Page 24 of To Treasure an Heiress
“So, you’re a cheat as well as a thief.”
Perhaps it was time to take a lesson from Ainsley. He buttoned his lips and decided silence may be his best friend right now.
If only he’d adopted that tack a minute sooner.
7
Beth checked her watch. Gauged the density of the fog. Tapped her foot. And decided that if she meant to explore Gugh before other tourists braved the weather and ruined the solitude, it might require leaving Sheridan behind.
If only her parents hadn’t ingrained basic manners into her. “What are you even looking at?”
They’d anchored on the far side of Gugh, in the hopes that none of the locals from St. Agnes would spot her sloop. And though she was familiar enough with the island that she could have started her search anywhere, it had seemed logical to begin at Kittern Hill, since that’s where the Old Man stood. Which had apparently been a mistake. Sheridan had aimed himself directly toward the burial cairn of Obadiah’s Barrow and the nearby standing stone instead of the path leading away from them and had been poking about under some gorse for atleastfive minutes already.
She’d entertained herself at first by hunting up something to take to Mamm-wynn—a tradition of hers since she was a child. Today she’d selected a pretty little stone in shades of pink and grey, which was now nestled in her pocket. And, that task ticked off, she was ready to begin. Sheridan, on the other hand...
“I think—yes, I’m quite certain. Pottery shard. Could be part of a cremation urn.”
She could understand his fascination with that in general, and may have even been intrigued, if it weren’t Sheridan poking at it. When they were supposed to be hunting pirate treasure. “We’re not here for the cairns or the menhir. He just points the way, remember?”
No reaction.
“The line from the letter?” Beth continued. “This is our starting point, not our destination.”
“Just give me a moment.”
That was what he’d said five minutes ago.
She growled. The sun was making earnest progress now, and they didn’t have that much time. “You know what? Take your time. You’ll be able to find me easily enough. The island’s not big enough to get lost on.”
“Right behind you.”
She’d probably have to pry him away in an hour when she was ready to set off for Tresco again.
Well, that was fine by her. She didn’t need the company of Lord Know-It-All anyway, even if hedidhave fascinating knowledge about Prince Rupert of the Rhine.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out the copy of the letter she’d made last night. There it was, the line that had brought them here.
I meant to tell you before I left, Lizza, but I found a good weaver for you on St. Agnes. Stumbled upon her cottage and her wares that evening I was there. The old man at the crest of the hill can tell you the way.
Evening. Which meant that the sun would be in the western sky, and the Old Man’s shadow would be pointing east.
Away from St. Agnes. Certainly not toward any weaver’s cottage. There were no cottages on Gugh, nor ruins of them, had there been some in Mucknell’s day. The only evidence of civilization here was what Sheridan was still poking through.
So then, to the east. She set out across the heather, blazing her own path since there weren’t any to speak of otherwise. Most of the tourists were only interested in the Druid sites, or they’d wander the coast. Few struck out through the heath and bracken.
Within a few minutes, she was down the opposite side of the hill, out of sight of Sheridan and St. Agnes even without the help of the fog. She could have tended toward the southeast, back toward where theNaiadbobbed, but she let her feet veer northeast instead, following the natural slope of the land.
Perhaps Mucknell had done the same. Let granite and gravity decide his path.
Though where he could have buried anything on this side of the island she wasn’t certain. Bedrock was just below the surface, under the thin layer of soil and ground cover that flourished here as it did on the other isles. Ample cover for shrews and feral cats—not prime for burying anything of significant size.
But there were cairns on the western side of the isle. What if there was another over here, unrecorded? It could happen. New cairns were being unearthed in the Scillies all the time.
Well, notallthe time. But occasionally. It had happened in her lifetime, anyway. So it was at least possible that the archaeologists who had explored Gugh before had missed some sign of one, buried under the flora that Libby would find more interesting than what it hid.
And if the Druids could dig a cairn here, surely a pirate could dig a hole of his own. Perhaps evenata cairn.
That sent a shiver up her spine. She had been the one to lead that little foray into Obadiah’s Barrow six years ago, but it hadn’t seemed quite as fun when she was crawling inside with her beads and dinner scraps and realized there were human bones in there. People. People who had lived and loved and died right there on the islands, before they sank into the sea. Before Christianity ever took root. Before there was a proper England to claim the islands as her own.
