Page 82 of A Scot in the Storm
“You didn’t buy me jewelry,” Abigail muttered. “You bought me a beautiful woolen shawl because I was freezing to death.”
For one unguarded moment the strain showed plainly in Rory. The funerals, Cathcart coming, and the lighting of the lamp only days away. And there she was standing in the middle of all of it.
There was a moment she thought he might cross the room toward her. Instead he stepped back.
“I’ll leave you to your paperwork then, Captain.”
“Mistress Abigail?—”
But she was already moving toward the door because if she stayed another minute she might do something catastrophic. Like touch him, or worse, ask him to touch her.
By dusk she climbed the lantern-room stairs anyway. Mostly because he’d forbidden it. The tower narrowed around her as she climbed, the stone colder with every turn. Above, warm gold light moved beneath the lantern-room door in slow revolving pulses.
She pushed inside quietly to see Rory bent over the bearing assembly with sleeves rolled to his forearms, one hand steadying the cradle housing while the other worked a narrow file through the channel groove.
Brass gleamed honey-gold beneath the lamps.
The great lens turned overhead in slow measured brilliance.
He looked up immediately.
“You should be downstairs.”
“So should you.”
“I’m working.”
“You’re hiding.”
That earned her a look.
Abigail crossed toward the bench despite herself. The room smelled of heated brass, lamp oil, and the sea leaking through ancient stone.
“You’re filing too narrow,” she said quietly.
“I’m no’.”
“You are.”
Rory handed her the file without argument.
Abigail adjusted the angle carefully and drew the file once through the groove.
Metal whispered softly beneath it.
“There.”
Rory watched her hands instead of the mechanism as the air between them tightened.
Abigail set the file down carefully. “You still haven’t eaten much.”
“Mrs. Gable recruited ye into the campaign?”
“She didn’t need to.”
The lantern revolved above them while surf hammered the cliffs far below.
Rory’s gaze dropped once briefly toward her mouth before lifting again.
