It made him smile. She wouldn’t know it, but they used the same tone they did when talking about the Dorrien-Smiths—“our Lord Proprietor.” They had a way of looking at him—and now at her—as if he belonged to them and not the other way round. Which, really, was as it should be.
He couldn’t tell her that, though, when she was cocooned in that silence. Its wall was too thick. Even after church this morning, when such a non-fuss had been made over her that she ought to have been thrilled at feeling so included. Even after an afternoon spent running their plan past the constable, who looked dubious but had agreed to it and hadn’t even chided him—much—for not telling him straightaway that Beth was missing.
Even now, as they made their way to the cave. She ought to be nervous. Or excited. Or fearful. She ought to be something other than numb. And the fact that she wasn’t . . . It was concerning. Yes, if all went well, they’d end this night with the man who’d accosted her two weeks ago in custody. But if it didn’t go well . . .
His own chest had been tight all day, considering that if. If it didn’t go well, Lady Elizabeth’s life could be in danger. If it didn’t go well, Beth’s life could be in danger. If it didn’t go well, any one of them could be hurt or worse.
But she was the one bearing the brunt of the risk. She would be taking on the blame for his sister. She’d offered it, when they first devised this trap, saying it was the only way, since she was the one he’d be looking for. She’d simply offered herself up as bait and then gone on to hum the overture of The Magic Flute while she made a tidy list of everything they ought to do to prepare for it.
He’d met a lot of people over the years. Here on the islands, on the mainland, at university. Friends, neighbors, strangers. None of them—not a one—was like Lady Elizabeth Sinclair.
Mabena was already walking a few steps ahead of them, never one to stroll along when she could stride instead. Oliver held Lady Elizabeth back a bit more with a hand on her elbow. “My lady . . .” But that didn’t sound right, not now. Not when she was risking her very life for his family. “Libby.”
It was a liberty he oughtn’t to take without her permission. But if things went wrong tonight, that was the least of his concerns.
She looked up at him, her face traced only by moonlight and his gaze. She looked tired, but it was less because of the shadows under her eyes than the ones in them. He sighed. “You needn’t do this.” It wasn’t what he meant to say.
The corners of her lips tilted up, then drifted back down. “We’ve been through this . . . Oliver.” Oliver. Even better than simple permission to use her given name. “Whether I come to the cave tonight or not, the risk to me is the same. I’m the one they think is Beth. I’m the one they’ll be looking for, whether they’re looking here or at my cottage.”
“You could stay here with the Moons and not go back there. Or—” He choked on the obvious suggestion and had to clear his throat. “Or you could simply return to the mainland.” She had to at some point. It would be logical to do so now.
But he’d spent a few too many hours tossing and turning these past two weeks, praying she wouldn’t. If she left now, when would he see her again? He couldn’t exactly come to call at Telford Hall or their home in London—her brother wouldn’t allow it. He knew that. She might not be engaged to Lord Sheridan, but she’d marry him or someone like him. Like that viscount who had “stumbled across” them twice already while Oliver was there—and probably many times when he wasn’t. A man with a title. Or an estate large and impressive enough that no one minded the lack of said title. Not an island vicar whose holdings on the mainland were as modest as Truro Hall, whose resources had largely been spent on ineffectual doctors for his brother.
And blast it all, but never in his life had he felt the least desire for anything more than what he had. Never the least bit of shame or regret.
But then, never in his life had he wondered if treasure hunting with a lady could be termed courting. And if so, what her family would say about it.
Libby shook her head, and it took him a moment to realize she was responding to his suggestion that she leave the Scillies, not to his silent question about whether this thing between them was a courtship. “I’m not leaving.” Flint sparked against the iron in her tone.
She wasn’t just saying it to him, he knew, about tonight. She was saying it to the invisible specter of her brother, whom she’d been half expecting to show up and demand she return home ever since the Wights’ dinner party. Perhaps Lord Scofield had forgotten to mention her to Lord Telford after all.
They could hope.
“Good. I don’t want you to leave.” A truth that warmed the back of his neck. Perhaps Enyon had been teasing him incessantly about flirting with her, but the truth was that he was a novice at such things, and while the words came naturally with her, he was also keenly aware of his own awkwardness.
He didn’t know how to court a lady. Frankly, he didn’t want to court a lady. He just wanted to get to know her better, from the inside out. He wanted the right to slide his fingers down her arm and weave them with hers. He wanted her here, at his side, indefinitely.
Heaven help him. This was all Mamm-wynn’s fault, putting ideas in his head.
No. It was Libby’s fault for being so incredibly and beautifully different from all the other girls in England.
That smile joined the moonlight again, too fleeting. She shifted a bit closer to him with one step, then back to their usual space with the next. “What time is it?”
He didn’t have to pull out his pocket watch to know it wasn’t yet eleven—he knew when they’d set out from home, after all, and how long it took to walk to Piper’s Hole. “We’ll have an hour to get into our places.” And they’d been down there earlier too, deciding where each of them would be hidden, where she should wait, what she should say to lure the chap into revealing something incriminating so that Constable Wendle had a reason to block the cave entrance and detain him.
Plenty of time. “Won’t you tell me, Libby?”
“Tell you what?” But she knew. She had to, and he could hear in her voice that she did.
Still, he’d humor her. “What’s broken between you and Benna?”
He nearly regretted the question when he saw the moonlit pearl of a tear drop onto her cheek.
16
Libby averted her face so she could dash the tear away, praying he hadn’t seen it. She’d never been the sort of girl to cry over every snubbing or hurt feeling. She couldn’t be, otherwise she’d have spent her entire adolescence in tears, crying over each little barb Edith or one of her friends sent her way. The year at finishing school would have been a veritable ocean of waterworks. No, she wasn’t the sort for tears, and she didn’t want Oliver Tremayne to think she was.
But she’d been so dashedly close to them for the past two days, every time she looked at Mabena and realized everything she’d thought she knew about the woman was a lie. And to hear it put so truly, in a voice so very sincere in its request that she open her heart—even if he hadn’t been gripping her elbow, her emotions would have surged up.