Squeezing them all in even for a few minutes was a tight fit, but the way Sheridan and Telford leaned against the walls somehow made it clear they didn’t intend to leave again right away. Mrs. Gilligan did though, after promising to stop up after closing time to have a chat and talk about the logistics.
The door had scarcely clicked behind her before Sheridan said, “Let’s get to it, then. Which is to say, no time to lose. Am I right?”
Lady Emily looked baffled. “Get to what, exactly?”
Beth took her friend’s hand and tugged her to a seat on the newly reupholstered sofa. “I’ve a bit of explaining to do. And then some questions to ask. I hope you can help us sort through the last of it, Em.”
She laid it all out in a few minutes, but the more she explained, the more troubled Lady Emily appeared. When they got to the bit about someone accosting Libby, she interrupted with horror. “Before the Wights’ dinner party? But—what did this fellow look like?”
Libby recited the description she’d put to paper when they’d gotten back to her cottage, which made the lady wash paler still. And mutter, “Well, that can’t be.”
Libby lifted her brows.
Lady Emily flushed. “Not your description, my lady. I beg your pardon. I was referring to my own immediate thought. It sounds like . . . but it couldn’t have been him. He wouldn’t.” So said her lips, while her eyes said, Would he?
Beth scooted closer to her on the sofa. “Who wouldn’t?”
Lady Emily’s gaze bounced from one of them to the next. “My brother, Nigel,” she admitted quietly. “He was here with us, on St. Mary’s, but he didn’t show up at the Wights’ dinner party that night until nearly midnight.”
“And he’s involved in your parents’ archaeological ventures?” Telford asked.
“He’s involved in all their ventures.” She unpinned her hat and held it out, the lady’s maid she’d nearly left behind on the ferry springing forward to take it from her. Then she rubbed at her temple. “Far more than I am, which is to be expected. Or so Father says. He says the world of archaeology is too cutthroat for ladies.”
Sheridan grunted. “Sometimes. Or at least—it can get cutthroat. And Mr. Nigel Scofield—I’ve never actually met him, though I’ve seen him around. Have you, Telly?”
Libby’s brother shook his head.
Sheridan mirrored him. “Older than us, a bit. Missed him at school. But I’ve heard stories. Always thought I’d like to be introduced, but perhaps . . . Well, perhaps not.”
Lady Emily’s nostrils flared as she looked to Beth again. “I thought . . . I was so excited when you wrote to me and sent that map. For the first time in my life, I had something of interest to them. I thought that maybe, finally, they’d let me be a part of it. Truly a part. Perhaps I shouldn’t have wished it at all. I cannot bear the thought that I put you in danger, Beth.”
“You didn’t, Em.” Beth took her hand. “You’ve been nothing but a friend. It’s this rival, I think. Lorne.”
“And my own brother. Threatening you, or who he thought was you.” The lady looked as though she might faint from the thought of it, which Oliver sincerely hoped she wouldn’t do. “I can hardly fathom it. Except . . .”
“Except?” Beth dipped her head a bit to peer into Lady Emily’s downturned face.
The lady looked away. “We aren’t exactly close. Not like you and your brothers. Hearing your stories, I was always a bit ashamed to think of how much a stranger Nigel has always been to me.”
Beth frowned. “I’m sorry. I never meant to upset you—”
“Oh, it isn’t your fault!” The lady frowned. “It’s us. He’s just so competitive! I always thought he resented the very fact that I was born and so stole a bit of our parents’ attention.” She tried to laugh it off, but the laugh burned cool while the flame in her eyes went hot. “He . . . they’ve had to cover up more than one incident where he let his competitive streak take him too far. Even I don’t know all the details, but . . .” She sucked in a breath, held it, let it out. “If he had been involved in the Mucknell treasure, if he realized this other man was too, and if he perceived it as a personal rivalry—there’s really no saying how far he might carry it.”
Not exactly the news they wanted—but the news they needed, if they meant to keep everyone safe. Oliver stepped forward. “I think the next question, then, is how patiently he’ll wait for Beth to get him what he seeks, and when he’ll try to get it himself. Because if he and Lorne are both so eager for the silver we’ve yet to find . . .”
Now it was Beth whose cheeks washed pale. “And while they may at first have been willing to let the locals do the work and take the risks, if we seem to be dropping the ball—”
“Or worse, withholding information.” Oliver felt his every muscle go tight. “Their threats could well be carried out.”
“What, then?” Sheridan had picked up a whelk shell from one of the shelves and was passing it from one hand to the other. “Do we do, I mean? Let them find it and sell it to me so it’s all over? And just have the constable on alert? In case they try to duke it out?”
Lady Emily frowned. “I beg your pardon, my lord, but I don’t think it’s that simple.”
“Oh. Well. It is, though.” He cleared his throat. “I’m afraid I’m the buyer.”
But the lady was shaking her head. “Not to say I doubt you, but—but I’ve made it a point to overhear as much as I possibly can about this, given that I’m the one who brought it to their attention for Beth. And they have more than one buyer interested. I’ve heard them whispering about higher bids and an auction. They’ve made mention of an American.”
“What?” The whelk went flying.
Telford, face placid, snatched it out of the air and slid it back onto the shelf.
Sheridan sputtered for a moment, then his face went positively ferocious. “New plan, then.” His gaze moved to Beth, then to Oliver and Libby. “We find it first.”
25
One month. One month to the day since that first Wednesday when it had all begun. When the man had found Libby on the beach and handed her the cannonball. One month since Oliver had knocked on her door and demanded to know where his sister was. One month that she’d called this cottage home.
How, in one little month, could her world have changed so fully? Libby trailed Beth through the cottage—hers, then theirs—toward the bedroom they’d both called their own. She’d known all along that someone else had stayed there before her. Many someones else. She’d known this was just a rented cottage that she’d spend a season in and then leave. But it hadn’t felt strange before.
It did now, following a former occupant into the bedroom and watching as she knelt down in front of the chest of drawers, reached under it, and peeled something off the bottom of the drawer that had always stuck.
Beth’s hand emerged with two pieces of paper. Or rather, one large piece of brown paper that closely matched the wood of the drawer, adhesive tape edging it. And a smaller piece of parchment that the paper had clearly been protecting.