20
Never in her life had a trip to St. Mary’s been such a cause for argument. And if Mabena’s head hadn’t still been screaming at her like a banshee, she might have even found it amusing that Casek and Oliver were facing off over which of them deserved the honor of sailing her and Libby to their cottage.
Amusing. But utterly irrelevant. And, headache or not, she needed to tell them so. So she stepped between them—always a dangerous undertaking—and first met her cousin’s gaze. “Why are you even arguing about this? You should stay home with your grandmother.”
The bobbing of his larynx told her how painful was his swallow. “There’s a better pharmacy on St. Mary’s. The doctor suggested a few things that might help, but we don’t have them here. I’d need to go regardless. I might as well take the two of you.”
“Very well, then.” It was the take that irritated her. She lifted her chin. “I’m not leaving the Mermaid here again though. Tas said he’d sail it over for me and then come home with whoever took us.”
Casek crossed his arms over his chest. Which drew her attention to the fact that his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and he’d discarded his jacket after the school day had ended all of three seconds ago. He must have run to the quay to meet them here, despite the fact that she hadn’t told him she’d be leaving today.
Her head was enough of a muddle with pain. It didn’t need any extra confusion from him and his hovering and those eyes of his that kept staring into hers as if all the secrets of the universe could be found there.
“There’s no need to pull your father away from his work, dearover. I’ll take your boat for you. You can even come along with me to make sure I do everything just the way you like.”
As if he didn’t know how to sail her little sloop. And as if it would impress her that he knew well she’d have made such an argument against anyone else handling her on a normal day.
All right, it did. A little. “And then what? Sail home with Ollie?”
He actually winced, which would have made her chuckle if not for the headache. “I’m sure there will be someone else coming this way.”
“You can come with me.” Something about Oliver’s tone—even, firm, steady—drew her gaze back to him. He wasn’t flushed with anger as he usually was when going toe-to-toe with Casek. His eyes weren’t glinting. He was just standing there, calm as could be, holding Libby’s hand as he’d been doing just about every time they were in the same room together.
Looking perfectly aware that only storms waited in that direction. But then, storms thundered over his house too. Storms loomed wherever Beth was. Storms were all he had just now.
Apparently Casek Wearne and his thundering just didn’t rate.
She turned back to him, not sure he’d see the same. Or, frankly, that he could be trusted to respect it. But Casek was regarding Oliver solemnly. And after another moment, he nodded. “It’ll do.”
Well. Mabena exchanged a gaze with Libby—surprised, impressed—before Libby apparently remembered that her complaints against Mabena still stood unresolved and looked away.
She sighed. The lady had been the soul of concern throughout the day and a half since the attack, tending her with care and consideration when she wasn’t doing the same for Mrs. Tremayne. But she never quite met her eye.
They’d have to settle things. Soon. For now though, she’d focus on some other settling. She let a hint of a smile touch her lips as she turned to Casek again. “Well then. Let’s be off.”
He hiked a brow even as he held out a hand toward where her boat was still anchored. “You’re not going to argue? Insist you’ll go with them?”
She tossed a smirk at where Oliver was leading Libby toward the Tremayne boat. “I don’t think they need my company just now.”
He grunted. “That’s going to end badly. Not that I much care, but I’d have thought you would, enough to warn them against it.”
“Oh, I did. But . . .” She shrugged. “I suppose I’m utterly failing at my chaperoning duties. Her mother will be appalled and no doubt sack me for it. And you know, I don’t care a bit. Let them steal an ounce of joy for a summer. They deserve it, both of them.”
She expected him to argue about the deserving bit. Instead, he latched on to the earlier statement. “Let her sack you. You don’t need to go back to the mainland. Just stay here, with us.”
Us, was it? He meant her parents, she supposed, and her siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles and neighbors. Her lips twitched. “I may, at that.”
Not what she’d expected to decide when she came back here. Frankly, she expected to grit her teeth through every moment, find Beth, and hightail it back to Telford Hall with Libby. But she’d underestimated the islands, their pull on her.
And she’d certainly underestimated this one’s ability to dig down past the sandy layers of hurt and betrayal. To dig straight down to the rock of her and anchor himself there.
He shot her a look, all raised brows and incredulity. Then a scorching smile that burned the disbelief away and left pure pleasure in its ashes. “I expected it would take another month to convince you. At least.”
She allowed a little smile of her own. “Flattering. But I think the blow to my skull knocked a bit of my stubbornness loose.” And the way he’d dove after her, cradled her so tenderly, spent every possible moment with her since, despite that it meant visiting her at the Tremayne house . . .
They said nothing more just then, since they were nearly to the Mermaid. Just focused on climbing aboard, casting off, and getting her under sail. Only once they were in open water—Mabena happy enough to let Casek man the tack and just relax—did he turn to her again with that look in his eye.
“Benna. When I saw that bloke strike you, when I thought I may have lost you . . . I love you. I always have—you have to know that. And I can’t let another day go by without saying it, not with that threat still out there.”
Her heart was a cormorant, skimming over the waves with its wings spread wide. “Caz.” She didn’t know what else to say. Maybe there were feelings there, threatening to choke her, but they didn’t come with words. Not that she could find.
“I know it’s not so simple for you. What with Cador.”
She didn’t wince at the name at least. That was progress. Instead, she sighed. Just now, she couldn’t solve all the bigger problems they faced—the threats and the mysteries and the injuries. But there was one ghost she could put to rest. “Tell me. I’m ready to hear it now. He married her?”
Casek granted her the mercy of a gaze set on the sails instead of her face. “He did. It was, he thought, the quickest way to what he wanted. They eloped, and then they went to London to introduce him to Fiona’s parents.”
She’d assumed as much. Still, she’d expected that if ever anyone said it outright, it would be a fresh blow to her heart. Cador, her fiancé, the man she’d planned a life with, now someone else’s husband.
Maybe it was just because of Sunday night’s very physical blow casting its shadow on her, but she didn’t feel that other at all. Not more than a twinge, anyway. “Are they happy?” She wasn’t sure she was gracious enough to hope so.
But Casek’s snort only gave her a little bit of pleasure. “Of course not. Her family didn’t approve of him, as we all knew would happen. A little nobody from a National School, trying to rub elbows with the intelligentsia?” He shook his head. “They told her it was either an annulment or they’d disown her.”
Her mouth fell open a bit. Cador had always been able to charm his way into anyone’s favor. He’d even gotten along with the Tremaynes, for goodness’ sake, becoming the only Wearne to claim that feat for generations. But there was no wiggle of hope that perhaps he was free again. Nor any devilish glee in the thought of their hasty marriage failing so quickly. “What did she choose?”
Now Casek glanced her way, a warning in his eyes. “Them, at first. Until she realized she was with child. Then she went back to him. From what I can glean from his letters, they’re living in a miserable little flat in London, and he’s working for a publisher, though not in any notable position. He maintains that it’s a start, and that the misery his nag of a wife subjects him to daily is but fuel for his muse.” He rolled his eyes at that. “The latest letter said their second child should join them by Christmas.”
He said it gently. And she could appreciate his care. But that didn’t sting either, not much. The thought of Cador as a father and his pretty, city wife at his side. Little ones that weren’t hers squalling for his attention.
She blew out a breath. She didn’t wish him misery—and not with the hope that happiness would silence his muse either. She was simply glad his little family was in London and not here. She may have, at some point in these past weeks home, managed to forgive him. But she didn’t have any desire to see him. “But you said he was published?”
“Not by the company he’s working for—just a little press that did an initial printing of two hundred copies, none of which have sold. Well, one. Mam bought one, of course.”
A chuckle tickled her throat. “As she should. And shouldn’t you have bought another?”
Casek’s eyes flashed. “I told him when he tossed you over that I was on your side, not his. That if he’d broken your heart, I’d wash my hands of him.”
He had? “Caz.” She ducked under the boom and moved to his side. “He’s your twin brother.”
“He hurt you. It isn’t forgivable.”
“And yet if he hadn’t”—she lifted a hand and let her fingertips drift over the taut muscle of his forearm—“those would be my babies he’s writing home about. Me he’d be complaining of. Is that what you’d prefer?”
His arm went even tauter. “That isn’t fair, Benna.”
“What isn’t?”
“Asking a question like that when I can’t kiss you to prove what I’d prefer. I promised you’d do the next kissing.”
She didn’t know if it was the sea air or the sunshine or him, but she could nearly forget the pounding in her skull. “Maybe I will.”
That smirk she shouldn’t like so much tilted his lips. “That isn’t fair either. You’re in no condition to fully appreciate it—and I don’t want you coming away with any negative impressions that are the fault of your injury and not me.”
She highly doubted that would happen. But then, Oliver and Libby were within sight, just behind them, and she didn’t much fancy having an audience when she kissed him. For that matter, she liked the thought of his arms coming about her, which they couldn’t do while his hands were tangled with the tack.
So, for now, she simply stretched up, pressed a light kiss to his lips, and settled at his side. “There. To free you from the promise. So that next time I say something provoking, you can prove whatever you need to.”
Even that light touch sent a tingle through her. One that made her think everyone had been wrong five years ago. And Libby had been right—flying would be a good thing indeed.
Libby. A bit of the elation fluttered away at the thought of her. She looked behind them to where the Adelle skimmed along on the same breeze. She and Oliver were talking, her arms gesturing in demonstration of whatever she was saying. Ollie was grinning down at her, happy in that moment despite it all.
She faced forward again and leaned her aching head against his shoulder, in the place that she’d come to think of as hers the other night when he’d cradled her there for hours while they waited for the doctor to return from a birthing. “I’ve a few bridges to mend, that’s all. I upset her the other day. Made her question whether we’re friends. Maybe because I wasn’t certain myself, she being my employer.”
“She won’t be that for long though, will she? If you’re staying?”
There were more questions there than the ones he asked—a probing of whether she’d meant her offhanded agreement earlier. But she had. And he had a point now. “You’re right. Without that between us, things will be different. In a good way.”
She could call her Libby. Not spare so many thoughts to what her mother or brother would say and put her first, as she would any other friend. She could let herself fully appreciate all she’d done while here to help with the Beth mystery. The way she’d taken so quickly to the people Mabena held most dear. She could tear down the barrier she’d kept so carefully between them.
But how to tell her so? She debated it the rest of the way to St. Mary’s. Fighting with someone was easy enough, but making up? When it required words and not just a mutual decision to ignore the row and move on, as she and Beth had always done? That was altogether different.
She still wasn’t certain how best to handle it when they were all on shore at the quay in Hugh Town, but when Oliver declared he’d better hasten to the pharmacy before they closed for the day and Casek said he’d better check at the ferry office to see if any more shipments for the school had come in, she decided there was no time like the present for making the first strides.
And so she linked her arm through Libby’s—something she’d never done before—and gave her a smile. “I’m sorry we’ll miss the race tomorrow morning. If you want to just collect Darling and go back, we can.” It wasn’t what she’d said earlier when they’d asked her. Then, she’d simply wanted to escape her parents’ good-natured fussing for a few days. But friendship required a bit of self-sacrifice now and then.
Libby softened a bit, though her returning smile was still forced. “It’s all right. Oliver doesn’t mean to participate anyway. He convinced Mr. Menna to take his seat.”
“The things I missed while I slept off a headache!” Mabena gave the slightest shake of her head—all she dared. “Mr. Menna can outrow any of them.”
“That’s what Oliver said.” Libby’s smile faded into a sigh. “Though I’ll want to go back soon. To see how Mamm-wynn’s doing.”
“Any time you like. I ought to be right as rain again by tomorrow. What?” she added at the dubious look Libby sent her. “I’ve the hardest head on the islands. Ask anybody. A little knock on it can’t keep me down for long.”
Libby shook her head with enviable generosity of movement. Let a beat of silence speak for her. Then said, so softly Mabena could scarcely hear it over the breeze, “You’re not leaving again, are you? At the end of summer, I mean.”
And how could she know that when Mabena herself had scarcely come to the conclusion an hour ago?
Because . . . they were friends. She sighed. “I can’t. This is home.”
Libby nodded. “I don’t know how you ever left to begin with. I mean, I do. What with Cador and all. But . . .”
“I had to go. I’m glad I did. Glad I met you.” She bumped their shoulders together. “I never expected to make a friend, Libby. But I have, and I’m grateful for it. Grateful and . . . and maybe it’s the head injury, but I’m beginning to think maybe it was for a greater purpose too. That the Lord meant for you to come here this summer.”
The way Libby’s brows knit, and the way she took her lower lip between her teeth, made her seem at once a little girl, dreadfully uncertain, and an old woman who had seen too much. “I’ve never heard you talk so.”
“It’s not my way—I always left that to Ollie. But that doesn’t change the truth of it. And the truth is that I’ve never seen you as you’ve been since you got here a month ago.” She pulled Libby to a halt, waiting until she looked over at her. “You don’t have to go either, you know. At the end of summer. I know that was your plan, that this was just a respite to give Sheridan time to come to his senses and strike down your brother’s idea. I know you wouldn’t want to leave your mother. But there’s a place for you here. I wouldn’t have believed it had someone asked me before, but that’s truth too.”
Libby looked away. But not away. Not from Mabena so much as to the islands. “When you left here, you didn’t give up your place. You could go somewhere new and still know this was home.” She met her gaze again. “I’m not so certain that would be the case for me, if I chose the Scillies.”
If she chose Oliver, she meant. And she could well be right. “You have the rest of the summer to weigh that, then. To decide what you can live without and what you can’t. And I’ll be at your side to talk it through with you, if you need. That’s what friends are for.”
Libby gave her a small, mellow grin that felt like a gift. “I imagine I’ll take you up on that.”
They turned to the path again and walked up it without any more conversation. No doubt Libby’s mind was spinning as quickly as Mabena’s. About just as many things. And in Mabena’s case, it brought the headache roaring to the forefront again. She was rather glad Libby had declined returning to Tresco tonight. She found herself craving a hot cup of tea, some silence, and the bed at the cottage she’d grown accustomed to.
When they turned the key in the lock and stepped inside, though, she knew there’d be no rest tonight.
Not given the two men sitting at their table. In particular, the one with his arms folded like iron gates over his chest.