Page 105 of A Scot in the Storm
“He will when ye tell him what cracked.”
“Aye.” Ewan was already moving.
“And find Calum Ross’s brother. The one with bronze stock.”
“The chandler’s brother?”
“Aye.”
“He’ll charge like a highwayman.”
“Then let him wear a mask and bring the bronze.”
Ewan grabbed his coat from the peg.
Rory turned toward Tavish. “Down to Mrs. Gable. Ask her for the second pot to be put on.”
Tavish blinked. “The second pot?”
“She’ll ken what it means.”
“She will?”
“Likely before ye finish saying it.”
Tavish returned ten minutes later with a heel of bread, a red ear, and the message that Mrs. Gable had already set the second pot on and wanted to know whether Captain Sinclair intended to die before dinner because she would prefer advance notice for the seating arrangements.
“Did she say anything else?” Rory asked.
“Aye. She said Mistress Abigail is to eat something before touching any tool sharper than a spoon.”
Abigail looked personally betrayed. “I had bread and butter.”
“When?”
She opened her mouth. Closed it.
Rory pointed toward the stool near the bench “Sit.”
“I don’t have time today. Neither do you.”
Rory held her gaze a moment.
“No,” he said. “We don’t.”
By ten, Tom McRae came up the kirk road. McRae himself was built like a gatepost, broad through the shoulders, beard threaded grey, hands scarred from years of hot metal. His cap sat low against the wind and his expression suggested he hadbeen summoned away from a perfectly good meal. He climbed down from the cart and spat neatly into the mud.
“This better be worth dragging my furnace through weather that looks like the devil’s laundry.”
Rory handed him the cracked bearing.
McRae held it near his face. Turned it once. Twice as his expression changed.
“Aye,” he said. “That’ll do it.”
By eleven, Calum Ross’s brother arrived with bronze stock wrapped in oilcloth. He named a price that made Tobias choke on his ale.
Rory agreed before the man finished speaking as Abigail blinked at him.
