He released her and stepped away. Her elbow shouldn’t have felt so cold after a short three seconds of warmth from his tea-heated fingers, should it? He pivoted, took his next step backward so that he was facing her. “And my lady? Purple suits you.” His gaze brushed over the shawl before returning to her face.

The flip turned to a dance. “I know.” She grinned. “Mamm-wynn already told me so.”

She might have stood right there, watching him turn to his teammates and listening to his laughter, until the tide swallowed her up, had Mabena not obscured her view and all but pushed her away.

For a moment she thought it genuine horror on her friend’s face—but no, it was teasing. And her words were loud enough to be overheard by all the men. “Now you’ve done it—you’ve let him work his elbow-magic on you. You’re doomed now, my lady, to spill all your secrets to him.”

The group all laughed, even Oliver. Though he also shouted back, “Watch yourself, Mabena Moon. I’ve known yours since I was three years old!”

Libby chuckled with Mabena as they started back up the beach. Maybe it hadn’t been actual flirting, then. Probably not. After all, if it had been, she wouldn’t have held her own. Nothing made her tongue tie in knots and her stomach start aching like flirtation. Well, unless it was disapproval.

Mabena bumped their arms together. “I think the islands have been working their charm on you. I’ve never heard you flirt so effortlessly.”

“You mean it was flirting?” Laughter bubbled out. “I’d just convinced myself it must not have been! Oh, Mama would be proud.”

Mabena snorted. “Aye—at least until she realized who it was that you’d managed it with.”

She might as well have tossed a pail full of the cold Atlantic over her. “You don’t think she’d like Mr. Tremayne?” Dash it all—and why did she ask? Why did it matter?

“Oh, she’d adore him. Everyone does. She just wouldn’t like you liking him overmuch.” Mabena sighed. “That Wight girl had that much right, my lady. Society won’t accept his family, not fully, thanks to his mother and her family.” Her lips curled up in a self-deprecating smile. “There are members of it in service, you know. And they all work with their hands.”

“And what of it? It doesn’t make a person any less.”

“Most people would disagree.”

“Well, they’re wrong.” She surveyed the group of islanders, all drifting back along the path, carrying empty mugs and laughing together. “Everyone here knows that.”

Mabena’s sigh was as gusty as the air. “Maybe. And maybe they respect him the more for his mother. But that’s here. Your people, your place—”