Page 85 of Lady Len and the Mysterious Mac

He sat down on a bench, pulled her onto his lap, and took a shaky breath. “Until tonight, I always believed—I knew—that my mother died trying to bring my worthless giant self into this world.”

She looked up at him, tears swimming in the pelagic depths of her eyes.

“And I swore I would never cause the same.”

She nodded her understanding.

“I cannot lose you.”

“So the choice is to be together, happy and in love, until such a time as we’re forced to part, or to start grieving each other now, before we have to?”

Si’s mind juddered to a halt. “In love? Do you mean it? Because I love you, Ellen Mackintosh MacKenzie.”

“Yes, you daft thing,” she laughed. “Yes, I love you, and I don’t think… I don’t accept that we have any choice other than to spend every moment we have left loving each other as well as we possibly can.”

Tremendous relief washed over Si, and then it drained like a receding tide as he remembered everything he’d not yet told her.

“What is it?” she asked, searching his eyes.

He set her beside him, pulling back, standing and pacing under the watchful eye of the crucifixion.

“I wrote you a letter,” he said finally. “Angus was supposed to deliver it to you at the inn.”

“You gave Angus a letter?”

He nodded.

She withdrew a folded parchment from her pocket. “This letter?”

Si nodded again, clasping and unclasping his hands behind his back. “I never meant to deceive you. It took on a life of its own, being someone else, being the person I wished I could be.”

“Oh, Si,” she whispered.

“Can you ever forgive me?”

She shook her head, staring at the floor and Silas’s heart fell.

“I wanted it to be you,” she said, shaking her head again in disbelief. “I always wished that it could somehow be you. I wanted it so badly, I was afraid to pray for it, my most selfish prayer.” She peered up at him through damp lashes, and Silas knew then that hope smelled like damp lavender.

“Aye?” he asked, needing her to say it again.

“Aye,” she whispered back with a giggle, and he fell to his knees before her and took her mouth with his, kissing her until he began to see sparks for lack of air.

“Should we go upstairs?” she asked when he pulled away, panting.

“There’s just one last oath to be taken here tonight,” he said, rubbing one thumb over her wedding ring, and from the sheath at her waist, drawing the matching sgian dubh.

“Milady Kintail, on the graves of my forefathers, the cross of my Lord Jesus Christ, and this blessed iron, which I gave you to keep ever at your side, I pledge to you this day, my fealty and my honor—to defend, to thrive, to shine, not burn, until such a time as death may claim me.”

She smiled up at him and it was like the heavens parting to accommodate an endless blue.

“There’s no quaich,” she whispered.

“I can think of a better seal,” he replied, catching up her lips once more to kiss her, deeply, to tell her anything he’d left unsaid.

And then he stood, sweeping her up in his arms as he did, delighting in the sound of her laughter. He kissed her as he carried her to the stairs, and he kissed her as he climbed them, and Ellen kissed him back, hungry and exploring, as though desperate to swallow every last piece of his soul.

In their room, he unwrapped her from the MacKenzie tartan she’d finally worn, then helped her out of each damp stitch of clothing until she stood naked before him, her rashy skin almost healed.