Another figure, running full speed up the incline and bypassing the girls with a greeting he couldn’t hear from here, had him digging his fingers into the door. “Beth?” It looked like Beth, except that Beth never wore trousers as this figure did, not since she was a slip of a girl, anyway. But then, no one else on the islands had hair so fair, and the braid flying out behind her certainly insisted the person was a female.

A moment later, she was close enough to remove all doubt. Oliver stepped outside, not entirely certain whether he meant to greet her with a hug or a rebuke. Or both. “Beth!” Mabena and Libby were speeding to catch up with her, though there was no one who could do so when his sister was determined to be speedy, as she was now.

As she drew near, the worry etching lines into her face told him why. She dashed up the walk, threw herself into his arms, squeezed him tight, and said, “How is she? Tell me I’m not too late.” Then she pulled away again and made for the house.

Oliver pivoted to follow her, knowing Mabena and Libby would join them momentarily. “No, not too late. She seems to be rousing a bit. I hope.”

“Oof!”

Oliver pressed his lips against a grin when he finished his turn to find that his sister had plowed directly into Sheridan, who had trailed him to the door. “We have guests,” he belatedly informed her. “Lord Sheridan, allow me to present my sister, Miss Elizabeth Tremayne.”

“How do you do?” Sheridan steadied Beth with what must be his habitual cheerful smile and slid out of her way.

She shot Oliver a baffled look. “Guests? Now?”

“Your brother’s most gracious. Also, there was the fact that we—or Telly, rather, I like to think I didn’t do it—boxed him into a bit of a corner. Or, no, we boxed Libby. Well, Telly did. And Tremayne here thought to unbox her. Because, as I said. He’s most gracious.”

Beth had turned back to Sheridan during that explanation, if it could be called such. She blinked at him. Gave her next blink to Oliver, which clearly said, Where on earth did you dig this one up? And then, with a shake of her head, she took off again with a muttered, “Do excuse me. I must see my grandmother.”

Testament indeed to her worry. In days past, Beth would have been all too eager to make a good impression on any visiting nobleman—not that they’d ever had many of them in their house, other than an occasional distant relative of Mamm-wynn’s.

Perhaps whatever she’d gotten herself involved in this summer had rubbed away a bit of that yearning for that Something Else.