He knew her, this girl who wasn’t Beth. Sort of. Had met her before, anyway, though in that first second of shock his muddled mind couldn’t think where. All he knew was she wasn’t one of his sister’s friends—if he’d met her in Beth’s company, he would have made a comment on how they looked at once alike but different. But that wasn’t the image elbowing its way to the surface of his mind. No, it was . . . a garden.

He shook it off and focused on the here and now. “She’s Elizabeth, yes—though we call her Beth. Are you . . . visiting her?” But that made no sense. If she was a friend of Beth’s after all, she wouldn’t have to ask him what her name was.

The girl stepped back from the door and waved him inside. “I think perhaps you’d better come in.”

He hesitated a moment. As a vicar, he visited people all the time when otherwise a proper gentleman shouldn’t; he served as a chaperone more than he needed one. But she probably didn’t know that, so shouldn’t she be unwilling to let a veritable stranger inside?

There was no duplicity in her eyes though, simply concern. For whatever reason, she must not be considering questions of reputation. And so long as he only stayed a few moments, no locals would question his presence here. He was a vicar, and one concerned for his sister to boot.

With a nod, he crossed the threshold and looked around, his gaze searching for any hints of Beth. “Forgive me for intruding. And thank you for granting me time to sort through this.” He could feel his brows knitting into what Beth and Morgan had always jokingly referred to as his scholar’s frown—the one he tended to wear when puzzling through a text, trying to solve a tricky problem in arithmetic, or striving to understand the mysteries of God. But try as he might to smooth it out now, it was no good. “My sister . . .”

“Isn’t here, I’m afraid. Mrs. Pepper made mention of her leaving without a word, so she relet the place. To me. And my maid.”

“What?” Though he’d been trying to catch a glimpse of anything that was Beth’s scattered about, he spun now on his heel to stare at his makeshift hostess. “What do you mean, leaving without a word?”

Where did he know her from? It was right there, just behind his worry. If she was traveling with a maid and renting a holiday cottage, she must be a gentleman’s daughter of some sort. But who? Was she the younger sister of one of his friends from school? Or perhaps of the society he very occasionally rubbed elbows with in Cornwall, when duty demanded it?