Unwrapping His Festive Temptation
The Captains Christmas Proposal
Marguerite Kaye
November 1822—Porth Karrek, Cornwall
It was still dark when Emily Faulkner left her rented cottage on the estates of Karrek House, which sat on a bluff headland above the small fishing port after which it was named, the high cliffs and narrow entrance providing a safe harbour from the rough Cornish seas. Last night’s sky had offered the prospect of a brief respite from the winter storms which had been raging interminably, and she was eager to take advantage of any break in the weather. She hated these bleak winter days which kept her indoors and restricted her ability to work, since the intricate nature of the tasks involved in producing her only source of income required natural light.
The permanently lowering skies which had so far defined November were one of the many aspects of life in Cornwall she hadn’t anticipated when she’d fled here, back in April. Yet Porth Karrek was an ideal bolthole. Snuggled into a small inlet on the rugged south Cornwall coast, about four miles from the larger port of Penzance and a day’s travel from Truro, the regional capital, it was a world away from London. The perfect place to disappear from view, which was what she had craved.
Her cottage stood on the periphery of the estate, in an exposed position, the low drystone wall which formed the boundary of her tiny garden providing little protection from the elements. The briny prevailing wind which blew in from the English Channel made gardening a challenge, just as Jago Bligh, the surly estate manager, had predicted. The cottage itself was almost impossible to keep warm, as the wind howled through every nook and cranny of the floorboards and window frames—something else Mr Bligh had pointed out when she had first viewed it. Emily had thought it odd at the time that he seemed so intent on discouraging her from taking up residence when it was obvious that the place had been lying empty for some time, but she reckoned now that her crime had simply been her lack of Cornish heritage. Like the proud Highlanders of her mother’s native Lewis, the Cornish considered themselves a nation apart, isolated from the rest of Britain, with their own traditions and way of life—which, needless to say, they considered vastly superior to any other.
Emily, Mr Bligh had made clear, would be a grudgingly tolerated outsider, and once again he’d been proved right, but this too had suited her. Back in April, with her life in tatters, she had been happy to close the door of her cottage, turn her back on the world and lick her wounds. Weeks passed, and she had been barely conscious of life outside, spending the days at her workbench or tending her sparse garden, cursing the day she had met Andrew Macfarlane, and reliving every moment since she had, wondering if at any point she could have avoided her fate. If she hadn’t been so blinded by her feelings for him, might she have spotted the signs before it was too late? A painful and ultimately pointless waste of time those weeks of recrimination had been, for she couldn’t undo the past. All she could do was wipe the slate clean and start again.
Spring had passed, and summer had been making an early appearance in June when Emily had begun to emerge from the dark cloud she had been under since her world had collapsed around her at the start of the year. She had awoken just after dawn one morning to vibrant blue skies. In the garden, the earth had been warm beneath her bare feet, the rows of vegetables, which had appeared on the point of dying, had blossomed, seemingly overnight. The air had been heavy with the tang of salt, and when she had made her way down to Karrek Sands, the sea was turquoise, sparkling, the waves gentle, the rhythmic swish as they broke on the beach no longer a warning but an invitation.
She hadn’t intended to swim, but she’d been unable to resist, wary at first of the undertow, the unfamiliar currents and her own neglected muscles. But the skills honed by years of swimming in the wild seas off Lewis had not deserted her. The familiar sensation of being cocooned in water soothed her. Pitting herself against the tow and pull of the waves invigorated her, cleared her mind and made her look anew at her life, forcing her to admit that she had been living under a cloud of fear for most of last year. Now the worst had happened and she had nothing more to lose, she need no longer be afraid.
She took to the sea every day after that, in the early mornings when Karrek Sands were deserted, unaware that she had an audience until the two fascinated local children plucked up the courage to speak to her, so utterly strange