Page 17 of Lady Len and the Mysterious Mac

Jory sat on the bed to her left, pulling Ellen into an embrace and rubbed her back soothingly. Maggie followed her cousin’s lead, dropping down onto Ellen’s other side, cooing and shushing and petting her head until she was actually sobbing.

She hardly knew Alys Leask, but the woman knelt before her, taking the hand that was still balled tightly around the Luckenbooth brooch, and her soothing presence drew Ellen’s tearful gaze to hers.

“I’ve known Silas MacKenzie since the day he was born. His bark is worse than his bite, as they say, but I like to think it’s only from lack of using his voice. He’s a private, intense sort, a bit like you, but warm and soft as fresh bannocks at his core.”

Ellen didn’t particularly want to be barked at or bitten, nor did she think the MacKenzie looked anything like squishy dough. She wanted to ask so many questions about who he was and what he was like, this stranger she was supposed to marry in the morning. Did he prefer the taste of strawberries or rhubarb? And was there anything a man so large and strong ever feared? What was his opinion of the scent of the earth after a long hard rain? And how did he take his tea?

Her face must have shown all of it, because Alys Leask smiled sympathetically and tried again.

“You could do worse. He’s not one for carousing, and he’s more of a taste for books than drink.”

“There, you see, Wee Ellen,” Maggie said, smoothing the hair down her back. “You couldn’t have found anyone more dull if you’d chosen for yourself. Even cousin Logan.”

Poor Logan. Two years younger than Ellen, he’d been making eyes at her since he was six years old and got birched for putting a frog down her dress to get attention. But her father had always wanted a son-in-law called MacKenzie.

Jory snorted and shoved Maggie so she fell dramatically off the bed in a fit of giggles, and Ellen couldn’t help smiling through dried up tears. A man who liked words might be reasonably persuaded with discourse and argument to send her away to France—if only she could find her voice to ask him.

Chapter Five

As usual, the night before the wedding, Si didn’t sleep more than ten minutes. As a babe, if he cried too much when his father was away, Gawyn would take him down to the stables and place him in a basket where watching the horses soothed his restless spirit and none would accuse him of being a changeling child. He suspected that on his deathbed, he’d be wide awake to greet the reaper. Or perhaps he’d know that eternal rest had come for him when at last he drifted off into peaceful slumber.

This night, there was something in the lass’s eyes that haunted him whenever he closed his. Not exactly fear, which he’d expect to see in the face of one so young and innocent. It was more like a knowingness. Like she wasn’t fooled by his size or his rank, but somehow recognized the small person inside the large one, even as she knew that he could shatter her.

There was something in those eyes that made him imagine taking her like a beast with their hands still fasted and the whole congregation looking on, something that made him certain he must put as much distance between their two persons as possible. Galileo’s Jupiter would not be far enough away.

And so, lit more by moonlight than the dawn, Si saddled Uinnseann and rode, hard and fast, with no plan or purpose. He rode into the rising sun as though he could halt its rising, until he found himself on the banks of a loch overlooking the town which had once been the lass’s home.

How many times might she have stood in this spot, staring out across Loch Ness with her head full of stories about monsters and the knight who might someday vanquish them? How disappointing for her that what she got instead was not a knight at all, but the monster.

Ambling along the shore with Uinnseann, Si spotted a patch of thistles. There was something uniquely beautiful about the Inverness Caledonian Thistles as compared to their less round and prickly cousins that grew near his home.

Suddenly, ridiculously, Si was consumed with an urgency to provide one for the lass. She should have something from home on a day such as this. His father being unfit for travel, and both their fathers too eager and stubborn to wait, she’d been yanked from the bosom of all that was familiar before the first vow had been uttered. She should, at the very least, have a piece of home with her in the kirk.

Taking great care to avoid the toxic thorns, he cut several perfect flowers and wrapped them carefully in a handkerchief before placing them in his saddlebag and turning back towards home.

Si returned to Ross in time to bathe and dress. Then he stood before the looking glass regarding his dour expression and tried to force a smile he didn’t feel. It looked sinister. Like someone who ate the bones of small children. He tried again, but this one made him look like he belonged in an asylum.

Downstairs, his father began to cough, but his lungs sounded stronger at least. Si tossed his sweat-stained sark over the traitorous mirror and went downstairs to collect him.

They joined the Mackintosh brood at their inn to march to the kirk together. There were rumblings of concern that the lass might not possess the fortitude to walk, but Finn Shaw would be at her side, so Si allowed the silly tradition to proceed, though he insisted upon a carriage for the laird. Out of courtesy to his bride, he would keep the pace achingly slow.

Ced was ready with his pipes outside the inn, and they set off as soon as the younger sister emerged to take Si’s arm. He didn’t catch more than a glimpse of golden blonde hair behind her, but even that was enough to start his pulse racing. He’d never realized he had a preference for blondes. He’d never allowed himself the luxury of any preference at all where ladies were concerned.

This was all a very bad idea.

Young Maggie beamed up at him as they walked. She kept opening her mouth to speak and then blushing and closing it again, and Si had the sense that she’d never been quiet so long in her life. She tossed a few sneaky glances over her shoulder at her sister, and Si was dying to do the same, haunted by that flash of golden hair, but some brides considered it bad luck to be seen before they were ready, and so he kept his face forward and his stride as short as he possibly could until at last they reached the kirk, where he handed off the sister to Finn, and the lovely Ellen took her place at his side.

For a moment, he was frozen in time.

Her hair, which usually had a natural wave, hung in ringlets nearly to her waist. The pale blue dress that had caused so much consternation the day before only deepened the hue of her Mackintosh blue eyes. And on her head, she wore a crown of white heather—a circle of protection, a symbol of the wearer’s wishes coming true. If only he could believe that.

The lass was handed a rosette of red plaid that clashed rather dramatically with his grey and blue, and her hand trembled as she reached up to pin it over his heart.

She fumbled, nearly dropping the pin, and winced when she pricked herself instead of his sark. And so, Si did break with tradition, reaching down to still her shaking hands. Her eyes met his, a flash of fear and determination, but he guided her hands to finish the pinning, and then raised the bleeding finger to his lips, wondering even as he kissed her, what had possessed him?

Her cheeks reddened, and he lowered her hands, releasing them so he could pin his own rosette on her shoulder. He tried to be quick. Too many people were watching them, tittering over his impromptu display, though he could sense the dagger glares of that same cousin, Logan, and three identical replicas of him, his brothers, elder and younger. But Si’s hands were too large, and Ellen was so tiny, and her breasts were pushed up by her stays. It was impossible not to brush across them as he pinned her, deepening her blush. What a wretched tradition. What a softness unlike any he’d ever known.

From his sporran, Si carefully withdrew the thistles, still in remarkably good condition after being transported, and when Maggie handed over her sister’s bouquet, he added the two purple flowers, safely out of reach of an errant finger, murmuring, “Careful of the thorns, milady.”