She glanced over to where Ainsley, Collins, and Senara had settled in too, still a bit surprised that they’d joined the rest of them. And especially that, as Mamm-wynn reported, it was Sheridan’s idea.
The man was full of surprises. And not all of them dastardly.
Another prime example rested on his knee: the pad of paper and pen he’d pulled from his stack of books. She’d seen him taking notes aplenty on the texts he’d been reading since his arrival, but he’d jotted down key points of Tas-gwyn’s story too. Apparently he really did think such tales worthy of attention.
She nudged him with an elbow, though, and leaned over to say in a stage whisper, “Don’t look for any kernel of historical truth in that one, my lord. It came entirely from my grandfather’s imagination.”
“Not entirely.” Tas-gwyn Gibson took a sip of tea and gestured toward the window. “There really is a rip current. And a moon.”
Sheridan capped his pen. “Even if there weren’t, it would be worth recording. You should consider a written collection of your stories, Gibson. For your grandchildren, if nothing else.”
Beth sat up a bit straighter. It was a good idea. She’d probably be as miserable at catching the cadence of his words as she was the remembered one of Mother’s, but it would be worth trying. And at the very least, it would be time spent together and enjoyed. “That’s brilliant.”
Sheridan beamed at her. “I do.”
Had she missed something? “You do what?”
He grinned. “Weren’t those your marriage vows?”
Her face heated. And laughter bubbled up. How in the world did a marquess get to be so self-deprecating that he’d turn an embarrassment of one week into a joke the next? The next elbow she sent into his side had a bit more force behind it. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Until death do us part.”
Tas-gwyn was laughing, too, but soon sobered. “My girl already had that idea. The year you were away, Beth. Well, both of you, I suppose. You were still at university, Ollie. Your mam and Morgan and I spent the winter working on it. Wrote down all my tales and others from the islands as well. Went door to door collecting them, chatting with all the neighbors. Happiest time of my life, aside from when your mamm-wynn Kendra was by my side.”
Beth’s gaze flew to Oliver’s. He was staring right back. “Mother wrote down your stories? And Morgan?”
“But . . .” Beth slid to the edge of her cushion, brows knit. “That would have been just months before the accident.” She’d only been at finishing school from September through July, the year she was sixteen. And had been home again only three weeks when what should have been a leisurely trip to the mainland for her parents to check on Truro Hall had turned into a violent storm that had snatched their boat down into the Atlantic’s jaws.
Ollie’s breath slid out between his teeth. “And then Morgan, a year later.” Leaving just the three of them in the house. Her and Ollie and Mamm-wynn.
Her grandfather nodded. “I know. That’s why I hadn’t the heart to ever ask where it had all been put. Hardly seemed to matter. When I’d already lost the people, the stories we’d put down didn’t seem so important. Though that was a bit cruel of me in a way, I suppose. They’re your mam’s words as much as mine. You deserve to have them.”
“Mother’s words.” There’d been so many things to sort through. To pack away. So many papers. She’d made no attempt to read them, or even to see what they were. Just shoved them all into boxes before the next bout of tears blinded her. She blinked at her brother. “We must have them still. We put it all away, but we didn’t get rid of anything.”
“They must be in the attic.”
Sheridan stood and took four steps around the table, toward the door. Then stopped and arched a brow back at her. “Well? Have any of you anything better to do?”
Beth leapt after him, Ollie hot on her heels. She didn’t much care what the others did or didn’t do. All these years, they’d had Mother’s words, island stories, Tas-gwyn’s pirate tales closed up in a box, and she hadn’t even realized it. She’d wasted paper trying to write it in her own hand instead, when all she’d had to do was go to the attic.
Sheridan stepped aside to let her through the doorway first, probably because he didn’t know where the stairs to the attic could be found. But she did, and it only took a minute to reach them, climb them, and step into that world of dusty rafters and pattering rain and soft blue light filtering in through the small garret windows.
She moved into the center of the space to make room for whoever else had joined her—Sheridan and Oliver, Telford and Senara, Ainsley and Collins, by the looks of it. Only the grandparents had stayed behind. And then Beth looked around at the stacks of boxes and trunks and old, broken furniture not suitable for use but too dear to get rid of. “I have no idea where we put her papers.”
Sheridan grinned. “Another treasure hunt, then.”
He had a nice grin. Better than nice, really. She knew plenty of people whose faces looked better in repose than when they were smiling, but his grin carved creases into his cheeks and turned his eyes into happy slits that invited everyone in the room to smile along.
Though she hadn’t better mention it, or he’d probably start naming their children.
She tucked a smile of her own between her teeth and turned to the nearest stack of boxes.
This hunt was considerably faster than the other. Within a few minutes, she’d located notes in her mother’s hand that were clearly stories gathered from neighbors. And Oliver had found some in Morgan’s that seemed to be more general island history. Senara read from yet another page one of Tas-gwyn’s favorite opening lines: “Once there lived and once there was . . .”
“You know . . .” Beth fanned through the stack of pages in her box, Mother’s beautiful script adorning them all. “If they’d really collected stories from all the neighbors, there could be more like the one about Briallen and Rupert. Or mentions of Mucknell—ones to which Tas-gwyn hasn’t added ghosts and skeletons and ghouls and fairies.”
“Oral traditions.” Sheridan was sitting cross-legged on the dusty floor, flanked by open boxes.
Apparently Ainsley hadn’t noticed it until that moment, because he turned around and made a choking sound. “My lord! Have a care for your trousers.”
“It’s only dust, Ainsley.”
And only the finest of worsted wool that he was saturating with it. But she hadn’t the urge to add any more sarcastic observations about his lack of care to her silent litany just now. She’d been kneeling in it too, after all.
Senara stood. “We’re going to lose the light up here soon. We either need to bring up lamps or to carry down whatever we want to look through.”
Given Ainsley’s three consecutive sneezes, right on cue, they opted for returning to the library, everyone with a box in his or her arms.
12
Senara had to admit that reading through the stories in Morgan Tremayne’s careful hand was a more entertaining way to pass a rainy evening than she’d anticipated. Everyone in the house had taken a stack of them, even Mam and Tas.