Page 4 of Lady Len and the Mysterious Mac

Silas MacKenzie. She’d no idea what to do with him. Or what was in it for him, with his deceptively gentle voice that could be laced with steel when he wanted it to, his scraggly beard, and hooded eyes the color of heather honey.

He didn’t seem to want to marry any more than she did. And who could blame him, when she was half his size and afraid of her own shadow—too small, too timid, too lachrymose? She was a drab little dormouse, best suited to hiding away inside cloister walls, not playing lady of the castle.

“Wee Ellen, I know you can’t help it. I know you’ve a weak constitution, but you must pull yourself together,” her father scolded. “Now isn’t the time to give into one of your missish fits.”

“The wife of a laird must be strong indeed,” her mother agreed. “He can’t be forever looking after you and the whole clan as well.”

“Then why saddle him with me,” she muttered. Nobody heard her. No one ever did.

“You’ve gone and ruined his good handkerchief.” Maggie nodded at the cloth still balled in Ellen’s fist.

She unclenched her hand to study the blotchy, crimson stain. Was her blood the most vibrant thing about her?

“I dare say he has more than one,” her father chortled. “And a good thing, too. He’ll have to get used to ruining them, being wed to our poor Wee Ellen, won’t he?”

“I suppose he must,” her mother chuckled.

Ellen’s fist tightened around the wadded-up handkerchief once more, but she froze her lips into what she hoped resembled a pleasant smile and swallowed down her screams.

“Jory will have to teach that big MacKenzie how to make her special lozenges,” Maggie said, even though by now Ellen was perfectly adept at making her own yarrow capsules to staunch a bloody nose.

When her sister called him that big MacKenzie, it set her stomach in disarray. His size certainly hadn’t escaped her own notice. Compared to her it all seemed rather impossible. She knew just enough about the mechanics of the marriage bed to know that it couldn’t possibly work. If the ground refused to swallow her up, then she would have to try and convince him, as she’d been unable to induce her father, to send her away to France.

“What do you think kept Jory?” her sister prattled on.

“Edinburgh’s far away,” their mother said, echoing Ellen’s own thoughts.

If she were brave like her cousin Jory, she’d not have stopped at the grave of some long dead MacKenzie. No, she’d have leapt the old stone fence and kept right on running until she reached a ship bound for the continent, and then she would have stowed herself aboard without concern for rats or sea sickness.

Indeed, if she were brave like Jory, she might never have arrived at the kirk today. She might have made her escape the moment her fate was announced, taking her future in her own two hands and forging a path forward alone. Of course, if she were anything like Jory, she wouldn’t yearn for the safety of a convent at all.

“I suppose their journey takes twice as long, with the Shaw Wretch stopping every few miles to tup her in the woods along the way.”

“Margaret Mary Mackintosh!” their mother gasped.

“What? We were all thinking it.”

Ellen had most certainly not been thinking it, but her father chortled and nodded his agreement as though he’d had any hand in their match, other than ordering Jory’s exile which ultimately led to her betrothal to Finlay Shaw.

“All of sixteen, and sure you’ll never catch a husband with a mouth like that,” Mother warned Maggie.

“She’d better find someone to take her off my hands after the business with Bearradh Dearg fell through,” her father lamented.

Ellen shivered. Her sister had been expected to follow Jory to the convent on the Scottish coast until the whole thing turned out to be a nefarious ploy by Clan Gordon.

If only their father hadn’t gotten it into his head that he had to have this specific MacKenzie for a son-in-law. The man was already several years older than Ellen. Given the choice, she’d have gladly stepped aside and let Maggie use her dowry in a year or two. But this one needed a wife now, and so Ellen was to be handed off like a side of mutton.

“I ought to have forced that cheeky little MacKenzie cousin to make good on his offer.”

“Da, no! He’s practically a bairn,” Maggie exclaimed, just as he knew she would.

“Oh, but he’ll grow, my girl. He’s all limbs now, but he’ll be almost as big as his cousin, I’d wager. He’ll grow, you’ll see.”

“Not fast enough to suit me,” Maggie grumbled, straightening her skirts.

If he was anything like his older cousin, the boy would indeed grow, and keep right on growing until he was practically a giant holding up the sky.

Ellen took great gulping breaths, trying to settle her nerves. There was no possible way it could work.