Page 96 of The Nature of a Lady
“We don’t.” Yet he smiled. “But I know who would.”
She smiled. “To Tresco then, to visit Tas-gwyn Gibson.”
The evening was one of the finest they’d yet enjoyed that summer, the sun lingering long, the breeze warm and gentle, the temperature perfect. Oliver hated to spend such an evening inside, but he’d been a bit surprised when the entire company took him up on his offer to enjoy their pudding in the garden.
There they all were though, laughing and arguing over the letters Beth had somehow produced, though he hadn’t even noticed her slipping away to reclaim them, with his flowers as a backdrop. Evidence, undoubtedly, that her secret hiding place was somewhere nearby.
Oliver drew in a long, fragrant breath and leaned against the stone wall at the garden’s edge. Mabena had bowed out of dinner with them. She’d said it was because she’d had enough of the bickering and didn’t imagine their lordships really wanted to dine with a lowly former lady’s maid ... but Oliver suspected it was more because she meant to accept the Wearnes’ invitation to jointhemfor the evening meal. Lady Emily hadn’t come over from St. Mary’s with them either, which meant it was just Beth and Libby, Sheridan and Telford sitting there now, debating whether they ought to trust Tas-gwyn Gibson’s advice and try King Charles’s castle first.
The girls both agreed they’d better. The gents were less than willing to trust his grandfather’s instincts.
Oliver had already weighed in on Tas-gwyn’s side, and he didn’t imagine any further argument from him would achieve anything, so he’d gotten up to stretch his legs and come to see how his fuchsias were faring. Though instead of checking their leaves, he found himself just watching the four across the garden.
All right, mostly the one. His gaze kept returning over and again to Libby, as it always did and certainly had been doing all evening. They’d dressed for dinner—though he rather enjoyed the more casual meals he and Mamm-wynn had been having in Beth’s absence—which meant that for only the second time, he was beholding Libby in something other than a simple skirt and blouse. And while he appreciated her practical choices and loved that she fit so well with all his neighbors, he had to admit that seeing her in soft color that draped her form, her hair swept up, pretty much guaranteed that he couldn’t think of much other than her.
She was as lovely as the blossoms that surrounded her.
She looked his way, a soft smile curling her lips, and murmured something that he couldn’t hear from here. No one paid her any mindanyway as they continued to debate whether the drawn map matched the sketch of the castle’s layout that his grandfather had unearthed. Libby slipped from her chair and meandered in his general direction, though she paused at the rosebush for a long moment until her brother turned back to Beth and Sheridan.
Oliver met her in front of the thatch anchor and had to clasp his hands behind his back to keep from reaching for hers. “You’ve proven yourself quite the heroine of the day with your microscope discoveries.”
She waved that away, though her eyes still smiled. “We’ll see tomorrow if it was any help at all, I suppose. Do you think we’ll be able to obtain permission to search the castle grounds?”
He tamped down a grin. “The general wisdom is that what the Lord Proprietor doesn’t know about, he can’t refuse permission for.”
She chuckled. “A fine philosophy for exploring children or tourists—though I’m not so certain it’s the best one for the vicar and the headmaster to ascribe to.”
“Even so, the Lord Proprietor and I are on good terms. As long as we don’t destroy anything, I can’t imagine he’ll mind. And unless we mean to send a telegram asking for permission or wait for him to get home next month...”
“That would suit me fine.” She grinned up at him. “If I could convince Bram to let me stay until we saw it through to completion.”
If he thought they could keep Lorne and Scofield at bay, he might agree. But he had a knot in his spirit that just wouldn’t loosen whenever he thought of them. They wouldn’t sit around much longer, waiting for someone else to deliver them what they were after. Not with a second buyer promising Scofield money and the rivalry spurring Lorne on. Oliver had met men like these before—men who would stop at nothing to get the upper hand in whatever they were doing. Men who took the kind of petty tension he’d always had with Casek and magnified it more powerfully than Libby’s microscope could do.
Thoughts of Casek brought other thoughts, ones that made that knot cinch tighter. “Lorne hired a local lad before. I suspect he’d do itagain—and we can’t let anyone else get tangled up in this.” The people of Tresco, of all the Scillies, were his responsibility. In part, anyway. And he didn’t want to be officiating any more funerals because of this.
“I know.” She rested warm fingers on his arm.
She did know. Libby wasn’t the sort who would ever put her own desires above another’s well-being. Just another reason he couldn’t stop looking at her. He smiled down into her eyes, wishing and praying. They hadn’t had nearly enough time together to make it seem reasonable to do something like propose. Especially not when she still had a few questions to answer for herself about the Lord—never mind the brother.
“Libby, hadn’t you better go in and sit with Mrs. Tremayne for a bit so I can walk you home at a decent hour?”
Or perhapsnotnever mind the brother. He seemed set on making himself a problem. They broke their gazes away from each other to look up at the shadowed face of Lord Telford.
Oliver’s gaze darted past him, and he frowned. “Where are my sister and Lord Sheridan?”
“On their way to the library in the hopes of settling an argument with the help of a book.” Not that Telford so much as met his gaze when he answered. He kept his eyes trained on his sister, and it was no wonder she’d always found the weight of it intimidating. “Go on. She’s your reason for wanting to stay, isn’t she? And you need to collect your cat from her bedside, regardless.”
Her shoulders rolled back, making Oliver think for a moment that she meant to argue. But then she sighed. “I do want to spend some time with her this evening—and Mabena took far too long on my hair to allow me to slip in before supper.”
“Go on, then.” Telford’s voice had gentled, and he even gave her a smile. “Take your time.”
She hesitated a second more and then sighed again. “Good night, Oliver.”
“Good night.” He watched her until she had the door open, though he knew what came next wouldn’t bode well for him.
Shockingly, when he turned back to Telford, he found his face absent of the mask of thunder. It was instead open. Frank. And far too worried. “I don’t mean to be an ogre,” he said in what must be his normal voice, rather than the one set on intimidating him. “It’s just—you’re a vicar. And she doesn’t even have any use for God.”
A perfectly reasonable objection, really. If it were true. Oliver drew in a long breath. “I don’t think I’d have any use for the version of God she’s been taught either.”
