“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?”