“I know.” Beth scooted slowly to the edge of her chair and reached over to grip Mam’s hand now, as she’d done Senara’s a moment before. “We all would.”
The rest of the tragedy Senara had pieced together years ago. When the Tremaynes didn’t arrive at Truro Hall by the next morning, another telegram had come here for them, asking after them. That was when the family had known their worst fears had come true. It was simply made fact when one of the fishermen found their sloop adrift out at sea and towed it back. No sign of either of the Tremaynes within it.
Every islander in the Scillies with a boat had gone out looking, as they always did when someone vanished like that. But they never found them.
Senara shivered. It was one thing she’d never missed about island life. Every place had its dangers, true enough, but the sea . . . it could snatch life just as quickly and just as easily as it provided for it. Swallowing those who loved it best. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here and couldn’t come for the funeral.” She’d tried, but the Cliffords had never been exactly generous with allowing time off, and as it wasn’t her own mother who had died, they’d refused her plea. And little Paulette had just been born. They’d needed her.
But so had her family here.
“Anyway.” Mam sniffed and dabbed at her eyes with one of the linen napkins she’d brought out. “Morgan asked me, once, if we wanted to sit down with him and tell our tales. We were some of the only ones around who hadn’t done so. But . . . well, none of us really had the heart. Even him. Especially him. And really, what stories would we have to add that hadn’t already been told? They’d spoken to my cousin already. And to your aunt Nancy.”
Senara touched her pendant again. “No one told the story of the key.”
Her mother pursed her lips. “I suppose no one thought of it. Mother Fiona had been the one to have it for all those years, and you weren’t home to remind anyone it even existed. She was gone by then, of course.”
Beth sucked in a breath and looked from one of them to the other. “Would you tell me? Now? I want . . . I want to finish their work—Mother’s and Morgan’s. And the tales of the isles aren’t complete without the Dawes’ stories.”
“Well.” Mam smiled, banishing her tears with another sniff. “We’d be happy to. If you think it’s worth your time, with all else that’s going on.”
Beth had the strangest look on her face as she glanced over at Senara’s necklace again. “I think it’s worth it. And more . . . what do you think the chances are that the Dawes and the Gibsons have a common ancestor?”
Both Senara and her mother lifted their brows as Mam said, “All but guaranteed, I’d say, on an island the size of Tresco. Why?”
“Because that key, supposedly from a noble house—well, none of the other stories involved any noblemen. None but ours, with the trinket box. Makes me wonder if perhaps your however-many-greats grandmother who passed down the key was a sister of the one who passed down the box.”
Senara laughed at that. “Don’t be silly, Beth. Not that I doubt we share a relative somewhere along the way, but I’ve heard your theories about that box. And I can’t possibly believe . . .” She couldn’t even say it, it was so ridiculous.
But Beth had no such qualms, as her grin attested. “That we may both be descended from a prince?”
21
This counts, you know.”
Beth looked up from the book of parish records she’d dug out again, failing utterly at tamping down her grin when she saw Sheridan had made himself comfortable on the library’s leather sofa, much as he’d done that night when she’d come down here in the middle of the night and found him reading.
That felt like an eternity ago, made all the longer by wondering if he’d kiss her again. Which he hadn’t done, though that could well be because Senara had been taking her chaperoning and nursing duties far too seriously.
They were alone now, though, here in the library on this Monday afternoon. Now that Oliver had run back over to St. Nicholas’s to look for a record book they seemed to be missing in the stack they already had here.
“What counts?”
“This. Poring over old documents together. As a date.” He grinned at her over the top of his book. “That’s what modern couples do, you know. They go on dates. As part of their courtship. Alone together, out on the town. Only we haven’t much town to go to. And a drive isn’t exactly necessary around here. But we’ve gone for a sail, so that was our first date.”
She laughed. She couldn’t help it. “You mean the one where I ‘accidentally’ tossed you into the sea?”
He waved that off. “I choose to remember it as the one where I gallantly rushed to your defense when you were apprehended by the snake.”
“Ah yes. That one.” She made a note of what she’d just read before she forgot it and then rested her chin in her hand, grateful she could make the simple move now without wincing in pain. She’d begun to think her ribs were never going to stop complaining, but these last two days she’d felt nearly herself again.
And she’d certainly been enjoying looking at him, even if they’d not had any time alone together until now. He really was a handsome man. How had she failed to focus on that at the start? Frustration with him had absolutely blinded her. Though even then, she’d noted the power of that grin of his. The one he gave her now, which had her insides positively melting.
“And then there was the midnight library date. Not exactly prearranged, I grant you, but even so. Nothing more romantic than a library by lamplight, is there?”
“When the conversation is about rats? Absolutely not.” How long would Ollie be gone? Probably at least twenty minutes, and he’d only just left.
Sheridan chuckled. “Perhaps that one could even be termed a tryst. That’s a critical part of courtship in some cultures, you know. Ancient Sparta, for example—a couple was expected to steal out at night to meet. They recognized that the feeling of secrecy was, well, exciting. Even when it was approved. So that’s what they would do. Meet in secret, I mean.”
“Fascinating.” She pushed her chair back and stood. If he put his feet down, there’d be plenty of room on that sofa for her too. “And what about sickbed vigils? Is that a critical part of courtship in any culture? Perhaps fabricating an illness or injury when one doesn’t occur naturally?”
His gaze tracked her as she came closer, and his feet hit the floor, freeing up that cushion beside him. “Ah. Well. Not that I’ve yet learned about. Per se. Though Mrs. Bennet certainly recognized the power of such a thing, didn’t she? Hence the ploy to make Jane walk in the rain. To Bingley, I mean.”
It was the second time she could remember him referencing Pride and Prejudice, which was downright hilarious. She’d never have taken him for the sort to read romantic novels. Usually, he had his nose in the driest history texts to be found in their library. “And Mrs. Bennet’s tactics are certainly ones we should all emulate.”
“Well now, we needn’t go that far. But still, the sickbed vigil most assuredly counts.” He reached for her hand and, when she moved to sit beside him, tugged her toward him instead, so that she landed on his lap.