Mabena shook her head. “Headmaster.” Not at all what she’d expected of him. Of course, the role she’d imagined for him was pirate, and there weren’t too many of those positions available these days. Though if his job brought him to St. Mary’s regularly to fetch items for the school . . . She tried to keep her tone casual as she asked, “Are you over here often, then?”

“Once or twice a week. Why?” His tone went taunting. “Hoping to see me while you’re here?”

“Right. That’s it.”

He made an exaggerated wince. “Cut to the quick by the lady’s sarcasm, as always. Some things haven’t changed, at least, I see.”

But how to address the things that had without rousing more curiosity than she wanted from him? She went for a chuckle and cast a look back at St. Mary’s. “I thought to run into Beth by now. She’s summering on St. Mary’s, isn’t she?”

His hum wove through the wind, tangled with the sounds of water against hull. “Much to Tremayne’s annoyance.” He smiled as he pronounced that. “Went over sometime in April, I think, so she could have her pick of cottages before the incomers started pouring in.”

The part she knew. What she didn’t was where she was now. “She mentioned it in a letter. Said Ollie had promised to let her have her privacy and not so much as step foot on the big island unless it was absolutely necessary.” It was the sort of promise the whole of Tresco must be chuckling over.

Casek certainly did. “That’s right. When last I saw Beth, she seemed properly pleased with that—which I assured her I understood completely. I’d want to escape him at the first opportunity too.”

Mabena snorted a laugh. “And she no doubt was quick to retort.”

“She is a Tremayne.”

That she was. “When did you last see her? Do you know which cottage she’d let?” Better to make it sound like she was simply looking for a friend.

His heavy brows drew together. “Must have been . . . what, a fortnight ago? Perhaps three weeks. Walking along with a few tourists—wouldn’t even acknowledge me, though that’s no great surprise. She’s taken one of the cottages along the garrison wall, I think.”

She kept her own hum even, relaxed. Cast her gaze out to sea and tried to identify the flash of wings gliding toward Samson. “I’ll have to introduce her to my employer. She’ll enjoy making friends with an earl’s sister, I daresay.”

This time his snort sounded far too derisive. “Just like a Tremayne. Always has thought herself too good for the likes of us normal Scillonians, hasn’t she?”

Mabena shot him another granite look. “No. Only you Wearnes. Because she has sense.”

The familiar barb served to bring his smile back to his lips anyway.