Perhaps she needed to spend more of her days moving and fewer sitting around studying slides under her microscope. But she was determined not to slow him down, not when his grandparents were his reason for hurrying. Grateful that she was at least in reasonable clothes that allowed for movement and not the restrictive sort of dress Mama always tried to make her wear, she ran as fast as she could on the path. And fought for breath enough to call out, “Does Tas-gwyn . . . usually go out . . . so early?”
“Never,” Oliver answered over his shoulder. “Aside from the Wednesday races, he won’t even leave the house before nine these days. Says such hours are for youngsters and fishermen.”
Bram would get along with him well, then. Though it was hardly time for thoughts of her brother. “So both . . . of them?” She’d meant to say more than that, but they were back to the descent to the beach, and she opted for paying attention to her feet’s purchase in the sand instead.
Oliver offered her a hand, and then held on to it again. His dark eyes were troubled. “I do wonder if it’s related. Tas-gwyn Gibson is the only one Mamm-wynn trusts to take her on the water these days, other than Beth and me and maybe Mabena. They joke that he is the little brother she didn’t know she had until their children married.”
But surely Mr. Gibson wouldn’t take Mrs. Tremayne out on the water before dawn without telling Oliver. Would he?
He must have been wondering the same. His face moved to the sea again, and he tugged her toward the boathouse. “We’ll take a gig to it. I daresay it will be quicker, given how low the wind is right now, even with only one at the oars.”
“I’ll help row.” The words were out before she could stop them, though she wasn’t exactly surprised when Oliver shook his head.
“Not necessary, my lady.”
And they were back to that. “I know how. There’s a small lake at Telford Hall, and we went out on it frequently with rowboats. Nothing so grand as to allow for sails, but Bram always made me pull my own weight.” Unlike Edith, who swore such sport was unladylike—though Bram had always teased that it was just her excuse for not wanting to exert herself. “Let’s strike a bargain, shall we? Test me for a minute, and if I make the going slower, I’ll stop. But it seems to me that speed is of the utmost interest just now, so if I can help us along, I should. Don’t you agree?”
Though it was fleeting, he sent her a smile. “Your logic is unassailable.”
And more importantly, he wasted no more time arguing about it but simply slid a small gig out of its rack and grabbed two sets of oars. Within a few minutes he was pushing them into the water, leaping in without even wetting his shoes.
She’d never thought herself the sort to admire a man’s musculature and physical prowess. But she had to admit, watching him move, that his able form ignited a purely animal response inside her. Not surprising from a biological standpoint, of course. It was the attraction to the fittest that allowed them to survive, by Darwin’s theory. They were the ones to attract a mate, to reproduce, to pass their superior traits along to the next generation.
Her cheeks warmed. She’d examined such theories aplenty, but never with the thought that she was the mate to be attracted. It made it entirely different.
And entirely irrelevant just now. She was being every bit as silly as Lottie, thinking of a man’s handsomeness when she should be worrying over his grandparents. She gripped her oars firmly and, the moment he dipped his, matched him.
Only the slip of wood through water spoke now, and the cry of birds overhead, out for their breakfast. It would have been a serenade if not for the circumstances. Determined to prove herself to him, she matched him stroke for stroke, stridently ignoring the burn that soon scorched her shoulders. A bit of aching later would be worth it if they could find Mr. Gibson and Mrs. Tremayne.
Soon they were knocking against the hull of Tas-gwyn’s boat—built, no doubt, by his son-in-law. Oliver stowed his oars and leapt gracefully to the larger craft, a rope in hand to lash them together. “Stay here for a moment, Libby, if you would.”
If he kept calling her Libby, she’d obey most any dictate. “All right.”
A moment later, he was shaking his head. “He’s not on here. Perhaps that’s good. If he were, but the boat were drifting, it wouldn’t be a good thing. Given the current, I’m guessing it drifted from Samson for some reason. Let’s sail it back over there and see if there’s any sign of them. We’ll tow the gig.”
She wasn’t exactly eager to make the same climb from one boat to the other, but he was there, hand held out to help her, so what was she to do but agree? And though even with his help she was far less graceful than he’d been, she didn’t make an utter fool of herself. Her feet were soon planted on the elegant wood planking of the small sailboat, which freed Oliver to tend to the sails and get them moving in the direction he wanted.
She’d yet to go to Samson, though Mabena had told her a bit about it. It was currently the largest uninhabited island in the Scillies, though as little as fifty years ago that hadn’t been the case. There were cottages there, abandoned farms that hadn’t been productive enough to support the inhabitants. In the 1850s, the Lord Proprietor had moved the last of them, half-starved as they were, to Tresco after too many of their able-bodied men had drowned trying to save people from a shipwreck. Such a tragic, noble loss. He’d tried to turn the island into a deer park after that, but the attempt failed. Now it was simply a place people visited for a few hours to walk or observe the flora and fauna.
And this was not the way she’d planned on seeing it, on a hunt for missing grandparents. But Oliver was soon sailing them to a little quay and helping her out onto the damp sand.
The moment she landed, an unusual break in the colors of the grasses caught her eye. “There!” She pointed.
Oliver wheeled around, clearly spotting the legs and shoes too—masculine ones. They both took off at a run.
“Tas-gwyn!” Perhaps Oliver recognized the feet, or perhaps it was just a hopeful cry. Either way, he was soon proven correct as more of Mr. Gibson came into view as they neared. And the legs moved, which was surely a good sign. By the time they reached him, the old gent was pushing himself up with a moan, a hand clutching his head.
“Tas-gwyn.” Oliver fell to his knees at his grandfather’s side and put an arm behind his back to help him the last few inches to sitting. “What happened? Are you all right?”
“Beth.”
Oliver frowned. “What about Beth? Is she here?”
“I don’t . . .” Mr. Gibson winced and shaded his eyes from the climbing sun. “She thought so. Said we should go and find her.”
“She—Mamm-wynn?” Urgency threaded its way through Oliver’s tone. “Is she here too? Where?”
Mr. Gibson looked around him, clearly disoriented. “I don’t know. We were together. It was still dark but beginning to lighten. She said something about taking the path to the cottages, and then . . . I don’t remember.”
Oliver’s gaze flicked to Libby. “Will you stay with him?”
Someone had to, and he’d be the better choice for scouring the island. “Yes. Go!” She took his place by Mr. Gibson’s side, keeping him from standing with a firm hand on his shoulder. “You stay put, sir. Oliver will find her.”