Page 24 of Lady Len and the Mysterious Mac

“It was a very fine party,” Keith said to him, gripping his elbow as he passed. Then with a smirk he added, “Milord,” and Si rolled his eyes.

Back in Aberdeen, Silas had done his best to keep the lairdship under wraps.

Keith was a good man. A quick study of both the medical arts and the men around him, he and Si had become quick companions thanks to his easy-going nature more than Si’s.

He sat with the laird for a good long time, listening to his chest and examining his eyes. They spoke at length in soft, rumbling tones, and Keith took a great interest in the tinctures and tonics prepared by Mrs. Kynoch, as well as the herbs left behind by Jory Shaw.

At last, he patted the laird’s arm and returned to Si, but the sorrow in his eyes said all he needed to.

“I’m truly sorry,” Keith whispered. “But you know the human body can’t go on forever.”

Si wasn’t a fool. He didn’t need a physician to lecture him on mortality. He nodded once. “Thank you for coming.”

“He could have time yet,” Keith consoled. “But it will be finite.”

But Si didn’t hear anything else his friend had to offer. His father wasn’t dying. He was only fifty-five. Keith, he was disappointed to realize, must be a quack.

“Well now, what about that dram?” Uncle Leask asked, breaking the strained silence that had fallen over the room.

“Aye, just so,” the laird said, directing him to the whisky and glasses in the corner. “Pour one for the doctor here, as well.”

Keith and Shaw drifted over towards Leask and the Kintail. But then Finn made his way back to Si and proffered a glass.

He looked very much as though he wanted to speak, and Si wondered about his new friend. Alys had called him the younger brother and heir to Tordarroch, which meant he had lost his own father at some point in time. He was probably full of opinions on the matter.

Si stared into the drink, unable to bring himself to do much more than inhale its strong, peaty, bacon-laced scent.

There were other doctors. He’d heard of interesting therapies conducted on the continent the likes of which the Scots had surely never dreamed. If he allowed the men to make their oaths, perhaps his father would agree to return to the Riviera until his health was restored. Perhaps Si could accept their oaths now and still transition it all to Bram in time.

He glanced towards the doorway once more, expecting to see his cousin waiting there with Ellen. “Where’s Bram?” he asked.

“Sent to bed, I think, milord.”

“Do not,” Si warned him. He was no one’s laird.

“I apologize,” Finn said, eyeing him warily.

“Do not do that either. You’ll see that he gets back to the inn?” He inclined his head towards Keith.

“Of course. Whatever ye need.”

“Mòran taing,” Si said. He was surprised to realize that he would miss having Shaw around after he and Jory left with the rest of the Mackintoshes. Ludicrous, really, when he’d only known the man a day. “Well then, I suppose I should go and find my wife.”

* * *

If Ellen were Silas MacKenzie, she would want nothing so much as privacy. And so, the minute he turned his attention to his father, she slipped back down to the kitchen where she cuddled Dorrie, humming the child a little tune, trying to drown out his desperate words, Do you know aught of nursing?

But his voice was etched into her memory along with the half-feral look in his eyes. He must have heard of Jory’s skill and assumed it ran in the family. And it did. Ellen was just on the wrong side of Jory’s family. It had been her late aunt, Jory’s mother, who knew the healing arts.

Such a misconception would explain why he agreed to the match, at least. How disappointed he must be, having gone to so much trouble, and no closer to finding a nurse for his ailing father. Perhaps she could learn if she tried. She’d always been kept away from the sick because of her delicate constitution, but her husband didn’t need to know all that.

Even once little Dorrie had fallen asleep, Ellen stayed in the kitchen awaiting Finn’s return, presuming neither he nor the visiting physician would know the way to her father-in-law’s bedchamber.

After directing them, she’d intended to observe Dr. Keith’s efforts and see what she might learn, but she found herself drawn instead to the alcove next door.

Standing outside the chapel, which was piled high with gubbins and sundries, Ellen imagined what the room might once have been. Was it cozy and warm, with glowing glass windows and candles adorning every wall? Did it echo like the choirs of heaven when voices were raised in song?

There was a time when she had loved nothing more than to sing, long ago and far away, before her voice went into hiding. Some not-so-small part of her had hoped a monastic life might bring back her voice, that she might sing again in a chapel at Notre-Dame-des-Chelles. Was such self-indulgence the reason her prayers went unanswered, the reason she wasn’t on a boat across the channel this very minute?