Beth flicked her a smile and rearranged herself to sit beside her. “Life was simpler then. And yet, when I was ten, all I wanted was to be twenty. To be a lady grown, like you, off on the adventure of my life. Now I wish I could go back and appreciate where I was.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself.” Senara tapped on the back of Beth’s shoulder as she’d done hundreds of times—and then hundreds more to the Clifford girls. And apparently the old training was still ingrained, because Beth scooted around to put her back to Senara, presenting the braid in desperate need of tidying. Senara pulled the tie from the bottom and began fingering the weave and the snarls from the locks. “You took every possible moment of enjoyment out of your childhood—and borrowed a few more besides. Looking forward to adulthood is part of that joy, though, I think. Dreaming of all you’ll do. All you’ll see. All the people you’ll meet and love. Of pirate princes and ladies fair.”
Beth exhaled, long and hard. Her shoulders sagged. “Pirate princes are better in fairy tales than reality. In a story, their exploits are glossed over with pretty words and heroic motivations. But in reality, you can’t help but see the lives they wreck and the destruction they leave in their wake.”
How true that was. Senara unplaited the rest of the braid and then stretched behind her for the hairbrush, where it sat as always on the dressing table. “And is that what happened on Gugh this morning? Did you get a glimpse of a gentleman’s trail of destruction?” She’d spare her those lessons if she could. And yet, generally speaking, they all had to learn them for themselves.
Beth shrugged. “Reminded of it, anyway. I ran into a gentleman—quite literally. In the fog. And he was handsome and charming and we flirted, and for a moment . . . for a moment I actually entertained notions of love at first sight.”
Senara’s hands stilled with the brush only halfway through its first stroke. Beth had always been the sort to revel in such tales. But she also had a level head on her shoulders. She knew, didn’t she, where stories ended and reality began? “But?”
“But it was Nigel Scofield. Emily’s older brother, whom I’ve yet to hear a single kind thing said about. Who may have had something to do with Johnnie Rosedew’s death.”
“What?” She dropped the brush onto the bed and leaned around to peer at Beth’s face. “Mam said it was an accident!”
“That’s what everyone thought, until a week ago when we apprehended a fellow who admitted to it. A fellow who’d been working with Mr. Scofield.” Beth reached up to rub at her eyes. “He’s a cruel man. I know that. Emily has said so, and if anything, she ought to be looking at him through a lens biased in his favor. But when he was smiling at me, when I didn’t know who he was—I felt something. Or thought I did. And now Sheridan’s accusing me of being in league with him, when it’s him who started all this by hiring both Lorne and the Scofields to begin with, and—”
“Wait a moment, Elizabeth. I think you had better start at the beginning of this tale. I don’t have any idea who these people are.”
Senara picked up the brush again, stroking it through Beth’s long blond hair while her young friend filled her in on all that had happened since spring. Pirate maps and threats, mistaken identities and armed abductions.
The hair ended up glossy and well-ordered. The story was anything but. Senara was left feeling as heavy as the cannonball Beth said she’d found a few months ago.
And she still couldn’t shake the oddity of Rory bringing up Mucknell with her just five days ago. But this tale of Beth’s had been in motion long before that. Rory couldn’t have told these Scofield people anything that she told him.
Coincidence. That was all. Obviously.
If only her churning stomach would get the message.
Senara slid the brush back into its place. She would simply have to accept Ainsley’s invitation to join this odd treasure hunt. Learn everything she could. No doubt within a day or two, she’d convince herself that Rory couldn’t have possibly had anything to do with it.
“Nara?” Beth turned to face her, questions clouding her storm-colored eyes. “Are you all right?”
Senara mustered a smile. “Sorry. It’s a lot to take in.”
Beth drew her lip between her teeth for a moment and gnawed on it—a habit Senara had thought she’d been broken of years ago. “What am I to do? Other than steer far clear of Scofield?”
“Yes, run far and fast from that one.” Her voice sounded heavy to her own ears as she said it, a remnant of the thoughts she couldn’t—wouldn’t—put voice to. But she shook them off and focused on Beth. Young, pretty Beth. Headstrong, impulsive Beth.
Something more muted than panic but less controlled than concern clawed at her throat. She couldn’t let Beth tumble into the same errors she had made. She’d learned firsthand the consequences for letting such emotions carry her away. “That sort of man is bad news for any girl.”
Beth nodded, which wouldn’t have eased Senara’s feeling any. But her eyes went cool as steel, and that did. “You needn’t tell me twice. He has proven himself violent and cruel. I have no use for such a man.”
“Good. As for the rest . . . I think you ought to apologize to Lord Sheridan.”
“What?” That was clearly not what Beth had expected. She pushed onto her knees, poised to leap to her feet if she thought it necessary to storm off or stomp a foot. Typical Beth. “Why should I?”
Senara gave her the arch look she’d perfected years ago. “For starters, because you purposely dumped him off the Naiad when you came round the point.”
Beth pursed her lips, but her eyes flashed. “The cold water was good for his nose. Could even save him from black eyes.”
Not from the glimpse Senara had gotten of him. “Moreover, because you had quite a hand in mangling his pride. First you were flirting with another man—a rival, if not an outright enemy—under his very nose, and then you accused him of being no better than said man after he lost a fight.”
The storm clouds in Beth’s eyes had darkened more and more with every word she spoke. “His pride can stand a bit of mangling. And why should he care if I flirt with someone?”
Senara laughed, then realized Beth was serious. “Oh, sweetheart. You haven’t noticed? Why, when I peeked in the library window on my way past again yesterday, he was sitting at your feet like a puppy. He’s sweet on you.”
“That’s absurd. We’ve only just met a week ago, and we’ve been arguing incessantly since.”
As if either of those negated the other. But Senara held up her hands, palms out. “All right. Even if I misread it . . . when have you ever known a man who wasn’t embarrassed and in need of a bit of coddling after losing a brawl? Yet you dumped him in the sea for his trouble, when all he was doing was trying to rush to your rescue. Like a proper knight when he saw a scoundrel near the princess.”
Beth huffed and gathered her locks behind her head, twisting them into a coil. “He wasn’t trying to rescue me. He was just sore because Scofield lined up another buyer for the antiquities he’s determined to have for his own.”
Senara tilted her head, swiveling it to follow Beth when she rose and marched to the dressing table to jab a few pins at her hair. “Why do you dislike this one so much? From what you said, it’s that Scofield fellow you ought to despise.”