“No, nothing like that.” He’d already decided when he sought Enyon out that he’d tell him everything he knew. But even so, he couldn’t quite put into words what he felt in his heart. “Did you hear Benna’s back?”

“Aye, Mam mentioned that she saw her at her parents’ the other day, trussed up like a Christmas goose—her words, not mine. Does that have something to do with Beth?”

Though he shrugged, he couldn’t shake the feeling that it did, despite the fact that Mabena hadn’t admitted as much. Why else, though, would she appear out of the blue? “She says that her employer just wanted a holiday. But . . .” He dragged in a deep breath, trying to keep thoughts of Benna and Lady Elizabeth from crowding out what really needed to be said. “But Beth . . . she’s not on St. Mary’s, En. Mrs. Pepper said she thought she’d come home. But obviously she hasn’t. She’s just gone. Has been for over two weeks now.”

“What?” Enyon took his hat off and ran a hand over his hair in one practiced motion, putting the cap back on with the next. “What do you mean, gone?”

Oliver made a poof motion with his fingers. “Gone. Vanished. No one’s seen her, nor the Naiad.” And though he could well imagine her hiding herself for weeks on end, how and where was she hiding her sloop?

“And you’re not banging on the constable’s door? Organizing a search?”

He’d considered it. But . . . “She left me a letter, indicating she was vanishing on purpose. Told me not to worry.”

“Likely.”

“Right?” He shook his head and buried his hands in his trouser pockets to keep them from mirroring Enyon’s hat-swipe motion. “I don’t know what I’m to do. She’s my baby sister. She isn’t supposed to do this sort of thing.”

Enyon’s snort at least had a bit of amusement in it this time. He motioned Oliver to follow him, though surprisingly, he didn’t head for the cozy, dry cottage he’d let for himself last year, after his second sister and her brood moved back into their parents’ house when her husband took a job on the mainland. He turned instead toward the beach.

Talk about a true friend. Oliver breathed in the damp air, relishing the mist on his face and the shift of sand and pebbles under his feet. It soothed him as nothing else could.

“Sisters,” Enyon drawled after a long moment, “apparently think they’re supposed to do whatever will cause us the most disquiet. If you ask me, the Lord ought to have made us humans to be capable of only producing one gender of offspring each. Boys could have brothers, girls could have sisters. Nice and tidy.”