Sweet Libby. Mabena couldn’t quite help the low chuckle that tickled her throat. “Of course I liked it. It was Casek Wearne. You saw him, didn’t you?”

Her confusion didn’t relent. “Then what was the problem?”

“It was Casek Wearne.” She shook her head. It wasn’t something she could just explain to an incomer—even when the incomer was Libby. Not all of it, anyway. “They always told me I was wild as the sea, unbridled as the wind. They always told me I’d need someone to ground me. But Casek—he’d never have done that, and I knew it the moment his lips touched mine. He wouldn’t have held me down. He’d have let me fly.”

If anything, her explanation seemed to make it worse. Libby was looking at her as if she’d lost her mind. “Not that I’m any kind of expert on this sort of thing, but . . . isn’t that good?”

Self-destructive, that’s what it was. Or would have been, had she let it be. But even at seventeen, she’d had more sense than that. “Balance, that’s what a couple needs. The wild needs the steady. That’s why I opted for Cador. He was always steady. Always got along with everyone and never made me go absolutely mad like Caz did. He was—”

Blast and drat. Safe. That’s what he’d been.

“I see.” Libby squinted her eyes at her. “I don’t, actually. But I’ll pretend I do, if it makes you feel better.”

Mabena’s laugh this time at least managed to put her feet back on solid ground. Which reminded her that Casek Wearne wasn’t the point of her adventure in the rain. “What was in the package?”

“Paperwork.” Obviously eager for the change of subject, Libby sprang to her feet and hurried to the sofa, then back. She held out a sheaf of papers. “They seem to be ships’ manifests. Not that I would have recognized them as such, if not for the cover letter.”

Mabena took the page from the top and turned it into the light. “It’s unsigned.”

“But interesting nevertheless. Read it.”

You certainly had a point in your last missive; there is no telling whether the articles you’re looking for would have been from the Canary or perhaps another of Mucknell’s prey; or a combination thereof, though there is that “John” on the original artifact to lend credence to the Canary theory. Regardless, whatever he kept and buried would be something that would not rot. Most likely precious metals. Any Indiamen he took would have been equipped, at the least, with payroll. So coinage is always a safe thing to search for.