Chapter 23 #2
Rory leaned his head back against the stone wall afterward, eyes growing heavier with each slow revolution of the lens.
“So if anyone asks,” he murmured sleepily, “Kinnaird Head belongs to ye a little now, too.”
Abigail glanced sideways toward him while the lantern light moved across his face in slow intervals, catching the bronze at the tips of his lashes and the weariness carved plainly into him now that vigilance had finally loosened its grip.
And somewhere between one revolution of the lens and the next, Rory fell asleep.
One moment awake, the next asleep against the stone with his head on her shoulder.
Abigail went very still. She didn’t think she’d ever seen him like this before. Even wounded, some part of Rory Sinclair always seemed to remain standing watch over everyone else in the room.
But not now. Now the great light turned steadily over the sea while voices drifted warmly upward through the tower. And beside her sat a man so exhausted he’d finally allowed himself, for one quiet moment, to believe someone else was holding the line.
Emotion rose hard into her throat. Very gently, Abigail reached up and brushed one strand of dark wind-tangled hair back from his forehead.
Rory didn’t wake.
Below them the coast celebrated.
Above them the lamp burned steadily on into the dark.
Snow arrived sometime before dawn, quietly, as though winter had crept ashore while everyone slept and laid a careful white hush across Kinnaird Head.
The sea itself had gone the color of pewter, dark water moving slow and heavy beyond the cliffs while gulls complained bitterly overhead as if annoyed by the cold.
Abigail stood at the kitchen window with a steaming cup cradled between both hands, watching snow gather in delicate lines along the cliff grass while Mrs. Gable muttered darkly over oatcakes beside the hearth.
Behind them Duncan stomped into the kitchen trailing cold air and flakes immediately melting off his shoulders. He bent toward the fire with both hands extended.
“It’s freezing.”
“It’s Scotland,” Mrs. Gable replied without sympathy. “Ye continue speaking as though this surprises ye.”
“A man can remain hopeful.”
“A foolish habit.”
Duncan accepted this with the weary dignity of someone long accustomed to losing arguments inside this kitchen.
The room smelled richly of oats and browned butter and peat smoke curling warm through the rafters. Somewhere downstairs a door slammed hard enough to rattle the crockery, followed by Ewan’s unmistakable voice carrying upward from the workshop.
“If ye break the winch after we just lit the bloody light, I swear I’ll bury ye beneath it.”
“It was an accident.” Tavish sounded deeply wounded.
Abigail hid another smile against her cup.
Life, she realized suddenly, had resumed.
The world hadn’t paused after the lighting.
The lamp still needed tending. Boats still needed mending.
Bread still needed baking. Duncan still hovered near food with the focused spiritual intensity of a harbor gull stalking French fries.
History had moved forward exactly as it always did, one ordinary morning after another, and somehow that felt comforting.
The back stair creaked as she glanced automatically toward the doorway before she could stop herself.
Not Rory. The man had likely slept in for the first time in months and deserved to remain unconscious until spring. Still, she looked again.
Mrs. Gable caught it at once because apparently nothing escaped her inside these walls.
“He’s asleep.”
Heat rose instantly into her face. “I didn’t ask.”
“Nay,” Mrs. Gable agreed dryly. “Ye merely looked at the door twice like a hound hearing distant whistles.”
Duncan grinned openly into the fire.
“I’m going back outside,” Abigail announced with dignity.
“You’re holding hot tea and wearing slippers.”
Abigail sat back down. Snow whispered softly against the shutters while the fire crackled low and steady in the hearth. Mrs. Gable moved around the kitchen, flour dusting the front of her skirts while oatcakes browned on the griddle beside rising bread wrapped beneath linen cloth.
She’d spent years studying historical domestic records, and none of them adequately conveyed how much eighteenth-century life appeared to involve feeding people.
The stair creaked again. This time Rory appeared in the doorway looking profoundly unlike a man prepared to face civilization.
His dark hair stood in several directions at once, sleep-rumpled beyond rescue, while he wore only stockings, breeches, and a linen shirt half-laced at the throat while exhaustion still clung visibly to him like another layer of clothing.
Abigail nearly forgot how breathing worked.
Mrs. Gable looked up once and sighed. “Alive then.”
“Barely.” His voice had gone rough.
Duncan blinked openly. “Bloody hell, Captain, ye look like ye lost a fistfight with the blankets.”
Rory dropped heavily into the chair beside the hearth. “The blankets won.”
“That’s because ye’ve spent months surviving entirely on tea and spite,” Mrs. Gable informed him.
“A highly effective system.”
“It is not.”
Abigail hid a smile behind her cup while Rory rubbed one hand slowly across his face and winced midway through the motion when his shoulder protested.
Mrs. Gable noticed immediately.
“What did ye pull now?”
“Nothing.”
“That sounded unconvincing.”
“It was intended to sound dismissive.”
“And yet somehow became both.”
She crossed toward him carrying a bowl of hot oats with enough authority to frighten lesser governments.
“Eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
Duncan actually laughed aloud at that.
Mrs. Gable set the bowl directly in front of Rory with a look suggesting starvation would not be permitted beneath her roof regardless of personal preference.
“Yesterday ye lit Scotland’s first mainland lighthouse,” she informed him. “Today ye eat porridge.”
“A stirring reward.”
“Ye may have honey if ye behave.”
Abigail hid her smile.
Rory looked up and caught her watching him, and for one second the room narrowed quietly around the two of them.
Last night returned all at once. The turning beam. His hand around hers before the entire coast. The acknowledgement of her contributions. His head asleep on her shoulder while the lamp burned over black water beyond the glass.
Something warm unfolded low beneath Abigail’s ribs as his gaze lingered a fraction too long before Mrs. Gable inserted herself bodily between them carrying more bread.
“None of that before breakfast.”
Abigail choked on her tea.
Duncan wheezed into the hearth like a dying accordion.
Even Rory looked briefly caught off guard before something close to laughter flickered at the corner of his mouth.
“I’ve no idea what ye mean,” he said mildly.
“Aye,” Mrs. Gable replied. “And I’ve no idea why the whisky keeps disappearing whenever Ewan visits.”
From downstairs came Ewan’s outraged shout.
“I HEARD THAT.”
“GOOD.”
By noon children from Fraserburgh had already begun climbing the lower slopes beneath Kinnaird Head carrying sledges made from barrel staves and what appeared to be absolutely no adult supervision whatsoever. Their shrieks drifted upward faintly while the gulls wheeled over the harbor below.
Abigail stood near the doorway wrapped in Rory’s heavy wool coat watching Tavish attempt to explain to two boys why launching themselves directly toward scaffold supports constituted “poor engineering practice.”
One child listened thoughtfully. The other immediately aimed for the scaffolding.
Rory appeared beside her carrying a ledger beneath one arm as he looked out toward the harbor where the lighthouse beam still moved pale and steady through the haar.
“Boats came in clean this morning,” he said quietly.
Abigail followed his gaze. Far below, fishing vessels rocked gently against frost-rimmed piers.
“The Isabella made the harbor before dawn,” Rory continued. “Captain Fraser sent word up an hour ago.”
Emotion caught unexpectedly in Abigail’s chest.
One light, and already men were making it home alive because of it.
Rory glanced toward her then, exhaustion still lingering faintly beneath his eyes despite the sleep.
“It was your bearing turning in that cradle last night,” he said softly.
“No,” she answered just as quietly. “It was ours.”
Wind brushed snow lightly across the yard between them. Then somewhere downhill came a tremendous crash followed immediately by children screaming with delighted triumph.
Duncan closed his eyes. “They’ve found the barrel.”