She chuckled. “The usual bet is a pudding or a pint.” To Mr. Gibson she said, “As if you’ve ever bet on anyone but Oliver.”

He sent her an arch look, belied by the twitching in the corners of his mouth. “I might do, if Enyon’s still looking rough.”

Hank—coming toward them from the waterline at a pace that said he had some pressing errand—didn’t slow as he answered, “Casek’s been snarling already at your grandson, so I imagine the vicar will be rowing as if his soul depends upon it.”

Tas-gwyn Gibson was Mr. Tremayne’s grandfather? Maternal side, clearly, given the different surname. Which meant the Gibson side of the family was the one that Lottie had been so quick to dismiss.

Surely even Lottie wouldn’t have been able to resist the man’s laugh though. Perhaps he wasn’t landed gentry, but this was a fellow who was quite content with what and where he was.

Libby could learn a thing or two from him.

A minute later, the three of them stepped from road to path, following the echoes of morning greetings to the water. On the beach were ten men, ranging in age from late teens to early forties, gathered into two clusters. They were all moving busily around the two boats, long and sleek, resting on the sand.

At the first glance, she’d picked out the one form that was familiar—Oliver Tremayne, dressed in the cotton trousers and shirt of an athlete, a knit cap upon his head. He was giving a direction to another of the men, it seemed, pointing here and then motioning there. Whatever chap he’d been talking to nodded and spun to do something or another.

One of the men on the other team, a tall and burly one, shouted something that the wind garbled and stole before it reached Libby’s ears. But she didn’t need to hear it to know it must have been a taunt, given the way the four men around his boat laughed and the other five all stiffened, one spinning around with tense muscles.

Mabena nodded toward the chap that Mr. Tremayne restrained with a hand on his shoulder. “That’s Enyon,” she whispered. “Oliver’s best friend.”

Sometime over the course of the last twenty-four hours, Mabena had slipped from calling him Mr. Tremayne to Oliver. Libby hadn’t pointed it out though she’d wondered at it. At least, she’d wondered until now, when she realized that Mabena referred to everyone near her own age by first name. Which made fine sense on an island the size of Tresco.

The only curiosity was why she’d greeted him so formally last Wednesday.

Libby nodded toward the burly one who seemed to be the leader of the second group. “And who’s the boulder?”

“Casek Wearne.” Her voice dripped disdain. “The headmaster. But Oliver’s archnemesis long before that.”