Page 43 of Lady Len and the Mysterious Mac

Silas settled himself on the stone walkway and invited her to recline against him, throwing his plaid around her for warmth. “She may not see so many of them in Auld Reeky,” he said into her hair. “But she’ll be looking up at the same sky as you, no matter where each of you is.”

That was a novel idea, and it made the distance feel a little bit smaller.

“That’s the North Star, right there,” he said, disturbing their cozy cocoon to point at the sky, sending a tiny chill through Ellen that made him pull her closer. “Find that, and you’ll always know where you are. You’ll always know where home is,” he said into her neck, and she believed him.

She knew where she was right then in a way that she never had before.

He rubbed the goosebumps on her arms, but that just made more spring up, which was fine because she wanted him to go on touching her forever.

“See how it looks like the tip of a long handle on a small cup?”

She nodded.

“And just here, a bigger cup. The edges point right at the tip of that handle.”

She nodded again.

“As long as you can find that star, and you know west from east, you can find your way home.”

Strathpeffer was west of Inverness, far north of Edinburgh, and it was oddly comforting to be the corner of a triangle between her cousin and her sister. She snuggled against him as he pointed out other stars and told her all their names. And when at last he asked if she was still awake, she pretended she wasn’t, afraid he’d send her to bed alone.

Instead, he placed the lightest of kisses upon the bridge of her nose, and she didn’t stop smiling all night as they lay nestled together in their own private corner of the battlements, the only two people in the world, cuddled under a spectacular blanket of stars.

Chapter Thirteen

After Finn and Jory left, things between Si and Len returned to very much the way they’d been. Despite Jory’s whispered, “Whatever you did, keep it up,” on her departure, Si avoided Ellen as much as possible by day and his traitorous subconscious lusted after her all night long.

His excuse, being caught up in preparations for the Gathering, would soon run its course. His father had only granted him six week’s delay, and every day more families arrived to set up camp on the grounds around Leod.

It was giving Si flashbacks to twelve years ago when the MacKenzies came from far and wide to offer their oaths, one after another, to his father, the second son of Kintail. Si was sixteen years old, and even then he’d known he wanted no part of it. There’d been rumblings that he should return permanently from Aberdeen, but he was set to start his course at the university, so his father granted him a reprieve.

Holding baby Bram against his broad chest, head and shoulders above men twice his age, Si had watched Alex MacKenzie take up the mantle stoically, and though they didn’t speak of it, Si suspected the old man had never wanted it any more than he himself did. No wonder his father had so little sympathy. But it wasn’t his birthright. It was Bram’s.

If his cousin had been twelve when William MacKenzie died at Inverness, Alex’s role would have been a temporary one until Bram came of age. Why should now be any different?

Si was meant for quieter things, for solitary pursuits and science. He was meant as counsel, right hand, and steward to the one who would actually lead his kinsmen into battle. And Bram could be that leader. The boy just needed toughening up, needed the preparation and counsel Si could provide. He wouldn’t abandon his cousin, but neither would he lead men.

He was contemplating all of this when Dorrie interrupted his thoughts to bring him a letter.

A week had passed since Si spent the night on the battlements with his wife, and he hadn’t replied to Ellen’s last note to the anonymous Mac. Continuing to hide behind the pseudonym after such intimacy seemed worse than cowardly, but he didn’t know how to reveal himself. She had shared too many secrets, asked him as a friend to tell her the truth, and he, as Mac, had promised her he would.

He was honestly surprised to see another parchment addressed in her tidy hand after her most precious confessions had gone unanswered, and it made his blood surge.

Cunning of Mrs. Kynoch to send it by way of this tiny messenger. The cook had always been good at conveying her opinion without saying a single word, and she seemed to find his letter writing naught but a childish pantomime.

My dear and noble Mac, Len began as always, and his throat constricted. If he outed himself to her, she would find him neither dear nor noble. Could he perhaps move to America never to be heard from again?

My dear and noble Mac,

I hope that my self-indulgent confession about the Church hasn’t shocked you. I wouldn’t have revealed it at all, had you not asked. But you’ve been such a kind friend, it only felt right to repay your honesty with my own. I could never have you believe milord’s sullenness was a cause of any discord between us. It is only his shell—like an egg and just as thin.

And though, as I said, I’m neither worthy to serve the Lord nor the Clan MacKenzie as Lady of Leod, I think I’ve found a way to prove my value. Or at least keep my hands and mind busy, which may just have to suffice.

The chapel here needs a good scrubbing and a new coat of paint, and that, at least, is something I can manage. Please don’t worry, if indeed you were concerned. All is quite well.

Affectionately,

Len