Page 12 of To Treasure an Heiress
“Senara?”
“Coming.” She turned with her parents toward the garden.
They chattered a bit as they walked, but nothing that required her attention. And it took only a minute to pass through the side gate connecting the Tremaynes’ spacious garden to their small one, and then they were at her own back door.
The moment they stepped inside, a too-familiar sound met her ears and scratched its way down her back. The sound of a coarse fabric brush going to work.
Which meant that Ainsley the valet was here, right now. Perhaps when she met him she’d be able to place why the name sounded familiar.
“Ah, right.” As if reading her mind, Tas bustled up the stairs ahead of her. “We’ll have to make quick introductions. Ainsley! You’ll never guess it. Senara’s come home!”
She felt her brow furrow even as she followed her father up. How long had this fellow been here? Tas called out to him as though hewere an old friend—an old friend who’d been told all about their daughter and how rarely she made it back to Tresco.
The brushing sound stopped, and the floor creaked. By the time their trio made it to the top of the stairs, the door to the guest room had been opened and a dark-clad man stepped into the corridor.
He looked a few years older than she was. Handsome, as valets who traveled with their employers generally were. His voice, when he said, “How lovely for you all!” sounded smooth and deep and sincere.
But he didn’t look at all familiar. No, that wasn’tquitetrue—there was something about his eyes . . . or the shape of his mouth? She shook it off, despite how she hated not being able to place a name, and pasted on a tired smile. “How do you do?”
“Very well, thank you. And you?”
“Likewise.” Or at the very least, shewouldbe well. Everything would be well. Because she was home now, and Rory would come soon.
The disgrace would soon be far behind her.
4
Beth followed the crook of her grandmother’s finger away from the dining room after luncheon. She’d been trained to follow that crook since she was old enough to toddle—and she’d learned, too, over the years, what each expression on Adelle Tremayne’s face meant. This one, a placid smile paired with the sparking eyes, meant it was time to have a conversation.
In her own defense, Beth had tried a dozen times over the last week to have an earnest conversation with her grandmother. But each time she’d found Mamm-wynn alone and slid to a seat beside her, each time she’d opened her mouth, Mamm-wynn had stayed her with a request for this or that. Or with a question. Or, two days ago, with a clear, serious, “Not yet, Elizabeth Grace. You’re not ready yet.”
Not yet. It wasn’t the first time in her life that she’d been set to offer an apology and Mamm-wynn hadn’t allowed it. Because her grandmother was wise enough to know that Beth would say the words that needed saying without necessarily meaning them.
But she’d thought shehadmeant it, the very moment she saw that note Ollie had left her a week ago, telling her Mamm-wynn had fallen ill. She’d been sorry. Sorry all her efforts hadn’t done what she’d hoped. Sorry, so very sorry, that the people she loved best hadbeen so worried. Sorry they were paying the price for her actions. So why, then, wouldn’t Mamm-wynn let her say so two days ago? She’d been racking her brain and examining every facet of her heart to try to see whatever it was that her grandmother had seen. And she’d come up empty.
Sunshine greeted them as they stepped out into the back garden, and birds trilled their greeting. Beth expected Mamm-wynn to move to one of the chairs by the table, but instead she meandered toward the roses climbing up a trellis. Beth kept pace beside her and stole a sidelong glance at the family matriarch. “Am I allowed to apologize yet?”
The corners of Mamm-wynn’s lips curved up, but only slightly. She kept her gaze on the roses. “Have you determinedwhyyou need to be apologizing?”
A huff slipped its way from Beth’s lips. She might as well be five years old again. “For worrying you and Ollie. For going off alone without telling anyone. For bringing all this trouble down on our heads.”
When her grandmother had first opened her eyes again after that terrifying bout of whatever-it-was that left her unconscious for days, they’d looked clouded. Vague. Pained. That had cleared, yes, but there’d still been something worrisome in them. Something ... distant. Not rooted to the here and now.
But in the present, her gaze cut through her just like it always had, twin blue arrows. And her voice had nothing tremulous about it either. “Try again, Elizabeth Grace.”
Beth sighed and lifted her arms. “I don’t know, but whatever it is, I’m sorry for it. I promise you I am. And I also promise I’ll not do it again.”
Mamm-wynn chuckled as she reached out to touch one of the silky petals of a rose. “You don’t know what it was, but you’ll not do it again?”
She’d always hated having to apologize. She was no good at it—well, she was better than her cousin Mabena, who just refused to doit altogether, but when compared to Oliver and Morgan, she was all stumbles and new frustration. “Won’t you just tell me?”
“You’re the one who must do the telling.” Mamm-wynn looked over at her again and this time held her gaze. “And you know exactly what I mean. This isn’t over, is it? That silverware hiding in your grandfather Gibson’s foundation—is that all the treasure for which dear Emily’s family will be searching?”
Beth’s throat went dry and tight. Leave it to Mamm-wynn to somehow know the one thing Beth had still been hiding. The one thing she didn’t want to share with everyone else quite yet. “Unlikely.”
Mamm-wynn’s delicate white brows arched. “Why, then, have you said nothing more to your brother and the others?”
Though Beth didn’t dare to look away, she’d have liked to. Her back went stiff.It’s mine, she wanted to say. My search. My work.Sharing had never been a strength of hers—but for good reason. Growing up the youngest and the only girl meant her ideas were constantly dismissed by her two brothers. This, though ... she’d poured too much of herself into it. Too much time, too much energy. She’d taken such huge risks, spent so many hours on it. If the others saw it all and dismissed it or called it inconsequential or incomplete...
