapping nephew, I don’t doubt,” Mrs. Leask added.

“Is it true what they say about the size of a man’s foot?” Maggie asked, tilting her head to the side as though picturing the foot in question.

Jory and Alys Leask exchanged glances. “I can’t think what you could possibly mean,” Jory said.

“How it relates to the size of his—”

“Good as new,” Mrs. Leask interrupted, holding up the laundered wedding gown, and Ellen was relieved on Maggie’s behalf, if nothing else.

“For your hair,” Maggie said, showing Ellen the crown they’d fashioned from white heather.

“And for your shoe,” Jory added, holding out a sixpence piece before pressing it into Ellen’s palm and closing her fingers around it.

Tears threatened to choke her, but Ellen swallowed them down, nodding her thanks.

“Oh, don’t cry, Wee Ellen,” Maggie whispered, close to tears herself, real ones, which made Ellen choke on more of her own. “He may yet shave that beard,” her sister whispered, and Ellen burst out in a laugh that sounded more like a sob, and she wasn’t sure the two weren’t tangled up together.