“Is our lad in the lead?”
Sheridan spun around at the intrusion of a new voice, though its tone was one that brought a smile to his lips. The Tremayne grandmother was coming their way, her shoulders encased in a shawl and her eyes bright. She was ninety if she was a day. A bit more perhaps, even. And when he and Telford had arrived in the Scillies last week, she’d been confined to her bed, unconscious, with some mysterious ailment that had made Oliver Tremayne fear it could be her end and the news of which had brought Beth out of hiding.
But today she looked right as rain. She’d tire easily, if the pattern of the past two days held, but she was awake and lucid and looked steady enough on her feet. Even so, the Abbie in his head gave him a prod, so he jumped forward to offer her an arm for support.
Beth surged too, though not as quickly as he did. “Mamm-wynn! You shouldn’t be out in the cool air.”
“Oh, nonsense, Beth.” Mrs. Tremayne smiled at her granddaughter even as she let Sheridan bring her hand to a steadying rest on his forearm. “A little fresh air will do me good.”
Beth was apparently not ready to relent. “Does Mrs. Dawe know you’re out here?”
The lady chuckled and patted his arm. “She does. I told her I was going to find our pirate prince.” She winked up at him.
He grinned right back. He’d heard the Tremaynes muttering a bit about their grandmother getting lost in her mind, confusing present with past—and even, it seemed, with the future. But just now he saw nothing but a teasing glint in her eyes. When she’d heard that he’d come here chasing stories of the pirate prince, she’d taken to calling him that. A joke that in his mind proved hers wasn’t so scattered. At least not always. “Careful, lady fair, or I may snatch you away and run off to the Caribbean with you.”
She laughed in delight—a sound as whimsical as the dainty silver bells Millicent had hung in the rose garden for any fairies who came wandering by—and leaned into him. “Oh, this one’s charming. You’re going to stay awhile, aren’t you, my lord?”
“The rest of the summer, at least.” It was how long Libby’s holiday cottage on St. Mary’s had been let for, and there was no prying her away from it. And no prying Telford away from his sister’s side, now that she had a young man stealing kisses from her. And, by extension, no prying Sheridan away either.
Not that he always went where Telford did. Well, he did. Most of the time, other than when he was on a dig and couldn’t convince Telly to join him. But only if it suited him. It just happened that their wants usually aligned. Especially in this case—he’d been wanting to come to the Isles of Scilly for years and intended to explore them fully before he left again. “And you may call me Sheridan, Mrs. Tremayne. Or even Theo, if you prefer.”
“Theo?” It was Beth who asked, which gave him a fine excuse for looking her way again. The sunlight was playing with her hair in a way that made him a bit jealous.
He made a point of blinking at the question. “That would be my name. Given one. Well, Theodore. Millicent and Abbie call me Theo.” They were the only ones in the world who did—he’d inherited the title of Sheridan when he was only four, so the rest of creation had been calling him by that for his entire memory, and it was how he’d come to think of himself. But Mrs. Tremayne certainly deserved the honor of using his first name if she’d like to. Especially if he could finagle her granddaughter down the aisle.
There was a tack—Your grandmother loves me, you see, so you should too. Won’t you marry me for her sake?
Mrs. Tremayne tugged him toward the bluff and the view of the two gigs speeding across the waters. “I would be delighted. And you must call me Mamm-wynn.”
Beth sighed.
Sheridan grinned. “Excellent. I’ve never had a mamm-wynn.”
“Well, of course not. You’re not Cornish. Too much a wanderer to be any one thing, aren’t you?” Mamm-wynn squinted at the boats. “Come on, Ollie! Pull! Oh dear, I do think Casek’s lads are going to overtake them.”
A wanderer. He’d done a fair amount of it, true. Though not as much as he still planned to do. There hadn’t been time enough yet, between school and university—he’d only managed a trip or two a year. He kept trying to convince Telford to join him on an expedition, but his friend’s feet were firmly planted on Telford land, for the most part. So, Sheridan’s sisters were still his usual companions when he traveled. Well, and Ainsley, much to his valet’s occasional dismay.
Sheridan looked back to the water, where the second gig was indeed overtaking the first as they slid out of sight around the point of land. “Can’t win them all, I suppose.”
Beth was actually smiling. Not at him, of course—each of the times he’d seen that breathtaking turn of her lips, it had been directed at someone else—but it still made his pulse scatter and pound. “You’d think they believe they could, to hear the teams boast of their prowess.”
Mamm-wynn chuckled. “I wonder what wager your grandfather is about to lose. A fruit pie this week, do you think? Or scones from the Polmers’ bakery?”
Sheridan found it highly amusing that the locals put wagers on the gig races, and that said wagers were nothing but an excuse to gather and eat and drink together. Who was buying may change from week to week, but the outcome was always the same. The participants would be at the pub or the bakery together, sharing a pint or a pie or a cream scone come Wednesday evening.
It rather made him mourn the fact that he had no such community at home. Oh, there were all the clubs in London at which he’d more or less inherited a membership. But it wasn’t the same.
He should spearhead something like this at the village abutting his estate. Not that they could have gig races. But there must be something else they could do. Something that involved pastries as rewards.
“Well. Perhaps Ollie and crew will catch them up again.” Beth turned away from the sea and tucked her book under her arm. “I imagine we’ll know soon enough. In the meantime, we had better get you back inside, Mamm-wynn.” She held out a hand toward her grandmother.
The lady took it and squeezed but didn’t let go of Sheridan’s arm. No, she just tugged Beth closer to them.
He knew he liked the matriarch.
It wasn’t a long walk from the bluff to the house, but it was a lovely one. From here they had a perfect view of the quaint Tremayne home—much larger than its neighbors but dwarfed by the Abbey, whose roof he could just make out in the distance and which was the only proper manor to be found on the islands. That would be where the Lord Proprietor lived. Some Dorrien-Smith or another, if he recalled correctly. Telford had been rather rude about pointing out how small this stone cottage was, but only because he was trying to needle Oliver at first. Had to make sure he wasn’t just after the Telford wealth with his interest in Libby, after all. In truth, Sheridan knew his friend found the place every bit as enchanting as he did.
As they approached the house, the housekeeper and cook, Mrs. Dawe, stepped out of the kitchen door, wiping her hands on her apron and smiling at them. “Who was in the lead?”
“Hard to say,” Mamm-wynn said in reply. “Ollie at first, but Casek looked as though he was overtaking them. I told you we ought to have gone down to the beach if we wanted to know who’d won before they get home.”