Page 41 of To Treasure an Heiress
That definitely counted as a proposal. Who would she want as her bridesmaids? He’d send them telegrams himself, telling them to hasten to the isles, if they weren’t here already. “Not yet. Well, notes. Reams of them. I don’t know how I’m going to pare it down enough, honestly.”
“Then you’ll have to write a whole series, I expect.” She plucked the current book from his unprotesting hands, careful to keep his page marked with her own finger but flipping to the table of contents. “If I have an arch-nemesis, it’s a blank, empty page. Everything I try to write upon one seems as rubbish as you say this is.”
She wrote too? Not research texts, he suspected. Much as she knew about island history, she seemed to lean more heavily toward lore. Legend. “Ah. Fairy tales. Like the one Libby read fromTreasure Island.”
She blushed and cast a look toward her brother. She’d presented him with a new copy of the book on the evening that Sheridan had closeted himself in his room with his broken nose and migraine, he’d heard. “I imagine you think such tales foolish.”
“On the contrary. I find them critical parts of any culture. Often better indicators of how a people really lived than any other records can provide. Also.” He lifted a finger, as if about to deliver a clincher. Which he was. “They’re smashing good fun.”
She smiled again. Not in amusement. Not because of the others’ sniping or poking. But a smile as intimate as a kiss, and just as delicious.
Well. Perhaps not. Though he’d be up for the experiment whenever she was.
From the front of the house came the sound of a door blowing open, and a voice as blustering as the rain-soaked wind called out, “Anyone at home?”
Sheridan was on his feet in a flash. Fitzwilliam Gibson was withoutquestion one of his favorite people that he’d met on Tresco thus far, right behind his grandchildren. And their magician of a housekeeper. And of course Mamm-wynn, who he may have even considered tossing Beth aside for, if she weren’t still in love with her late husband and old enough to be, well, his grandmother.
“Back here!” He strode to the library door to wave a hand, just in case his voice wasn’t beacon enough. “Reading. And sulking. Depending on which of us you look at.”
After a rustle and a thud that must be mackintoshes and wellies being shed, Gibson appeared in the corridor, his smile as sunny as the sky was not.
“Fitz, is that you?” Mamm-wynn emerged, too, from the drawing room, where she’d been trying to talk her fingers into wielding her knitting needles. He’d have opted for her company instead of the library this morning, except that she’d asked Senara to come and read to her while she worked. And it was difficult to concentrate on rubbish Bronze Age theories when someone was readingOliver Twistaloud.
He hurried forward now, though, to offer her his arm. Beating Gibson to the punch by half a second. Sheridan celebrated the victory with a wink for the old man, who pretended affront, then clapped his hands together. “Decided the rain wasn’t going to keep me housebound another day, so I thought I’d come and see the children.”
“Good.” Mamm-wynn twinkled a smile up at her old friend. “I can hardly stand all the dour faces today. They could use a distraction. Other than my pirate prince here, who seems happy as a puffin on Annet.”
“Well, of course.” Sheridan patted her hand. “I have you for company. Don’t miss the ladies stranded on St. Mary’s at all.”
She laughed that magical laugh of hers. “Oh yes. All the credit is mine, without a doubt.” She held him still rather than letting him lead her onward, poking her head back into the drawing room. “Thank you for reading to me, dearover.”
Miss Dawe had drifted close enough to the door to be visible. “My pleasure, Mamm-wynn.”
Gibson proffered an arm in her direction. “Join us, Nara?”
Her smile softened. “I should probably see if Mam has lost her patience with Ainsley and Collins yet. She had them pulling taffy, since no one wanted to dash to the confectioner’s.”
And heaven forbid Telly run out of sweets. “Tell them to come and hear whatever tale Gibson will tell us. Give your poor mother a reprieve.” In most society, he wouldn’t dare invite the valets to join them for the afternoon’s entertainment. But this was far better than most society.
Mamm-wynn patted his arm as they started down the corridor. “You’re a good lad, Theo.”
He lifted her fingers with his opposite hand long enough to drop a kiss onto her knotted knuckles, then set them back on his arm and grinned. “Say that again when Beth can hear you, will you?”
“And the ship, with all its ghostly pirates, sank beneath the waves, never to be seen again by mortal eyes ... but for in the light of a full moon.”
Beth clapped at the close of her grandfather’s tale, laughing at Telford’s exaggerated shiver.
“I’ll have nightmares for a week,” he said, but with the first smile she’d seen from him in two days.
She glanced over to where Ainsley, Collins, and Senara had settled in too, still a bit surprised that they’d joined the rest of them. And especially that, as Mamm-wynn reported, it was Sheridan’s idea.
The man was full of surprises. And not all of them dastardly.
Another prime example rested on his knee: the pad of paper and pen he’d pulled from his stack of books. She’d seen him taking notes aplenty on the texts he’d been reading since his arrival, but he’d jotted down key points of Tas-gwyn’s story too. Apparently he really did think such tales worthy of attention.
She nudged him with an elbow, though, and leaned over to say in a stage whisper, “Don’t look for any kernel of historical truth in that one, my lord. It came entirely from my grandfather’s imagination.”
“Not entirely.” Tas-gwyn Gibson took a sip of tea and gestured toward the window. “There really is a rip current. And a moon.”
