Beth passed the map to her, and her fingers closed around the worn parchment. It certainly felt old, and it looked it too. Having never really studied maps, though, she found the markings on it more scribbles than intelligible clues. How were they to know what the lines meant, and the dashes, and the swirly bits?
They weren’t relying on her to decode it though. Just to see if the parchment itself was hiding any other secrets. Praying her light was strong enough to help with that, she started in the corners that were intact and moved the parchment inch by inch to familiarize herself with how it looked.
“Well?” Sheridan.
Oliver chuckled. “Give her some time, my lord. I daresay she hasn’t examined much parchment under magnification before. It’ll take a bit of getting used to.”
She would have paused to shoot Oliver a grateful smile if she hadn’t just reached a portion that had some ink upon it. “How interesting.”
“What?” Sheridan must have abandoned his chair while she set everything up, because he pushed Bram aside and crowded her left side. “What’s interesting?”
“The ink. Under magnification, it’s quite interesting. I can see where the iron gall has rusted and turned brown and still make out a bit of the black base of it as well. And I can see the flow change with the pen strokes. Quite interesting indeed.” She moved the map around, rolling the edges gently out of the way so she could trace the path of the long-ago pen.
“How is that helpful? Do you think?”
She sighed. “I said it was interesting, Lord Sheridan, not helpful. Although—that’s odd.” She frowned and pulled away, blinked, then lowered her head again. “Probably nothing. But . . .”
“But?”
She slid the map back to the lines that were, presumably, some sort of directions. And then once more to where Cave was scratched into the faded corner. “Maybe it’s from the exposure to water?”
“What is?”
Really, how had her brother tolerated Sheridan for so long? She pulled away again, jumping at how close he was. He looked like he might shove her aside and peer through the eyepiece himself at any moment. Though at her scolding look, he inched away. A little. She cleared her throat. “The ink used on the word cave looks quite different from the drawing. It isn’t half so rusty.”
“Newer, then?” Oliver leaned against the table on her opposite side. “A later addition.”
“How much newer?” Beth tapped a thoughtful finger to her lip. “Indication that it’s been moved, do you think?”
“Or misdirection.” Sheridan straightened. “History is full of those, you know.”
They would have a better idea of that than she would, so she kept her attention on the parchment. Which was far more interesting than their conversation anyway. “Well now.”
“What? Well what?” Sheridan really did nudge her aside this time and put his own eye to the eyepiece. “What am I looking at?”
Libby scooted her chair a few inches away and sent her brother an exasperated look.
Bram just smirked back at her. “You knew what he was like before you agreed to marry him.”
Of all the . . . “I did not agree!”
Sheridan waved a hand in her direction. “Right, I know. I’m annoying and displace frogs. You don’t want to marry me. All well and good, but what in the world am I looking at?”
Beth nearly choked on a laugh. “You displace frogs?”
“With his excavations—he destroys their habitats.” Since he didn’t appear to be uncrowding her any time soon, Libby stood, which just led to his stealing the chair too. “And you’re looking at the parchment. It’s been scraped in that section.”
“Oh! So it has. That’s what those fibers are, I expect. That’s how they erased things, you know. Ink, from parchment. With a knife, I suppose.”
Libby folded her arms over her chest. “Perhaps that’s why I pointed it out.”
He didn’t seem to hear her mutter. “It does appear thinner there, and the scrape marks don’t match the area around it. And what’s this other bit? A shadow or . . .”
“Well, I don’t know. Someone stole my microscope from me before I could look any further.” She didn’t honestly expect that to garner any more of a response.
But he pulled back, stood, and waved to her chair with a sheepish grin. “Sorry. Almost. You might need to magnify it more—I daresay if I fiddled with any of the thingamabobs, I might find myself without fingers.”
“Smart man.” Bram looked far too amused.
Libby huffed and took her seat. She immediately saw what had grabbed his attention, on the side where the water damage began. It could well just be where the ink had washed over it. Or perhaps something more. She adjusted her lens to a higher magnification. And gasped.
“What!” Sheridan sounded frantic, but this time she’d fight him for the eyepiece if she must.
“Another word.” She nudged the mirror just a bit, smiling when the extra light shone through. “Yes. It looks like c-a—”
“Cave again?” Beth this time.
Oliver sighed. “Let her finish.” His hand settled on her shoulder, which was no doubt infuriating Bram. But it also told her that he knew she was on to something, and he trusted her to decipher whatever it was.
“Not cave. It looks like—an f. But then . . . t? That doesn’t seem right.”
“F or s, do you think?” Oliver’s fingers tightened on her shoulder. “Historically, an s in the middle of a word looks more like our f now.”
And when he made the suggestion, it didn’t irritate her at all, just made victory swell in her chest. “Oh, quite right! I’d forgotten that. Definitely an s then, making this . . . castle.”
For a moment, silence descended as she straightened and looked at those gathered round. Then an utter cacophony erupted as everyone started talking at once. Libby stood again, her gaze seeking Oliver’s. “How many castles are there, exactly, in the Scillies?”
“Three.” He looked much like Beth had when he tapped a thoughtful finger to his lips. “Star Castle here on St. Mary’s. Then King Charles’s castle and Cromwell’s castle on Tresco.”
That was a lot of crumbling stone to look through. “How do we know which one Mucknell had a connection with?”
“We don’t.” Yet he smiled. “But I know who would.”
She smiled. “To Tresco then, to visit Tas-gwyn Gibson.”
The evening was one of the finest they’d yet enjoyed that summer, the sun lingering long, the breeze warm and gentle, the temperature perfect. Oliver hated to spend such an evening inside, but he’d been a bit surprised when the entire company took him up on his offer to enjoy their pudding in the garden.
There they all were though, laughing and arguing over the letters Beth had somehow produced, though he hadn’t even noticed her slipping away to reclaim them, with his flowers as a backdrop. Evidence, undoubtedly, that her secret hiding place was somewhere nearby.
Oliver drew in a long, fragrant breath and leaned against the stone wall at the garden’s edge. Mabena had bowed out of dinner with them. She’d said it was because she’d had enough of the bickering and didn’t imagine their lordships really wanted to dine with a lowly former lady’s maid . . . but Oliver suspected it was more because she meant to accept the Wearnes’ invitation to join them for the evening meal. Lady Emily hadn’t come over from St. Mary’s with them either, which meant it was just Beth and Libby, Sheridan and Telford sitting there now, debating whether they ought to trust Tas-gwyn Gibson’s advice and try King Charles’s castle first.