Page 19 of A Scot in the Storm
Rory looked back down at her face.
She was younger than he first thought. Mid-twenties perhaps. Her features were delicate beneath the bruising already forming along one cheekbone.
She did not look Scottish, nor quite English either, though Rory could not have said precisely why. And despite the bloodand the cold, she looked stubborn by the set of her jaw. The sort of woman who argued even when she was losing.
“Miss.” He touched her shoulder lightly. “Can ye hear me?”
Her eyes flew open. Brown flecked with gold. She sucked in a sharp breath and tried to sit up too quickly as pain crossed her face.
“Easy.” Rory caught her arm before she pitched sideways into the rocks again.
She stared at him. Not the way shipwreck survivors stared at their rescuers. Not with relief or confusion, but as if the very sight of him made no sense at all.
“What happened?” she whispered.
Her voice carried a strange cadence. English, certainly. But off somehow, he frowned. Almost like the people he’d met in the Americas.
“Where’s your ship?”
“My what?”
“Were ye thrown overboard?”
“I…” She looked wildly around at the tower, the cliffs, the crashing sea. “No. I don’t think so.”
“Ye dinna think so?”
Rory studied her more carefully. Rainwater slid down her face. Her hands trembled as she pressed them flat against the stone beside her, almost as though reassuring herself the rocks were real.
“What’s your name, lass?”
There was a long pause before she answered.
“Abigail.”
The name suited her somehow, soft at first hearing yet carrying an unexpected steadiness beneath it.
“Well then, Abigail.” He rose and held out a hand.
“The tide’s coming in, and if ye stay here much longer the sea will finish what the storm started.”
Her fingers were ice cold when she took his hand. Rory pulled her carefully to her feet, catching her when she swayed.
“I’m fine.”
“Aye,” he said dryly. “And I’m the King of France.”
Despite everything, a tiny startled sound escaped her. Almost a laugh.
Something inside Rory’s chest loosened unexpectedly at the sound, though whether from relief or curiosity he could not have said.
Strange lass.
He shrugged off his heavy greatcoat and wrapped it around her shoulders. It nearly swallowed her whole.
The scent of rain and salt and wool surrounded them both.
“Come on.”
