Page 9 of Lady Len and the Mysterious Mac

“Seemed well enough the day he arrived. But in no time at all he was gripped with the lung fever.”

“Coughing? Shortness of breath?”

“Aye. Then he seemed to improve before you arrived, milord.”

Si tried to smile. “I always did bring out the worst in people.”

“Och, never think it, milord. If anything, it was the prospect of seeing you that improved him a spell.”

So it wasn’t just a chest cold that had sprung up with the changing season. What else had Si overlooked or chosen not to see? “Thank you for telling me.”

“I know he’s overjoyed to have you back, milord. As are we all. Both of you.”

Si nodded and tightened the stirrups. How many letters had his father sent in the last few years, filled with second-hand news of Bram and the clan, of who had wed and who’d gone away, but nary a word mentioning his own poor health? Would Si have returned sooner if he had? Or journeyed to France, even?

“And felicitations on your upcoming nuptials,” Gawyn went on. “It’s good to see the place coming alive again.”

“Aye, tapadh leat,” Si said, mounting up and kicking Uinnseann a little too eagerly.

“Give my regards to the young lady,” Gawyn called after him.

Felicity. Was that what he should feel instead of this twisting, writhing adder in his gut?

He took the long way into the village, across misty fields of heather and gorse, past the old kirk, until finally he could avoid the inn no longer.

The lass was up early too, standing in a remote part of the garden staring off to the east, hugging her arms to her chest. Her golden hair looked like an extension of the sunrise, and the same urge to protect her which had first flared inside his chest at the kirk burned in him once more.

Si slid off his horse and ambled toward her, keeping the fence between them. “Madainn mhath,” he murmured, hoping not to startle her.

She looked his way, turning those brilliant blue eyes on him, and it paused him in his tracks for a moment. He would never get used to, or tire of, those eyes.

He stooped to lean on the low wooden fence, shrinking himself down to a more palatable size. “Better today?” he asked, and she nodded once.

He nodded too. Among friends and classmates, Si was known to be a man of few words. He’d always preferred the company of horses to people, of books to peers, but he was positively verbose alongside this one.

Movement across the garden caught his attention. The sister had seen them and was making a beeline for their quiet corner. If he wanted to offer his gift in private, now was the time.

“I…” he began, but he didn’t know quite how to speak to the little creature. “That is, my, ah…”

All the words in the English language seemed to have fled his brain. The faintest dusting of freckles covered the bridge of her nose, and it suddenly occurred to Si that kissing her there would be a bit like kissing the stars sprinkled across the night sky.

“Morning, Mr. MacKenzie,” the sister called.

He nodded to her, then removed his mother’s Luckenbooth from his sporran, the gleaming silver warm and alive to his touch. “Here,” he said, shoving it at Ellen across the fence.

She practically jumped back as he thrust his arm out, and the brooch tumbled into the dirt.

“Och!” What a lumbering oaf he was. He dropped to one knee to scoop it up, but the lass reached for it too, and like the day before, his fingers brushed against hers, sending such a jolt down his arm and straight to his groin, and this time he couldn’t blame the thunderstorm.

His eyes flicked to hers, still watching him, as though she knew how his body betrayed him, and they both snatched their hands back quickly, hers clasping his mother’s brooch. They scrambled to their feet, but she didn’t even look at the jewelry, just at him, as though seeing right down into the depths of his soul.

“I ken it’s tradition for me to buy you a frock if you like,” he said.

She blushed and shook her head, dropping the brooch in her apron pocket.

“She’s wearing Mam’s dress,” the younger one answered, finally arriving at her sister’s side. “Though we’ve had to take it up an awful lot, and I suppose we’ll have to take it out again when it’s to be mine.”

“That’s very special,” Si muttered, heat flushing the back of his neck. This was all going horribly wrong. She clearly wanted nothing from him, possibly right down to his name or his hearth.