Enyon laughed now at the mere imagining. “Blast, but I’m sorry I missed it. I’ll be sure and catch her soon, before the isles get back into her. It’s a sight I need to see before it vanishes. And the lady she’s serving now? She’s here too?”
A nod did little to sum up that surprise. “Lady Elizabeth.”
“What’s she like? Pretty?”
Oliver rolled his eyes. “Always your first question.”
“Come on, Ollie.” A sharp elbow found his ribs. “Help a chap out.”
“She’s . . .” He sighed. She wasn’t the sort of pretty people expected of a young lady. That was for certain. No carefully styled hair or dress or posture. No colors chosen to bring out eyes or lips or complexion. She didn’t have the bold bone structure of Enyon’s oldest sister or the wild allure that had made half the lads on Tresco fall for Mabena. Her features weren’t unpleasant, but they also weren’t the sort to draw the eye. Yet she had the sweetest smile he’d ever seen, and her eyes had been as boundless as the sea. One couldn’t discount that. “I’ll let you be the judge when you meet her. I liked her too well to think of such things.”
Enyon barked another laugh, gave him another shove. “Only you, Ollie.”
He wasn’t sure if it was a compliment he should thank him for or an indictment he should defend against. So he shrugged and narrowed his eyes. “Do you see that? On Samson?”
They both paused, Enyon lifting a hand to add an extra shield to his eyes as he gazed toward the uninhabited island. “I see something. Not sure what. Movement though. A bird?”
“Looks too big.” Squint as he might, Oliver couldn’t bring it into any better focus. “A deer?”
“It’s white.”
“Could be an albino.”
“None of those over there that I’ve ever heard of,” Enyon said.
“Anomalies could be born at any time.” But there weren’t that many deer left on Samson. The Lord Proprietor had tried to build a park there for them after he moved the last of the residents off it fifty years before, but even the deer hadn’t wanted to live on the inhospitable scrap of land. They’d tried to wade to Tresco during low tide, and some of them had succeeded.
Enyon pursed his lips. “Definitely doesn’t move like a bird. Or a deer.”
“No. It doesn’t.” But it wasn’t moving like a person, either, to be a tourist or a local strolling about—not to mention that dusk was falling and no one would be over there at this time of day. Probably. “I saw a scrap of something white fluttering in nearly the same spot the other day. Rubbish, I assumed. Could be that, tangled on driftwood.”
“I’d have thought someone would have cleaned it up by now.” Enyon shifted, darted a glance at him. “You know what it looks like. . . .”
A ghost—something Enyon had claimed countless times over the years when they spotted something on a distant island shore that they couldn’t identify. And countless times over the years, the other lads had teased him about his rich imagination.
This time, Oliver just hummed and kept watching the slip of white. As he’d visited his parishioners over the last two days, more than one of the old-timers had been muttering about “Gibson’s tales coming to life.” And the tales his mother’s father favored were always the ones with specters. Or pirates. Or, better still, both.
Oliver braced one elbow on the opposite hand and tapped a finger to his cheek. “What did you say kept you awake Tuesday night?”
“Ah.” Enyon cleared his throat. “Noises. Coming from the direction of Piper’s Hole—not that I went to investigate. Didn’t sound like voices, nor like an animal, and it wasn’t a windy night. I know it was probably just youngsters causing a ruckus, but . . . but, well, it was enough to keep me awake. Especially worrying if it was youngsters, after . . .”
After Johnnie. “Have you heard them again?”
His friend shook his head. “But I was gone Thursday night, and last night I was dead to the world after getting home. Why?”
“I don’t know. Noises in the caves, something odd on Samson . . . Just makes me wonder if—”
“If all the old tales are true and it’s a lady in white over there? Singing a haunted lullaby to her lost babe in the caves?”
Oliver laughed again. “I was going to say that someone was up to something. Maybe someone decided to revive our long history of smuggling.”
“Hmph.” Enyon made a face. “You’re always so boring.”
“My apologies. I meant to say that it’s likely some beleaguered ghost, trapped on the shores by her love for a sailor who dropped her there in 1624 and promised to come back for her but never did.”
“Better.” Though he cocked his head to the side. “Who’s that, do you think?”
“My fictitious sailor and his abandoned love? How am I to know? I just made them up.”
“No, idiot.” Enyon slapped his arm and then pointed at something just coming into view around the point of land, aimed at Samson. A boat, obviously, moving at a good clip.
A familiar boat, as most of them were. It took him only a moment to place it. “Casek.” He spat the name.
“Ah. He must have spotted whatever it is and decided to see to it.”
“At this time of day?”
Enyon lifted a brow. “Since when does Casek Wearne care if it’s the wisest time to do something?”
Because he had a point, Oliver relented. And started walking again. “Did you investigate the caves later? See if there was any sign of people having been there that night?”
“There are always people in the caves. What would I have hoped to see? Besides.” He kicked at a shell, eyes on the ground ahead of them. “I haven’t had the heart to go in there. Not after I helped them haul Johnnie out.”
He’d forgotten that Enyon, living so near, was the one Johnnie’s friends had fetched to help them. He clasped Enyon’s shoulder. It should have been someone else—anyone other than softhearted Enyon—to do such a task. “I can’t blame you for that. And maybe that explains it. Maybe it was his mam down there, crying. Or young Harriet—she was sweet on him.”
One of the clouds cleared from Enyon’s face, at least. He nodded. “You could be right. Or even his friends, paying their respects at the place where he fell. The wind could have just been distorting their voices.”
“I daresay. That answers that question, anyway.”
“And Casek will clean up the beach on Samson. That only leaves finding Beth. And how I’m to get a glimpse of Mabena all prim and a look at this lady she’s serving.”
“The islands aren’t that big. I’m sure you’ll see them.” As they’d see Beth, if she were here. When she wanted them to.
They walked onward, until Oliver’s house came into view. “Come up?”
“Thanks—not today. Still have a few things to do at home. Luncheon after church tomorrow though? Unless you’ve already been spoken for.”
“Only by Mamm-wynn. You’re certainly welcome to join us.”
As he did at least one Sunday a month. “Sounds good. Talk to you tomorrow, Ollie.”