Page 37 of A Scot in the Storm
He didna burn the clothes immediately. Instead he forced himself back down into the yard where the storm damage still demanded his attention. There were scaffolding poles needingreplacement, mortar seams to be repaired along the south face, and a report for the Commissioners half-finished upon his desk.
Work steadied the mind. Usually. From sixty feet above the yard atop the scaffolding, he could see Abigail below near the well behind the lodgings.
Mrs. Gable had apparently decided her first lesson in usefulness would involve hauling water.
Abigail had spent the better part of four days stumbling through similar lessons already, though none of them had yet ended with this much public humiliation.
The lass was making a glorious disaster of it. The rope tangled around her wrists almost immediately. The first full bucket nearly pitched her bodily into the well after it. Water splashed across the stones as she lost hold of the handle altogether.
For one long moment she simply glared at the overturned bucket in outraged disbelief. Then she tried again.
The second attempt ended no better. Water soaked the hem of her borrowed skirt. Damp curls escaped whatever battle she’d fought with her hair that morning.
Even at a distance Rory could see the temper gathering itself inside her, he saw her mouth move, caught the word ‘damn’ on the wind, wondered what other words came flowing out of her. The lass looked furious with herself.
Ewan crossed the yard toward her, said something Rory couldna hear, then demonstrated a different grip on the rope.
Abigail laughed. The sound carried faintly upward on the wind. Quick. Bright. Entirely surprised out of her.
He returned his attention to the mortar at once. Below, Abigail tried again. By the sixth attempt she managed a full bucket with most of the water still inside it.
She carried it carefully across the yard with both hands white-knuckled around the handle, skirts gathered awkwardlyout of the mud. The dress was ill-fitting, too large through the bodice and too long in the hem, but she moved with stubborn concentration all the same.
The same expression she’d worn upstairs while negotiating for herself.
Rory frowned down at the stonework before him. He was staring. And worse, he knew perfectly well he was staring.
Mrs. Gable stood in the kitchen doorway watching the entire performance with folded arms and a face that slowly shifted from irritation to reluctant approval.
At least the lass was trying. That counted for something in this household.
That evening Rory wrote to Magistrate Cathcart beside the fire while wind rattled faintly against the shutters.
Sir,
I write to inform ye that a woman was recovered from the rocks beneath Kinnaird Head during the storm of the fourteenth instant. She gives her Christian name as Abigail yet appears unable to account fully for her circumstances or origins.
I suspect she may be connected to a vessel lost during the storm, though no wreck has yet come ashore along this stretch of coast.
Her speech suggests American birth, perhaps Philadelphia. She is presently housed under the supervision of Mrs. Gable within the workers’ lodgings.
Any enquiries regarding missing vessels or passengers along the Buchan coast would be received with gratitude.
He sanded the letter slowly. Every line omitted something.
It was well past midnight before Rory carried the clothes downstairs bundled beneath his arm.
The kitchen lay dark except for the red glow of banked peat beneath the ash. Warmth lingered heavily in the stones and beams overhead, carrying the familiar scents of smoke and oats and old iron.
He knelt before the hearth. The shirt burned first. It curled inward almost immediately, flaring bright before collapsing into blackened edges.
The strange blue trousers lasted longer. Metal rivets pinged softly against the coals while the fabric darkened and shrank inward upon itself.
Last came the jacket. Without the fastening it looked harmless. Merely strange cloth and stitches. As the flames climbed through it, Rory understood with uncomfortable clarity that he was destroying evidence with his eyes fully open. He stirred the ashes afterward until no recognizable trace remained. Only then did he rise. The fastening remained in his pocket.
He had known from the moment he cut it free that he was never truly going to burn it.
Back upstairs he wrapped the small strip carefully inside a square of oilcloth from the drawer where he kept his survey instruments.
