Chapter 19
Rory
The road back from Fraserburgh vanished beneath the fog before Rory reached the harbor turn.
The haar had rolled inland from the sea, thick as wool batting, swallowing the road, the cliffs, and half the mare beneath him until the world narrowed to hoofbeats, and the faint white drift of his horse’s breath.
The last of the autumn color had gone from the hedgerows, leaving only black branches rattling above stone walls slick with damp. Somewhere beyond the fog, waves struck the cliffs below Kinnaird Head with a heavy grinding rhythm that seemed to vibrate up through the earth itself.
The mare hated weather like this. Rory could feel the tension running beneath the saddle with every step she took. Her ears flicked sharply. Once she tossed her head hard enough the reins jerked through his gloves.
“Easy.”
He should have stayed in Fraserburgh and waited for clearer weather, but the trip had already cost him half the afternoon and most of his patience.
The mare shied sideways suddenly.
Rory tightened the reins instinctively. “Easy.”
Her muscles bunched beneath him as something moved in the ditch beside the road. A burst of black wings exploded upward from the fog with an awful shrieking cry.
The mare screamed outright, took one violent leap sideways as the world disappeared beneath hime.
The road had gone slick with freezing mud beneath the fog. The mare’s hind legs lost purchase as she lunged, and Rory twisted hard in the saddle trying to free his boot before twelve hundred pounds of terrified horse came down on top of him.
Pain radiated through his left shoulder as he hit the frozen ground. White flashed across his vision so sharply it nearly stopped his breath. For one disorienting heartbeat he heard nothing at all. Then the world rushed violently back into place.
Rory stayed flat on his back staring upward into the pale blur overhead while pain pulsed deep and nauseating through his shoulder.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered hoarsely into the fog, “that was poorly managed.”
The mare danced sideways again, reins dragging as Rory swore softly and pushed himself upright. The movement nearly dropped him back into the mud.
The mare settled enough for him to catch the reins and soothe her with his good hand. The bird, whatever it had been, had vanished back into the fog.
Rory mounted one-handed with considerable difficulty and rode the remaining mile to Kinnaird Head in deepening pain while the fog swallowed the whole around him.
By the time the castle emerged from the haar, yellow windowlight glowing faintly through mist, his shoulder throbbed hard enough to make his vision pulse with every hoofbeat.
He turned the horse over to the stableboy and made his way inside the castle. Warmth and peat smoke hit him the moment he staggered inside.
Ewan looked up from the kitchen table where he sat with a mug of ale and a heel of bread in one hand.
“Well,” he said after one glance. “Ye look terrible.”
“Thank ye kindly.”
Then Janet appeared from the hearth and stopped dead.
“Oh, for the love of all the saints.”
Rory sighed. “I’m perfectly capable of walking upstairs on my own.”
“Aye,” Janet said flatly, “and after that perhaps ye’ll juggle axes for entertainment.”
Ewan grinned openly now. “I wager that silly horse threw him.”
Abigail looked up from the far side of the table where she sat beside a stack of papers and an untouched cup of tea.
The concern on her face made something warm move through his chest at the sight of her.
Janet, who had come to the castle to visit her sister, pointed toward the chair nearest the hearth.
“Sit down before ye fall down.”
“I’m no’ falling down.”
“Yet.”
Rory lowered himself into the chair with what dignity remained available to him. Unfortunately the movement shifted his shoulder again, and pain shot clear down his arm hard enough to tighten every muscle across his jaw.
“What happened?” Abigail asked.
“Fog. Horse. Bird. Mud. Pride.” Rory leaned his head briefly against the chair back. “Not necessarily in that order.”
Ewan set down his mug. “The damned horse bolted at a raven?”
“It was bigger than a raven and the bloody bird screamed.”
“All birds scream.”
“That thing sounded possessed.”
Janet, who’d learned healing from her ma and grandmother, ignored both of them as she shoved Rory’s coat halfway off his shoulders with ruthless efficiency.
Abigail’s face went pale. “Oh,” she breathed. “You dislocated it.”
“Aye,” Janet replied. “That’s about the size of it.”
Rory looked toward Abigail. “Dinna look so alarmed. Merely my pride bruised, but the shoulder hurts like hell.”
Ewan leaned against the table watching with the calm interest of a man safely uninvolved in the coming pain.
“Want whisky first?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
Janet answered simultaneously with Rory and glared at he and Ewan both.
“You’ll get whisky after I put the damned thing back where God intended it to be.”
Abigail sat very still, hands clasped tightly around her untouched tea.
Rory was abruptly aware of her watching him as Janet rolled up her sleeves.
“Bite this.”
She shoved a folded strip of cloth toward Rory.
He eyed it with deep suspicion. “I’ll no’ scream.”
“Then ye can impress us all afterward.”
Ewan moved obligingly behind the chair.
“What are you doing?” Rory asked darkly.
“Preventing ye from punching Janet in the face.”
“A thoughtful precaution,” Abigail murmured faintly.
Rory shot her a look. To his astonishment, the corner of her mouth twitched.
Traitor.
Janet braced one hand against his shoulder blade.
“All right. On three.”
Rory narrowed his eyes. “You always lie about the counting.”
“Aye.”
She rotated it up and hard before he could brace. Pain exploded white-hot through his shoulder and for one brutal second Rory thought he might actually black out.
The joint slammed back into place with a sickening crack, the sound echoing through the kitchen.
Abigail flinched outright.
Rory’s gripped the arm of the chair hard enough his knuckles whitened beneath the skin, but he didn’t cry out.
After a long suspended moment the room returned slowly around him. Hearthlight. Peat smoke.
Janet stepped back looking satisfied. “There now.”
Rory took one careful breath. Then another.
“That,” he said hoarsely, “was unnecessary violence.”
“Ye say that every time.”
“Because every time ye enjoy it.”
“A little.”
Ewan handed him a whisky at last.
Rory took the cup gratefully with his good hand and drank as heat burned clean down into his chest.
Across the table Abigail still looked faintly horrified.
“You all right there, lass?” Ewan asked cheerfully.
“She put his shoulder back in place like she was repairing furniture.”
Janet snorted. “Men are furniture. Mostly large damp cupboards with opinions.”
That startled a laugh out of Abigail.