Bram grunted. “And offered to fund any promising ventures, no doubt.”
“Well, archaeologists and historians need to eat, you know. Funding is required.” Sheridan faced Beth again. “It was, oh, two or three months ago that Lord Scofield got in touch. Said—what were his exact words? Oh, never mind. But the gist was that he’d found a lead. You, Miss Tremayne. I expect, anyway. He didn’t give me your full name, of course. Just said a friend of his daughter’s named Elizabeth—that would be Lady Emily. That she—you, I mean—was from the Scillies and had happened upon something.”
Beth’s fingers were white around the chair back, and her cheeks ashen too. “You. You’re the one they sold it to. Give it back! I never gave them permission to sell it.”
Sheridan seemed to know exactly what she was referring to—which was more than Libby could say. He lifted his chin, eyes flashing. “I bought it. It’s mine.”
“It was no better than stolen goods! I asked them to authenticate it as his crest, not to sell it!”
“Wait.” Oliver held up a hand, his brows knit. “What exactly is it?”
Beth turned to him. “The old trinket box that Mother gave me, with the gold-leaf coat of arms embossed on it—you remember it, don’t you? She said it was passed down through the family, left with some great-great-grandmother when her true love, a nobleman, left and went to sea. The Scofields asked me to keep an eye out for anything with Prince Rupert’s coat of arms on it, and they sent a drawing of it. I recognized it at once and sent them the box—to look at, not to sell.” Here she glared at Sheridan again. “Which I made perfectly clear.”
Libby pressed her lips together. Was that the drawing Darling had found under her bed? She’d not given it a moment’s thought since that night.
Sheridan folded his arms over his chest. “It wasn’t made clear to me. I paid good money—”
“Irrelevant! It was not theirs to sell. And they never even paid me—”
“Actually.” Oliver cleared his throat. “They sent payment last week.”
“Then return it to his lordship, so that he has no argument.”
Never in her life had she seen Sheridan look so near explosion. “Now see here—”
“Enough.” Casek leaned forward, all menacing muscle. “Who really cares about a trinket box? What do you know of Johnnie Rosedew?”
Sheridan at least had the grace to look abashed. “Only the name—from a report. Not from Scofield, but . . . ah, I must go further back. You see, I’d been paying another chap to look into a lead in the Caribbean, as that’s where Rupert and Mucknell went for a while. Before Scofield, I mean. That my search there was before, not that they were in the Caribbean before. Though, of course, that was also before.”
“Sher!”
Bram’s bark earned a throat-clearing from Sheridan and a splinter of a smile. “He’d found nothing though, and Scofield—or rather you, Miss Tremayne. The first piece you found.” His face lit, eyes all but blazing as they always did when he thought a discovery just beneath the dirt on which he stood. “I had a chance to see it when you sent it to them for authentication. It was Mucknell’s mark, I’d know it anywhere. And it mentioned the John. So the timing is right.”
Libby’s brows knit. “Which item was this?”
Beth shot her a look but still said nothing.
Sheridan never had any such inhibitions. “A map—an actual treasure map! Or, well, maybe. On the treasure part. No one knows what Mucknell did with it, you know. The loot, I mean. But it could be here still, in the Scillies. He lived here for years, apparently. With his wife. Well, not right here in this very spot, of course, but somewhere nearby.”
“The point, Sher.” Bram, naturally.
While the rest of them exchanged a glance. This house hadn’t been his. But Tas-gwyn Gibson’s had been, if his word on the matter could be trusted.
“Ah. Right. Well, you see . . .” He faced Beth again. “You probably know this already. But no one’s entirely certain what happened to the John. Might have sunk, or he might have got it back to the islands and then scuttled it. Never sailed again though. Of course.”
Beth sighed and looked to her brother. “I did a bit of digging. It seems the ship he took right before his final battle was called the Canary, and there was something of value on board that the rightful owners spent considerable time searching for to no avail. But if the John was scuttled, then it means whatever treasure he carried was brought ashore. And even if not, if it’s at the bottom of the sea, there was a lot of loot he’d taken with it beforehand.”
“But no one knows what he did with it,” Sheridan concluded.
Mabena snorted. “Spent it, most likely.”
Sheridan shook his head. “Couldn’t have, here—there was nothing to spend it on. I mean, the islands are lovely. Quite the holiday spot now. But not then. Just rocks, basically. Barely enough to support anyone. Before the Dorrien-Smiths brought the flower trade here, I mean.”
Libby had to give Sheridan a bit of credit. He knew how to do his research.
Oliver sighed. “It’s always been a matter of local speculation. From the Scillies he went to the Caribbean, as you said, and he certainly wouldn’t have taken any of his personal treasure with him. But he never made it back to England. And his wife clearly didn’t take the plunder and use it—she petitioned the Crown for his pension after the war and lived modestly, according to what I’ve read.”
“Exactly!” Sheridan slapped a hand to the table. “Which means it’s probably still here. Somewhere. Buried.”
“Or sunken.” Bram stopped pacing and leaned down to scoop up Darling. The little traitor nuzzled his chin and meowed at him. “You’ll never find it if it’s at the bottom of the sea.”
“But it isn’t! Or probably. Not, I mean.” Sheridan gestured toward Beth. “That’s what the map could indicate.”
Bram, kitten purring happily against his shoulder, leaned against the wall beside Libby. “Get back to your original point, Sheridan. This other person you’d hired, who had been in the Caribbean?”
“Ah. Right.” The excitement on his face dimmed to something that looked oddly like worry, though she’d never seen such an expression on him before to know exactly what it looked like. “Bloke by the name of Lorne. I called him off. I mean, even I’m not going to fund something fruitless. Not for long, anyway. Told him I had a more promising lead in the Scillies.” He winced. “I didn’t mean for him to come here. But he, ah—well, he’s butted heads with the Scofields’ lads before. In the field, I mean. Quite a competitive game is archaeology, you know. It can get . . . nasty.”
Casek’s hand, which had been splayed on the tabletop, curled into a fist. “You mean to tell me this bloke came here? That he’s the one who killed Johnnie?”
Sheridan eased out a breath. “Can’t say. That is, he said the lad was killed in an accident but that it could rouse suspicion. So he was lying low. That’s all I know. Honestly. About the young man.”
“It wasn’t an accident,” Casek snapped. “I saw him, saw the blow to his head. He couldn’t have got it by slipping and falling, not there. Someone’s responsible, and if it’s this Lorne bloke, I’ll see he’s brought to justice. He had to have been involved somehow.”