And Sheridan hadn’t even realized Lorne had come to the Isles of Scilly until after the tragedy. Perhaps a few weeks ago she was willing to believe he was complicit in it, but now? No. Sheridan valued life too highly to have condoned anything violent.
Apparently, her fury amused Scofield. His lips twitched up, even as he let go of one of her elbows and moved to her side again. “You really do have the fire of a fairy princess, don’t you? I suppose I should have believed my sister when she told me how enchanting her island friend was.” He dropped her other elbow, but her freedom was too short-lived for her to act on it. In the next second, he’d taken her hand and linked their arms together, resting her fingers against his soaked forearm and then pressing them there with his own.
A move her father had made, her brother, her uncle. One she could imagine Sheridan making with a warm smile and a hopeful gaze. Strange how the same innocuous action felt like a threat just now.
“Now.” He grinned down at her through the rain as he led them down the hill, leaving her little choice but to go along or risk another slipping attempt at escape. “Allow me to prove wrong whatever rubbish Em has told you about me. You oughtn’t to listen to her, you know, not about this. She’s always been jealous of the attention Father pays me. It colors her every view of me. I promise you, I’m a stand-up chap. One who shares your interest in history and archaeological discoveries.”
And why was he trying so hard to win her favor? Their first flirtation was one thing—it was anonymous, nothing but a moment of fun. But he knew who she was now, knew that she knew far too much about him to ever want to spend another minute in his company. Why was he so determined to detain her?
She wasn’t likely to find out by spitting vitriol at him every moment. Though it required some gritting of teeth, she gave him a tight smile and kept pace. The Naiad was still right there. She’d wait for a moment when he wasn’t likely to trip her up and then get away. Sail home. “I can hardly argue about our common pursuits. Though I find it a bit hard to believe my little discoveries here are really of such interest to your family. From the way Emily talks, you’re usually off exploring pyramids or lost cities or something far bigger than one pirate’s missing hoard.”
“This could well be a lost city. Lyonesse.” He shrugged as if dismissing it, but there’d been a note of genuine intrigue in his voice. “And your pirate was one of the greatest to haunt the seas. How many others had an entire pirate fleet? The moment I read about him, I was fascinated.”
She lifted her brows. “Were you? Your father led me to believe your interest was solely on behalf of the mysterious patron who wished to purchase any Mucknell or Prince Rupert artifacts—Lord Sheridan.”
“Sheridan.” His voice was a sneer, though she couldn’t see much of his face through her own mackintosh hood and the rain to discover if his expression matched his tone. “He doesn’t deserve to have such things in his collection. That man makes a mockery of exploration—as you no doubt know, having been forced into his company these weeks. He’ll fund absolutely any expedition, no matter how ridiculous, and then get excited about beads and pottery shards. He’s wasted a veritable fortune unearthing liths and cairns, as if the Druids ever buried anything worthwhile in them. He’ll never discover anything noteworthy.”
Were they rivals in this world of digs and expeditions? It hadn’t ever occurred to her that such animosity existed, not until Johnnie got caught in the cross fire. “I suppose that’s why you’ve brokered a deal with the American, then.” It was a rickety limb, that line of questioning. But if she was going to be stuck in his company for a few minutes, she might as well ease her foot out along it and pray she learned something.
Pray. There was an idea. How had the response that had become second nature during her weeks of solitude fallen away again so quickly in society? Especially when most of the society she’d been keeping turned to it so readily? Father God, you know I didn’t come here looking for this. I thought . . . I thought it would be safe. But here I am again in need of your protection.
Scofield chuckled. “Stroke of luck, really, that there is someone else willing to waste untold amounts of silver on Mucknell’s treasure. One can never underestimate the power of a bidding war either. And if it’s a way to needle Lord Sheridan, all the better. My father seems to have liked him well enough before now, but I can’t say as I was ever inclined to make friends, knowing what I did of him. And I think I had the right of it.”
Well, drat, she was hoping he’d let slip the American’s name. Too much to expect, she supposed. Perhaps a different tack, then, would reveal some new information. “How did you know to look on Gugh?”
“How did you?” He shot her a challenging look.
Adages about flies and honey filled her mind, and she forced a smile that she prayed was a good imitation of the one she’d given him on their first meeting. Even tossed in a little chuckle of her own. “Now, now, my lord. I asked first.” And she wasn’t about to tell him about the mention of “the old man” in the letters she hadn’t even sent to him. There was probably little harm in pointing out the water stain in the one she had. “Though to show goodwill . . . there was a mark in one of the letters. Or, rather, an outline.”
He lifted his hand from hers just long enough to wipe away some of the rain that had made it under his hat, then covered her fingers again. “Quite a good representation of the islands, wasn’t it? I was surprised, at first, at how closely it matched the map we have. But I suppose I shouldn’t have been, given that Mucknell was a captain. He would have had charts aplenty at his disposal, and they had every inch of the islands mapped, I daresay. Even so.” He sent a wink her way. “An outline alone probably wouldn’t have been enough to send me here. But we found mention of the island in a deposition we dug up. One of Mucknell’s crew was eventually arrested for piracy, and he named Gugh as a place where items of interest could be found.”
Beth’s heart lifted—he was sharing information! But then it sank again. “So, the authorities knew about it. Which means if it had been a site of part of his hoard, it’s likely been recovered already.”
The clucking of his tongue mixed with the drumming of rain on stone.
Wait—stone? On this part of the island? Beth blinked and then squinted through the driving drops. The heather and bracken should have been muffling all such sounds, but . . . what was that, just ahead? A dark, gaping opening . . . just where that word had been on the not-a-stain.
“Such pessimism!” Scofield increased their pace. “The mention was no more specific than that—and named other possible locations as well. I highly doubt anyone came out here and dug up the whole island at that point in time. But coupled with Mucknell’s own directions . . .”
Beth sucked in a breath as the image reappeared through the rain. The dark gap she was seeing was a dig. A shovel lay nearby to prove it. And if the rain was hitting on stone, it could just be the granite bedrock.
Though would he really be dragging her forcibly over here to look at bedrock?
Despite the company, her pulse quickened. And then because of the company. First, because he might have found something. And then because he might have found something.