Walls that were covered in a lichen she’d never seen elsewhere in England. Really, everything here was simply remarkable. Different lichen, different bracken, different heather—a whole new world! She could spend a lifetime cataloguing and still never list it all.
“How are we even supposed to know what he was looking for, Perry?” The young voice came from behind the lichen-covered stones, and it sounded none too happy.
An exasperated huff replied, “I don’t know, all right? But he was here the day before he died.”
“So? I bet he also visited the loo. Do we need to investigate that?”
“Yeah, Nick.” Perry’s voice sounded exasperated in the extreme. “That was going to be my next suggestion.”
“About as useful,” said a third voice that sounded much like Nick’s, only a trifle higher.
Mabena and Oliver were creeping silently around the corner, perhaps aimed for a door or something. Libby had no idea what might be on the adjacent wall. She stepped a little closer to the stones, though, fishing into her bag with one hand. A scraping of the lichen would only take a second, and her friends certainly didn’t need her to confront lads she’d never even met. She would just—
A scream spilled from her lips when her next step met air instead of ground. Her foot had found a hole that went deep enough that she sank up to her knee, her ankle twisting as it jammed into the uneven bottom. Worst of all, her satchel took the full brunt of her weight as she caught herself on the ground, and something cracked within it. Slides? Her magnifying glass?
“My lady!” Oliver dropped to his knees at her side a moment later, his face contorted with concern and his hands gripping her elbows to steady her. “Are you all right?”
“More surprised than anything.” The initial throb in her ankle was already dulling. Or else it was just fully eclipsed by the far pleasanter sensation of his hands on her arms, his face so close to hers. Bother, but she didn’t know what to do with these feelings he inspired in her. Or why in the world she was debating it when knee-deep in a hole. She ought to have been embarrassed, flustered by the situation more than that gleam in his eyes.
“Let me help you up.” He did so with ease, levering her back to the foot still on solid ground. But he didn’t let go. Perhaps because he was conscious of how carefully she put her abused foot down. Perhaps—dare she hope it?—because he enjoyed the nearness too.
Given the way his gaze brushed over her face and lingered a moment on her mouth, she could convince herself of that.
“Are you certain you’re all right?” he whispered.
Never in her life had she been tempted to lie, to exaggerate a hurt, just to keep a gentleman closer. Lottie would be proud of her for entertaining such a thought even briefly. Which was enough to make her shake it away.
She plastered on a smile and flicked it from Oliver to Mabena, who had also hurried back. “Quite.”
The lads dashed around the corner too, looking stricken and pale. “What happened?” Perry’s voice asked. She could see now that said voice belonged to the boy clearly not related to the other two, who looked enough alike to have been twins, if they weren’t four inches apart in height.
Someone must have raised these lads right. Had it been schoolboy-aged Bram and Sheridan caught adventuring when they should have been in class, they’d have run the other direction upon hearing another voice, not come to make certain all was well.
She rewarded them with a smile for their concern. “Just found a hole with my foot. A burrow of some kind, no doubt.”
“That’s no burrow.” Though he toed the hole, Oliver kept an arm around her that warmed her far more than the summer sun. “Look. The edges are square.”
The lads surged around Mabena and crouched down beside the hole. It wasn’t large—just big enough for her unfortunate foot—and grass had crept over the edge, which surely meant it had been dug a while ago. “Bet Johnnie dug it,” Perry said.
The taller of the brothers snorted. “It could have been anyone, Perry. Any time.”
It could have been Beth. That was surely what Oliver and Mabena were thinking. But how could they ever know?
Oliver cleared his throat and put a stern expression onto his face, though the boys could no doubt see as easily as she did that it was more obligatory than meant. “And what exactly are you three doing here when you ought to be at school? What would Mr. Wearne say if he knew you were here?”
Whether they saw his mixed feelings or not, they reacted as any lad would when faced with the consequences for his truancy. Their faces morphed immediately into pleas. “Aw, come on, Mr. Tremayne! You won’t tell him, will you?”
“We’ll head right back. We promise!”
“It was such a beautiful day. . . .”
Oliver just lifted his brows. Given the twitching at the corners of his mouth, she suspected he said no more simply to keep laughter from his voice.
The lads huffed out matching sighs and pushed back to their feet, shoulders sagging. The taller of the brothers muttered, “We’ll just get back, then.”
“You certainly will,” Mabena put in with gusto, narrowing her eyes and crossing her arms over her chest. “And you can be certain we’ll be watching those blue sails of yours all the way back to Tresco. Now get on with you.”
The trio scuttled away, though the wind brought snatches of their murmuring to Libby’s ears.
“He wouldn’t . . . Mr. Wearne . . . don’t even like each other.”
“But she’s his girl!”
Libby sneaked a glance at Mabena to see what she thought about being known as Casek Wearne’s girl by the schoolchildren on Tresco, but she didn’t seem to be paying them any heed. She’d moved closer and was frowning down into the hole. “Did you see this, Oliver?”
“The hole?”
“No.” Mabena knelt down, reached into the hole, and came up with something thin and colorful dangling from her fingers. “Beth’s bracelet.”
“What?” Oliver took it from her, his arm drifting away from Libby’s back. An absence she felt like a blow. He flipped the beaded length over, fingering the frayed end with a frown. “No surprise it came off—she was losing it all the time. But it isn’t dirty. Not like it would be had it been in that hole for months, getting rained on and muddy.”
Mabena huffed. “And if it was coming off all the time, why didn’t she take it to Mam for fixing?” Her gaze flicked to Libby. “I made it for her—my first attempt, using my mother’s jewelry-making supplies. No surprise the clasp wasn’t as secure as it ought to have been, but Mam would have fixed it for her.”
So Mabena and Beth were good enough friends that her first jewelry-making attempt was a gift for her—another piece to the puzzle Mabena seemed set on keeping her from putting together. Libby made a mental note.
Oliver shrugged. “You know Beth. She hates to part with a trinket she loves, even for a short time.”
“And look where that’s got her.” Mabena took the bracelet back. “So, she was here recently then. Probably since the last rain. But the hole doesn’t look freshly dug, so she was investigating one she made earlier, or one someone else—perhaps Johnnie Rosedew—had put here.”