Page 59 of The Nature of a Lady
That was what kept Mabena tossing from side to side, sleep as elusive as a rainbow. With a growl, she gave up and swung out ofbed, snatching Beth’s shawl from the chair and wrapping it around her shoulders.
She probably should have sent it home with Oliver, as she had everything else. But she hadn’t. And though he’d seen her wearing it last Thursday when he’d come by to see if there’d been a new Wednesday delivery, he hadn’t said anything.
Leaning into the window frame, she rested her head against the painted wood and let her eyes slide shut. She’d left the window open so she could hear the shushing of the waves, as familiar as a mother’s heartbeat. The wind whispered in, kissed her brow. The moon sang a lullaby.
But her heart wept and her mind wouldn’t still. They had a collection of clues stored safely on Tresco with Oliver. The letters, the manifests that had continued to show up each Wednesday, the hundred pounds with the mysterious note about it being for an artifact.
What artifact could possibly have been worth so much?
She wrapped one of the corners of the shawl around her hand. Mabena had followed the last few deliverymen too. All different blokes. All simply went straight to the ferry. She’d approached one and tried to talk to him, acting like a concerned friend of the girl in the cottage, but he hadn’t said anything useful. Just that he’d been asked to deliver something, so he did. When she asked who’d hired him—because she had no doubt money was involved—he’d just shrugged and said, “Some bloke.”
Narrowed it right down.
The ocean’s serenade unknit a few of the knots in her shoulders, anyway. She’d missed that sound. More than she’d known.
More than she’d admitted.
A creak snapped her eyelids open again. Maybe it was just something outside, swaying in the wind ... but the wind was only a breeze. And she wasn’t hearing it through her open window. She was hearing it from her bedroom door.
Her breath caught even as her heart pounded. Another creak from the short little hallway connecting the bedrooms to the rest of the cottage. Probably just Libby, needing a cup of water.
But she knew Libby’s step. Even Libby’s quiet, trying-not-to-wake-her step. This wasn’t it. She eased a bit closer to her door, cracked open from habit, in caseshehad to slip out for water. There—a shuffle, like shoes on the wood floor. Libby certainly wouldn’t be wearing shoes at this time of night.
Her eyes well used to the dark after hours of staring into it, Mabena skirted her bed and hastened to the entrance, silent as a fish. She wrapped her fingers around the door’s slab, pulled it open all at once, as she’d learned that kept it from squeaking. Stepped into the hall.
A figure was silhouetted in the dark, barely more than a shadow. But enough to see that it was no taller than Mabena. Slight build. And reaching for Libby’s door.
There was no time for thinking—just for doing. She launched herself toward the figure with a guttural cry, tackling it to the ground. Given the size, it must be a lad. No, given the squeal, it must be a girl.
Whoever it was kicked her, pushed at her, but she held on, flipping them both toward the main room and away from Libby’s. She dodged a hand to her face and shoved at the intruder’s head. Her hand caught on something knit.
“Meow.” The little monster pounced, batted at something. What was he doing out of Libby’s room?
The knit thing pulled away, and Mabena saw in the scant moonlight that it must have been a cap, because hair came spilling out. Fair golden hair that she’d know anywhere, any time of day.
Mabena pinned the girl’s arms. “Elizabeth Tremayne! What in blazes are you about?”
Beth went still—then pushed her off, eyes wide. “Mabena? What are you doing here?”
“What amIdoing here? Quite a question from the amazing vanishing girl!”
Beth scrambled to her feet, full panic in her face. The kind Mabena hadn’t seen from her in a decade, since the time they were nearly caught while swimming at night in only their knickers in the Abbey Gardens pond. Her gaze skidded from Mabena to Libby’s door.
No. To Libby, who stood there with chest heaving and her dressing table stool held up like a weapon.
Beth backed away, hands out. “You weren’t to get involved in this, any of you. The cottage was supposed to be empty. I was—no one should be here. But you are, which means you’ve interfered, as you always do. Where are they?”
Mabena tried not to bristle at the accusation, given that it had a bit of truth to it. “Where are what?”
“The deliveries. If I wasn’t here to receive them, they were to drop them for me at—but nothing was there. I need them, Benna, andTreasure Islandtoo. Where are they?”
At thethump-scrapefrom her left, Mabena looked over, saw that Libby had put the stool down and sat upon it. And that her ridiculous cat was even now jumping into her lap, the black cap Beth had been wearing between his teeth like a prize.
She turned to Beth again, seeing no reason to give her anything but the truth. “Ollie has it all.” He’d insisted on taking it all home and putting it in his safe, and it had seemed the wisest plan. Let her sneak inthereif she wanted them back.
“No.” Beth squeezed her eyes shut, pain flashing over her face like lightning. Then her eyes sprang open again. “You have to leave. All of you. And Mamm-wynn and Tas-gwyn and—everyone. Get them, get them out of here. Quickly. Go anywhere—just make sure it’s random.”
“Why? What in the world—”
