Chapter 20
Rory
The next day, the coach came up the kirk road at half past one beneath a sky the color of old iron.
Rory had been standing at the workshop window for the better part of half an hour pretending to inspect the cradle housing while watching the rise beyond the harbor road instead.
Outside, the sea below Kinnaird Head had disappeared beneath the fog sometime after noon, though its presence still announced itself now and then through the dull sound of the waves striking stone far below the cliffs.
Ewan glanced up from the bench where he’d been filing brass pins.
“If ye glare much harder,” he observed, “ye may yet summon the coach by force of temper alone.”
Rory didn’t look away from the window.
“Worth attempting.”
“Aye. Though I suspect the horses would object.”
The workshop smelled of lamp oil, damp wool, and hot metal from the small stove near the rear wall. Abigail’s figures still covered half the slate board in quick chalk marks and neat corrections, one line crossed out so sharply it had nearly snapped the chalk itself.
Rory’s eyes caught there briefly then returned to the road. The chaise appeared at last through the mist beyond the kirk wall. Black coach. Two dark horses. No crest painted on the door.
Government men rarely announced themselves with decoration. The driver had scarcely reined in before the single passenger stepped down.
Lean fellow. Black wool coat. Black gloves. Black leather case tucked beneath one arm.
Magistrate Hugh Cathcart looked less like a provincial official and more like a clerk.
His pale grey eyes swept the yard once while gulls screamed somewhere unseen beyond the fog.
The magistrate’s gaze lingered briefly on the scaffold.
The coach had arrived nearly two hours earlier than the letter had promised. That, more than anything else, told Rory exactly what sort of man had stepped onto the headland.
Cathcart preferred people unprepared.
“Bloody hell,” Ewan muttered softly beside him. “He looks cheerful.”
“The undertaker likely refused him for lowering morale.”
Ewan barked a laugh into his beard.
Rory set down the caliper and headed downstairs before the magistrate could knock.
The fog had dampened every surface on the headland until the scaffold timbers gleamed dark with moisture.
“Captain Sinclair.”
“Magistrate.”
The pale eyes flicked once toward Rory’s shoulder brace beneath his coat.
Rory led the way upstairs where Mrs. Gable had laid tea in the study along with oatcakes.
Cathcart removed his gloves finger by finger and set the leather case neatly upon the desk.
“Shall we begin?”
No pleasantries beyond necessity.
Rory took the chair opposite while the magistrate opened the ledger, dipped his quill, and looked up.
“I’m not here to arrest the woman.”
The words loosened something low between Rory’s shoulders before he could stop himself.
“I’m here,” the magistrate continued evenly, “to discharge an obligation to the Commissioners regarding the cutter wreck of the nineteenth and the unidentified person presently residing on Crown property.”
The quill scratched softly across paper.
“Let us begin there.”
The next hour unfolded in the plain language of official inquiry spread carefully over disaster.
Weather.
Tide.
Departure time.
Witnesses.
Names of the men aboard.
No embellishment. No evasion.
Cathcart asked his questions quietly enough that Rory found himself answering before he entirely realized he had done so.
“Aboard?” the magistrate asked.
“Jamie Hunter. Donald Keith. Gregor Keith. The Simpson lad. Aikman from Boddam hired for the run.”
“Survivors?”
“Iain Simpson. Gregor Keith with a broken arm. Aikman. Two cracked ribs.”
“Lost?”
“Jamie Hunter recovered below the Wine Tower.” Rory kept his voice level. “Donald Keith lost to the sea.”
Cathcart nodded once and wrote steadily onward.
Outside, somewhere in the yard, a hammer rang twice against iron.
Then came the turn Rory had been waiting for since the coach appeared through the fog.
Cathcart folded his hands lightly atop the ledger.
“The woman you found upon the rocks claims memory loss?”
“She remembers some things clearly enough.” Rory kept his expression neutral. “Others no’ at all.”
“And ye believe that?”
Rory met the magistrate’s eyes directly.
“Aye.”
Cathcart studied him a moment longer than comfort allowed.
“She’s foreign.”
“Aye. From America.”
“No papers?”
“No.”
“No family claiming her.”
“No.”
“No vessel reported missing from the Americas?”
“No.” Rory resisted the urge to fidget under Cathcart’s gaze.
“And yet ye’ve permitted her unrestricted access to a government works site.”
The room cooled slightly around the words.
Rory leaned back carefully in the chair, shoulder protesting.
“She’s no’ unrestricted.”
One pale brow lifted faintly.
“She works in the workshop under supervision.”
“Yours.”
“Aye.”
Cathcart dipped the quill again. “The men say she handles instruments.”
“Calipers. Measuring tools. Files.”
“The men also say she sees faults before trained engineers.”
Rory said simply, “aye, because she does.”
That earned him another long look. Interesting. The magistrate had expected hesitation.
Cathcart turned another page. “So she’s educated?”
“Aye.”
“More than most women?”
“Considerably.”
“And that troubles ye not at all?”
Rory nearly smiled despite himself. “My housekeeper terrifies grown men with a soup ladle. I’ve long since abandoned rigid expectations regarding women.”
Something flickered very briefly across Cathcart’s face. Not amusement exactly. But close enough as the magistrate reached for his tea instead. Steam curled faintly upward between them.
“In Aberdeen,” Cathcart said mildly, “there’s a physician’s daughter who translates Greek badly enough to create theological arguments at supper. Last Christmas she attempted Latin with a bishop and accidentally informed him his sermon had caused her horse constipation.”
Rory blinked once as Cathcart took another sip of tea.
“Her mother nearly expired where she stood.”
Despite himself, Rory barked a laugh.
The magistrate looked almost disappointed by the success of the story.
“Women with education,” Cathcart continued calmly, “rarely concern me half so much as men determined to prevent it.”
The wind pressed softly against the shutters again. Rory found himself studying the other man differently now. He rose, went to the sideboard and came back with a bottle.
“Will ye have a drop?”
The magistrate nodded, and held out his cup as Rory splashed a generous amount of whisky into the tea.
“The concern before the Commissioners is not whether the woman can calculate bearings, Captain.” His voice remained level. “The concern is whether she compromises your judgment.”
There it was at last. Rory looked toward the workshop door before answering.
“She’s the reason the lighting remains possible ahead of schedule.”
“Professional admiration can still cloud a man’s judgment.”
“She saved us three weeks on the upper calibration.”
“She may also be lying to you.”
Rory’s jaw tightened.
“Has it occurred to you,” the magistrate asked, “that an intelligent woman alone in an unfamiliar country might say precisely whatever ensured her protection?”
Rory said nothing because of course it had occurred to him. Late at night, in the dark, during every silence where Abigail looked suddenly too sad for the explanations she offered.
Cathcart watched him steadily. “And yet,” he said quietly, “you trust her.”
Not a question.
Rory exhaled slowly. “Aye.”
“She’s slept perhaps four hours a night for the better part of two weeks,” Rory heard himself say.
“Keeps records cleaner than Tavish. Corrected a flaw in the cradle assembly no one else noticed. Mrs. Gable’s stopped threatening her with kitchen knives, which may be the clearest miracle on this entire coast.”
Cathcart’s mouth moved almost imperceptibly. “High praise indeed.”
“Aye.”
Silence settled briefly between them as Cathcart sanded the page.
“I’ve written that the captain is excessively concerned for the American woman’s welfare.” His tone remained maddeningly neutral. “That phrasing tends to satisfy Edinburgh while preserving everyone’s dignity.”
“For which I’m deeply grateful.”
“Aye. Ye sound it.”
For the first time since the coach arrived, Rory nearly smiled.
Cathcart closed the ledger. “I’ll speak with her now.”
Before he stood, Rory drained the whisky. “I’ll bring her to ye.” The study door shut behind him with soft finality.
Rory lasted perhaps thirty seconds before abandoning all pretense of work.
Ewan watched him pace once between the workbench and the window before saying mildly, “She’ll answer well.”
“She shouldna have to answer at all.”
“Aye.”
The clock above the bench ticked steadily onward. Rory adjusted a tool already properly aligned. Crossed to the window.
Finally, Cathcart emerged fastening the strap around his leather case while Abigail remained briefly out of sight beyond the doorway.
Rory was down the stairs and out the door before he quite realized he’d moved.
“Well?”
The magistrate regarded him steadily.
“I’m not arresting her.”
The words struck like breath returning after being submerged in deep water.
“I have no grounds,” Cathcart continued. “I’ll continue my inquiries because the Commissioners require answers and I owe them answers. But I do not presently find the woman dangerous.”
Cathcart stepped slightly nearer, lowering his voice.
“When she’s ready to tell me what she actually is,” he said quietly, “runaway wife, dissenter, foreign-born scholar, or some other matter neither of us yet understands... I’m not a man easily shocked.”
Rory stared at him.
Cathcart’s expression altered not at all. Then the magistrate withdrew a folded paper from the leather case and handed it across.
“One further matter.”
Rory broke the seal.
“The Commissioners confirm the lighting date,” Cathcart said. “December first. Four bells.”
The magistrate pulled on his gloves. “I’ll be on the headland for the lighting itself,” he said. “Hat on. Standing at the back. Hoping very much not to witness another catastrophe.”
Then he departed into the darkening afternoon with fog curling pale around the waiting coach wheels.
Rory stood at the workshop window long after the road beyond the kirk vanished into dusk. The door behind him opened softly. He knew Abigail’s step in those odd boots from America that she wore.
“He frightens me a little.”
Rory looked out toward the dark sea beyond the scaffold yard.
“He’s meant to.”
Abigail moved nearer the window beside him, shawl drawn tightly around her shoulders against the cold creeping through the stones.
For a moment neither of them spoke. Below the cliffs, fog drifted pale across the harbor mouth while somewhere farther inland a church bell carried faintly through the dusk.
“What did you tell him?” Rory asked quietly.
Abigail let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh.
“The truth.”
Rory turned slightly toward her. “That seems unlikely.”
That earned him the smallest flicker of amusement. “I told him I’m from America. Which apparently already makes me suspicious enough without embellishment.”
She tucked cold fingers deeper beneath the edge of the shawl. “I told him I don’t have family waiting for me here. Or there, really.”
Something in the way she said it settled heavily between them.
“And?” Rory asked.
“And I told him Captain Sinclair had been kind enough not to leave me half-dead on the rocks.”
Her mouth softened faintly.
“And I’ve been trying to repay the inconvenience.”
Rory looked at her fully then.
“Inconvenience,” he repeated.
“It sounded more respectable than saying I washed up on the rocks and immediately began criticizing the lighthouse.”
Despite himself, Rory laughed. The sound warmed the room more effectively than the stove had managed all afternoon.
“He asked if I trusted you.”
Something low tightened unexpectedly in Rory’s chest.
“And?”
“I told him,” she said softly, “that I did.”