Page 54 of To Treasure an Heiress
Senara offered a bare smile. “We’ll blame it on the gents keeping me up all night with their laughter.”
Beth’s frown deepened. “Telford and Sheridan? Where were they, to keep you up?”
“Back garden. And your brother too.” Senara slid the platter onto the sideboard. “I don’t think they retired until four o’clock.”
Well, bother. They weren’t likely to be making an appearance for breakfast any time soon, then. How was she to tell them about her discovery if they were imitating Telford and staying abed until noon?
“Do you think we could get going soon?” Emily asked as she lowered her teacup. She sent a frown out the window. “Those are some rather dark clouds on the horizon, and while I’d love to spend another day with you, I’m hoping there will be a reply to the telegram I sent my mother the other day.” Though it wasn’thopeexactly in her tone—not with that shadow of doubt darkening it.
Beth offered a soft smile and went to fill a plate. “Let me get a quick bite, and then we can leave.”
Perhaps the fellows would be awake by the time she returned. That was apparently the soonest she could expect to see them unless she wanted to march through the corridors with a pot and a spoon. Her lips twitched at the thought.
They ate quickly, with Emily darting continual worried looks outthe window. It did indeed look like more rain, which was enough to make Beth sigh. One day of sun hadn’t been enough.
Emily took the last sip of her tea and stood, sending a smile to Mamm-wynn. “Thank you for yet another lovely visit, Mrs. Tremayne.”
Her grandmother’s fairy-bell laugh filled the room. “Oh, dearover, you know you’re welcome anytime. And Beth.” Mamm-wynn fastened her gaze on Beth and blinked. A strange, clouded something drifted over her eyes but vanished in the next blink. “Don’t tarry too long or fly too far, little rosefinch.”
“Of course not.” Her heart still twisted whenever she paused to let herself think of how she’d worried her grandmother and brother when she vanished back in June. She paused now to drop a kiss onto Mamm-wynn’s soft, creased cheek. “I love you. I won’t be but an hour—two at the most. We’ll see if the gents have roused themselves by then.”
Within ten minutes, Beth and Emily and Briggs were striding down the streets, out of town and toward theNaiad. Beth had grabbed a few mackintoshes on her way out the door, just in case the clouds outpaced them.
She and Emily chatted of unimportant things as Beth got theNaiadunder sail, but by halfway through their trip, her friend had fallen silent and was staring off into the water in a way that Beth had seen her do before, at school. Whenever talk among the girls turned to families and holidays at home and all the fun they had planned, Em would get quiet, distant. Not because she didn’t have a family with holiday plans that could outdo anyone’s. But because, from what her friend had said, her parents never really greeted her with any notable joy. It was her brother on whom they’d hung all their affections.
Beth’s hand tightened on the tiller. Plenty of parents unabashedly had favorites—she’d seen it often enough and had forgotten to bite her tongue about it a time or two when it was an island family. But her own had always been so different. Each of them had always beenloved for exactly who they were. They were all the favorites, and they all knew it. Their favorites in all the world, but never in competition with one another.
Now here sat her friend, all but exiled from her parents until she made amends with the brother who had manhandled her and threatened her. Yet still she’d kept reaching out—like this latest telegram to her mother. The one to which she’d been awaiting a response. “Em? Are you all right?”
Emily sighed. “There won’t be anything. Not from Mother. Even if she wanted to reply—and I don’t know she would—she’d never go against Father, and he’s made his stance clear. Nigel is right, I am wrong, and I’m not to be forgiven until I admit it.”
Beth reached over to give her friend’s shoulder a squeeze. “I’m so sorry you’re going through this.” She barely kept herself from saying the next thing on her mind—that they were idiots for clinging so blindly to their adoration of Nigel, given the many times they’d had to bail him out of trouble. And that, worse, it might not be blind. That if the underhandedness the earl had demonstrated in selling Beth’s trinket box was an indication of a pattern, Nigel might in fact have learned his ways from his father.
Emily wasn’t ready to hear that, though. She resented her brother, but she still longed for her parents’ affection as anyone would.
Briggs shifted, stealing Beth’s attention for a moment, and looked as though she were about to say something and then thought better of it. Apparently, enlisting her help hadn’t bridged any major gaps between her and Emily. Though whether it was her own reticence or Em’s demeanor was anyone’s guess.
How glad Beth was to have grown up in a family where such lines weren’t only blurred, they were deliberately stomped all over. Mamm-wynn had always been that way, so far as she could tell, but even more so after Father and Mother married. Mother, after all, was just an island lass. No social connections whatsoever. She was no better than anyone else on Tresco, even if she did live in the second-largest house after her marriage.
Which meant Beth had been free to look up to Senara. Free to hold Mabena as her dearest friend. Free to share her heart with whomever she pleased. But then, she had other advantages, too, ones that Briggs had no doubt been denied. She was also free, thanks to her father’s landed status, to dream of a society match. A prince who could sweep her off her feet.
Or, perhaps, someone two rungs down.
Emily chuckled, snapping Beth from her thoughts. She realized with a start that she must have been caught up in her mind for at least ten minutes, given their current position, and something on her face must have pulled Emily out of her own reverie. Her friend was grinning at her in that way every girl knew, and knew how to do.
“Why do I get the feeling that it isn’t Prince Rupert you’re thinking of with that dreamy look on your face, Beth?”
Beth’s cheeks went warm, despite the damp air blowing against them. “I have no idea what you mean.”
The sparkle in Emily’s eyes called her bluff. “Mm-hmm. Have you begun practicing yet?”
This time, Beth really didn’t have any idea what she was talking about. “Practicing what?”
“Signing your future name.Lady Elizabeth Howe, Marchioness of Sheridan.”
Had they been in the dormitory at their finishing school, Beth would have tossed a pillow at her head. Having none handy, she settled for narrowing her eyes and laughing. “Watch yourself, Emily. Or I’ll give you a dunking as I did him.”
“I’m terrified.”
