Page 57 of A Scot on the Rocks

Olivia ate while she watched the women work. Morag moved between the girdle and table without seeming to hurry, Iseabail mended the stocking near the light, and Sorcha finished shaping the butter before packing it into a crock. Their conversation wandered through the weather, a sick ewe, somebody’s daughter expecting a baby, a peddler who charged too much for needles, and a roof that had leaked during the last storm.

Within ten minutes Olivia knew which household had enough peat stored, whose son was away, whose daughter was seen with the blacksmiths’s boy by the bridge, which child had been ill, whose gate needed repairing, and that Mairi had probably lied about how badly her roof leaked because she didn’t want charity.

Grandma Bennett would have understood this room immediately.

Morag pointed the wooden turner at Jamie. “Tell her about Mairi’s roof.”

He scowled as he grumbled. “There’s nothing to tell.”

“Mairi’s byre lost three slates last winter,” Morag said to Olivia. “Her son was away and she had no coin to spare. Next morning the broken slates were gone and sound ones were stacked beside the wall.”

Olivia looked at Jamie. “The ghost?” she asked.

“Who else?” Morag said.

“The ghost has roofing experience?”

“When required,” Jamie answered.

Sorcha set the butter crock on the shelf. “The ghost left money beneath my crock when my grandson had the fever. Enough for medicine and flour.”

Jamie reached toward the fresh butter, and Morag smacked the back of his hand with the turner.

Olivia hid her smile behind the bannock.

Iseabail pushed her needle through the stocking. “The ghost rode three glens for medicine when Morag’s granddaughter took sick.”

“Three glens? Is that far?”

“The apothecary wasna so far,” Jamie said.

Morag looked at him. “You rode half the night.”

Jamie considered arguing, evidently decided against it, and took a of bannock instead.

Olivia watched him eat while the women moved on to discussing somebody’s chimney as though they hadn’t just rearranged several things she thought she understood about him.

Jamie helped people.

She’d already seen enough to know that, but was now beginning to understand the scale of it. He repaired whatever broke, rode when someone needed medicine, left money where pride would allow it to be found, and then behaved as though it was the ghost.

Morag dropped a lump of dough in front of her.

“Make yourself useful.”

Olivia looked down at it. “What am I doing?”

“Making bannocks.”

At the confused look on her face, Morag snorted and showed her what to do.

Olivia’s first attempt looked more triangular than round. By the third, she produced something respectable enough to earn space on the girdle, and was feeling almost smug when she noticed several covered crocks along the shelves.

“What’s in those?”

“Onions in vinegar. Turnips there. Eggs below.”

Olivia crouched beside the lower crock and found pale eggs resting beneath a cloudy liquid.