Ainsley cocked his head and blinked. Again. Though this time he spoke too. “You like her.”
Sheridan’s neck went hot. Blasted complexion. “Of course I do. She’s a fine young lady.” Adventurous. Spirited. Intelligent. Tempestuous. And beautiful too. “Much like Lady Elizabeth and Lady Emily. I like them all.”
“Somehow I doubt you’d be beside Lady Elizabeth in this fog if she was insisting upon a search for some flora or fauna.”
Sheridan’s face screwed up at the very thought. “You have a point. All right then, I admit it. It’s the treasure hunt too. And nearly all the islands have cairns. I’ve been wanting to explore some of them, and the fog will keep other tourists away.”
“That should be what it is. But it’s not all, is it?” Ainsley folded his arms over his chest and shook his head. “You like her.”
It wasn’t the proper word for it. Though the ones he’d listed last night when she’d about given him an apoplexy, asking his opinion on love at first sight, didn’t seem right either. Infatuation sounded so . . . juvenile. Attraction—true, but far too simple. There were scads of beautiful girls in the world, after all. And it wasn’t as though Telly—who usually had fine taste in women—reacted to her as Sheridan had. So it had to be more than pleasing features and neither-blue-nor-grey eyes.
Maybe it was that knowing he’d tossed out just to see if she denied the possibility of it. An instant recognition.
“My lord. No.”
No? How was he to know if Sheridan’s soul had recognized its perfect match or not? Though come to think of it, how was he to read his mind either, to know that’s what he’d been debating? “I beg your pardon?”
“It isn’t a good idea to direct your attentions that way.”
Not a mind reader, but a decent Sheridan reader nonetheless. Not that he had any right to dictate Sheridan’s choice in a wife, as he did his choice in shoes.
Though, blast it, he didn’t look dictatorial, just concerned. “You’re a marquess. You own the largest estate in the Lake District. You can trace your lineage back to King James the First.”
“I know my pedigree, Harry.”
Ainsley winced. So far as Sheridan had been able to ferret out, no one in all the world called Henry Ainsley Harry. Which was why he saved it for these moments when he most needed to poke at the chap.
Still, his valet decided to have his say. “The Tremaynes are a landed family, and I realize there will soon be an alliance between them and the Telfords. But they are not your peers in any sense of the word, and you know very well your sisters would not approve.”
Wouldn’t they? Sheridan had been reaching once again for his hat but paused. It had never occurred to him that they’d look at her family connections instead of herself. They were always so quick to make friends, both of them. Why wouldn’t they take to her as they did everyone else?
But he’d never introduced anyone else as a possible future marchioness and sister-in-law. Well, other than Libby, but she was obviously a fine match, from the society point of view.
But the Tremaynes were a fine family. Perfectly respectable. And if they dared say anything in opposition, he’d just liken her to Elizabeth Bennet and pray they wouldn’t point out that Mr. Darcy had no title he had to live up to.
“Relax, Ainsley. I haven’t proposed.” Though last night he’d added another stupid way of doing so to his growing list of them. So, Beth, you said you wanted to believe in love at first sight? Well, you’ve made a believer out of me. It’s only fair, then, that you marry me.
He swiped his hat off the table and left the room before his valet could dispense any more advice, spoken or silent. Marched directly to the front door, where he was to meet Beth. And frowned out the window.
The fog was thick as wool. It really was pure madness to try to sail in it.
“Ready?” But there his lady was, a smile on her face and flinty determination in her eyes. She was dressed more like Libby than her own usual choices, a cardigan of green topping her blouse and doing lovely things to her face.
“Ah.” He cleared his throat. “If you are. Though if you’d rather wait for the fog to clear . . .”
Beth waved that away and pulled open the door. Fog billowed in around her. “If we wait, Oliver will talk me out of going.”
Sheridan snorted a laugh. “I don’t believe you.”
She smiled, then stepped out into the cloud. “All right, he’ll try. And having to be stubborn before breakfast always ruins my day.”
“Noted.”
He followed her voice into the mist and softly closed the door behind him. He could make out Beth easily enough, being only a step away, and maybe, possibly, the trellis beyond her. But past the gate, the world ceased to exist.
Blast it, Ainsley was right. Utter madness.
Beth hooked her arm through his. So now there was nothing he could do but go along.
She led him through what he presumed was the village, though it was more hulking, shifting shadows than buildings. The streets were still quiet, whereas he’d normally have expected a bit of activity by now. But the fishermen would already be out, he supposed, and the land-run businesses not yet open.
And he didn’t exactly mind the sensation of being utterly alone with her, their own little island in a world of clouds. It seemed wrong to shatter the stillness with words, so he held his silence as they followed the road down toward the quay. He knew that Beth had her own sloop, smaller than the Adelle, in which her brother had ferried them all about. He’d yet to see it, and he’d certainly never been invited aboard.
The fog was no less wooly at the shore, but the sounds of the sea broke the silence. Which must mean he could do the same. “Have you always sailed?”
She grinned up at him, her fair curls darkened to gold by the mist. “Always. For a Scillonian, sailing is like riding a horse on the mainland. We all learn it, along with swimming. It’s our only way of connecting the islands, and none of them are large enough to be entirely self-sufficient. The water is our road.”
Like he’d said yesterday morning. Look at them, in agreement about so much. How could they be anything but soul mates? “So, your sloop is like a pony? Every child gets one when they turn five?”
She laughed outright at that—a victory he knew he’d won by taking her side yesterday afternoon. It wasn’t the fairy bells of her grandmother’s laugh, but full-throated and warm. “I’d been manning the Adelle since I was big enough to hang onto a line, but I was thirteen when I got my own. I think most people thought my parents were spoiling me by giving it to me, but Uncle Jeremiah is a shipwright. He crafted matching sloops for Mabena and me. Her Mermaid. And my Naiad. She’s the loveliest sloop ever to sail round the archipelago.”
He had to wonder if the names would earn the same silence from Ainsley that his joke about sea gods had. “I can’t wait to meet her. How will I know if she likes me?”
Another laugh punctuated her tug toward a particular mast. “If she doesn’t toss you into the drink.”
“Ah. Just like all the girls, then.” He waited for the rest of the boat to take shape through the fog, hoping it was as lovely as she claimed, so that he could agree with her some more.