Chapter 18
Abigail
Days after the funeral, the castle still breathed around them with all its ordinary sounds. Boots crossed passages. Doors opened and shut against the wind. Pans rattled in the kitchen. The sea struck the cliffs below the tower in its endless dark rhythm.
But laughter was rare and no one sang anymore. No one sang.
Not Tobias carrying timber through the yard with terrible verses made up as he went.
Not Ewan sharpening tools beneath the workshop awning while whistling badly enough to offend birds from nearby counties.
Even Mrs. Gable had stopped humming under her breath while she kneaded bread.
Even the whistling had stopped as though grief itself had reached into the castle and turned the volume down.
Abigail stood at the kitchen table trying to peel turnips without removing half the vegetable with every stroke of the knife.
Mrs. Gable watched in silence for nearly a full minute before finally sighing through her nose.
“If ye carve much deeper, lass, we’ll be serving peelings for supper and throwing the rest to the gulls.”
Abigail looked down at the mutilated turnip in her hand.
“In my defense,” she said, “it’s harder than it looks. I keep worrying I’ll chop my finger off.”
Mrs. Gable took the knife from her with the expression of a woman thinking about where she’d hidden the whisky.
“Ye hold it like ye’re punishing it.”
“I might be.”
“Aye, well. The turnip appears to be winning.”
Despite herself, Abigail smiled faintly.
Mrs. Gable demonstrated once, quick practiced motions reducing the vegetable neatly into even pale cubes before handing the knife back.
“There. Smaller. If ye cut them uneven the pot cooks half to mush and leaves the rest hard enough to break teeth.”
Abigail adjusted her grip carefully as Mrs. Gable watched. After the next turnip, the housekeeper gave one sharp nod.
Approval at Kinnaird Head came in crumbs. Oddly, it meant more because of that.
The kitchen smelled of onions, broth, and damp wool drying near the hearth. Rain earlier that morning had left half the household steaming gently beside the fire like overworked draft horses. A kettle bubbled softly above the flames while somewhere outside the back door Tobias cursed.
Ewan’s voice drifted in immediately afterward.
“Have ye considered lifting with the end attached to yer head?”
A muffled reply sounded.
Mrs. Gable rolled her eyes toward the ceiling.
Abigail laughed before she could stop herself, the sound startling in the quiet, but Mrs. Gable smiled.
Rory looked up from the end of the table where he sat with a ledger open beside a cup of untouched tea, sleeves rolled past his forearms, dark hair still damp from the weather outside. The bruise at his jaw from the wreck had faded yellow at the edges now.
His gaze found her across the kitchen, and warmed. Then Tobias crashed through the back door carrying a sack and spilling turnips across half the floor.
Mrs. Gable shouted, Ewan swore, Abigail laughed again, and Rory smiled. The sight of that smile hit her with ridiculous force.
By afternoon the weather had turned sharp enough to drive everyone indoors as the wind battered the tower walls while rain moved across the headland in silver sheets.
Abigail spent most of the day between the workshop and kitchen carrying measurements, inventory lists, and once, disastrously, an entire tray of washers she dropped across the floor like metallic hail.
Tobias laughed so hard he nearly fell off a stool.
Rory crouched beside her helping gather them. “You’ve invented a new method of dispersing equipment.”
“It’s called innovation.”
“A terrifying word from ye.”
Their hands brushed reaching for the same washer, the contact lasting barely an instant.
Still, Rory’s fingers tightened around the brass piece before he set it in her palm.
At supper Rory barely touched his food. Twice Abigail caught him staring toward the window instead of listening to the conversation around him.
When Tobias mentioned Fraserburgh, Rory’s shoulders tightened almost imperceptibly.
Afterward supper, Rory rose first. “I’ve papers to finish.”
Mrs. Gable snorted softly. “Ye’ve papers every night now.”
“Aye.”
“Terrible affliction.”
One corner of his mouth moved faintly, then his gaze flicked toward Abigail.
Warmth, regret, and distance already forming behind his eyes.
The next morning the shawl he’d bought her caused a ton of drama.
Abigail realized it halfway through the village when two women outside the baker’s stopped speaking altogether as she and Mrs. Gable approached.
One woman’s eyes dropped immediately to the deep blue wool wrapped around Abigail’s shoulders. Then lifted again with bright naked curiosity.
Mrs. Gable snorted beside her.
“Oh good,” Abigail muttered. “I’ve become public entertainment.”
“Aye. Give them another hour and they’ll claim ye bewitched the lighthouse keeper and stole his senses.”
“I don’t know how to bewitch anybody.”
“Best learn quickly. Seems effective.”
Mrs. Gable could be funny sometimes.
The harbor smelled sharply of fish, wet rope, and incoming weather. Wind pushed hard enough off the sea to sting her cheeks while gulls wheeled low over the quay screaming like tiny feathered demons.
A boy near the fish stalls stared openly at the shawl, then at a woman nearby, then at Abigail again.
Mrs. Gable caught him instantly. “Have ye misplaced yer manners entirely, lad?”
The boy flushed scarlet. “Sorry, mistress.”
“Sorry’s a fine start. Stop gawping before I sell ye to the herring boats.”
He vanished immediately as Mrs. Gable adjusted the basket against her hip with grim satisfaction.
“Honestly. Folk act as though kindness itself were scandalous.”
“They’re talking because Rory bought it for me.”
“They’re talking because they’re bored.” Mrs. Gable sniffed. “And because the Captain spent years avoiding women entirely, so naturally one shawl has thrown the village into collapse.”
Heat climbed instantly into Abigail’s face.
Mrs. Gable ignored this with great dignity. “I think,” she continued briskly, “if ye put aside every kindness because fools chatter over it, ye’ll soon be standing naked in a field.”
The image arrived in Abigail’s mind with horrifying clarity. She laughed out loud so suddenly a fisherman looked over sharply from the next stall.
Mrs. Gable looked smug. “There,” she said. “Better.”
By evening Rory had heard about the commotion. Fraserburgh moved gossip faster than the plague.
Abigail found him in the study just after dusk with papers spread across the desk and one candle burned low enough to drown in its own wax. The room smelled of ink, salt damp, and exhaustion.
He looked up as she entered and for one fleeting second his face softened. Then restraint crashed down over it like a door shutting.
“Mistress Abigail.”
The formality struck hard enough she actually stopped walking.
Not Abigail.
Not lass.
Mistress Abigail.
Polite.
Careful and cold in all the worst ways.
Abigail crossed the room slowly with the tray containing soup, bread, and tea that Mrs. Gable had thrust into her hands downstairs.
“Mrs. Gable says if you ignore this tray she intends to haunt you personally after your murder.”
“She’s a violent woman.”
“She really is.”
But he didn’t touch the food as he sat back slightly in the chair.
“Cathcart was delayed with the weather and other things, but he will come soon.”
Abigail folded her hands loosely together.
“When?”
“I dinna know.”
“But soon.”
“Aye.”
His gaze rested steadily on her now.
“When he asks questions, ye came from a wreck ye remember poorly. What knowledge ye possess came from yer father or brother. Mrs. Gable has taken ye in until family can be found.”
The lie sounded painfully thin aloud. Apparently Rory thought so too because his mouth tightened briefly.
“We’ll face it when it comes,” he said quietly.
We.
The word slipped free before he seemed aware he’d said it.
“You should spend more time below stairs.”
Abigail blinked. “What?”
“The kitchen. Household rooms.” His voice remained maddeningly calm. “Stay clear of the lantern room unless I send for ye.”
Understanding and hurt arrived almost immediately.
“You’re avoiding me.”
“I’m protecting ye.”
“By pretending you don’t want me around?”
His jaw tightened once. “Every hour ye spend alone with me strips another thread from a reputation ye canna spare.”
Abigail stared at him across the desk while anger and something far softer tangled painfully together inside her ribs.
“You think if you push me away hard enough everyone in the village will stop talking.”
Rory rose abruptly and crossed toward the window.
“The shawl didna help,” he said quietly.
Abigail looked down automatically at the blue wool around her shoulders.
“No,” she admitted. “Probably not. Do you regret buying it?”
Rory went very still.
“No.”
The single word warmed the room more thoroughly than the fire.
Abigail hated how relieved she felt hearing it.
Rory rested one hand briefly against the window frame. He looked exhausted suddenly. Worn thin in places sleep no longer properly reached.
“A woman alone beneath a man’s roof gathers stories around herself quickly enough. A woman under my roof while I buy her gifts gathers them faster.”
“You didn’t buy me jewelry,” Abigail muttered. “You bought me a beautiful woolen shawl because I was freezing to death.”
For one unguarded moment the strain showed plainly in Rory. The funerals, Cathcart coming, and the lighting of the lamp only days away. And there she was standing in the middle of all of it.
There was a moment she thought he might cross the room toward her. Instead he stepped back.
“I’ll leave you to your paperwork then, Captain.”
“Mistress Abigail—”
But she was already moving toward the door because if she stayed another minute she might do something catastrophic. Like touch him, or worse, ask him to touch her.
By dusk she climbed the lantern-room stairs anyway. Mostly because he’d forbidden it. The tower narrowed around her as she climbed, the stone colder with every turn. Above, warm gold light moved beneath the lantern-room door in slow revolving pulses.
She pushed inside quietly to see Rory bent over the bearing assembly with sleeves rolled to his forearms, one hand steadying the cradle housing while the other worked a narrow file through the channel groove.
Brass gleamed honey-gold beneath the lamps.
The great lens turned overhead in slow measured brilliance.
He looked up immediately.
“You should be downstairs.”
“So should you.”
“I’m working.”
“You’re hiding.”
That earned her a look.
Abigail crossed toward the bench despite herself. The room smelled of heated brass, lamp oil, and the sea leaking through ancient stone.
“You’re filing too narrow,” she said quietly.
“I’m no’.”
“You are.”
Rory handed her the file without argument.
Abigail adjusted the angle carefully and drew the file once through the groove.
Metal whispered softly beneath it.
“There.”
Rory watched her hands instead of the mechanism as the air between them tightened.
Abigail set the file down carefully. “You still haven’t eaten much.”
“Mrs. Gable recruited ye into the campaign?”
“She didn’t need to.”
The lantern revolved above them while surf hammered the cliffs far below.
Rory’s gaze dropped once briefly toward her mouth before lifting again.
“Go downstairs, Abigail.”
Not Mistress Abigail.
Abigail.
Soft enough to undo her completely.
Rory looked at her again then, and something raw flickered there fast enough she nearly missed it.
“Please.”
That was worse. Much worse.
Abigail picked up the abandoned tool from the bench because otherwise she might have reached for him instead.
“All right.”
She left before the wanting in the room consumed all the air.
Later, Ewan stood in the kitchen annihilating carrots with unnecessary violence.
Several already-mangled pieces littered the board.
Abigail eyed them cautiously.
“Mrs. Gable would call that a crime.”
“Aye, well. Mrs. Gable’s no’ here.”
“She’s behind you.”
Ewan closed his eyes briefly.
Mrs. Gable smacked the back of his head lightly with a folded towel while Tobias nearly choked laughing into his ale.
For a few precious minutes the kitchen felt almost ordinary again.
Then Ewan sobered.
“A message came. Cathcart will come soon.”
Silence settled quietly around the table as Abigail set down the potatoes she’d been peeling.
“What’s he like?”
Ewan considered.
“Men like Cathcart want the truth,” he continued. “And they have patience enough to wait while ye run out of lies.”
The fire cracked softly in the hearth.
After Ewan and Tobias had left, Abigail looked down at the shawl.
“Should I stop wearing it?”
Mrs. Gable snorted from the stove. “Does it keep ye warm?”
“Yes.”
“Then wear it.”
Night settled fully over Kinnaird Head beneath gathering wind.
Abigail lasted perhaps an hour in her room before surrendering entirely. She wrapped the shawl tightly around herself and climbed the stairs barefoot and silent through the sleeping tower.
Light still glowed beneath the lantern-room door. She stopped one landing below instead of entering and for a long moment she simply sat listening to the faint mechanical rhythm overhead.
She couldn’t resist. “Did you cut the channel?”
Rory’s voice came through the closed door above her. “I’m capable of measuring a hair, Abigail.”
A startled laugh escaped before she could stop it.
“Did it settle properly?”
“Aye.”
“Good.”
Neither of them opened the door or crossed the final distance. At last Rory spoke again, his voice roughened faintly by fatigue.
“Ye should sleep.”
“So should you.”
Eventually she rose and descended slowly back toward her room while pale revolving lantern light swept intermittently through the narrow stair windows.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
And somewhere high above her, Rory remained awake in the lantern room while the sea hurled itself endlessly against the dark Scottish coast below.