23

Libby crouched down in the corner of the small library, placing the basket gently upon the floor. She’d yet to really explore this room and would love the chance to do so, sometime when Sheridan—and her stewing brother—weren’t in here. But for now, it seemed like a good place to let Darling out. No open windows or doors for him to fly through. She was a bit nervous that he’d go streaking out of the room and the house and she’d never see him again.

God? It seemed silly to pray for a cat. Wasn’t it? But her prayer for Mamm-wynn had been answered, and Oliver claimed he prayed for his plants. Surely a kitten was no worse, so she finished her silent request. Please keep Darling calm and help him adjust to coming here. I don’t want to lose him.

She lifted the lid of the wicker basket, and Darling scrambled out—directly into her arms. Grinning, she stood again, letting him put his front paws on her shoulder as usual and being rewarded with his loud purr.

“This section here is the local history,” Oliver was saying to Sheridan, motioning toward a shelf. He must have been in the garden already this morning—the cuff of his sleeve, though rolled up to his elbow, had a dusting of rich brown soil upon it that made her smile. And she’d caught a lovely whiff of green things on him when he’d been standing at her side.

Bram was at her side now, looking even grumpier than he usually did of a morning. “Stop.”

She lifted her brows. “Stop what?”

“Looking at him like that. I won’t have it.” He’d folded his arms forbiddingly across his chest—which may have looked a bit more intimidating if he weren’t still clutching a dainty, blue-sprigged teacup.

And if her heart weren’t still feeling bold and strong from the conversation she and Mabena had enjoyed on the sail from St. Mary’s. It had begun with Mabena officially resigning as her maid and then asking if she might keep staying with her as a friend, and from there . . . well, from there it had been like what she’d always dreamed of finding with a friend. Laughter over Casek and Oliver, worry over the mystery, a bit of moaning over the interruption to her nature-watching plans. And the gentle reminder from Mabena that Libby always had a choice. They came with consequences—but they were still her choices to make.

She could stay here, despite Bram’s disapproval and the risk of Mama’s disappointment and censure. It would come with a cost. But she could do it. She could take her summer, even if she ended up having to stay with the Moons. She could see Mamm-wynn back on her feet. She could enjoy the neighbors she already wished were her own.

She could spend the days with Oliver. Which was her brother’s primary objection, and she met it now with a sigh. “Brother dearest, you need a new pastime. May I recommend rowing or sailing? Plenty of opportunity for that around here, and I daresay it’ll be a far sight more entertaining than worrying over me.”

He grunted, which was about what she’d expected from him at this hour. She was frankly surprised he’d put a few entire sentences together already. But he could be rather eloquent with his expressions. Now, for instance, he narrowed his eyes at where Mabena and Casek were laughing together by the globe and then turned a questioning look on Libby.

She smiled. “I’m afraid my lady’s maid has given me her notice. It seems she intends to stay here and marry.” Though she said it quietly enough that Casek wouldn’t hear. Mabena probably meant to let him chase her awhile yet.

A sudden crash drew her gaze back to Oliver and Sheridan, where the guest had somehow managed to drop an entire stack of books onto the floor. Odd, since he wasn’t usually clumsy. But then, he was darting a mortified gaze even now toward the door while he bent to retrieve the tomes.

Libby peered around her brother and saw that Beth had appeared in the doorway, looking like a very different person from the one who had raced past them on the road into Old Grimsby. Instead of the utilitarian braid, she’d brushed her hair into a simple, elegant chignon. The trousers and man’s shirt had been exchanged for a day dress in pale blue that perfectly complemented her complexion. She couldn’t have spent more than five minutes on her appearance after she’d checked on her grandmother, yet she looked more put together than Libby felt after an hour of Mabena’s ministrations.

She almost felt a twinge of jealousy. For half a second. Then she was just glad that this young lady she didn’t know had come home, and that it looked as though she meant to stay for a while, if she was changing back into what must be her normal attire.

Oliver accepted a few of the books that Sheridan thrust at him and put them back on the shelf. “How was Mamm-wynn, Beth?”

“Sleeping, it seems. Could I borrow you for a moment, Ollie? I’d like to hear what happened to her. And perhaps Benna can—Casek Wearne?” She frowned, having not looked to her cousin until that moment. “What are you doing here?”

“Gloating,” his lips said, though the hand he had on Mabena’s back said, Courting far more loudly.

Beth’s frown only deepened. “Hadn’t you better be getting home and cleaned up so you can go to school?”

“School?” Back on his feet with a stack of books helter-skelter in his arms, Sheridan quirked a brow toward Casek.

Mabena smiled. “He’s the headmaster.” Only a dunce could have missed the pride in her tone.

Beth was apparently no dunce. She blinked, opened her mouth, closed it again. “It seems I missed quite a bit while I was . . . on holiday.”

“Mm.” Mabena’s smile turned to narrowed eyes and pursed lips. “Just a tad. You’ve had Charlotte Wight and Lady Emily Scofield looking for you on St. Mary’s—”

“Emily was here?” Beth lurched a step into the room, eyes wide. With panic, or regret? Libby couldn’t quite tell.

“And will be again, we hear, as of Friday. But we can talk more about that in a moment.” Mabena gave her cousin a strange look before turning to Casek. “Let me see you out, dearovim, and then—”

“No.” He said it easily, but he had a statue-like quality just now. Like his feet were made of granite and weren’t about to budge. The smile he sent to Beth looked anything but casual. “I have a few questions for your cousin that I mean to ask before she vanishes again.”

Beth’s chin ratcheted up. “I’m not going anywhere. Not with Mamm-wynn ill. Though I can’t think what business you would have with me, Casek Wearne.”

“I think you can.”

“Johnnie Rosedew.” Libby nearly clapped a hand over her mouth after she said it. Why had she spoken? It must be Darling’s fault with that purring-induced confidence.

Sheridan fumbled the books again. What had gotten into him? Though he winced as they hit the floor, he didn’t bend to scoop them up this time.

Oliver cleared his throat and took a step toward the door. He sent Libby an apologetic look. “Do excuse us for a moment, my lords. My lady. We’ll not bore you with our family business. Beth, Casek, Benna—the garden, I think.”

She understood the apology in his look now. She wanted to go out with them, hear what Beth had to say. And she’d have had every right to, if her brother hadn’t ruined everything with his arrival. But now it was only logical that she keep him and Sheridan out of the way. Oliver and Mabena would just have to update her later. She gave him a small nod to let him know she understood.

Sheridan didn’t seem to though. He stepped forward too, an odd expression on his face and a hand held out. “Actually . . . that is, I think you’d better stay here. I mean, I have a feeling—drat it all. Is this about the search for Mucknell’s treasure? What with Scofields and Rosedews and Elizabeths, I suspect it is.”

Libby knew her own face must register the same shock that the others’ did. And a bit of the matching confusion on Bram’s and Beth’s.

Beth regained herself first, surging another step into the room and slamming the door behind her. “What do you know of that, my lord?”

He gave her a look that was perfectly Sheridan—a bit wincing, a bit self-deprecating, and yet fully committed to whatever path he’d decided upon without a single care to whatever bystanders might be in the way. “Well, you see . . . that is . . . well, I’m the buyer who hired them.”

Bram was pacing, still clutching his empty teacup. Sheridan was hunched into a chair at the head of the library table, looking as though he were trying to keep a mental list of the dozens of questions that had already been fired at him. Casek and Mabena had both taken seats too, and Beth had pulled out a chair across from Sheridan but failed to sit in it, gripping it tightly instead as she glared at him.

Libby had stayed where she was, since her spot afforded a view of all the faces at the table. And she was doubly glad of it when Oliver edged his way to her side.

“I can’t believe this.” A sentiment they were no doubt all thinking for different reasons, but it was her brother who spat out the words at his friend. “You mean to tell me you had ulterior motives for coming here? To check up on . . . on—what exactly? One of your baffling archaeological obsessions?”

“It’s hardly baffling. Family history, actually, you know—a bit.” Sheridan huffed. “I’ve told you before we’re descended from Prince Rupert, haven’t I? He served with Mucknell during the Civil War. And why did you think I was so eager to join you in the Scillies?”

Having reached the opposite wall, Bram pivoted. “To see your fiancée.”

“I am not his fiancée!” Libby probably shouldn’t have shifted closer to Oliver when she said it. It just brought Bram’s thundering attention back to her, and it was clearly threatening enough to scare even the kitten. Darling squirmed out of her hold and leaped to the ground, pouncing on a tassel of the rug as if it were a mouse.

Prince Rupert . . . Wasn’t he the pirate prince Tas-gwyn had mentioned? She looked over at Oliver, who was clearly piecing the same thing together. Her own mind went from pirate prince to the start of Beth’s unfinished fairy tale.

Once upon a time, there was a princess. She lived on an island of rocks and bones, with no one to keep her company aside from the fairies. All her life she’d danced with them to the tunes they played on their magical pipes, the tunes echoed by deep voices from the rock itself. One day, however, the music stopped.

“All right,” Oliver said in that calm voice of his that could bring order to any chaos—at least when it was a chaos of people. “So, Lord Sheridan, you have an interest in information on Prince Rupert of the Rhine and, by extension, Vice Admiral Sir John Mucknell. Is that right?”

Sheridan nodded. “Ever since I learned of the prince as a lad. Who wouldn’t? I mean, a pirate prince! For a relative! I’ve made no secret of it. That is, I’m always on the hunt for more information. In fact—don’t you remember, Telly? I contacted the British Museum years ago, asking if they had anything in their archives that would be of interest. Inspired, actually . . .” He cleared his throat and stole a glance at Mabena, of all people. “Well, when you hired Moon and said she was from the Scillies, it stirred the memory, you know. Of Prince Rupert. That was when I asked the museum for any information.”

Bram grunted. “And offered to fund any promising ventures, no doubt.”

“Well, archaeologists and historians need to eat, you know. Funding is required.” Sheridan faced Beth again. “It was, oh, two or three months ago that Lord Scofield got in touch. Said—what were his exact words? Oh, never mind. But the gist was that he’d found a lead. You, Miss Tremayne. I expect, anyway. He didn’t give me your full name, of course. Just said a friend of his daughter’s named Elizabeth—that would be Lady Emily. That she—you, I mean—was from the Scillies and had happened upon something.”

Beth’s fingers were white around the chair back, and her cheeks ashen too. “You. You’re the one they sold it to. Give it back! I never gave them permission to sell it.”

Sheridan seemed to know exactly what she was referring to—which was more than Libby could say. He lifted his chin, eyes flashing. “I bought it. It’s mine.”

“It was no better than stolen goods! I asked them to authenticate it as his crest, not to sell it!”

“Wait.” Oliver held up a hand, his brows knit. “What exactly is it?”

Beth turned to him. “The old trinket box that Mother gave me, with the gold-leaf coat of arms embossed on it—you remember it, don’t you? She said it was passed down through the family, left with some great-great-grandmother when her true love, a nobleman, left and went to sea. The Scofields asked me to keep an eye out for anything with Prince Rupert’s coat of arms on it, and they sent a drawing of it. I recognized it at once and sent them the box—to look at, not to sell.” Here she glared at Sheridan again. “Which I made perfectly clear.”

Libby pressed her lips together. Was that the drawing Darling had found under her bed? She’d not given it a moment’s thought since that night.

Sheridan folded his arms over his chest. “It wasn’t made clear to me. I paid good money—”

“Irrelevant! It was not theirs to sell. And they never even paid me—”

“Actually.” Oliver cleared his throat. “They sent payment last week.”

“Then return it to his lordship, so that he has no argument.”

Never in her life had she seen Sheridan look so near explosion. “Now see here—”

“Enough.” Casek leaned forward, all menacing muscle. “Who really cares about a trinket box? What do you know of Johnnie Rosedew?”

Sheridan at least had the grace to look abashed. “Only the name—from a report. Not from Scofield, but . . . ah, I must go further back. You see, I’d been paying another chap to look into a lead in the Caribbean, as that’s where Rupert and Mucknell went for a while. Before Scofield, I mean. That my search there was before, not that they were in the Caribbean before. Though, of course, that was also before.”

“Sher!”

Bram’s bark earned a throat-clearing from Sheridan and a splinter of a smile. “He’d found nothing though, and Scofield—or rather you, Miss Tremayne. The first piece you found.” His face lit, eyes all but blazing as they always did when he thought a discovery just beneath the dirt on which he stood. “I had a chance to see it when you sent it to them for authentication. It was Mucknell’s mark, I’d know it anywhere. And it mentioned the John. So the timing is right.”

Libby’s brows knit. “Which item was this?”

Beth shot her a look but still said nothing.

Sheridan never had any such inhibitions. “A map—an actual treasure map! Or, well, maybe. On the treasure part. No one knows what Mucknell did with it, you know. The loot, I mean. But it could be here still, in the Scillies. He lived here for years, apparently. With his wife. Well, not right here in this very spot, of course, but somewhere nearby.”

“The point, Sher.” Bram, naturally.

While the rest of them exchanged a glance. This house hadn’t been his. But Tas-gwyn Gibson’s had been, if his word on the matter could be trusted.

“Ah. Right. Well, you see . . .” He faced Beth again. “You probably know this already. But no one’s entirely certain what happened to the John. Might have sunk, or he might have got it back to the islands and then scuttled it. Never sailed again though. Of course.”

Beth sighed and looked to her brother. “I did a bit of digging. It seems the ship he took right before his final battle was called the Canary, and there was something of value on board that the rightful owners spent considerable time searching for to no avail. But if the John was scuttled, then it means whatever treasure he carried was brought ashore. And even if not, if it’s at the bottom of the sea, there was a lot of loot he’d taken with it beforehand.”

“But no one knows what he did with it,” Sheridan concluded.

Mabena snorted. “Spent it, most likely.”

Sheridan shook his head. “Couldn’t have, here—there was nothing to spend it on. I mean, the islands are lovely. Quite the holiday spot now. But not then. Just rocks, basically. Barely enough to support anyone. Before the Dorrien-Smiths brought the flower trade here, I mean.”

Libby had to give Sheridan a bit of credit. He knew how to do his research.

Oliver sighed. “It’s always been a matter of local speculation. From the Scillies he went to the Caribbean, as you said, and he certainly wouldn’t have taken any of his personal treasure with him. But he never made it back to England. And his wife clearly didn’t take the plunder and use it—she petitioned the Crown for his pension after the war and lived modestly, according to what I’ve read.”

“Exactly!” Sheridan slapped a hand to the table. “Which means it’s probably still here. Somewhere. Buried.”

“Or sunken.” Bram stopped pacing and leaned down to scoop up Darling. The little traitor nuzzled his chin and meowed at him. “You’ll never find it if it’s at the bottom of the sea.”

“But it isn’t! Or probably. Not, I mean.” Sheridan gestured toward Beth. “That’s what the map could indicate.”

Bram, kitten purring happily against his shoulder, leaned against the wall beside Libby. “Get back to your original point, Sheridan. This other person you’d hired, who had been in the Caribbean?”

“Ah. Right.” The excitement on his face dimmed to something that looked oddly like worry, though she’d never seen such an expression on him before to know exactly what it looked like. “Bloke by the name of Lorne. I called him off. I mean, even I’m not going to fund something fruitless. Not for long, anyway. Told him I had a more promising lead in the Scillies.” He winced. “I didn’t mean for him to come here. But he, ah—well, he’s butted heads with the Scofields’ lads before. In the field, I mean. Quite a competitive game is archaeology, you know. It can get . . . nasty.”

Casek’s hand, which had been splayed on the tabletop, curled into a fist. “You mean to tell me this bloke came here? That he’s the one who killed Johnnie?”

Sheridan eased out a breath. “Can’t say. That is, he said the lad was killed in an accident but that it could rouse suspicion. So he was lying low. That’s all I know. Honestly. About the young man.”

“It wasn’t an accident,” Casek snapped. “I saw him, saw the blow to his head. He couldn’t have got it by slipping and falling, not there. Someone’s responsible, and if it’s this Lorne bloke, I’ll see he’s brought to justice. He had to have been involved somehow.”

Beth sucked in a breath. “He’d hired him. I found Johnnie poking about in Piper’s Hole on St. Mary’s, and he admitted he’d been hired by an incomer to find Mucknell’s treasure. I thought at first the Scofields had hired him behind my back and was a bit put out—I wrote a rather heated letter to Emily’s father.” She shook her head. “If I could undo that, I would. But after the . . . misunderstanding about the Prince Rupert box, I was quick to suspect foul motives on their part. Regardless, Johnnie went to the cave that night, and he must have told his contact something that displeased him. Perhaps about me—perhaps knowing there was a rival looking for the same treasure angered him, I don’t know. But the morning after Johnnie’s death, someone left a note at my cottage that said, ‘Find the silver or you’re next.’”

Sheridan sank back against the bookshelves. “I never would have condoned such tactics.”

“Did you forbid it?” Beth drilled him with a glare as cold and sharp as an icicle. “Did you tell them to work together or not at all?”

“Well, ah . . . no.” He looked away, rubbing a hand at the back of his neck. “I didn’t think to, at first. That is, at first I didn’t even realize Lorne had come here. Then, when he sent a report . . . well, sometimes competition works to one’s advantage, you know.”

“And sometimes people end up dead.” Beth’s voice cracked. “Poor Johnnie didn’t deserve that.”

Casek pushed away from the table, not seeming to be calmed much by the hand Mabena rested on his arm. “Which of them did it? This Lorne bloke or the Scofields?”

Beth shook her head. “I don’t know. I wasn’t there that night, I just—I knew he’d set up a meeting. And then . . .” She squeezed her eyes shut. “I didn’t know if they’d come after me next. But I knew I didn’t have what they wanted, and they seemed willing to make me pay for that. So I left, and I sent the rest of my rental money to a barrister in Cornwall to set up couriers for the remaining information that the Scofields would be sending to me. They were researching in London, trying to discover what could be in the treasure we’re looking for. What was on the ships Mucknell took.”

She blinked her eyes open again and turned to Libby. “I didn’t mean to get you involved, Lady Elizabeth.”

“What?” Bram straightened again. “What do you mean, get Libby involved?”

Libby cleared her throat. “These couriers thought I was her. I’ve been . . . receiving her post, more or less. My cottage had been hers.”

“The couriers were just told to look for a young lady, blond, who answered to Elizabeth, or else to leave the items at a specific location if I wasn’t at home.” Beth gave her a rueful smile. “I didn’t realize there’d be another of me at home when I wasn’t.”

Oliver was shaking his head. “But where did all this start, Beth? On your end, not Lord Sheridan’s.”

Beth glanced around at the collection of people, clearly not wanting to say in such mixed company. “I . . . you know I’ve always collected bits of this and that as I explore the islands. Well, one day I found the map his lordship mentioned. I didn’t dare hope it was anything as promising as an actual treasure map, so I sent it to the Scofields for authentication. I thought that, with their connections, they could help me determine what it was. And they were quite excited. They sent it back with the promise of a buyer of any Mucknell or Prince Rupert items. I thought . . .” She shifted, dropped her gaze. “You know I’d always wanted to spend a Season in London.”

Oliver let out a sigh. “Beth.”

“I thought it would be nothing but a bit of fun! Poking around all my favorite spots, trying to match the map to one of the islands—I never for a minute thought anyone would get hurt. Not until they all started focusing on silver.” Her fingers knotted together. “Once greed reared its ugly head though, I knew I’d got in too deep.”

She still hadn’t said where she’d found the map—and Libby suspected she wouldn’t, even if asked directly. Not to all of them.

Casek didn’t look mollified. “And what of your stalking about the islands at night in white, like a ghost?”

Beth visibly started. “What makes you think—”

“I found your shawl on Samson after one of the supposed sightings. It’s monogrammed, you know. With the Tremayne crest.”

Beth’s cheeks flushed. “Much of my prowling about had to be at night. In case anyone heard me or saw me, I wanted them to chalk it up to a story. They’d dismiss it then. Not go looking too deeply.”

Mabena rubbed at the bridge of her nose, making Libby wonder if the headache was making its return. “A fine kettle of fish you’ve cooked up, as my mother would say.”

“Well, luckily, his lordship is here to set it all to rights.” Casek lifted a challenging brow. “Isn’t that right?”

Never in the decade that she’d known him had she ever seen Lord Sheridan look so uncomfortable. “Of course. That is . . . I’ll try. Though I don’t, to be honest, even know what these men look like. Which is to say, all our communications have been by letter. Or telegram. They wouldn’t know me if they saw me. And . . .” He glanced toward the three of them against the wall. “Then there’s the matter of Lady Emily showing up. I must say, I’m not sure what that portends.”

Bram stroked a hand down Darling’s striped back. “So, what you’re telling me is this is bigger than you know, you don’t know how to stop it, and you didn’t even see fit to tell me that we were walking into it, much less that my sister was involved.”

Sheridan cheered a bit. “Well, I didn’t know that part. Your sister, I mean. Can’t blame that on me.”

Bram hissed out a breath and turned to her. “Pack your bags. We’re leaving before you get hurt.”

“I don’t think it’s that simple.” Since she was experimenting with prayers, she mentally whispered one for courage, since he’d stolen her kitten. And met his gaze. “They think I’m her. They’ll probably be watching the ferry, ready for her to try to flee. For me to, I mean.” And now she was starting to sound like Sheridan. She shook her head. “We have to just see it through, Bram. Put a halt to it.”

Bram’s jaw ticked he was clenching his teeth so tightly.

“She’s right.” It was one of the only times she could remember Sheridan being in agreement with her on anything. “So . . . any ideas on how to accomplish that?”