Page 76 of A Scot in the Storm
His mouth tightened.
“TheArdentwould’ve cleared the reef by a quarter mile.”
He looked down at his hands. “And my brother would’ve lived.”
Abigail’s hand settled lightly on his arm, and her gentle touch nearly undid him.
“That night,” Rory said after a moment, “I made him a promise. I would build the light.”
The horizon burned deep gold now.
“It’s taken fourteen years.”
He told her about leaving the Navy, apprenticing himself to Thomas Smith, learning optics, masonry, engineering, and damned politics.
About fighting for the commission at Kinnaird Head because nowhere else would ever have satisfied him.
“I came back here,” he said finally, “to put a light on the rocks that took him.”
His voice had gone quiet. “So that the next ship coming through a storm would see the reef in time.”
“How old were you?” she asked.
“Twenty.”
“So young.”
He shrugged. “Old enough to be responsible.”
The sea below them flashed gold beneath the lowering sun.
“Every lighthouse on every coast means one less dark shore,” Rory said quietly. “One less ship running blind. One less family waiting for men who’ll never come home.”
He stopped there, because he could not finish the thought.
The wind moved gently through the long grass.
“He would’ve liked you,” Rory said after a while.
“Murtagh?”
“Aye. He was curious the way ye are. Always wanting to know how things worked. It’s one of the things I like about ye.”
A smile touched Abigail’s mouth. “Would he have become an engineer?”
“Perhaps though he loved the sea. He was clever with tools. Had the mind for it.” Rory looked at her fully then. “Like you.”
“I’m not sure anyone’s ever said that to me before.”
“That ye’re clever?”
“No.” She looked down at her gloved hands. “That they liked the way my mind works.”
“Well,” Rory said roughly, “they should’ve.”
She turned away quickly then, staring toward the horizon. After a while she said softly, “My brother taught me to skip stones.”
Rory glanced sideways at her face, the sadness there.
