Chapter 6 #2
Abigail stopped just inside the doorway. Rory felt the change in her immediately. Not weakness, nor quite fear, but a strange stillness. The sort of stillness he had seen in sailors moments after surviving battle, when the body had not yet decided whether it belonged among the living.
The workers’ hall glowed gold with firelight after the violence of the storm outside. Samhain bonfires still burned faintly somewhere down the coast, their smoke threading through the storm in brief sharp traces whenever the wind shifted.
Wet wool steamed near the hearth. A kettle hung over the flames, sending up the scent of tea, peat smoke, and onion broth. Men in rough work shirts and heavy boots sat crowded shoulder to shoulder at the long tables with cups of whisky in their hands.
The room felt warm and painfully alive after the violence outside. And Abigail stood still, face pale, looking at all of it as though she had never seen such a room before.
Mrs. Gable rose first.
“Good Lord above.”
“Aye,” Rory muttered.
The older woman planted both hands on her hips beneath her apron and gave Rory the same look she usually reserved for men who tracked mud across her clean floors.
“What have ye dragged in now?”
“A half-drowned lass from the rocks below the Wine Tower.”
At that, several men crossed themselves. Young Tavish stared openly at the scorched sleeve of her jacket.
“Captain,” he whispered. “She came from the tower?”
Someone farther back near the hearth muttered, “Samhain storm,” beneath his breath.
“She came from the rocks,” Rory said sharply.
“But Duncan said the rain stopped there after the lightning struck and—”
“She’s cold and injured, lad, no’ a banshee.”
The boy flushed scarlet.
Mrs. Gable clucked her tongue. “Stand there gaping any longer and the lass truly will perish. Move yourselves.”
That broke the spell as benches scraped, and someone hurried to pull another stool close to the fire.
Rory guided Abigail toward it. She sat stiffly, clutching his greatcoat around herself while the heat from the hearth slowly brought the color back into her face.
Up close, he could see the bruise darkening along her cheekbone. Her lower lip was split. Damp curls clung to her temples.
She was bonny even beneath the bruises and seawater, a fact Rory firmly informed himself was entirely irrelevant.
Mrs. Gable crouched in front of Abigail with a bowl of broth already in hand.
“Drink.”
Abigail accepted it with both hands. “Thank you.”
“There now. Better.” Mrs. Gable studied her more closely. “What’s your name, lass?”
“Abigail.”
“Where are your people?”
A hesitation.
Rory noticed that too.
“I…” Abigail swallowed. “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”
Silence settled heavily around the hearth.
Mrs. Gable raised a brow.
“Ye dinna remember?”
“I remember the storm.” Abigail’s fingers tightened around the bowl. “And waking up on the rocks. Before that…” Her voice faltered slightly. “Nothing’s clear.”
It was not entirely the truth. Rory knew it immediately, her face showed everything the lass was thinking. ’Twas as if she was weighing the choices, deciding what was safest to reveal.
Mrs. Gable looked toward Rory as he gave the smallest shake of his head.
Not now.
“Well,” Mrs. Gable said briskly, “whatever knocked the memories from ye can wait until morning. Ye’ve a look about ye like death warmed over.”
To Rory’s surprise, Abigail smiled faintly.
“That’s a phrase we use where I’m from too.”
“Where’s that then?”
Another pause.
Rory nearly smiled himself.
“Far away,” Abigail said carefully.
“Aye,” Mrs. Gable replied dryly. “I gathered that much from the strange clothes.”
That earned the tiniest huff of laughter from several men nearby as the tension eased.
Rory pulled out a chair across from Abigail and sat. Now that she was warm and no longer half-conscious on the rocks, he could study her properly.
Her clothing was fascinating. The seams impossibly fine, perfectly straight. No tailor alive could produce stitching that precise. The strange fastening running down the front of her jacket looked almost like tiny metal teeth locked together.
And the fabric itself…
He had never touched cloth woven so tightly.
“What?” Abigail asked suddenly.
Rory realized he had been staring.
“Yer clothes are peculiar.”
A startled snort escaped her.
“Trust me, right now yours are winning that contest.”
Several nearby workers barked startled laughter into their cups.
Rory’s own mouth threatened to curve.
Aye, she was bold.
Outside, thunder rolled farther out to sea. The storm was weakening, but Rory still could not shake the image of the dry circle around the Wine Tower, nor the uneasy certainty that on Samhain night something had crossed onto his shore that was never meant to.
Ewan entered dripping rainwater onto the stone floor and stopped beside Rory, looking Abigail over openly.
She met his gaze without flinching. Another thing Rory noticed about the lass. Most women would have looked away beneath the scrutiny of a room full of strange men. Abigail simply looked back.
Ewan lowered his voice slightly. “We should talk.”
Rory nodded and rose, following Ewan into the corridor outside while wind rattled the shutters overhead.
Ewan folded his arms.
“She appeared out of nowhere.”
“Aye.”
“Below the tower struck by lightning.”
“Aye.”
“With no ship.”
Rory rubbed one hand across his jaw. “I’m aware of the problem.”
“The men are talking already.”
“They always talk.”
“This is different.” Ewan glanced back toward the hall. “Half of Fraserburgh thinks the old tower cursed.”
Rory leaned one shoulder against the wall as weariness settled heavily in his bones.
“I couldna leave her there.”
Ewan’s expression softened slightly. “Nay. I ken ye couldna.”
Because fourteen years ago Rory had failed to hold onto someone else in storm-black water. Neither man spoke the memory aloud. They did not need to.
Ewan sighed. “She’s bonny.”
Rory shot him a flat look. “This seems a rather inappropriate moment for matchmaking.”
“I’m merely making an observation.”
“Aye, well. Observe quieter.”
Ewan grinned despite himself. “Ye looked at her on the rocks like a man who’d just found buried treasure.”
“I was trying to determine whether she addled her wits.”
“Mmhm.”
Rory ignored him, but as he glanced back through the open doorway toward the hearth, he found Abigail watching the firelight dance across the room with that same thoughtful, searching expression. As if she were memorizing every detail.
The candles guttering against the stone walls, the rough-hewn tables crowded with half-finished cups of whisky, and the men laughing quietly near the hearth all seemed to hold her attention with equal fascination.
A stranger trying desperately to understand the world she had landed in. And for reasons Rory could not begin to explain, something deep in his chest shifted.
Ewan cleared his throat.
“Say it,”
“Ye dinna want to hear me say it.”
“Say it anyway.”
Ewan looked at the door.
“A woman on the rocks with a burnt sleeve, no ship, and a tale of losing her memory. The garrison across the firth pays silver for any French face that walks into it. If I was the magistrate, I’d be sending a rider down the coast tonight.”
“Cathcart.” Rory said the name flat.
“He’ll hear of her within the week. This toon leaks like a cracked bucket. And when he comes up here, she’ll need more than memory loss and a dreamy look to keep clear of a gaol cell.”
“I ken.”
Ewan looked at him. “What are ye going to do?”
Rory was quiet for a moment.
“I’m going to let her sleep here tonight,” he said. “And I’m going to watch her. If she’s a spy, she’ll make a mistake, and I’ll see it. If she’s something else, I’ll see that too. Until I ken which, I’ll not hand her to Cathcart, and I’ll not hand her back to the sea.”
“And if ye’re wrong?”
“Then I’m wrong, and I’ll answer for it.”
Dangerous, he thought grimly, though not for any of the reasons Ewan would suspect.
The true danger lay in the simple fact that when her footing vanished above the surf, he had gone after her without hesitation, driven by the same fierce instinct that had once failed his brother in storm-black water.
Some battered corner of his soul had already decided he would sooner drown beside her than watch another pair of hands vanish beneath the sea while he stood helpless upon the rocks.
Ewan sighed. “Aye. Well. It’s your hearth. I’ll stand watch tonight.”
“Go to bed. If she wanted a knife in me, she’d have done it when we fell on the rocks.”
“That’s exactly the sort of thing a man says the night before he wakes up with a knife in him.” Ewan shook his head and went down the corridor toward the men’s quarters.
Rory stood alone in the draft from the door, listening to the wind drop a notch at a time as the storm blew itself out, and he thought about what he’d just promised himself as he went back into the kitchen.
Abigail was still on the stool by the hearth, looking into the fire.
In the firelight, with the borrowed blanket around her shoulders and the worst of the blood cleaned from her face, she looked even younger than he’d first guessed.
Her hair had begun to dry in loose dark waves that fell past her shoulders, and as he watched, she pushed it behind her ear with a quick absent gesture.
He pulled up a stool and sat down across from her.
“In the morning we’ll have words. A number of them. About where ye came from, and about why a woman with no vessel and no memory fell out of a storm onto the same rocks I pulled a body off of two days ago.”
She looked at him then. “All right.”
“Ye’ll tell me the truth, or what ye can of it, or ye’ll tell me a good enough lie that I can live with. That’s yer choice.”
“Fine.”
“And ye’ll no’ leave this house without telling me ye’re going. If a magistrate comes up the road, ye’ll tell me first. If ye remember a name, ye’ll tell me. If any of the men bother ye, ye’ll tell me. The roof is mine. The rules are mine. Are we clear, mistress?”
“We’re clear.”
“Then rest. I’ll have Mrs. Gable wake ye at dawn.”
He stood up. She reached up and caught his sleeve, just above the wrist, with a light, brief grip. He stopped.
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For not leaving me to the sea.”
He looked down at her hand on his sleeve. Her fingers were still scraped at the knuckles from the rocks, and the cut on her right palm had reopened. .
“Mind yerself, lass,” he said. “I’m no’ sure yet what I’ve done. But ye’re welcome.”
He walked out of the kitchen and up the stairs to his study, and he didn’t sleep for a long time. He sat at his desk in the dark with the lowest drawer open, his palm flat on the lid of the tin, and watched the weather turn.