“And risk bringing the whole thing down those last inches on you? Oh, I’d better not, darling. This calls for help. I’ll just take your charming little sloop and find someone, shall I? Of course, I need someone who understands some basic engineering. Daresay I won’t find that on St. Agnes.”
Bedrock was beneath her, however uneven it may be, so how was it that his words made her feel as though she were sinking lower and lower? Cold seeped into her, compounding by the second. Partly from the rain and the mud and the water and the stone. Partly from the utter lack of any emotion in his tone. “What is it you want from me? Just tell me, and then help me.”
“Want from you?” He chuckled, and it came from a bit farther away. She couldn’t see where he was. No matter how she craned her head, she could see only the edge of the hole above her, and he must have been standing beyond it. “You think I did this on purpose? Here I am, ready to risk life and limb to save you, and you’re accusing me of vile intentions. Well, despite that, I’d better do my part to play the hero. I’ll be back, Miss Tremayne. Stay calm.”
Stay calm? He was stealing her boat and leaving her here, trapped in a puddle deepening by the minute. If the granite didn’t crush her, she could well drown in a few hours. Or die of hypothermia. “Please.” Desperation colored her voice, but she couldn’t care about that.
She didn’t want to die. It would destroy her grandmother. Devastate her brother. “Please.”
“I’m going for help now. Sit tight.” She heard the sound of feet moving off through mud and heather as he laughed at his own joke.
He was leaving her here. Actually leaving her here. He hadn’t tried to bargain with her for the silverware or anything else, he was just leaving. “Scofield! Come back!” Her shout turned to a sob, and then a scream.
Had the slab sunk another inch downward? Or was it her own panic crushing her? She tried to twist, to wriggle forward or backward, but the weight was too great. She tried digging with her hands, but her palms scraped against rock.
Sheridan’s face flooded her mind’s eye. Smiling at her in that way he did. She should have wakened him with a clang of spoon on pot this morning, so she could tell him her theory. She should have given him some solid indicator last night that her heart had warmed. She should have done so much differently.
Perhaps it was summer, but that generally mild temperature would only prolong the inevitable if she didn’t get out of here. The cold and wet were slinking in around her mackintosh, sloshing into her boots from her frantic scrabbling. How long before the mild shivering turned to clattering teeth and bone-jarring quakes? How long before that pain she felt in her ribs and leg intensified? Or maybe it would go numb.
Maybe whatever was holding the slab up on the opposite side would indeed give way, and the full force of the granite would crush her into the bedrock. By the time anyone found her, she’d be flattened. Flattened or dead from exposure or drowned if the rain didn’t slacken and this hole filled. It wouldn’t take long to achieve it. Her only hope was discovery—but no one would come here. No one had any reason to. And if Scofield was taking her boat, it wasn’t as though anyone would spot that and think to investigate.
She was stranded. Alone. And no one even knew she was missing.
Curling her fingers through the mud, she slammed her eyes closed. “Lord God. You know. You know exactly where I am. Whisper it to someone, please. Send help. I beg you.”
They were perhaps ten minutes from St. Agnes and Gugh, within sight of the dual islands with their now-invisible tombolo, when Sheridan peered through the steady rain and swore he saw a sail disappearing around the far side of the island. He held out a hand toward the other two. “Spyglass?”
Someone, after a moment of fumbling, put one in his hand. By the time he lifted it to his eye, he couldn’t make out more than the top of the mast and the stern of the boat before it slipped out of sight. But even that glimpse was enough to tie his stomach in knots. It could have been the Naiad. Right size, right shape, right colors. But he could think of no good reason for Beth to be sailing in that direction, away from the rest of the islands.
Which only left bad reasons.
And it might not be the Naiad. So, what should they do? Follow the sloop? Or their original plan to investigate the place on Gugh where they’d originally found Scofield?
He looked over at his friends and told them briefly what he could make out, putting the question to them. But their silence was as loud as his own.
What he wouldn’t give for one of Mamm-wynn’s whispers right about now.
17
Senara glanced out the kitchen window, telling herself for the twentieth time that Beth was not like little Paulette or Josephine or Rose. The fact that she was “missing” according to Mamm-wynn wasn’t really cause for concern. She told herself that her friend was a woman grown, one who knew the islands like the back of her hand, and that even if she had found a bit of trouble, the gents would set it all to rights.
Senara had no cause to worry. Still, she found herself scrubbing the porridge pot with enough force to earn her an arch look from Mam when she came back in with the last armful of breakfast dishes from the dining room. Because capable and grown woman or not, there were clearly some shady characters lurking around the islands, mixed up in this same business. Shady characters like one Rory Smithfield, apparently.
She’d spent the last two days forcing her mind to wrap around the horrid truth. She was nothing to him aside from what she could bring him. He may speak of marriage, but did she even dare believe it? What if he took her away from here only to abandon her?
And all of that was a moot point, regardless, because he said she’d have to purchase his loyalty by turning on her friends. Which she would never do.
How had she got herself in this fix?
Her hands stilled in the wash water, and her eyes squeezed shut. Ever since he’d shown up here thirty-six hours ago, she’d felt as though a monster were feasting on her insides. Guilt—gnawing at her, devouring her from the inside out.
The fact that he was here, mixed up in all this, wasn’t exactly her fault. It was his connection to Ainsley, not to her, that had gotten him involved. That only made the guilt bite harder, though. Because she kept seeing Ainsley, looking at her with that serious, respectful look of his. Ainsley, who was as different from his cousin as day from night. Ainsley, who made her feel like a criminal just by assuming her innocent.
No, not a criminal. Just a sinner.
Her hands stilled on the pot, and she had to sniff the sudden emotion from her nose.
Mam came to a halt beside her, close enough that Senara could feel her there, feel the warmth of her. “Why,” she said softly, “do I have the feeling that this upset isn’t only about Beth?”
Because she’d always been too perceptive, that was why. Senara could only shake her head for a long moment as she tried to swallow down the sob that wanted to rise. At last she managed to choke out, “I’ve ruined everything, Mam. I’ve—I’ve ruined myself.”
Her mother’s arm came around her, tight and strong. “There now, little love. Tell Mam all about it.”
She didn’t want to. Didn’t want to confess to this woman who had always been everything upright and good that she’d fallen so far. She squeezed her eyes shut and braced her palms against the edge of the sink. “I . . . I can’t. I’m so . . .” She had to search for the word, the one that summed up this tightness in her chest, the burning there each time she recalled the way Ainsley had looked at her, ready to believe the best of her.