Elsie saw Lucinda a fraction of a second before her cousin was screeching her name and Tyb was jumping away from her as if he'd been burned.

Oh, not good. Not good, not good at all.

Visibly paled, Elsie stood in shock, eyes wide as her mind raced for words to explain something- anything. Tyb seemed to come to his senses a little faster than she did (no surprise there!) but what he managed to come up with was not going to convince Luce it was that innocent. Elsie winced a little and dared a glance in his direction. Her expression clearly said stop talking.

What was she supposed to say, "It's not what it looks like."? Lucinda was no fool and Elsie was not a liar; they'd taken a gamble a gotten caught after a long streak of luck. It had always been a possibility, maybe they'd gotten a little daring after being so lucky, but so far it had been worth it! Getting caught by her cousin wasn't the worst by far, it could have been her mother, or a complete stranger, but she could already kind of tell Lucinda did not approve. Now Elsie just had to see how far she was willing to go to get Luce to keep this to herself.

First she had to know what Luce was thinking beyond screeching her name into the previously quiet library and she had no doubt that was coming next.