Page 22 of Lady Len and the Mysterious Mac

She raised her eyebrow at him. After all, he hadn’t been with her all day.

“What was it, then, a full breakfast of parritch and bacon for the bride on her day?”

That made her smile, and she hid it by taking a bite of the delicious bread.

He watched her devouring it so intently that she half wondered if he wanted to devour her, and perhaps she wanted him to, and a tension fairly crackled between them as she swallowed. Then more scuffling and sniffles from a corner of the room drew both their attention.

Silas crossed to the other corner and drew open a curtain, revealing a tiny, mouse-haired kitchen maid with red-rimmed eyes.

He knelt down so as not to tower over the girl, and she looked up at him, popping her thumb from her mouth and hiding it behind her back.

“Dorrie?” he asked.

“Yes, milord?” she answered, blinking up at him and then past his shoulder to Ellen, who took a step closer. The girl couldn’t be more than five or six.

“Are you all right, lassie?” he asked, instead of the accusatory Why are you crying? Ellen had heard so often as a child.

“Yes, milord,” she said again, smiling up at Ellen, her tears forgotten.

“Good,” Silas said. “But if you weren’t, would there be a reason?”

The little girl’s eyes filled once more with unshed tears, and she whispered, “Nanny Morag said I was naughty and couldn’t go to the party.”

“Ah,” he nodded, casting a conspiratorial look over his shoulder at Ellen. “Well, it was nice enough, but see? We decided to leave early.”

Dorrie looked Ellen up and down as though she were a beautiful princess, and then smiled again, scrunching up her nose to show two missing front teeth.

“And d’ye know what?”

“What?” the girl whispered in awe.

“It was so chaotic, I didn’t even get to dance with my bride. Now, isn’t that a shame?”

“A very grave shame, milord,” Dorrie whispered solemnly.

“Aye, a very grave shame, and one we must rectify. Only I’m not so good with the dancing. D’ye think you can show us what to do?”

Little Dorrie’s face burst into sunshine, and she nodded shyly at her laird’s big son.

He stretched out his hand to her and she scrambled out of her little hideaway bed, wrapping her tiny fist around his index finger and reaching for Ellen with her other hand. And together, without music, the three of them danced a sort of modified strathspey and amid the shadows of the flickering candlelight, somehow Silas MacKenzie didn’t look quite so big and fearsome after all.

They danced with abandon, and joy bubbled up inside Ellen with surprising speed. When they staggered to a stop and little Dorrie threw herself on the ground dramatically out of breath, Ellen tried to steady her own rapid breathing, but her chest heaved up and down in the constricting bodice. Silas was panting too from the exercise, and then suddenly he raked his fingers tenderly through her hair as his eyes gleamed in the firelight.

“Crumbs,” he whispered, brushing the remnants of her mother’s seed cake from her scalp before dropping his hand to her face, his thumb skimming the ridge of her cheekbone which burned at his touch and did nothing to calm Ellen’s breathing. Despite his beard, in the shadows of the kitchen his face looked younger, untroubled by whatever brooding usually lined it, and her legs felt a bit like jelly.

When Dorrie called, “A waltz, a waltz!” Ellen’s heart echoed the little girl, for she could go on dancing like this forever.

Chapter Seven

Just as Si hoped, the impromptu dance put his bride at ease, and surprisingly lifted his own spirits too. God bless little Dorrie for offering the perfect excuse after he had failed so spectacularly at presenting the glory of Leod. It was naught but dust and decay whichever way he turned.

Ellen was a bright light in the gloom, and when they danced, with her hair flying, her face flushed with drink and exertion, he was half afraid her nose might hemorrhage again.

After the strathspey, Dorrie clapped her hands and called for a waltz, and Si was inclined to indulge her. But before they could count off the door rattled, and they all stepped back to make way for Uncle Leask and Finn Shaw, carrying the laird in between them.

“Da?” Si asked, to hell with formalities. To Shaw he added, “Is he all right?”

“Tired, I think,” Shaw answered, as Si’s father began to cough.