His bark of laughter interrupted her, and he waved a hand at the quay, filled with boats anchored in the shallow water but currently empty of people. “Take a look around, Benna. Unless you want to wait for someone else’s leisure, I’m your option just now. So . . .” He took a diagonal step back and held out a hand with a flourish toward his sloop. “Allow me, my ’ansum.”
She looked first to the paths leading here, willing some other acquaintance to come whistling her way. None. Which was just her luck, wasn’t it? Her fist squeezed tight again until her nails dug into her palms, and she sucked in a long breath. She’d like to declare that she’d sooner swim home than ride with him, or “borrow” one of the other crafts—something she’d done a time or two over the years. But this blighted dress was too restrictive to allow for rowing or sailing.
And this was for Beth. So, she hissed the breath out again and jerked forward, lifting her skirt out of the way and taking some small pleasure in the way her stomping steps sprayed a bit of wet sand onto his trousers. “Fine. But because you’re the only option.”
His chuckle drove home what every Scillonian already knew—that Casek Wearne never lacked for confidence, and no one else’s opinion of him ever made a dent in it.
She gathered her skirt a little higher to prepare to step into his boat, squealing a protest when hands landed on her waist and she was hoisted into the air. Though her feet were on the bottom of the boat a moment later and he let her go again, it didn’t keep her from spinning round and smacking him in the arm. “Brute.”
He was grinning. Of course. “Just helping a lady, that’s all. You look so prim and rigid in that getup, I thought you’d need the assistance.”
“You’re lucky I’m lady enough to refrain from punching you square in the nose.” It still had a bump on it from when Ollie had done so when they were nineteen, and she wouldn’t mind adding another. Though it wouldn’t be half so satisfying as delivering the blow to his brother.
“I’m utterly terrified.” He climbed in after her, pulling the anchor up as he sat. His hands then found the rigging, and within a minute he’d caught the wind in the newly unfurled sails, and they were off.
Just to poke at him, once they were in open waters, she asked, “Who won the race this morning?”
His scowl was all the answer she needed, which brought laughter to her lips.
He settled into his seat with his hand on the tiller. “We’ll take them next week. Especially if Enyon keeps losing sleep because of ghost stories.”
“Ghost stories?” She wasn’t sure whether to be curious or simply amused. “I thought he’d outgrown such tales.”
“Apparently not. He was going on this morning about hearing something in Piper’s Hole and seeing lights from his window.” He shook his head, but then he glanced over his shoulder, back toward Hugh Town. “There were rumblings in the village about something, too, though. Shadows on the shore. Dogs barking at all hours. Mr. Gibson, as you’d expect, was quick to launch into tales of pirates and smugglers.”
He would. It softened her. She’d have to make certain she was at his house at teatime so he could tell her a few tales too.
Her feet bumped against a box, and as she looked down at it, she finally thought to wonder why the headmaster of Tresco’s school was over on St. Mary’s of a Wednesday afternoon. “Third term isn’t over yet. What are you doing here?”
“Had to pick up the new slates we’d ordered.” His eyes lit in a way she still had a hard time reconciling, even after knowing him from the very day she was born. She never would have taken him for the sort to get excited about academia. And likely he wouldn’t have developed said excitement for it either had he not been in perpetual competition with Oliver. Through their childhood, they’d always been locked in a struggle for the highest marks, the top spot in the class.
Mabena shook her head. “Headmaster.” Not at all what she’d expected of him. Of course, the role she’d imagined for him was pirate, and there weren’t too many of those positions available these days. Though if his job brought him to St. Mary’s regularly to fetch items for the school . . . She tried to keep her tone casual as she asked, “Are you over here often, then?”
“Once or twice a week. Why?” His tone went taunting. “Hoping to see me while you’re here?”
“Right. That’s it.”
He made an exaggerated wince. “Cut to the quick by the lady’s sarcasm, as always. Some things haven’t changed, at least, I see.”
But how to address the things that had without rousing more curiosity than she wanted from him? She went for a chuckle and cast a look back at St. Mary’s. “I thought to run into Beth by now. She’s summering on St. Mary’s, isn’t she?”
His hum wove through the wind, tangled with the sounds of water against hull. “Much to Tremayne’s annoyance.” He smiled as he pronounced that. “Went over sometime in April, I think, so she could have her pick of cottages before the incomers started pouring in.”
The part she knew. What she didn’t was where she was now. “She mentioned it in a letter. Said Ollie had promised to let her have her privacy and not so much as step foot on the big island unless it was absolutely necessary.” It was the sort of promise the whole of Tresco must be chuckling over.
Casek certainly did. “That’s right. When last I saw Beth, she seemed properly pleased with that—which I assured her I understood completely. I’d want to escape him at the first opportunity too.”
Mabena snorted a laugh. “And she no doubt was quick to retort.”
“She is a Tremayne.”
That she was. “When did you last see her? Do you know which cottage she’d let?” Better to make it sound like she was simply looking for a friend.
His heavy brows drew together. “Must have been . . . what, a fortnight ago? Perhaps three weeks. Walking along with a few tourists—wouldn’t even acknowledge me, though that’s no great surprise. She’s taken one of the cottages along the garrison wall, I think.”
She kept her own hum even, relaxed. Cast her gaze out to sea and tried to identify the flash of wings gliding toward Samson. “I’ll have to introduce her to my employer. She’ll enjoy making friends with an earl’s sister, I daresay.”
This time his snort sounded far too derisive. “Just like a Tremayne. Always has thought herself too good for the likes of us normal Scillonians, hasn’t she?”
Mabena shot him another granite look. “No. Only you Wearnes. Because she has sense.”
The familiar barb served to bring his smile back to his lips anyway.
They sailed in silence for a few minutes, her mind whirling with all her questions. Nothing too terrible could have happened to Beth, surely. If it had, everyone would know it and they’d all be talking. And Casek Wearne would be the first to spout off about any failing of a Tremayne. No, her vanishing must have been quiet. But how? Why?
And why hadn’t Mrs. Pepper gone to Oliver for the next rent payment rather than simply reletting the room? That made precious little sense either.
“I’m in too deep, Benna. The waters are closing over my head.”