But it was done now. She couldn’t exactly come all this way and not announce herself and take them home.
Dear Lord . . . She didn’t know quite what to pray, so she breathed out a long sigh and gave herself another moment to consider it. You know better than I do what’s at stake here. I want them to like me—if not this very moment, then soon. I want them to accept me. I want them to realize that I’ll do whatever it takes to make them proud and do honor to the Sheridan name. To see that I would do anything, absolutely anything for him. He’s so amazing, Father, all I ever wanted and yet nothing I thought I wanted. He’s . . .
She shook herself. If anyone knew Sheridan’s virtues and endearing features, it was God. He didn’t need her to enumerate them for Him. Though standing here listing each thing she’d come to love about him would be far more fun than knocking on the door.
“Chin up, Beth,” she muttered to herself. “Shoulders back. Smile with grace. You can do this.”
She lifted her hand to knock. And then jumped back with a gasp when it opened before her knuckles could connect with wood and a somewhat familiar male back greeted her vision. “Mr. Pepper?”
A grunt was her answer as her former landlord backed out of the door, followed by a trunk that must be quite heavy, given the continued grunting and the shuffling of his feet. And then his son-in-law emerged, arms around the trunk’s other end and strain upon his face. “What’s he got in here, anyhow? Rocks?”
From somewhere inside the cottage, a cultured female voice answered, “Don’t be silly. We didn’t touch his rock collection. It’s merely cannonballs you’re feeling.”
Mr. Pepper grunted. And then cast a glance Beth’s way. “Ah. The Naiad, then?”
For a split second, Beth could only gape. Sheridan hadn’t mentioned that it wasn’t just his sisters who were coming. What had he done, instructed them to bring his entire collection of Rupert artifacts?
As if she needed to ask. Of course he had instructed them to bring his entire collection of Rupert artifacts. She nodded. “That’s right. Are you quite all right to be carrying that, Mr. Pepper? Your back—”
“Is fine enough for a moment. We’ve a cart there behind you.”
So they did. She hadn’t even noticed the handcart as she’d walked toward the cottage that had briefly been her own, so distracted had she been with worry over whether the Howe sisters would dismiss her in a single glance.
Still. Mr. Pepper wasn’t as young as he used to be. “Can I help you in any way? Steady the cart, perhaps?”
Kindness peeked through the strain in his eyes. “Good of you, Miss Elizabeth. But nay. Don’t want to go soiling that pretty frock of yours.”
A woman filled the doorway the moment Mr. Pepper’s son-in-law left it, though she was clearly not a Howe. She wore the high-necked grey dress, prim and plain, that declared her a lady’s maid. And her eyes looked absolutely exhausted as they turned to Beth. “Who might you be, if you’ll pardon my asking?”
It took Beth a moment to place the accent. Yorkshire, perhaps? Somewhere to the north. They didn’t hear too many of those down here at the southernmost edge of England. She found it far easier to smile at the maid than she’d anticipating doing for the ladies and dipped a quick curtsy. “Miss Elizabeth Tremayne. The marquess has been staying with my family—I’ve come to bring his sisters to Tresco.”
“Brilliant. They’ve been champing at the bit.” Rather than either invite Beth in or close her out, the woman stepped aside, opening the door wide. “Miss Tremayne has arrived to take you to Tresco, my ladies.”
In her mind, she’d come up with what she deemed a reasonable image of Sheridan’s sisters. She knew the younger was in her late thirties, the elder having just turned forty. She knew they were both unmarried, and that they’d raised Sheridan themselves after their parents died when he was four. She knew that they frequently traveled with him on his expeditions. And so it had seemed likely that they’d look a bit like him but be showing their age. That they’d emerge from her holiday cottage—or rather, Libby’s holiday cottage, now—dressed in field-worthy clothing. Perhaps they’d be a bit plump. Or too wiry. Matronly.
Her expectations, however, couldn’t have been more wrong. The only thing she’d gotten even close to right was that they looked a bit like him.
The two women who stepped into the lane could have been stepping out of the pages of Vogue. They were . . . well, they were stunning, both of them. Had she not known their ages, she would have thought them thirty at the most. Beautiful faces, largely untouched by lines. But saturated with elegance. Their dresses were the absolute pinnacle of fashion—one was a soft aqua shade with the most exquisite embroidery Beth had ever seen, the other a bold red-and-white stripe that drew the eye directly to the lady’s enviable figure. They both had glossy hair in shades close to Sheridan’s, though it was a shade darker on the taller of the two, the one in aqua. She couldn’t tell who was the elder.
She dipped another curtsy, a bit longer this time, and told herself not to run a self-conscious hand over her own dress again. It was perfectly fine. Pretty, even. And something like what these two wore would have been completely useless aboard the Naiad. She’d never be able to man the sails in either of those dresses.
The shorter one in red dipped her knees in response. “How do you do, Miss Tremayne? So kind of you to come for us. I’m Lady Millicent Howe, and this is my sister—”
“Lady Abbie Howe,” the owner of the name interrupted, offering a smile and a curtsy of her own. She then patted her leg, and a pug trotted over to her side, tongue lolling. The maid held out a leather leash, which the lady casually wrapped around her hand.
“How do you do?” Beth had no trouble calling a smile to her lips. Something about their voices put her at ease just a bit.
“A bit aghast, truth be told.” Lady Millicent cast a look over her shoulder, into the cottage, and gave an exaggerated shiver. “It’s like living in one of Theo’s tents.”
“But without our chef, who usually travels with us.” Lady Abbie speared the cottage with a glare of her own and then took another step away from it, her dog following. “Not that we’re impugning the islands themselves, of course, Miss Tremayne.”
“Absolutely not! They’re quite beautiful. What we’ve seen of them.”
“Which is precious little.” Lady Abbie offered Beth a smile just as sweet, and just as mischievous, as Sheridan was wont to do. “I don’t suppose this trip to Tresco includes a bit of a tour, does it?”
“Not that we need to get off the boat, mind you. We’d just like to see what can be seen from its decks.”
“Exactly.”
Her attention had been bouncing from one sister to the other. When they actually paused to await a response, she found herself grinning. “I would be absolutely delighted to show you about the islands—from the sea this time, but if you spot anything you’d like to examine on land, say the word and I’ll take you back another day.”
“Perfect.” As if in punctuation, Lady Millicent snapped her parasol open. “Now then. Lead the way to the quay, my dear girl. I’m afraid I paid too little attention to the path last evening.”