Page 34 of Lady Len and the Mysterious Mac

“You’d best get that rosemary, before Nanny Morag comes looking.”

“Yes, milord,” Dorrie agreed, scampering off to the herb garden, hopping on one leg like an off-kilter rabbit because her nan wasn’t there to tell her not to.

Sure enough, he found Ellen in the chapel, wedged between crates of God-knew-what. She had folded herself onto the one visible bench seat, which had likely been cleared upon his father’s return.

The lass startled when his shadow darkened the doorway.

“Only me,” he said and then knelt before her, making himself as small as possible inside the tight space. “Are you injured?”

She shook her head, but she cradled her left wrist at her bosom. There were scrapes on her forehead and chin, and mud caked across one cheek, all down her dress, and in her hair.

“You couldnae find anywhere more uncomfortable to sit in the whole castle?” he teased.

She glanced around her then, as though seeing the mess for the very first time. She must think them quite heathen to have allowed the chapel to come to such ruin. And what would his mother think?

“I’m told it was her favorite—my mother’s—once upon a time. She would sit in here and read for hours. Not her Bible, mind, but novels as had no business inside a chapel.”

He didn’t know why he was telling her all this, but when her lips quirked up in a small smile, he realized that was why.

“She’d be ashamed at the state of it. Suppose my father’s the only one who’s ventured in for quite some time. You can see what it came to while he was in France.”

A sort of pained expression crossed Ellen’s face. He hoped she wasn’t hurt and refusing to tell him. The blood on her chin glistened and threatened to drip, so he took out a handkerchief.

“Will you allow me?”

She nodded, and so he dabbed gently at her face, watching every flinch and flicker. Then he took her hand to extend the arm, feeling along the bones. Her wrist was swollen, and would need to be wrapped, but the bones were intact. They’d gotten off easy. He’d gotten off easy.

“I’ve asked them to draw you a bath, Milady Ellen.”

She smiled a little, but her brows knit together in a way that looked like she might cry, and he didn’t think he could bear it. He eased up and out of the tiny space, offering her his hand.

She stepped gingerly on her right ankle, wincing, and he swept her into his arms and held her close against his chest as he made his way up the stairs, breathing in the scent of paddock mud and lavender. He’d always loved the smell of the paddock. But would the memories now be bittersweet, echoing with the words, Och, Silas MacKenzie, you break everything you touch?

* * *

Ellen sank down into the warm rosewater bath. What an absolute disaster of a day. She’d been right to fear the horse—fear was good and healthy. It kept you away from things you had no business doing. Like getting married.

And yet.

For a split second in between anxiety and terror, she had known freedom. And in the aftermath, she couldn’t shake the realization that her fear had caused the whole accident to begin with. She’d been too focused on being afraid to listen carefully to the MacKenzie’s instructions, and in trying to shake off her nerves and pay attention, she’d slipped and fallen into the depths of his eyes.

Then Buttercup had headed for open space, undoubtedly perturbed by her rider’s anxiety, and she probably would’ve cleared the fence had Ellen not yanked back the reins in terror. Indeed, each successively worse moment had been Ellen’s fault because, as usual, she let fear get the best of her.

When Silas found her, she was ready to face his wrath—to be chastised for not following his directions, for not trusting him implicitly, for behaving like a cotton-headed infant, for nearly costing him a good horse.

But he only looked sad and sorrowful and needy… She couldn’t explain how, exactly, she recognized the need pouring off him, nor had she any idea what to do about it. But whatever his own feelings, he’d taken care of her. Now warm and relaxed, Ellen’s own new sense of need spread deep in her chest and down between her legs.

Seeing him, eye to eye, first from her perch upon the horse and then lying on the ground—it was a revelation. Their height difference usually cast his features in shadow, making them appear harsher than they actually were, like cold, chiseled stone. Up close he was softer. Younger. More devastatingly vulnerable.

It did things to her that she was fair certain ought not to be done, not to a wife whose husband was avoiding her bed, not to a woman bound for the convent.

When her bath grew cold, Ellen rubbed salve on her cuts, closing her eyes to the stings, but breathing them in, accepting pain as punishment for all the trouble she’d caused and all the inexplicable emotions swirling inside her.

Then she took a seat at the small table where they’d eaten breakfast. In addition to the parchment, Silas had brought her quill and ink, and though even a simple blank page frightened her, she sat down to write, hoping it would help clear her head and order her thoughts.

My dear and noble Mac,

First, I must ask that you address me as Len. Then perhaps we can be friends.