He straightened and schooled his features.
Which nearly made her give in to a victorious smile. But she had plenty of practice controlling such responses. “Kindly refrain from terrorizing our neighbors with that attitude of yours, as I can see you are set on doing. By ‘not at home,’ I obviously mean indisposed.” She made a show of checking over her shoulder. “They only just got back from a night out who-knows-where. My mother is feeding them, after which I imagine they will be retiring. But I am happy to take a card or even a message, and—”
“So they are here?” He surged toward the door.
She held it tightly, but she hadn’t expected him to come barreling toward her, and she stumbled back with a shout when he shoved her aside and pushed his way in.
Wasn’t this a lord? A gentleman? Why was he behaving like a ruffian in his cups? “Stop at once! What do you think you’re doing? Father!” She’d never in her life called him Father, but she wanted this rude man to know she was calling for a man—and hopefully imagine a huge one—and didn’t trust him to know what Tas meant.
She needn’t have worried. When she regained her balance and turned, she found that Beth wasn’t the only one standing in the entryway. She was surrounded by a veritable host of glowering friends.
30
Beth was aware of the reassuring crowd of friends and family behind her. She saw Ainsley slide his way along the wall toward Senara. She felt Sheridan at one elbow and Oliver at the other and knew that this time, they wouldn’t leave injured from their encounter with Scofield. She didn’t care what level of mastery he’d achieved in karate, he couldn’t take all of them down in their own home. Especially not given the hunting rifle she heard being cocked. It would be in Mr. Dawe’s hands, no doubt, and he would be serious as a hurricane over Scofield’s rough handling of his daughter.
Beth folded her arms over her chest. “Really, Mr. Scofield, for an earl’s son, your manners are atrocious.”
He at least came to a halt upon spotting them. “You’ll not get away with this. The site is mine, the whole island. Whatever you discovered today will be handed over to the museum by the week’s end, so you might as well deliver it to me now.”
“To you?” Beth laughed. “I think not. And, frankly, we’ll be advising the authorities that they had better do a thorough investigation of each and every trustee before we will turn over anything.”
Scofield’s nostrils flared. He flicked a glance over the group, his attention snagging somewhere to the right and then returning to Beth. Who had caught his eye? Mr. Dawe with his hunting piece? Or perhaps his sister?
Poor Em. She’d said nothing during the entire sail back to Tresco, but the way her fingers had twisted together spoke volumes.
Her father hadn’t even looked her way, not once. Beth had to wonder if the ignoring struck even deeper than a reprimand would have.
“You seem to be laboring under the mistaken assumption, Miss Tremayne, that you have a choice here. Give me whatever you found!”
She opened her mouth to argue again, but Sheridan stepped forward, hand held out. “Will you please calm down, Scofield? Trust me, you don’t even want what we have in the chest there.” He motioned toward the drawing room.
She sent him a questioning scowl that he didn’t even look down at her to see. What was he doing? He had to know that Scofield would charge into the room—which he did. But there was nothing in there to appease him, nothing at all except . . .
She sucked in a breath and grabbed Sheridan’s arm. “Theo, no.” Not all his collection! The drawing room was where Enyon had deposited his trunk the other day, the one his sisters had brought from the castle. Beth had laughed a bit when she’d seen it—had even joked that it looked like a bunch of rubbish someone had just dug up in the back garden. Rusted pieces of this and that, moldy books from the seventeenth century that Rupert had supposedly once owned, a few of his inventions.
Treasure, in Sheridan’s eyes. And so in hers. Treasure that he couldn’t mean to just hand over to Nigel Scofield.
He’d found it. She heard the trunk’s lid crash against something, and his curses scalded the air as she hurried into the room.
A flying book nearly hit her in the head. Would have, had Sheridan not snatched it from the air two inches from her face with a growl. “Now see here! Gently! This stuff is destined for a museum, you know!”
“Not ours, it isn’t. Rubbish, all of it.” Something else went flying, though Beth couldn’t even make out what it was. It landed with a loud clatter, though, and a sickening crack. “There should be silver. Gold. Jewels!”
All things easy enough to skim a bit off the top of. Was that what he’d been intending to do? Or was it the fame they’d bring that he sought?
“Are you mad? Those things are priceless!” Sheridan strode toward his chest.
They were, and he had to have known that Scofield would attack the contents. But he’d offered it up anyway, to protect the secret of the other find. Their find. Hers. That was the sort of man he was, though. He’d give up his own for theirs together.
Even though for all they knew, the chest was just a cruel joke on Mucknell’s part, meant to lead people astray. It could be filled with lead shot. Rocks. Rubble. They didn’t know—the lock had held tight, and they didn’t want to break open the wood there on the deck of the Adelle. They’d resort to a pry bar only if Senara’s key didn’t do the trick.
Scofield growled and flung another book. “It’s junk! Only you would care about this nonsense, Sheridan.”
Sheridan had made a lunge for the book but missed. “Not true. Anyone would. Who had a bit of culture, I mean.”
With a kick to the trunk that made Beth wince on Sheridan’s behalf, Scofield pivoted back around and pointed a finger at Sheridan. “If you’re keeping anything from me—”
“I beg your pardon.” Oliver had come in without her even realizing it and stood now in that collected way of his, his face calm and intent. “But you are in my house, sir. Destroying my lord’s property. After threatening my guests. And given that we in this room are all well aware of how you first threatened my fiancée a month ago, when you mistook her for my sister, pray do not think we have any patience left for your antics. Get out this instant, and be glad I’d rather be rid of you than call in the constable. Because while I may not be able to prove that you meant to harm my sister two weeks ago, I certainly can prove that you just trespassed into my home and began manhandling my employees and destroying priceless artifacts that are not yours.”
Beth’s lips parted in shock. Never in her life had she heard her brother scold anyone so harshly.
Scofield couldn’t have known that, but he clearly heard the seriousness in Oliver’s voice, or read it in his posture. He stilled, looked once more into the trunk, and then stomped over to Sheridan. “Don’t think I believe for a minute that this is all there was in there. I don’t know what you’ve done with the rest, but I’ll find it.”
“Will you?” Beth let her mouth quirk up. “Funny, sir—thus far you’ve not found a blessed thing without someone else doing the work for you. And I’m afraid we won’t be helping you anymore.”