Her stomach ached. “Please don’t.”

Just like that, Lottie shifted back to her usual smiles, arms falling to her sides. She even laughed as she turned to face Libby. “You never were one who could handle conflict, were you? Or disapproval. Even from your maid, it seems. How did you survive in London, Libby?”

She wrapped her arms around her stomach, notebook still clutched in one hand. “Badly.”

“Hence, I suppose, while you’re summering here instead. Well.” She took a step backward. “I’ve no need to get in a row with a domestic. You can deal with her impertinence as you will—or probably not, knowing you. I will get an invitation to you for the dinner party. You did bring a few appropriate gowns? Lord Willsworth favors greens, I think.”

As if Libby had ever in her life dressed to please a man. Well, other than her father. And brother. But they hardly counted. She had to please them at least a bit in order to be let out of the house—and getting out of the house had always been part of the agreement for what she was allowed to do when back in it. Balls and soirees in exchange for microscopes and slides.

Devious men.

To Charlotte, she simply nodded. She would worry with viscounts and dinner parties another day. For now, she’d try not to burst into flame under Mabena’s continued glare.

Her friend scarcely waited until Lottie was out of earshot before spitting out, “You know that person?”

Maybe the ache in her stomach wasn’t dread and fear. Maybe she just needed lunch. She stepped past Mabena. “We were at finishing school together in Switzerland.”

Mabena snorted her opinion of that. “And you let her fill your ears with such rot as she was spewing about Morgan Tremayne?”

“There’s no stopping her from talking, and it wasn’t as though I knew what she was going to say. I was only . . . I said I’d learn what I could. I thought maybe she’d found something useful, since she was looking for Beth too.”

A snort was Mabena’s only answer. They trudged in silence back up the beach, nothing companionable about it now. By the time they reached their path, even the too-perfect “Meow” and the emergence of a cute little striped face couldn’t quite make Libby smile fully.

Mabena hissed. “Shoo. Go away, kitty.”

Instead, the little darling fell in beside Libby, lunging playfully at her feet and then tumbling away. It drew out a breath of a laugh, despite the clenching of her stomach.

Mabena sighed. “You fed it your bacon, didn’t you.”

It wasn’t a question, so why bother answering?

“Fabulous. You’ll never get rid of it now.”