Mabena’s chin came up even more. “Tas has prepared the Mermaid for me, so I don’t need to be relying on anyone else to ferry us about.”
The rebuff just made his smile go lopsided, into a grin. “Good. What time are you leaving? It’s been too long since I’ve watched you sail.”
Mabena huffed. “Shouldn’t you be over there telling Perry and Yorrick to hurry along to class?”
“They have an hour yet.” Though he darted a glance, Libby noted, to the left, gaze searching until he found the two teenaged boys.
“Then allow me to rephrase it: go away.”
“One more dagger to my heart.” He splayed a hand over it. And also flashed her another grin. “The world’s put to rights again. It was all wrong when you weren’t here to insult me.”
Libby pressed her lips against a smile. If ever she meant to make a study of flirting, she could pick up a thing or two from this fellow.
Mabena, however, didn’t look amused. “It’ll tip on you again at the end of summer, if that’s so.”
“Perhaps you should prepare me this time. You could start with a compliment.”
“No. I couldn’t.” Her tone was absolute, genuine ice.
But Casek Wearne just chuckled. And tipped an invisible hat. “I’ll see you around, Benna. My lady.”
Libby offered only a neutral smile in farewell, since it seemed a bit odd to say good-bye to someone who hadn’t even looked at her. She bumped Mabena’s arm much like she’d done to Libby a minute before. “I think someone likes you.”
Mabena didn’t flush, much less smile. “No. He doesn’t.”
“Oh, come now! I may be no expert on such things, but even I could see—”
“It doesn’t matter if he did. I’m not fool enough to get involved with a Wearne.”
“Why?” She didn’t really mean to ask, but the question just came so naturally to her that it slipped out.
“Leave it, Libby.” Mabena slashed a hand through the air and took off at a half run, clearly intending to leave Libby in the dust. Or sand.
She drifted to a halt. It was the first time her friend had ever called her Libby. But she’d said it in anger. And then left her here.
“Don’t take it personally, dearover.” Mr. Gibson filled in the empty spot Mabena had left at her side, even slipping a companionable arm around her and chafing a hand over her arm. “You’re not a true Scillonian until you’ve been snapped at by Mabena Moon.”
She let him urge her onward. And rather liked the sensation of walking under the protective wing of a grandfather. Her own had sheltered her so a time or two. But not nearly often enough.
And to be honest, the comfort didn’t dull the sting of the snapping. “She’s never spoken to me like that.”
“No, I don’t suppose so. But then, you’ve never witnessed her history before, I daresay. Not safe on the mainland, far from it all.”
She angled her face up so she could see his. Saw a bit of Oliver’s jaw in his, which lent her strength for some reason. “She’s never told me anything about her family. Or why she left the isles.”
“She wouldn’t. And a better man than me would probably say it was her story to tell, not mine. But as you have to live with her . . .” He bent his head down, eyes somehow both twinkling and shadowed. A play of fire and smoke, light and dark. Joy and pain. “You’ll want to avoid further mention of the Wearnes. She has a history with them.”
“With Casek?”
“No.” He said it on a breath of laughter. “His twin brother—Cador. They were engaged, until he left her for a well-connected girl from London. Her father was in publishing, and he had dreams of literary grandeur, you see.”
No. She didn’t see at all. Mabena had been engaged? Had been tossed aside? And she’d never breathed a word of it? “So she left the Scillies?”
“That’s right.”
She faced forward again, watching her friend’s back disappear behind another knot of people, then over the rise. Or maybe not her friend at all. Friendship required a certain amount of openness on both sides, didn’t it? Maybe Mabena was no more her friend than . . . than Lottie Wight.
And how could she have left all this? The family, the community that knew her and loved her? The place that called her its own? Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe Mabena was one of those born here but destined to leave. “Do the islands not know her name?”
Mr. Gibson chuckled. “More than that, my lady. They’ve always been her heart.”
Her stomach hurt. How could that be, given her silence about them? “Then how could she leave?”
“Well.” He didn’t say the word like a storyteller. He said it like someone who had given the matter a lot of thought and reached a logical and unavoidable conclusion. “Because when the island is your heart, and your heart is broken . . . what are you to do but break ties with the island?” He patted her shoulder and then slid his arm from around her, so he could grip her elbow to help her over the final rise of sand, back onto pavement. “But she’s back now.”
Her feet wanted to drift to a halt again. Maybe even turn her around and run back down to the beach, where the morning had been bright and beautiful. “You think she’ll stay.”
“I know she will—though she’s not ready to admit it yet.”
But—but if Mabena stayed here, sent Libby home alone at the end of summer . . . If she was expected to just face her family again, face society again, face London again without anyone who understood her and championed her, if only in the privacy of her own room . . .
“Don’t want to lose your maid, I take it?”
Her face probably looked as sick as her stomach felt. “I don’t care about the maid part. But I don’t want to lose Mabena.”
“Well then. The answer’s simple enough.” He reached up and chucked her under the chin in the way Papa used to do. “You’ll just have to stay too.”
Even though there was no way Mama and Bram would ever allow it, the idea was alluring. Except that she had a sinking fear that Mabena would disagree. Loudly.
And she wasn’t so sure she could handle hearing it.
12
Mabena may not much fancy the kitten who was once again stalking through the cottage as the promised squall raged away the afternoon, but she’d always liked puppies. And she felt as though she’d kicked one, the way Libby avoided her gaze and went out of her way to keep from crossing Mabena’s path for the last eight hours, though she had still been steaming too much over Casek Wearne’s audacity to really notice it when they were in the Abbey Gardens. But by the time they climbed into her lovely little sloop and started for St. Mary’s, she could no longer ignore the slump of the lady’s shoulders.
What a bore she was, to have stolen the morning’s happiness from her with a few short words. But apologies had never been her strong suit. Not if they required words.
Perhaps chocolate could do the job for her. While Libby chased after the cat, who was making rather hilarious tiny ferocious hunter noises from her bedroom, Mabena put the kettle on and got out the powdered cocoa, milk, sugar, and salt.