Caught in a Cornish Scandal by Eleanor Webster (top novels of all time .txt) 📗

dipped the cup jerkily into the stream.

With Annie, he had welcomed that feeling of being overpowered. It was like losing himself and he had wanted to lose himself then. It was a new chapter. His childhood—with his mother’s death, school and then his father’s death—had ended. It was the reinvention of self and the finding of meaning in a new identity.

It was also smoke and mirrors. Annie had found her duke and he’d learned that his new identity was no better than the old. When Annie left, she’d taken not only his heart but this sense of renewal, hope and reinvention.

Sam could not let that happen again.

He’d felt broken after Annie. With Frances’s help, he’d rebuilt his life. He was now a board member for several charities, he had continued his mother’s work, translating ancient Greek, he wrote occasionally for the newspapers, went to the opera and socialised on occasion. He was playing more on the pianoforte and even had a few scribbled original compositions.

He knew a level of contentment.

Sam drank and then refilled the cup, walking back to the cottage. Millie was leaning over a tiny whisper of smoke. The door clattered behind him, but she showed no sign that she had heard his entry. He watched as the peat caught fire, the flame flickering and a whisper of smoke rising.

‘There!’ she said, her delight obvious. She looked at him as the peat sizzled, the yellow flame providing a flickering light. The fire’s heat had warmed her cheeks. Her hair was almost dry and took on coppery highlights.

‘You are an individual of many accomplishments,’ he said, crossing the floor.

‘Building a fire is generally an under-appreciated skill, unless one is a domestic servant or stranded on a moor.’ Wry humour laced her tones as she added more peat, blowing on it delicately, with tiny movements of her hand.

‘I could almost believe you one of the faerie folk, practising a magical incantation.’

‘Merely utilising the physical properties of combustion. Besides, we have pixies here. They are considerably shorter and dance better. I have the stature.’

‘But not the dancing?’

‘Two left feet.’

‘I like dancing,’ he said.

‘I suppose it is a requisite skill where you come from.’ Indeed, this was an understatement. Music and dancing had always been more than just a required skill.

‘I come from London. Not some outer constellation within the cosmos,’ he said, laughing. ‘And I like music.’

‘What type do you like?’

‘Opera. Although “like” isn’t the right word.’

‘What is?’ she asked, fixing him with that direct gaze, as though she genuinely wanted to know the answer.

He frowned, staring into the flickering flames. His mother had loved the opera. She would go often, and played and sang at home...mostly Mozart and Handel. She’d always been so emotionally restrained except when it came to music. For her, music had allowed communication with others. For him, it was an ability to connect with himself. Sometimes when he listened, he felt an almost physical pain. Its intensity made him want it to go on and yet he also needed it to stop.

‘I cannot put it into words. Perhaps that is the key. It is about expressing something that has no other language,’ he said.

She looked at him and he had the odd feeling that she understood. It felt that this conversation was more real and intimate than any he had experienced for years.

‘Sometimes I feel that way when I listen to the wind and the sea.’

There was a pause, punctuated only by the rain, the wind and the sizzling crackle of the peat. The room was quite dark now, daylight no longer visible through the ill-fitting shutter. The fire’s amber glow provided a low flickering light and the air had a smoky earthiness that was not unpleasant. They sat quite close. Glancing sideways, he could see the outline of her silhouette, her face half hidden by the sweep of her hair. He felt an urge to push the brown locks back to better see her expression, her lips, eyes and shadowy lattice of her lashes. He again had that wish to both prolong the moment and the need to break it.

‘Water?’ he asked, pushing the mug towards her.

‘Thank you.’ She cupped the mug. Her hands were small but sturdy. She drank, seeming to savour each sip, licking her lips. This was an almost sensual quality about it.

He leaned forward, rubbing his hands to warm them over the fire. ‘It’s burning well. Who taught you?’

‘Flora.’

‘Your maid?’

‘Maid and friend. She introduced me to Sally—and her family. I also know how to fish and hunt.’ She paused, giving him that slightly impish smile. ‘If I had my catapult, I could get us a rabbit to roast over the fire.’

He could see her as an elfin huntress complete with bow and arrow, a miniature Dianna with a dose of mischief. ‘Flora taught you that, too?’

‘Yes, and Sally, her niece.’

‘Jem’s wife?’

‘Yes...’ She paused, with a tiny sigh. ‘Sally and I would play as children. We became good friends. I learned a lot of useful skills from her. She told me about Cornish pixies, spriggans and knockers.’

She looked into the flames, smiling, as though privy to some pleasant secret.

‘What in the world is a spriggan?’

‘Like a pixie, but nastier.’

‘And a knocker?’

‘Less malevolent, but tricky. They like to steal tools or play other tricks, particularly on the miners.’

‘You know a lot about Cornwall.’

‘It is my home,’ she said.

He thought of Annie and all the other women in London. He could not envisage them hunting, weaving tales of pixies and spriggans or, he reminded himself, cavorting with smugglers.

She was unique, different from anyone he’d encountered.

‘Your face is none too clean either,’ Miss Lansdowne said.

‘Pardon?’

‘You seemed to be scrutinising me.’ She eyed him sternly from under her straight, strong brows, which were at odds with the delicate heart-shaped features of her face.

‘You are blunt,’ he said.

‘I warned you.’

‘I apologise. I was just thinking that I had never met anyone like you, in London.’

‘I doubt I’d survive long in London.’ Her nose wrinkled with distaste.

‘You do