Her laughter joined the cry of the gulls overhead.
11
The morning air carried a chill in it that Libby hadn’t anticipated, but one that made her smile even as she suppressed a shiver. Sunlight, soft as a kiss, shot the mist through with gold, encircling the island with a promise of another beautiful day. She crossed her arms to try to keep in what warmth she had, all but skipping beside Mabena on the path to the beach.
At every possible moment, she stole a glance at her friend. Never in their two years together had she ever seen Mabena Moon with her hair in anything but a tight bun, her clothes anything but the expected high-collared, long-sleeved grey dress. Even over the past week, she’d never caught her with more than a few stray curls blowing in the breeze.
Today though . . . today, Mabena Moon looked like someone altogether different. She wore a white blouse, its sleeves loose to the point of being billowy, and a simple brown skirt that looked soft and comfortable from endless washings. And her hair—she wore it in a braid much like Libby’s, but with pieces slipping out in wild surrender to the tug of the wind.
Other animals underwent transformations, to be sure. The permanent metamorphosis of the caterpillar to butterfly; crustaceans molting old shells and growing or finding new; the shifting colors of the chameleon. There was always a purpose to such change.
Mabena had said that her purpose was simply being able to man the small sailboat in which her father was sending them back to St. Mary’s. Her usual dress, she said, was too restrictive to allow her to manage the sails.
No doubt true. But something about the way her neighbors were calling out to her through the morning mist made Libby quite certain that this Mabena Moon was the one they all recognized. And that the other—the one Libby had thought she’d known—was the imposter.
“There she is!” a deep voice boomed even now, not seeming at all concerned with waking any of the neighbors not currently trekking to the water at the crack of dawn. “Benna girl! I scarcely believed it when they said you’d come home. Tresco isn’t the same without you, dearover.”
It was an older man who sidled up to them, arms outstretched and grin spread just as wide.
Chuckling, Mabena stepped to his side and let him enfold her in what looked like a bear of a hug. “Looks just the same to me.”
“An imitation, that’s all. You’re the soul of us.”
Mabena snorted at that and pulled away again. But her lips were curled up in a smile. She motioned to Libby. “Have you met Lady Elizabeth yet?”
Libby smiled too. There was something about how these islanders addressed her that she couldn’t mind at all. Nothing changed in their gazes when they heard the title, nor in their manner as they nodded a greeting to her the same as they did to everyone else. The Moons, for example, had welcomed her into their home as if she were just one more daughter—they had two besides Mabena, and two sons as well—and had her laughing and relaxed within minutes. When they made her promise a few minutes ago that she’d consider their home her own whenever she came over to visit the Gardens, she’d had no qualms at all about agreeing.
This gent grinned at her as he shook his head. “Not yet, though I’ve heard she was about.” He executed a short bow, more bounce than grace. “Fitzwilliam Gibson, at your service, my lady. You may call me Tas-gwyn Gibson, if you like. Most of the youngsters do.”
Mabena poked him in the side playfully. “He’s the island storyteller. Weaves a yarn that could have even you believing in ghosts and fairies, my lady.”
Doubtful. But she wasn’t above such an experiment, especially when it was an entertaining one. “Perhaps next time we come.” Much as she wanted to spend another full day in the Gardens, they’d decided to sail back to St. Mary’s by noon. According to the ache in Mr. Moon’s big toe, they’d have a bit of a squall move in this afternoon, and they wanted to get home beforehand.
Apparently nothing could tell the weather quite like Jeremiah Moon’s once-broken toe. Knowing that joints—and poorly healed fractures—did indeed respond to air pressure as accurately as a barometer sometimes, she’d seen no reason to argue with the claim.
Mr. Gibson grinned. “I’ll prepare the best tale you’ve ever heard. Perhaps about the pirate admiral who once made his home in the very spot I now call my own.”
“Allegedly.” Mabena shot him a mock-stern look.
“No alleging about it! Why, did I not hear his ghost rattling about just a week ago?”
“I daresay you didn’t. The wind, perhaps. Or rats.”
“Bah.” He poked her back. “You’ve no imagination, Benna girl. I’m telling you, it’s Mucknell himself, his soul tied to the treasure he probably buried under my very floorboards.”
Libby smiled at the banter. And at the allure of pirate treasure—something the Scillies no doubt had scads of stories about, as many buccaneers and smugglers had used the islands as their base over the centuries.
Mr. Gibson lifted a hand to another neighbor emerging from the morning fog. “Ho, Hank! Have you seen the lads yet? Who should get my wager this morning?”
Libby leaned a bit closer to Mabena. “Do they really wager on the races, when the vicar is one of the rowers?”
She chuckled. “The usual bet is a pudding or a pint.” To Mr. Gibson she said, “As if you’ve ever bet on anyone but Oliver.”
He sent her an arch look, belied by the twitching in the corners of his mouth. “I might do, if Enyon’s still looking rough.”
Hank—coming toward them from the waterline at a pace that said he had some pressing errand—didn’t slow as he answered, “Casek’s been snarling already at your grandson, so I imagine the vicar will be rowing as if his soul depends upon it.”
Tas-gwyn Gibson was Mr. Tremayne’s grandfather? Maternal side, clearly, given the different surname. Which meant the Gibson side of the family was the one that Lottie had been so quick to dismiss.
Surely even Lottie wouldn’t have been able to resist the man’s laugh though. Perhaps he wasn’t landed gentry, but this was a fellow who was quite content with what and where he was.
Libby could learn a thing or two from him.
A minute later, the three of them stepped from road to path, following the echoes of morning greetings to the water. On the beach were ten men, ranging in age from late teens to early forties, gathered into two clusters. They were all moving busily around the two boats, long and sleek, resting on the sand.
At the first glance, she’d picked out the one form that was familiar—Oliver Tremayne, dressed in the cotton trousers and shirt of an athlete, a knit cap upon his head. He was giving a direction to another of the men, it seemed, pointing here and then motioning there. Whatever chap he’d been talking to nodded and spun to do something or another.
One of the men on the other team, a tall and burly one, shouted something that the wind garbled and stole before it reached Libby’s ears. But she didn’t need to hear it to know it must have been a taunt, given the way the four men around his boat laughed and the other five all stiffened, one spinning around with tense muscles.
Mabena nodded toward the chap that Mr. Tremayne restrained with a hand on his shoulder. “That’s Enyon,” she whispered. “Oliver’s best friend.”