Libby didn’t quite know what to say. She’d always liked purples—but the lady couldn’t have made a shawl for her before they met, and she certainly didn’t whip it up since yesterday afternoon.
Perhaps Mabena read her mind. She appeared before them, eyes wide and admiring. “Mrs. Tremayne! Another of your masterpieces! I’d thought you’d given them all away already.”
Mamm-wynn chuckled. “I’ve a few stashed away yet, just waiting for their rightful recipients to come along.” She flexed a hand with a sigh. “I certainly can’t make them at the rate I used to do. I’ll be lucky to finish my current one before autumn comes.”
Ah. That made more sense. But she couldn’t mean for Libby to keep such a work of art, could she?
Mabena must have thought so, given the weighty smile she directed to Libby. “Now you’ll always have something to remember your first gig race by, my lady.”
Mrs. Tremayne tucked her arm around Libby’s and motioned toward Mr. Gibson. “Fitz is just getting warmed up, I see. Let’s go and listen, dearest.”
“All right.” But first she turned to find Mrs. Gillis with her gaze. “Do you need anything else, ma’am?”
Mrs. Gillis smiled and shooed her away. “Get on with you, my lady. And thank you for helping.”
“My pleasure, I assure you.” It had earned her plentiful smiles and afforded her the chance to slip her contribution into the jar.
Mabena and Mamm-wynn led her toward a cluster of rocks the locals were perched on like so many terns, all listening with half-smiles and rapt eyes to Mr. Gibson, who stood before them, waving his arms in a way that made her hope the mug he held was nearly empty.
“There was no question about it,” he boomed. “It was the pirate prince himself!”
“Pirate prince?” she whispered.
Mamm-wynn patted her arm. “Prince Rupert of the Rhine,” she murmured back. “One of the Scillies’s most famous temporary residents—during the Civil War and Cromwellian era. Though a nephew of the king, he served under Admiral Mucknell himself and was part of the pirate fleet.”
A pirate fleet? She didn’t recall learning about that in her lessons of the Civil War and the Parliamentarian era—that brief span when England’s king had been exiled and the Roundheads were in control of the government. But then, history had never been her best subject.
Not that Mr. Gibson seemed to be relying too much on an understanding of Scillonian history—unless Prince Rupert the Pirate really still walked the shores as a skeleton in the light of a full moon. She shivered and tugged her shawl closer. Skeletons couldn’t do much walking without muscles and tendons and flesh to give them power, but that knowledge did little to detract from the story.
She was beginning to see Oliver Tremayne’s point about a simple truth not always being as compelling as an interesting fabrication.
“There they come!” The shout came from closer to the waterline, where a lad in knee breeches had been keeping watch.
Mr. Gibson broke off and spun about. “Who’s in the lead, Yorrick?”
“Wearne—no, wait! The Tremayne team’s overtaking them!”
Mr. Gibson led the charge back into the sand, shouting, “Come on, lads! I’ve a fruit pie riding on your win! Put your back into it!”
Libby wandered onto the beach with Mabena and Mamm-wynn, watching the two crafts skim their way back over the waves. They had to be remarkably evenly matched, because from one stroke to the next she couldn’t be quite sure who was in the lead, or who might be so in the next second. All the islanders were on their feet now, all voices cheering either for Wearne or Tremayne. Even Mabena was shouting the names of each rower on Team Tremayne.
Libby had never gone to the horse races, never cared much for the football matches Bram attended now and then. She’d never honestly been much interested in any sport. But there was something interesting here that she’d never accounted for when thinking of a game or competition—something that had nothing to do with the sport itself and everything to do with the community cheering it on. By simply joining in, bouncing on her toes in time with Mamm-wynn and lifting her voice along with Mabena, she became part of something.
It was a lovely feeling.
And it grew all the lovelier when Oliver Tremayne’s team glided in a second before the other, the five men whooping their victory and jumping out into the surf with arms pumping the air and slaps on each other’s backs. Oliver himself at the center of them all.
He was an odd sort of alpha. She couldn’t help but watch the interplay with fascination. He wasn’t the largest, probably wasn’t the strongest—though he was clearly quite fit. If he was the dominant male in his group, it wasn’t from his physical stature. No, it must rather be because of the way he laughed with the men, spoke to them, directed them with a hand on a shoulder or a gesture to the right or left.
Casek Wearne, on the other hand, must have won his place as captain of his gig from sheer muscle power. While his men laughed off their loss and joked easily with the winning team, he was glowering about it. At least until he glanced toward the shore. Something in their general vicinity must have caught his attention, because he straightened, and his face brightened.
“Benna, my lady—will you two take these to the winners?” Mrs. Gillis was shoving steaming mugs at them even as she asked it.
Libby took two, and Mabena somehow balanced three with total ease, though Mamm-wynn plucked one away from her. “I’ll help too.”
Mrs. Gillis had already turned to press a few others into delivering sustenance to the Wearne team, so Libby didn’t bother replying, just struck out through the sand. The men saw them coming and met them a few feet away from the gig.
She couldn’t even have said who took the mugs from her. She was too busy watching the care with which Oliver accepted the one from his grandmother’s outstretched hands, the warm smile he gave his matriarch.
“Mamm-wynn. What are you doing down here?”
“Libby was cold. I had to bring her a shawl.” She stated it simply.
But when his gaze shifted to her in a way that made her think—probably foolishly—that he’d been waiting for an excuse to do so, it didn’t feel so simple. Libby trailed her fingers down the edges of said shawl. “She was my hero this morning.”
His smile was certainly warmer than the sunshine just beginning to burn away the mist. “And how have you enjoyed your first gig race, my lady?”
She found herself grinning back. “I think I need to convince Moon that our weekly garden visits always need to happen on Tuesdays, so we can be here Wednesday mornings.”
“Oh yes, you don’t want to miss any of them. Our Ollie can’t win them all, but they’re always such fun.” Mrs. Tremayne turned, then, to answer the greeting of one of Oliver’s teammates.
Oliver shifted a bit closer to Libby’s side. “Are you staying the day or . . . ?”
“We’ll be leaving midmorning. We want to get back before the storm.”
He shot a pointed look at the blue sky, brows raised.
Libby grinned. “Mr. Moon’s big toe insists an afternoon squall will be coming.”
“Ah. Well, no one argues with Jeremiah Moon’s toe, to be sure.” He’d taken his knit cap off at some point and now raked a hand through his damp hair. “Mr. Gale and I have solidified our plans for me to fill in at St. Mary’s the Virgin this Sunday, so I’ll be coming over on Saturday. I thought . . . that is, I know you said yesterday that no one else has mistaken you for Beth. But I thought I’d drop by when I get there. To make sure it’s still the case. If that’s all right.”