Page 107 of A Scot in the Storm
She glanced once toward McRae, then toward Ewan.
“There’s a cutter on a bad line.”
The room stilled.
“Name,” Rory said.
“The Isabella.”
McRae muttered a low curse.
“Out of Boddam,” Abigail continued. “Two men aboard. North by northeast. Past the reef if the wind holds.”
Ewan stared at her. “How d’ye know that?”
Rory didn’t look away from her. When Abigail Winston stood in a doorway looking as though a ghost had walked through her, he took heed.
“Names,” he said quietly.
She didn’t answer at once. There it was again, the pause before truth.
“Tam Forbes.”
The name struck the room with a quiet force.
“Tobias, ’tis yer cousin,” Ewan said.
“Aye,” Tobias whispered from the door behind them. “He has a little boy in Boddam. Robbie.”
Rory looked at the bearing, then at the second mould. He looked at the sky beyond the yard, already bruising toward the dark in the east though sunset remained hours off.
“How long?” he asked McRae.
“For the second pour to cool?”
“Aye.”
“Forty minutes if the wind doesna foul the heat.”
“How long to clean this one enough to seat?”
McRae rubbed his thumb along the rough edge. “Hour and three quarters with a steady hand.”
Rory looked at Ewan. “How long until the Isabella reaches the reef if her line holds?”
Ewan’s face had gone grim. “Under two hours.”
“If the wind freshens?”
“Ninety minutes.”
The answer settled into every corner of the room.
Rory nodded. “Then we light the lamp.”
McRae stared at him. “The Board does nae light a lamp before the day written in the Board’s own book.”
“The Board does nae lose a Boddam crew on the reef of a headland it spent eleven thousand pounds of His Majesty’s silver building a lamp on top of either.”
