Page 59 of A Scot in the Storm
That unsettled him almost as much as the questions she asked. They climbed down with the wind pushing at their backs.
When they reached the ground, work resumed at once. Mallets struck stone. Rope creaked. Men bent over tools and mortar buckets and blocks as if they hadn’t been watching at all.
Rory felt their attention. A man could hear talk before the first word was spoken.
That evening, Ewan found him in the lantern room, checking the prototype again before the first burn.
“The men are talking,” Ewan said from the door.
Rory kept his eyes on the bearing. “I know.”
“Elrick says she’s your paramour.”
“Elrick’s a fool.”
“Aye, but he’s a loud fool. That’s the difficult kind.”
Rory turned the gear by hand once more. Smooth. Still smooth.
“They’re asking who she really is,” Ewan said. “Andwhatshe is. A woman who climbs scaffolding like a lad, asks questions like an engineer, and seems to ken more about the work than half the crew. That isna a small thing.”
“I said I know.”
“Do ye?”
Rory looked up then.
Ewan held his gaze. There were not many men on the headland who would have done that. Ewan had earned the right by years of telling him things he didn’t want to hear and then remaining within reach afterward.
Though Rory had never struck him, not once.
“What would ye have me do?” Rory asked.
“Name what she is to you before others name it for you.”
“There’s nothing to name.”
Ewan’s brows rose. “There’s something. I dinna ken what it is. Maybe ye dinna either. But there’s something, and every man with eyes saw it today.”
“She was found half drowned on the rocks,” Rory said. “She has no memory and nowhere safe to go. There’s nothing improper in giving shelter to a lass in need.”
“That’ll sound fine to Reverend Ogilvie.” Ewan stepped farther into the room and lowered his voice.
“It willna stop the fishmonger’s wife from telling three women she saw the captain with a pretty stranger at the castle.Nor Elrick from saying ye let her put hands on the lamp because she’s warming your bed.”
Rory’s hand tightened on the crank.
“She is not.”
“I ken that.”
“Do ye?”
“Aye.” Ewan’s voice gentled. “But knowing a thing and keeping the parish from chewing on it are no’ the same.”
Rory looked back at the mechanism. The shaft turned obediently. And every time it turned cleanly, he thought of Abigail in the kitchen with charcoal on her fingers.
“I’ll deal with Elrick.”
