Page 76 of Lady Len and the Mysterious Mac

“I think,” he said slowly, “someone may be trying to poison him.”

The expression on his aunt’s face turned to such sympathy. “Alex is old and sick, my dear,” she said gently.

He nodded. It was a strange, unsettling thing to hope that someone had indeed been hurting his father, even if it was Mrs. Kynoch, because that would mean he’d saved the old man, rather than the alternative.

Alys wrinkled her nose. “D’ye smell that?”

“Incense,” he whispered, grabbing her hand and racing from the room, shutting the door silently behind them.

He put a finger to his lips and crept next door to the chapel, where he was surprised to find Norval MacKenzie kneeling beneath the crucifix, a kerchief tied around his nose and mouth, using a tiny bellows to waft incense through the pipe Ellen had discovered.

Holding his sark up to cover his nose and mouth, Silas took one step into the chapel, catching Norval’s attention. The steward closed off the censer and rose.

He didn’t try to make an excuse. He just stood there, staring Silas down. He obviously didn’t know the laird had left the castle, and any accusation Si might have made died in his throat. He’d done enough accusing for today. There would be time enough to deal with Norval once he prostrated himself in apology before Len.

“Si,” Bram called from the stairwell. “Angus MacKenzie’s looking for ye. I think it’s time.”

Time? For the oaths. He’d completely forgotten.

“Later,” he said, shaking his head, turning his back on Norval and guiding Bram and the Leasks away. “We’ll have to do it later,” he said, and they all bobbed their heads, seeming to understand he had a higher calling at the moment.

Si crept down the back stairs so as not to be seen, but there was no slipping past Mrs. Kynoch. “It’s about time,” she said. “They’re getting restless, and we’ve nearly run out of food.”

“Ye found him?” Angus asked, joining the party.

“Everything’s ready. Best get out there.” Mrs. Kynoch nudged him towards the Hall.

“It’ll have to wait,” Si said. “They’ll all have to wait.”

Angus raised his brows in concern, casting the question from Si to the cook and back again.

“I need to go get my wife.”

If eyes carried heat that could burn, Si could not have sensed Mrs. Kynoch’s gaze more fiercely, a look that said, It was you that sent her away.

“Milord, there’s been talk all week. Someone’s stirring up unrest. Blair, if I had to guess. If you disappear now, whatever the reason, I’m afraid he’ll put them to a vote.”

“And?” Si asked, the reality hitting him that Blair and Norval had been working to similar ends. Were they working together, then?

Angus studied his feet. “Ye’ve been hiding yourself away. They don’t trust what they cannae see.”

It was an impossible choice: let them go—the father he could only hope to protect, the bride he hadn’t known he wanted—in exchange for the lairdship he’d never sought, or forsake the house of Kintail and hand it over to Blair and Norval, who’d almost certainly tried to destroy his father and the entire clan, as well. Could he allow Clan MacKenzie fall in order to chase a fool’s errand of his own making? To go after a lass who wished most fervently to be a nun?

He glared at Angus and the lad glared back, searching his eyes for some sign of which he would choose. “I could go in your place,” the younger man offered. “Try and persuade her?”

Si nodded, even knowing that it had to be him. “A note perhaps,” he rasped, withdrawing the apology he’d scribed that evening.

Angus accepted it with a nod. “I’ll leave at once.”

“Angus,” Si stopped him. “The laird is with her. He must be protected at all costs.”

Angus frowned in puzzlement but nodded.

“What’s this about the laird?” Mrs. Kynoch asked.

“Your castor plant.”

She blinked at the abrupt change in topic. “Aye, what about it?”