“So I noticed. Not certain what I think about that yet—though it’s no secret what her brother thinks.”
Mabena chuckled and meandered back toward the front door with Beth. “He’ll come around or he won’t—but I don’t think Ollie means to let her go back at the end of summer. And I hope she agrees. They fit.” She hadn’t thought to expect it. But now, having seen them together this month . . . she couldn’t honestly imagine anyone else making either of them happy.
“Well. If you say so, I don’t dare disagree.” Beth bumped their shoulders together, twenty years of friendship summed up in that single touch. “She seems sweet.”
“She is. But she has a good dose of salt too—necessary in these parts.”
“And she’d be happy here? Because I can’t imagine Ollie ever wanting to be elsewhere, even Truro.”
Mabena didn’t bother holding back her smile. “The islands know her name, according to Mamm-wynn.”
Beth’s shoulders relaxed as she reached for the door. “That’s all I needed to know.”
Rather than stepping through the doorway, Mabena paused, her brows knit. “One question, Beth, about all you said in there. The map—it wasn’t among the things we found. Do you have it still?”
“I have a copy. But the original is stowed in my—your—cottage.” Beth’s eyes sparkled. “I was hoping to reclaim it when I came to collect Treasure Island last week.”
She linked her arm through her cousin’s before she could think about darting off again. “You’re not going back for it alone though, just so you know. We’re in this together.”
“Mm.” Beth’s gaze as they stepped inside tracked toward the library, from where too many masculine voices were ringing. “More of us, it seems, than I’d ever bargained for.”
It had rained buckets all day Thursday, effectively keeping them Tresco-bound and delaying the gentlemen’s intentions of sending for their valets, but when Friday dawned bright and fair, Oliver breathed a prayer of thanksgiving and all but leapt into the day. They’d go back to St. Mary’s today—first to meet Lady Emily Scofield’s ferry and see her to the room he’d arranged for her above Mrs. Gilligan’s hat shop, and then to get the map from the garrison cottage where his sister had apparently stashed it.
And best of all, he might even escape Telford’s hovering presence for a few minutes. He’d been a perpetual, stormy shadow since Wednesday, and no amount of politeness or attempts to engage him in honest, heart-seeking conversation had resulted in anything but a glare.
A glare that said quite clearly, Stay away from my sister.
A glare Oliver couldn’t have obeyed if he wanted to. Dressed for the day, he slipped into Mamm-wynn’s room, acknowledging silently what had become all the more apparent in the face of Telford’s thunder. He’d fallen head over heels in love with Lady Elizabeth Sinclair, and he couldn’t be in her presence without finding his way to her side. Teasing a smile to her lips. Whispering a Latin name or two as their own private joke. Ira Frater in response to one of Telford’s irritated—and irritating—commands, for example.
And she’d replied to his “angry brother” moniker with a nod toward Beth and Soror Absit—“absent sister.”
He sat on the edge of his grandmother’s bed and took her hand in his. She rewarded him with a fluttering of her eyes, though they didn’t focus on him. Just gazed blankly for a moment before her lids swooped down again. More than she’d given them that first day. And the doctor said it was a good sign that she was becoming more alert, and that one side of her body didn’t seem to be weaker than the other.
Still. Oliver wanted her awake. Squeezing his hand. Talking to them. “We’ll be going to St. Mary’s for a while today, Mamm-wynn,” he said softly. “Mrs. Dawe will be here, and Aunt Prue means to spend the afternoon with you, I think. Do you need anything?”
How he wished she’d demand a bun from the Polmers’ bakery. Or some new yarn for her next project. But she said nothing. He let loose a long breath and lifted her hand, pressed a kiss to the papery skin. “You did what you meant to do, you know. You brought Beth back to us. Thank you for that—but don’t think you’re finished yet. We still need you. I still need you.”
He set her hand down again and then leaned over to kiss her forehead. “Rest now, Mamm-wynn, but wake soon. Please.”
Sheridan was already in the dining room with his tea and porridge, one of the books of local history open before him—probably to a page that told him something about Mucknell and Prince Rupert. Oliver still couldn’t quite believe he was the one behind all this, however inadvertently. But at least the marquess wanted to put it to rights somehow. Not that they could all of them agree on the best course of action to accomplish that.
They had to bring Lorne and whoever the Scofields’ counterpart was before the magistrate, that was certain. And at all costs keep them from finding anything of actual worth. Even with their buyer here, on their side, none of them were willing to trust these shady antiquity hunters. If Sheridan tried to call them off and not pay them, who was to say that they wouldn’t just find someone else eager for some pirate silver? There was surely more than one gentleman in England willing to pay for it.
It may be wise, as Telford kept insisting, to simply put it all as far from them as possible. To tell the Scofields their search had met a dead end, and to let Sheridan distract their overeager employees with a few other inquiries he had stored up. But that still left the Lorne fellow, and he was a bit of an unknown. Sheridan hadn’t seemed at all confident that he’d be able to redirect him. A bloodhound, that was how he’d been described and why Sheridan had hired him to begin with. Once he was on the scent of something, he just wouldn’t let it go.
And apparently wouldn’t let anything or anyone get in his way.
Oliver made it through breakfast without running into Telford and even stole enough time to pay a quick visit to Mr. Menna in the Abbey Gardens before the six of them met at the quay. There had been no debate as to which boat to take, as only the Adelle was large enough to hold all of them. He and Beth and Mabena moved in perfect harmony readying her, Libby able to pitch in without getting in the way too.
Their lordships at least had the good sense to stand on the shore and wait until they were called.
Soon enough they were skimming the waves toward St. Mary’s, sun and wind spurring them onward. But it wasn’t a pleasure cruise, and no one on board seemed to mistake it as such. Shoulders were tense, spines rigid. His sister grew more silent, more anxious with every passing minute.
Oliver prayed his way over the four miles of water. That they would have wisdom. That they would find answers.
That no one else would get hurt in the search for them.
They spotted the first ferry of the day as they neared the quay—and ended up dropping anchor just as it pulled in at the docks. Beth, shielding her eyes against the sun, waved a hand furiously. “Emily!”
Oliver turned, though he had no idea who among the passengers was his sister’s friend from school.
“The ginger,” Libby whispered, nodding to a young lady whose hair was noticeable even beneath the wide brim of her hat. Not that said lady had been able to hear Beth’s shout over the ferry’s engines. Either that, or she was ignoring her.