Page 48 of A Scot in the Storm
The answer came so dryly that Rory barked out a laugh before he could stop himself.
Abigail looked startled by the sound.
“So ye do possess a tongue sharp enough to cut rope,” he said.
“Oh, absolutely.” The corner of her mouth twitched.
Saints help him, but he liked her like this. Not frightened or uncertain, or looking over her shoulder as though the storm might return for her at any moment. Simply herself.
The household had begun adjusting itself around her almost without noticing. Mrs. Gable setting aside tea. Ewan lingering in the kitchens longer than necessary if it meant hearing her laugh.
Outside, the wind screamed down from the cliffs hard enough to make the kitchen chimney shriek.
From somewhere in the yard came Elrick’s voice, he was arguing loudly with Duncan about tarpaulins.
Abigail reached for another gear.
“When ye looked at the third bearing yesterday, ye said ye had an idea ye wished to draw out properly before speaking further.”
Her hands stilled. “I did.”
“Have ye done it?”
A small silence settled between them.
Then she nodded once.
“Do ye have it with ye?”
Mrs. Gable had fashioned her apron from a length of old linen too worn for proper household use. Abigail had tried to finish it herself though one corner remained crooked where the hem refused to sit straight. She slipped her hand into the pocket and withdrew a folded scrap of paper.
Rory watched her smooth it carefully atop the table between the dismantled clockworks.
It was a rough charcoal sketch. The drawing showed a self-seating cradle bearing. Bronze rather than brass. The shaft resting in a shallow adjustable cradle instead of a fixed sleeve. Tiny notation marks filled the margins in a shorthand unlike any engineering script Rory had seen before.
But the principle itself…
He stared at it without speaking.
For three months he had circled that cursed bearing like a ship trapped against a reef. Every arrangement seized eventually once the salt air began its work. Corrosion altered the clearances. The shaft bound. The entire mechanism failed.
This… allowed movement within wear. The bearing would compensate for its own corrosion.
He saw it instantly. Saw the solution as clearly as if someone had opened a shutter inside his head.
“Captain?” Abigail’s voice had gone very quiet.
Rory lifted his gaze slowly from the sketch.
She watched him the way sailors watched the sea after lightning struck nearby. Braced for damage.
“Where did ye learn this?”
The question came softer this time, not in accusation, but in wonder.
Abigail’s throat moved.
“If I tell you the truth,” she said quietly, “you’ll think I’m insane.”
