No more. She stood here today not in the trousers she’d pilfered a decade ago when her brother outgrew them, but in her usual day dress. Rather than a desperation not to be seen, she had to get home to Tresco before the others awoke, so that no one would know she was gone. She couldn’t frighten them again. She couldn’t—not with her grandmother only back on her feet a few days.
Guilt didn’t just pierce at the thought of the unknown ailment that had felled Mamm-wynn just feet from this door a week ago—it pummeled her. Mamm-wynn, precious Mamm-wynn, one of the only people she had left in the world. Injured not by the heartless, greedy snakes from whom Beth had thought she had to keep them safe, but by her own aging body, her own endless worry.
Beth had done it to her. Not the reprobate Lorne or the cold-blooded Scofields. Her.
She stirred herself and hurried to the corner of the cottage, pried up the rotting board. Last week, when she saw Oliver’s letter telling her that Mamm-wynn was unconscious, she hadn’t bothered to pause for such trifles as her supplies—she’d simply run to the sloop she’d hidden away and sailed home. But she couldn’t risk anyone else finding these things. No other island lads needed to get caught up in this business. And if the other treasure hunters found her maps, her notes . . .
No, that wouldn’t do at all.
The board gave way under her hands, and inside the cubby it covered, she found exactly what she’d left there a week ago. The map she’d drawn herself and marked with the locations she’d searched. A few of the letters from the pirate John Mucknell to his wife that she’d copied and made notes on. A book from her grandfather’s library that told of all the old, abandoned sites around the isles—prime locations, in her view, for a pirate to have stashed his cache.
A warm summer breeze whispered through the door she’d left open, reminding her to hurry. Beth shoved the lot of it into the satchel she’d brought for that purpose and hurried back out of the cottage, down the hill to where the Naiad was anchored—plain as day, there for anyone to see if they looked.
She checked the sun rather than her watch. Just peeking its head above the horizon. Her brother would be stirring soon, ready to take part in the weekly gig race around Tresco. She had to hurry.
The winds were favoring her this morning, though, and she soon had the Naiad under tack and gliding through the familiar waters, back to its home in the quay on Tresco. No one else was there when she returned, praise God. The fishermen were out already, the racers not yet arrived. She dropped anchor and secured her sloop, dashing back up the path toward home. Housewives might be up, stirring fires and clattering about for their morning tea, but only in their own kitchens. No one was out on the streets to call a hello. No one to wonder where she’d been this time.
No one to chastise her yet again for always craving a taste of Elsewhere, for seeking adventure when she ought to be tucked snug in her bed, content where she was. Or—the one she was awaiting with dread—lecturing her about still chasing Mucknell’s treasure when it had already cost the Tremayne family so much. Oliver would no doubt deliver that speech any day. The only reason he hadn’t already was because he was distracted with his new fiancée.
God bless Libby Sinclair.
She could hear Mrs. Dawe humming in the kitchen when Beth slipped in through the garden door, but she tiptoed by, up the back stairs, and made it to her bedroom without running into Oliver or his guests. His, not hers. If it were up to her, she’d toss the lords out on their ears.
Well, she had no argument in particular with Libby’s brother, Lord Telford. Except that he was inexplicably friends with that greedy, thieving buffoon, Lord Sheridan.
Her fingers tightened around the strap of her satchel. Lord Insufferable Sheridan would probably snatch it all from her if he saw it. Paw through it. Exclaim over each and every article—her search, her clues, her finds.
But it wasn’t just hers anymore. She’d drawn Oliver and their cousin Mabena into it without meaning to—and Mabena had brought her employer, Libby, here. That part, at least, was good. But the fact that everyone now knew about Mucknell’s treasure . . .
Well, they thought they did. They knew about the silverware they’d dug up together last week. But they seemed to think that was the only piece of the hoard she’d had a lead on.
She knew better—and so did the Scofields, the family she’d thought could be trusted with it all, given that her best friend was the daughter of said family. But they’d betrayed her.
For a moment she stared at her bed, which still felt too soft to her after weeks of sleeping on the ground. Then she shook herself. She had work to do, and only a few minutes in which she could do it. With silent efficiency, she fished the key to her desk drawer from its hiding place in the heel of her shoe, opened it, and slid these missing pieces into her collection of research, then stashed the weatherworn satchel out of sight.
But she hesitated before closing and locking the drawer again, her fingers hovering over the book that rested on top of her stack. Treasure Island. It had been her best friend during the first part of her hunt—and then the missing piece that had bothered her endlessly. She snatched it out, grabbed a few sheets of clean paper and a pencil, and then locked everything away again.
Ollie was up, whistling his way down the corridor. She gave him time to exit before following his invisible footprints downstairs, out the door. He’d have aimed himself straight down the village streets, toward the water and his teammates. Beth turned instead to the bluff, where she could see the racers go by. She chose a spot that would afford her the best view, the same spot where Morgan, their elder brother, had always watched the races.
She settled herself to the ground and ran her fingers over her book.
All right, not her book. It was Oliver’s—not that her brother had so much as picked it up in a decade. Still, she felt guilty for all the pencil markings she’d put in the margins and crowded between the lines in the last few months. Not guilty enough that she stopped doing it . . . but enough that she’d placed an order for a new one for him. It ought to be arriving any day.
And it wasn’t as though she’d set out to ruin it. She’d borrowed it from his shelves simply because Treasure Island seemed a rather apropos read when she realized she was on her own treasure hunt, here on her own island. She’d had it with her when she sat in this very spot to read the post that had come for her from her friends the Scofields in London. A letter that had been full of information on what she ought to be looking for, and how she ought to get them more information. She’d needed somewhere to write it all down. Somewhere that wouldn’t cause Ollie or Mamm-wynn to bat an eye at her—which they would certainly do if she carried a thick letter about with her.
And poor Treasure Island had been a ready conspirator.
She smiled a bit as she opened the book and drew out the blank paper she’d just tucked in a few minutes before. From her pocket she pulled the pencil. For a moment she stared at the mocking stretch of white, and then she screwed her mouth up and started writing.
Once upon a time, in the islands called Scilly, lived a girl called Elizabeth, who everyone called Beth. Brought up on the sea and the granite and the isles, Beth sought adventure above all. And she found it. First, by exploring every rock and rill of her island home. And then, when the call of romance grew loud in her ears, she turned her sights toward the mainland. But no true love awaited her there, and so home she came once more.