Mabena moaned. Or muttered something. Possibly a plea for them to stop, though he couldn’t be sure, given the way the wind garbled it. Either way, Casek’s long legs started eating up the track without a pause for another exchange, and Libby drifted to Oliver’s side.
They both watched them disappear beyond the rise before saying anything more. And then it wasn’t a word but a touch that had him sighing out the anxiety of the night—Libby’s hand on his arm, sliding down to his wrist. Taking his hand, the one not tangled up with incriminating silk.
He wove their fingers together. Foolish, no doubt. But he needed the touch, and he suspected she did too.
“Why do you dislike him so much?”
He hadn’t been sure whether she’d ask about that or Beth or all that transpired in the cave. But this was by far the easiest to answer. “Because he dislikes me.”
“And why does he dislike you?”
He sighed, shrugged. “He always has. The Wearnes and the Tremaynes have never been what one would call friendly.”
“Because . . . ?”
“Because . . .” He frowned into the night. And wondered where the stranger was. Deeper in the caves, looking for another way out? Or sneaking out behind them even now? He cast a glance over his shoulder and tugged Libby into a walk. “Because we have holdings on the mainland, I suppose. No one here owns any property. The Wearnes always said we lord it over the rest of them. That we only stay here so we can feel superior to someone, since we haven’t enough to do that on the mainland.”
“That’s ridiculous, from what I’ve seen.”
“Exactly! We’re here because we love it here. That’s all.”
“Which means that’s only an excuse.” She stepped closer to him as they walked so that their arms brushed with every movement. She wasn’t wearing gloves—never did, aside from the night of the dinner party. He found he liked the feeling of her fingers against his. “The real question, I think, is why you’ve never tried to work past that with him.”
“I have.” Hadn’t he? Surely so, at some point. Or another. Over the years. When they were children, perhaps, or . . . since.
“Really? You’ve worked your elbow-magic on him, as Mabena calls it? And it’s failed?” Somehow a shade of amusement colored her tone. Amusement, after all this.
He opened his mouth. But had to shut it again. Of course he’d never taken Casek Wearne’s elbow, nor invited him to open his heart to him. “If I tried it, he’d sock me in the nose.”
“That may be. But I think Mabena’s wrong.” She settled her hand on his arm too. Two connections, which were somehow more than twice as effective at making him aware of her every shift. “The elbow has nothing to do with it. It’s you that sees people, Oliver. Sees them truly, sees them clearly. Sees them with purpose—and that purpose is to care.”
He glanced at her face briefly, then back to the path. “I suppose he resists me more than most.”
“I don’t think that’s it at all.” She squeezed his arm, then let her fingers drift away again. “I think it’s that you don’t want to see him. So you’ve never really tried.”
He winced. Wanted to deny it. But he knew truth when it pierced his soul. “I don’t know how to want to. Not with him.” Those words would probably make her respect him less, think him petty.
Or make her chuckle. “I think you’d better sort through that. Because he’s clearly in love with your cousin, and I think she’s leaning that direction too.”
“No! He’ll only hurt her.” The objection emerged from reflex more than thought.
But she angled her face toward his, brow arched, called him on it. “Someone already did, Oliver—but it wasn’t him. Not two years ago and not tonight.”
He huffed out a breath. “I know.” He let silence walk with them for a few paces and then said, “He’s always had eyes only for Mabena. But everyone thought Cador the wiser choice, if she liked that particular face.”
She snorted a laugh, no doubt at the thought of twins being interchangeable. She would know, better than most, how nature only provided so much of who a person was. “She said Cador kept her grounded, and that’s what everyone said she needed.” She squeezed his fingers, and he knew well it was a warning. “But she said that Casek made her fly.”
A warning he certainly appreciated. He drew in a long, salt-laden breath and let it leak out again. “She told you that?”
“Mm.”
“Well.” He squeezed her fingers back. “Then I think you have your answer on whether she’s really your friend. That’s not the sort of thing she’d say to someone who wasn’t.”
But expecting him and Casek Wearne to ever claim the same would require more than elbow-magic. It would require an outright miracle.
18
Mamm-wynn?”
“Mrs. Tremayne? Where are you, dearover?”
Libby blinked awake, staring for a long moment at the unfamiliar wall across from her before the words combined with the image and reminded her of where she was—the Tremayne house, and given the angle of light coming through the window, she hadn’t been sleeping in this borrowed bed for more than four or five hours.
She sat up, rubbing her eyes. Still gritty. They’d spent an hour last night talking to the constable. The man from the cave hadn’t been spotted anywhere, but they’d determined that no threats lurked in the nearby houses, at least. Then they’d spent another hour waiting for Casek to bring Mabena, talking over why Beth would be trying to scare anyone with ghost stories—and deciding it must be to keep them away from wherever she was, or where she suspected a treasure was buried. Wondering what had been delivered to her before she left the cottage, what she knew that they didn’t. What she might have already found. When finally Casek had delivered Mabena to them, it had been with a few short words, saying the doctor had stitched up a sizable gash on her head, given her some aspirin for the pain, and that sleep would prove the best healer.
They’d tucked her into Beth’s room, and then Libby had been shown here, to a guest chamber. It was charming and pretty in blues and whites that whispered of the ocean. And its lovely walls didn’t reveal anything now about the whereabouts of the Tremayne matriarch, who had wandered off again.
Libby pushed herself out of bed and quickly changed into the fresh clothes waiting for her, trying to grasp the wisps of a dream as she did so. Something about trees . . . curling bark . . . strange plants . . . with fairies darting among them. The images were too elusive for her to pull back into her mind though. Best to focus on Mamm-wynn.
From what Oliver had told her, his grandmother had taken to escaping Mrs. Dawe several times a week, but she usually only went out to watch the ocean or to the Abbey Gardens. If they were calling for her with that note of panic, it could well mean they’d already checked those places and come up empty.
Not really caring that her braid was frazzled from sleep, she opened the door, charged into the hallway, and barreled straight into Oliver.
He caught her with hands on her arms and a worried, distracted smile. “Sorry. We woke you.”