Chapter 8 #2
“My name is Abigail. That part’s true.” She swallowed carefully. “I know what year it is.” Her glance flickered briefly toward the desk.
“I don’t have a husband. Or children. I didn’t arrive here aboard any ship I can name to you. The family I do have lives in America, farther west than you’d know, and far enough away that I cannot reach them from this shore.”
“Aye.”
“And when a magistrate comes riding up your road, he’s going to find a woman with no papers, no companions, no trunk, no passage records, and an accent he’ll place eventually if he’s spent any time in a colonial port.”
Her fingers tightened together in her lap. “Which means he’ll start asking dangerous questions very quickly.”
Rory stayed quiet as the silence stretched warm and heavy between them while wind pressed faintly against the glass.
“I’ve thought about it carefully,” Abigail continued. “The only story likely to survive examination is a shipwreck from America. A vessel caught in the weather. Papers lost. Survivors scattered. A boat put off badly in the dark.”
He tilted his head. “A convenient tale.”
“A survivable one.”
That earned her a longer look.
“Enough truth in it that I can keep it straight,” she said steadily now. “Not enough that anyone can corner me with details I don’t know.”
“And beneath it?”
Abigail met his eyes.
“The truth is much worse.”
Something unreadable crossed his face then vanished again.
“I’m not asking you to lie for me, Captain. Only not to contradict me when I lie for myself.”
He sat very still after that.
Outside, somewhere below the cliff, iron struck granite in slow rhythmic blows as the day’s work began along the lighthouse yard.
“And what exactly,” Rory asked eventually, “would ye offer in exchange for such silence?”
Relief moved through her so quickly she nearly laughed aloud. Negotiation she understood.
“I can work.”
His gaze dropped briefly to her hands.
Soft hands. Scholar’s hands. He’d noticed them the night before.
“I understand engineering,” she said before he could dismiss the idea aloud.
“Not practically the way your men do. But mathematically. Structurally. I can read drawings. I understand corrosion and bearings and load distribution. I can organize records, translate Latin, copy a clean hand, and from the look of this room you badly need someone to bully your archive into order.”
His eyes flicked toward the papers stacked beside the ledger.
“And where did a woman acquire such learning?”
“Through a long apprenticeship I’d rather not explain.”
“Hm.”
“I’ll earn my keep,” Abigail said quietly. “And when the magistrate comes, I’ll tell him I crossed aboard a vessel overtaken by weather. That I remember little clearly beyond the wreck itself. It’s believable enough to survive scrutiny.”
Rory leaned back slightly in the chair.
“You’ve thought very hard on this.”
“I’ve spent years studying what happens to women who cannot account for themselves.”
The words came softer now. “I had motivation.”
That landed somewhere deeper than the rest. She saw it in the brief tightening of his jaw.
“My hands are soft,” she admitted after a moment, glancing downward. “You were right about that too. I’ll never pass for someone raised to do labor, nor do I speak or act as a lady. But I can still be useful.”
Silence again.
“I can help with the lens.”
The words hung between them while wind pressed softly against the tower glass and somewhere below stairs the household settled into another ordinary morning.
Every trace of ease vanished from him as he went rigid.
“I havena spoken of any lens.” His hand went to the gun at his belt.
“No, you have not.”
“Then how d’ye know there is one?”
The cliff edge at last.
Abigail drew one slow breath. “That,” she said quietly, “is one of the things I cannot explain without sounding entirely mad.”
Rory watched her with unnerving stillness.
“I know something is wrong with it,” she continued. “I think I know how to fix it. I’m not a spy, Captain. I swear to you I’m not. But there are things I know that I cannot yet tell you.”
The gulls outside cried somewhere over the surf below.
At length Rory rose from the chair, crossed to the desk, and picked up a folded drawing.
He set it carefully between them without opening it.
“Mistress Abigail,” he said, “tomorrow morning ye’ll come to the lantern room.”
Her heart stumbled.
“Ye’ll look at the third bearing in the gear train and tell me what ye think of it. Ye’ll speak of none of this conversation to the men below stairs.”
“Understood.”
“If ye’re lying, ye’ll regret it quickly.” His gaze held hers steadily. “If ye’re not, ye’ll have my protection while ye remain beneath this roof.”
The words settled warm and worrying somewhere beneath her ribs.
“Which,” he added dryly, “may no’ stretch as far as ye’d prefer. Cathcart’s authority reaches longer than mine.”
“I understand.”
“Rest today. Ye’ve looked half-frozen since ye walked in.” He cleared his throat. “Stay clear of the yard until the men grow accustomed to ye.”
His voice roughened slightly. “And if any man below stairs speaks to ye improperly, ye come to me.”
Something unexpectedly gentle moved beneath the command, buried so deeply she might have imagined it if she hadn’t spent time reading his words.
“Of course,” she said softly.
That slight eyebrow lift again.
She turned toward the door, managing not to trip over the skirts despite the ache in her ankle.
“Mistress Abigail.”
She looked over her shoulder.
“Whatever ye’re withholding,” Rory said evenly, “I’ll uncover it eventually.”
Blue eyes. Steady as winter water. A man built almost entirely from stubbornness, integrity, and grief carefully harnessed into usefulness.
That was the terrible part. She knew him already.
Not properly. Not truly. But enough. Enough to recognize the pressure of restraint inside his voice.
Enough to know the loneliness folded into those letters she had once handled wearing archival gloves beneath fluorescent lights half a world and centuries away.
And now he stood before her alive and breathing, looking at her like a puzzle he intended to solve. It felt profoundly unfair.
“I know,” she said. “I wouldn’t think much of you if you didn’t.”
Something in his mouth almost softened into a smile before discipline reclaimed it.
“Go on with ye, then.”
Out in the corridor Abigail stopped and leaned briefly against the cold stone wall.
Her heart hammered in her chest as a wave of dizziness crashed over her. She had done it. Or the first impossible version of it.
All morning she had clung stubbornly to reason, arranging facts inside her mind like documents spread across an archive table, certain some practical explanation would eventually emerge from the chaos. But she had seen the date herself.
Heard the word cailleach whispered in fear through the stone walls. Touched a world that should have existed only behind museum glass.
The cold granite pressed solid against her shoulder blades. No more ruling things out or pretending.
She closed her eyes briefly.
I’ve actually traveled through time.
Then she straightened and walked slowly back toward her tiny room beneath the sound of gulls, wind, and the endless Atlantic breaking itself against the rocks below the tower.