Page 23 of Lady Len and the Mysterious Mac

“He’ll be grand. We thought to bring him through the kitchen and avoid a fuss,” Uncle Leask elaborated.

“Didn’t count on a welcoming party,” his father choked. “Though I cannae complain about one so lovely,” he added for the ladies’ benefit, and both Ellen and Dorrie flushed ever deeper shades of red.

“Bannocks,” Si explained. Then he moved to his father’s right side, taking over from Shaw, who backed away.

“This one’s always had an appetite. He’ll start eating the furniture if you don’t watch out,” the old man whispered to Lady Ellen with a wink.

“There’s a fellow back at the inn, name of Keith. A medical man,” Si told Shaw.

“I’ll bring him at once.”

“No need,” the laird complained. “Besides, I promised the lad a dram.”

“Don’t think I willnae make you honor it upon my return,” Finn said, and then he was gone.

“Such a fuss,” the old man sighed to Mr. Leask, but he allowed them to help him up the stairs to his chamber.

From the corner of his eye, Si saw the lass tucking wee Dorrie back into her trundle bed, and she looked so natural in the role it made him ache. But he couldn’t worry about that right now.

“Should we not clear a room for you downstairs?” he asked when they had finally settled his father into bed.

“No, we shall not,” the old man protested. Then to Leask, “Back a week, he already knows best.”

Si turned away, ashamed of the disappointed tone in his father’s voice, and there was his bride, standing uncertainly in the doorway.

“D’you know aught of nursing?” he whispered, not liking the note of desperation that caught in his throat or the look of pity in her crimped brow as she shook her head, so he turned away, back to his father, and sat on the edge of the bed. “You can get some rest at least, now everything’s settled and over.”

“Settled, ye say? Over? It certainly is not.”

“I’m wed,” Si reminded him, half wondering if his father’s memory was going and he’d already forgotten the wedding, and half wondering whether he meant to follow them into the bedchamber and ensure it was all consummated properly.

“Aye, wed, and now we’ve the Gathering to prepare for.”

Si froze. A Gathering had not been part of the plan—not his plan, at least. He’d expected to have more time. “A Gathering?”

“The sooner the men give their oaths to you, the better.”

The tenuous control Si had been fighting to maintain since his return was slipping away.

“But you’re getting better. You only overdid it today is all.”

“It’s time,” his father said.

The room threatened to spin around Si. He’d come at his father’s behest, agreed to participate in the sham of a wedding, and, hypocrite he may be, but he’d no notion of accepting any man’s oath. The one Lady Ellen had been strong-armed into providing was already far too much.

“They should make their oaths to Bram,” he said.

“Bram is a boy. And I do not have six years left in me.”

“Dinnae speak so.”

“Och, the sooner you see it, the better we’ll all be.”

Si turned his face away again, trying to mask the anguish bubbling up from his chest. He glanced back towards the door, where surely his bride must be disgusted by his display of weakness, but she was already gone. Well, who could blame her, the way Si was carrying on.

Death was a fact of life for everyone. But, though he’d been away for much of his youth and all his adulthood, there was comfort in knowing his father still trod the earth. Bad enough to become a husband, even worse a laird, but without Alex to counsel and guide him? He couldn’t imagine it.

Soon footsteps fell on the flagstones in the corridor, and Keith appeared with Finn just behind.