Page 20 of Lady Len and the Mysterious Mac

He searched the crowd once more and spotted Ellen dancing with Blair MacKenzie. His bride’s face looked a little too dreamlike. Blair was harmless enough, but he was also young and pretty and easy-going with friends and strangers alike—the very opposite of Si in every way. Never far away, Blair’s sidekick Rabbie Stewart watched from the corner, where he whispered to a still glowering Logan.

Bram tugged his sleeve. “Uncle says I must ask the sister to dance, but I don’t really have to, do I?”

“No,” Si told him. “You must go and ask the bride.”

“But she’s—”

“Now,” he insisted, pushing the boy towards the couple, and when the lad cut in, Blair MacKenzie stepped away with a friendly bow, but his eyes immediately sought out Si and nodded at him, a smirk tugging at his lips.

“I’ve never seen her looking so well—Miss Ellen, that is,” Finn Shaw said, offering a dram, which Si accepted gratefully and downed in a single gulp. “Slàinte mhath,” Shaw toasted, swallowing his own drink before his wife dragged him back into the midst of the ceilidh.

As the music wound down, Si made his way through the crowd to claim his own dance with the bride, but a villager stopped him before he could reach her.

“It’s good to see your father out and about, milord. Is it the rheumatism ails him?”

“Och, he’s grand,” Si deflected. “Only keeping you lot in line wears him out.”

The villager guffawed, clapping Si on the back with a wink. “Sure and it’s more like keeping you out of trouble, I’ll wager.”

“Aye, and he’ll be even more tired when the bairns start arriving,” a woman agreed with a grin. “Will you be taking over the Kintail soon, then?”

“You have my oath, milord,” a third cut in before Si could answer. “We’ve been waiting a long time for your return.”

“If it’s the quinsy troubles the laird, you want to stuff a fat cat with hedgehog grease and honeysuckle,” an old lady piped up. “Roast the lot, and spread the drippings on his throat, but it’s got to be a fat cat, mind, or you’ve wasted your time.”

Si nodded at her, a bit bewildered, and hoped any fat cats in the area were taking cover.

Another young crofter looked like he had something more to say to Si than congratulations, but he kept silent.

“All right, Angus?” Blair asked the crofter, shoving an ale into his hands, and the young man nodded and took a long drink. “You were right, she’s a lovely specimen, Si,” Blair added with a wink that made Silas boil.

One after another they stopped him. They wished felicitations and shared their joy at his homecoming. They offered skeptical commentary on his studies and dubious medical advice for his father, wondering aloud what could have held Si’s attention for so long in Aberdeen, and remarking with bawdy winks and nudges that it would be the fruitfulness of the newlyweds which would bring a more plentiful harvest to their own barren fields.

Silas kept a polite smile frozen on his lips as he nodded along, but he didn’t lose sight of Lady Ellen a second time. Though he shook hands with each guest in turn, his gaze followed her around the space as she was swept up by dancers and well-wishers, never eating, but gulping every celebratory cup that was passed her way.

Several times she caught him looking, her eyes scorching his flesh from across the dance floor, taking on a more and more pained expression as the evening wore on.

Finally, she slipped away from the crowd, and Si bid a gruff excuse before following her. She stood in the same isolated patch of garden where he’d found her the day before, arms outstretched to the fence which seemed to be the only thing keeping her upright, but this time she wasn’t alone.

“Say the word, and I’ll take ye away from here,” her sullen cousin begged.

“Logan!” one of his brothers called. “Come away now, lad. Come and have a dram.”

The young man’s shoulders sagged, but he stepped slowly away to rejoin the festivities, and Ellen seemed to relax.

“Milady Ellen?” Si asked, stepping out from the shadows.

She didn’t answer, but he could see her chest rising and falling as though the stays were laced too tightly to draw breath, and a sudden urge to dispose of them coursed hotly in his veins.

“Are you well?”

She shook her head.

Si cast a glance behind him, where the celebration might go all night. The two of them had done their duty, surely, and could slip off without being missed. Even if they were missed, wouldn’t everyone assume it was to make a start on the family they were all so desperately hoping for?

He stepped closer, so he might speak without being overheard, close enough to see the beads of perspiration breaking out across her forehead.

“D’you wish to leave?”