“It could just as easily be the key to the loo.” Telford hooked his ankle onto his knee. And held up a hand just as Sheridan opened his mouth. “I know, sorry. Cynical of me. And unlikely to boot, as I daresay no one put a fancy lock on their outhouse. But seriously. Even if it is the key to an actual treasure chest, I don’t see why it’s cause for excitement. If it’s a literal wooden chest that’s been literally buried as you two seem to think, then I daresay a key won’t be necessary. The thing would have rotted by now anyway, just like the crate of silverware you dragged up last month.”
He had a point. Which was another dash of cold water. She’d had quite a fun time dreaming about unearthing a pirate chest and brandishing Senara’s key to unlock it. She leaned close to Sheridan again and said in a stage whisper, “Is he always such a killjoy?”
“Yes,” Sheridan said without hesitation, even as Telford slammed his foot back to the floor and said, “I am not!” Then frowned at his friend. “Am I? I’m only trying to be reasonable.”
“Well, but that’s the thing, Telly. Reason is greatly overrated.” With a conciliatory look on his face, Sheridan snatched up a ball of discarded paper from the floor and lobbed it at Telford’s head.
Telford snatched it from the air. And smiled.
Men were such odd creatures sometimes. And it was going to take her a lot more than a month to learn the language these two spoke, if ever she had a hope of doing so.
She let herself sink against the back of the couch, ignoring the lingering twinge in her ribs at that move. “Regardless of whether we’ll need the physical key, it’s still too strange to be a coincidence, isn’t it? That in one branch of Briallen’s line a key has been passed down, in another a box that was unquestionably from Prince Rupert, and that his associate Mucknell kept using the phrase ‘the key to your future’ in letters to his wife?”
“But the key wasn’t left to Elizabeth Mucknell.” Telford held up both hands, this time, against their dual glares. “Well, it wasn’t!”
“Even so. Rupert could have known where Mucknell stashed some of his loot. He even could have slipped the key to a chest from him sometime and given it to his own bride. A sort of insurance policy, if you will, in case he never came back.”
“Or came back too late.” Sheridan ran his thumb over hers.
Another something those records had shown them. Briallen’s death, a mere week after the record of Ruperta’s birth. “Do you think he knew? About his daughter?”
Sheridan shook his head. “Not a chance. If he had, he would have come for her. Raised her as his own, as he did the other Ruperta. The stories, you know—about how he loved her. My Ruperta, I mean—well, you know. The one who married a Howe. He doted on her, boasted of her childhood accomplishments to all his friends. He was a good father, despite never marrying her mother. He’d have been the same with this Ruperta, if he knew of her.”
“Well, I don’t understand why no one would have told him, especially if they told him of Briallen’s death.” Telford tossed the paper straight up, caught it again. “One would think her remaining family would have wanted her to have what he could give her.”
“Don’t be so sure, my lord.” Beth stood when noise from outside worked its way into her hearing and moved over to the window. Sure enough, Mabena and Libby and Lady Emily were laughing their way up the walk. She turned back to face the gentlemen. “Island life may look dismal to incomers. Deprived. Harsh. But those who stay here do so because the islands are part of them. I can’t imagine my family or neighbors ever making a choice that they knew would send their children away from here forever. From their point of view, Ruperta was theirs. A daughter of the Scillies, like Briallen was. They loved her, and so they kept her with them, probably knowing well that society would never have accepted her fully.”
Sheridan stood, too, and pulled the hidden record book out of the cushion, probably so he could return it with an apology to Ollie when he got home. “They could have given society a bit more credit. I mean, because they did. Accept his other daughter.”
Sometimes he was just adorably naïve. “Oh, Theo. Just because they let her into their balls and dinners and a decent man married her doesn’t mean she wasn’t parrying catty comments about her mother every day of her life. Not to mention that while actresses were scandalous, they were also the accepted mistresses of rich men, who frequently acknowledged those offspring. An island nobody would have been quite a different thing.”
“You can’t know that.”
And sometimes he was just frustrating. “I think you mean that I know it better than anyone! That year I was in London at finishing school—it was miserable. I was no worse off than plenty of other girls there, but you have no idea the things they said to me. Just because my mother wasn’t a gentleman’s daughter. Just because we live here instead of on the mainland.”
“Then why have you been so determined to go back?”
She jumped at Oliver’s voice from behind her. He stood outside in the front garden, on the other side of the window. When had he gotten back? She hadn’t seen him coming up the walk with the girls. And the girls weren’t there with him now, either, though she could hear them coming along the corridor.
He had that dark gaze of his set fast. Looking, as always, so much like Mother. And so serious as he tried to understand her. She sighed. “Because I didn’t think there was anything left to find in the Scillies, Ollie. I didn’t fall in love with any of the local boys like all my friends here did, and it didn’t seem likely that my own prince would ever come to the islands. I imagined I’d have to find him myself.”
“Ha. Well, as Ainsley would say . . .” Sheridan slid to her side and slipped a bold arm around her waist. “You ought to have had a bit of faith.”
Her cheeks felt hot as the sun itself. He’d been so restrained the last several days, she’d rather thought it was because he hadn’t wanted to give anything away to her brother quite yet. But here he was, all but announcing their relationship to everyone.
And no one looked the least bit surprised. Oliver, in fact, just snorted a laugh. “That she should have. Well, I’m coming in. Didn’t find the book, though.”
“Oh. Right, that. Sorry. Found it here after all. Buried, you know.”
Oliver didn’t examine it too closely, though whether it was because he was just in a hurry to come inside with Libby or he thought it a reasonable explanation she didn’t know.
Nor did she think about it overlong. When she faced the newly arrived girls again, she noted at once what she hadn’t when they were outside. All the laughter was from Mabena and Libby. Emily kept herself a step behind and was, just now, seemingly trying to melt into a bookcase. She looked pale, her eyes downcast.
“There you are, Darling.” Libby had crouched down to set her basket on the floor and flipped the latch that held the top down. It was all the invitation her little tabby kitten needed to poke his head up and then leap out. With a happy meow, he rubbed against Libby’s ankles for a second and then ran straight for Telford.
“There you are.” Telford chuckled as Darling leaped onto his lap and stretched up to bump his head into his chin. “I missed you too. I keep telling Oliver he needs to get a dog to keep me company when you’re not here, but he won’t listen.”