Page 113 of A Scot in the Storm
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 ofher 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.”
