Chapter 21
Abigail
Early that morning, Abigail woke in darkness with the certain feeling that she was forgetting something important.
For one disorienting moment she lay still beneath the heavy blankets listening to the tower breathe around her.
Wind moved softly beyond the stones while the fire in the grate had burned itself down to red breath beneath the ash.
Somewhere below, she heard Mrs. Gable and her minions already moving through the kitchen.
The realization struck all at once. It was the last Thursday in November. Thanksgiving.
The homesickness hit so hard she gasped for air.
Before their parents died in that horrible boating accident, Abigail and Sam would have woken to find their mother already awake, wearing the faded blue scarf she insisted was lucky for making pie crust despite years of evidence suggesting otherwise.
The television would be on, turned to the channel for the big Thanksgiving day parade.
Classical music would be playing from the kitchen radio because her mother firmly believed the turkey turned out better when she played classical.
The smell of the turkey in the oven would permeate the house.
After. When it was just the two of them, if they weren’t together, Sam would call around noon. Not before. Never before. They’d talk and laugh, and then her brother would be off on his next adventure while she worked. Always work.
Abigail stared blindly at the ceiling while grief rose sharp and sudden beneath her ribs.
A physical ache that made her want to sit cross-legged on the kitchen floor of her mother’s house while Sam argued about stuffing ratios and somebody burned the dinner rolls.
To hear Sam talk about surfing, seeing a pod of dolphins, or some hidden spot he’d managed to find traveling around in his van.
She rolled onto her side and took slow deep breaths. Absolutely not.
There was no way she was going to spend the morning crying because her idiot brother believed thyme should dominate sage in the stuffing.
Outside, the sound of the gulls and the waves slowly brought her back as Abigail drew one long breath. Then another.
A bit of water on her face, the russet wool dress, her hair up in a messy bun, and her hiking boots, the only thing left of her own time, Abigail took a deep breath, and opened the door to go about her day, pretending nothing in the world had changed.
The kitchen glowed gold with heat and firelight by the time she came down.
Mrs. Gable stood elbow-deep in bread dough beside the table with her sleeves rolled to the forearms and flour streaked across one cheek like a woman fully prepared to fistfight winter if required.
“You’re late,” Mrs. Gable announced without looking up.
“It’s still dark.”
“Aye. Which is why decent people have already begun their labors.”
Abigail managed a weak smile and crossed to the cupboard for bowls. Everything looked painfully ordinary. Which somehow made the homesickness worse.
Unwilling to brood, she threw herself into work. There wasn’t anything for her to do with the light now that the bearing was working, so she helped in the kitchens, glad that she and Mrs. Gable were becoming friends.
There were carrots to be chopping, oats to be measured, water to be fetched, and linens to fold.
The kitchen and laundry workers kept up a stream of chatter, and two boys bringing wood inside, were betting who could catch a seagull first. Abigail would have bet on the seagull.
No matter how much she did, all morning the date sat inside her chest like a bruise she couldn’t stop touching.
Rory came in just after sunrise carrying a coil of waxed cord beneath one arm, cold air following him through the doorway along with the sharp scent of the ocean. His hair was windblown beneath the loose tie at his neck while granite dust marked one shoulder of his coat.
He stopped upon seeing her, like some part of him had shifted direction entirely.
“You’ve not eaten.”
Abigail looked down at the untouched heel of bread and piece of cheese beside her elbow.
“I was about to.”
“Hm.”
Mrs. Gable slapped dough onto the board hard enough to send a puff flour into the air.
Rory lingered another moment, then appeared to remember the cord in his hand and disappeared back toward the workshop.
Twenty minutes later he returned carrying a brass file he very obviously did not require.
Abigail watched him move a mug half an inch to the left before standing there as though that explained his existence.
Mrs. Gable never even glanced up from the breadboard.
“He’s particular about paying attention to ye.”
Abigail nearly dropped the spoon in her hand.
Rory went motionless and Mrs. Gable continued kneading with the calm brutality of a woman flattening lesser mortals into pastry.
“If ye’ve something to say, lass, ye might consider telling him. Otherwise he’ll wear a path between this kitchen and the workshop afore noon.”
“I required a mug of ale,” Rory said.
Mrs. Gable looked directly at the untouched mug.
“Did ye?”
“Aye.”
“Remarkable coincidence then.”
Abigail bit the inside of her cheek so hard she winced while Rory shot her a look suggesting this humiliation somehow belonged to her personally.
Then he left again, the mug of ale still on the table.
Mrs. Gable snorted softly the moment the door shut behind him.
“He’s hopeless.”
Warmth flickered unexpectedly low in Abigail’s chest beneath all the homesickness.
Twenty minutes later Rory returned a third time, this occasion he was empty-handed.
Mrs. Gable sighed.
“Captain Sinclair, if ye continue inventing reasons to stand in my kitchen, I’ll charge ye rent.”
“The crown owns the building.”
“Aye. And yet somehow I remain in command of it.”
That appeared indisputably true.
Rory leaned one shoulder carefully against the hearth wall, favoring the injured side just enough for Abigail to notice. His expression remained calm, but once, when he shifted his arm, pain tightened briefly around his mouth before vanishing again.
Mrs. Gable caught it too.
“Sit properly,” she ordered. “Ye’ll pull the damned thing loose again reaching for nonexistent tools.”
“I wasna looking for anything.”
“Nae? Not the lass sitting at my table chopping neeps?”
Ewan wandered through the doorway at precisely the wrong moment carrying ledger pages.
“He’s a great lover of neeps.”
Rory looked at him with deep betrayal.
The room suddenly felt much too warm as Abigail focused very hard on slicing the turnips.
“Ye’re holding the knife wrong,” Mrs. Gable informed her.
“I’m just cutting it.”
“And doing it like ye’ve declared war upon the vegetable.”
Abigail looked down.
The turnip genuinely appeared threatened.
Wonderful.
Rory’s mouth twitched with that almost-smile again as he disappeared again, once more.
Mrs. Gable waited precisely eight minutes before saying, “He’ll be back.”
“He has work to do.”
“Aye.” She dusted flour from her hands. “And yet here we are.”
Rory returned a fourth time carrying absolutely nothing at all.
Mrs. Gable pointed her spoon at him.
“Sit down or leave the poor lass in peace.”
To Abigail’s astonishment, he obeyed immediately.
He pulled out the chair opposite hers and sat with his forearms braced against his knees while the kitchen crackled softly around them, firelight shifting across hanging copper pots as rain brushed briefly against the shutters before blowing sideways toward the sea again.
For a long moment he simply watched her.
“What’s upset ye, lass? It’s plain as day on yer face.”
And just like that, something inside her gave way.
Abigail looked down at the turnips, because if she met his gaze directly she was going to embarrass herself spectacularly.
“It’s Thanksgiving,” she said softly.
Rory waited, a question on his face.
“The last Thursday in November. At home my family would all be together today to celebrate.”
The kitchen stilled. Even Mrs. Gable slowed slightly at the breadboard.
“We gather,” Abigail continued. “Too many people in too small a house. Somebody burns something every year. Before my parents passed, my brother would argue with my mother about stuffing like it’s an international crisis.”
“Stuffing?” Rory asked carefully.
“Bread, celery, onion, butter, and seasonings. It goes inside the bird.”
Mrs. Gable stopped kneading altogether.
“Inside the bird?”
“Yes.”
“You place bread into it deliberately?”
Abigail laughed despite herself, the sound escaping before she could stop it.
Ewan chose that exact moment to come through the kitchen door and immediately looked suspicious.
“Why are we putting bread inside a bird?”
“American bird practices,” Mrs. Gable informed him grimly. “They eat it.”
Ewan looked at Abigail.
Abigail looked at the ceiling.
“I miss one conversation,” Ewan muttered, “and suddenly people are filling hens with bread.”
“It’s seasoned bread with lots of butter,” Abigail defended weakly.
“Seasoned with what?” Elrick asked from the passage. “Regret?”
That dragged another laugh out of her, though homesickness rose sharply behind it all the same.
Rory saw it on her face.
“Ye weren’t going to say anything,” he said quietly.
“Avoidance is a core personality trait.”
“Aye.” His eyes warmed faintly. “Ye do seem committed to it.”
Abigail stared hard at the cutting board.
“I miss my brother. He’s the only family I have left in all the world, and yet he is beyond my reach.”
Mrs. Gable made a soft sound beneath her breath that somehow held sympathy and irritation at the same time.
Rory leaned back slightly in the chair.
“Tell me more about this feast day.”
And because it was him asking, she did.
Abigail told them how her mother would wrestle a turkey large enough to qualify as dangerous wildlife into the oven every year.
About Sam “supervising” from a safe distance while contributing absolutely nothing useful.
About the gravy she had never once managed to successfully make in her life.
That she wished she’d paid more attention when her mother made it.