Page 34 of A Scot in the Storm
Not the rough easy kind that rose from men hauling stone. This was sharper, the sound of too many men entertaining themselves at someone else’s expense.
Rory pushed back his chair. By the time he reached the yard there were eight men gathered near the washing line strung between the lodgings and the hoist post. Steam curled pale from damp cloth in the frigid air.
Jean MacNeill stood laughing beside the line, red-haired and white-faced, her hands clenched in the folds of her apron.
And hanging in plain sight for all the world to gape at were Abigail’s clothes.
The strange blue hose she called jeans. The fitted jacket and the bright blue shirt.
Elrick had already taken the jacket down.
He stood holding it up between both hands while the others crowded close around him like boys at a fair booth. One thick finger worked the metal fastening slowly up and down.
Zip.
Zip.
Zip.
The soft rasping sound carried clearly through the cold morning.
One of the stonemasons crossed himself. The hired carter leaned close over the blue trousers, rubbing a thumb along the stitching with open suspicion.
“Every stitch alike,” he muttered. “Stitched by the faeries.”
“Elrick says it’s witch-work.”
“Aye,” Elrick answered darkly without looking up. “Look at the thing. Teeth like an animal trap.”
Zip.
Zip.
“A fastening that bites shut by itself is nae Christian.”
“Enough.” Ewan’s voice cut quietly across the yard. “Put the lass’s things down.”
Rory stopped at the edge of the gathering. It took perhaps three heartbeats for the mood to shift.
Elrick saw him first. Then the others followed his gaze one by one until silence settled over the yard as suddenly as snowfall.
“Elrick.”
“Captain.”
“Give me the coat.”
The younger man folded the jacket once across his arm instead of surrendering it immediately.
“With respect, sir, the men have a right to ken what’s under the same roof as them.”
“The men have a right to wages and dry beds,” Rory said evenly. “The rest is my concern. Hand it over.”
His voice never rose. It didna need to. The men who knew him best had already taken a careful step backward.
Elrick hesitated another second before surrendering the garment as Rory tucked it beneath his arm.
“Jean.”
