“We could just stay right here for the next few hours. I could look at you longer.”

Casek’s soft voice made her smile and face him again. She’d slipped from the house with the first fingers of dawn on the horizon to meet him on the beach, so they’d have time for a nice row before their days began. She could begin every day like this and be happy.

Well. She’d be even happier after they married. When first she’d wake beside him, and then they’d head for the gig, hands entwined. It was a dream that had rooted itself in the bedrock of her soul over the last week. “Somehow, my love, I don’t think the world would stop if we did. And I don’t think either of us would be happy to let it pass us by—not today.”

But Casek didn’t dip in his oars again yet. Just kept on looking at her. “I don’t care a whit about pirate treasure or princes or maps or silver.”

“No.” He didn’t. That had never been what drove this man forward, brought his fists up, or inspired his world. He wasn’t the sort to ever leave her for the pursuit of more. How had she not seen that years ago? That all his volume and bluster were just the waves crashing against the sturdy rock of him. He was the steady one. It was just that, in the Scillies, steady meant storms and waves and winds as much as sunshine and blue skies. “But you care about the lads who have been poking about looking for it.”

He sighed and looked to the shore, hands gripping the oars again now. “We lose so many of them. To the mainland. To the sea. To hard living. We can’t lose more to this, Benna.”

“Which is why we’re going to put a stop to it. Today.” They dipped their oars in unison, their stretching forms mirror images, since they faced each other.

His face was still clouded though. “I don’t know that we can stop it entirely. Not if these are just hirelings here now. More will be sent. More lads lured into treasure hunting. More skulls knocked in when they don’t deliver what the gentlemen want.”

“You think he can’t be trusted? Lord Sheridan?”

Casek screwed up his face in dismissal. “Not him. The ones from London, the family of Beth’s friend. Them I don’t trust. Not if they mean to double-cross Sheridan. He may have his head in the clouds of legend, but I think he’s harmless enough. This Scofield bloke though . . .”