The man didn’t seem to know when he was being insulted. He laughed and sat back up. “You know what I mean.”
“Do I?” She traced a finger along the engraving on the cover, with its gold leaf spelling out the letters. T – R – E – A – S – U – R – E. “For all I know, you wish them ill. After all, Lord Telford brought you here to convince her to marry you, didn’t he? And from what I’m told, you were game.”
“Well. Somewhat. That is—willing, I suppose, at the time.” He shrugged and lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the morning sun. “She’s a nice girl. Deserves a husband who will respect her. Indulge her . . . unique interests.”
The fact that she would spend the entire day after the gig race in the botanical gardens, he meant, studying and drawing each specimen she could find, and then adding the Latin names to them when she joined Mamm-wynn for tea. With Oliver’s help, of course. He’d been tending the exotic plants in the Abbey Gardens alongside the official gardener, Mr. Menna, for years. “And you really don’t mind that husband being my brother instead of you?”
Because she was none too certain they should trust him as Ollie had so quickly done. He might seem affable enough, but they oughtn’t to forget that he’d employed two different men to hunt for any artifacts they could find related to Mucknell and one of his associates, Prince Rupert of the Rhine, knowing well how fierce the competition could become. No, not just knowing it—counting on it. Hoping for it. He had deliberately pitted two artifact hunters against each other.
Johnnie Rosedew had died because of this man’s drive to possess what wasn’t his.
His lordship could say all he wanted that he’d never sanctioned such actions. Just as he could say he’d make no attempt to hold Libby to the engagement her brother had tried to arrange. But saying things didn’t make them so.
Yet he looked utterly sincere—and charmingly self-deprecating too—when he said, “Actually . . . I’m a bit relieved. She’s terrifying sometimes—Libby. When any wildlife is at stake. You may have noticed? Lectured me for an hour last Christmas about some moss my digs had upended. Or lichen? Maybe it was a fern.”
Another snort of laughter snuck its way from her throat. Libby would no doubt remember exactly which specimen had been in danger. “I can’t say as I find it particularly terrifying, though I’ve certainly noticed the tendency. But then, we all tend to be rather protective of our plants around here.” She swept out a hand to encompass the islands at large. “Without the flower industry, the Scillies would still be poverty-stricken, as we were centuries ago.”
His gaze followed the circle of her hand and then landed back on her. “Mm. So rich in history though. I’m hoping to explore while I’m here. The Druid cairns, I mean. Not just for Mucknell and Rupert. They’re everywhere, aren’t they? The stones?”
“You can hardly take a walk without stumbling over one.” Her fingers twitched on the cover of the book. Druids weren’t her particular interest right now, nor were cairns or standing stones or anything else so ancient. She wanted to explore history only two-and-a-half centuries past—but she still thought Mucknell may have used some of the more ancient sites for his own hiding places, and it wouldn’t do to have Sheridan stumbling across them. “My grandfather will take you about, if you wish. And tell you any tale you’d like about them. Some may even be true.” Tas-gwyn could be trusted to steer his lordship wherever Beth asked him to.
When Sheridan grinned, she could nearly believe he was just an oblivious, coddled lord who really hadn’t meant any ill. “There’s always a kernel, right? Of truth, I mean. In every legend and all the lore.”
“Well. Depending on your definition of kernel.” Tas-gwyn Gibson’s tales were far more imagination than anything, much of the time, and all the more entertaining for his embellishments. Her favorite pastime as a girl—other than exploring the islands—was curling up in his lap and listening to story after story. He would take her away with those tales, without ever leaving his house.
And when Tas-gwyn wasn’t there to regale her, Mother had been the one to pull her close and whisper her favorite stories. So many times had Beth snuggled close and said, “Tell me of the pirate and the princess!”
And no matter how many times she’d told it before, her mother would smile, smooth a hand over Beth’s hair, and settle in for the telling. “Once there lived, and once there was, a beautiful maiden at the edge of the world. She made her home here on the islands, where the sea surrounded them day and night, bringing them life and bringing them death. And one day, it brought her a prince. . . .”
She flipped open the cover of Treasure Island again, barely able to stop from reaching for the nub of a pencil in her pocket. So many times had she tried to write down that story. Too many to count. But it was never right. She could never capture the cadence of her mother’s voice, the way she would drop it to a whisper in one moment and then imitate the crashing of a wave in the next. She kept trying though, over and again, through the years.
Maybe it was the blank page’s fault that the words were never right. Maybe if she wrote it here first, as she’d done the silly little fairy tale she’d made up to catalogue the items she was searching for evidence of . . .
“Oh, is that the copy of Treasure Island? The one you made the notations in?” A hand appeared in her line of vision, reaching for the book.
She snatched it away, holding it out of reach. Instinct, mostly. And a sound one. She scowled at him. “My copy, yes.” No point in quibbling about whether it technically still belonged to her brother. “And there are no notations of any interest to you.”
Lord Sheridan didn’t look the slightest bit abashed, though he at least put his hand back where it belonged. “Libby made it sound so intriguing.”
Beth still fought back a wave of embarrassment every time she thought of her brother’s new fiancée having studied her notes. Reading each and every one. Using them, if unwittingly, to take on Beth’s role in the treasure hunt.
Those words had never been meant for anyone else’s eyes. And they still weren’t. “They are hardly intriguing. Idle musings, nothing more.”
His brows lifted. “Then why not show me?”
As if he had to ask. “Because the last time I ‘showed’ something to someone even remotely associated with you, it was stolen from me. I’ve learned my lesson. You’re a thief, Lord Sheridan, and I don’t mean to let you touch anything else I hold dear.”
2
Theodore Howe, Marquess of Sheridan, had been called many things by many females in his twenty-six years of life. A bore. An eccentric. A foozler—which he remembered solely because it had taken him a week to puzzle out what that one meant, and which he could hardly argue with once he puzzled it. He did tend to be clumsy when taken by surprise.
But no one had ever called him a thief before. It probably shouldn’t amuse him. But really. Never in his life had he—or would he—resort to thievery. He paid good money for each and every artifact that he hadn’t dug up with his own hands. Not to mention funding a good many ventures that had netted him absolutely nothing.