“Well. If you say so, I don’t dare disagree.” Beth bumped their shoulders together, twenty years of friendship summed up in that single touch. “She seems sweet.”

“She is. But she has a good dose of salt too—necessary in these parts.”

“And she’d be happy here? Because I can’t imagine Ollie ever wanting to be elsewhere, even Truro.”

Mabena didn’t bother holding back her smile. “The islands know her name, according to Mamm-wynn.”

Beth’s shoulders relaxed as she reached for the door. “That’s all I needed to know.”

Rather than stepping through the doorway, Mabena paused, her brows knit. “One question, Beth, about all you said in there. The map—it wasn’t among the things we found. Do you have it still?”

“I have a copy. But the original is stowed in my—your—cottage.” Beth’s eyes sparkled. “I was hoping to reclaim it when I came to collect Treasure Island last week.”

She linked her arm through her cousin’s before she could think about darting off again. “You’re not going back for it alone though, just so you know. We’re in this together.”

“Mm.” Beth’s gaze as they stepped inside tracked toward the library, from where too many masculine voices were ringing. “More of us, it seems, than I’d ever bargained for.”

It had rained buckets all day Thursday, effectively keeping them Tresco-bound and delaying the gentlemen’s intentions of sending for their valets, but when Friday dawned bright and fair, Oliver breathed a prayer of thanksgiving and all but leapt into the day. They’d go back to St. Mary’s today—first to meet Lady Emily Scofield’s ferry and see her to the room he’d arranged for her above Mrs. Gilligan’s hat shop, and then to get the map from the garrison cottage where his sister had apparently stashed it.

And best of all, he might even escape Telford’s hovering presence for a few minutes. He’d been a perpetual, stormy shadow since Wednesday, and no amount of politeness or attempts to engage him in honest, heart-seeking conversation had resulted in anything but a glare.

A glare that said quite clearly, Stay away from my sister.

A glare Oliver couldn’t have obeyed if he wanted to. Dressed for the day, he slipped into Mamm-wynn’s room, acknowledging silently what had become all the more apparent in the face of Telford’s thunder. He’d fallen head over heels in love with Lady Elizabeth Sinclair, and he couldn’t be in her presence without finding his way to her side. Teasing a smile to her lips. Whispering a Latin name or two as their own private joke. Ira Frater in response to one of Telford’s irritated—and irritating—commands, for example.

And she’d replied to his “angry brother” moniker with a nod toward Beth and Soror Absit—“absent sister.”