Invitation To A Cornish Christmas. Marguerite Kaye
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get short shrift from me if anyone does. Anyway, it’s a good few weeks away yet. I wish I’d thought about it last night, I could have discussed it with Sir Jock Treleven. It is his family who host the bonfire. I had dinner at the Trelevans’ and met all six of his daughters.’
‘Several of them are of marriageable age, I believe. Sir Jock was making hay.’
‘Oh, no, I don’t think—’ Treeve broke off, looking aghast.
‘Oh, come now, you are not so naïve. The new lord of a very wealthy manor, unattached, very far from his dotage—quite the opposite in fact. Sir Jock would have been signally failing in his duty, if he had not introduced you to his little stable of fillies.’
‘I’m not in the market for a horse, far less a wife.’
‘But if you were,’ she persisted, ‘then you would struggle to find anyone more appropriate than one of the Miss Trelevens. I have not met any of them, of course, but I have heard they are all very convivial, and have dowries as attractive as they are.’
‘They are undoubtedly both pretty and convivial, though I’m not sure I could tell one from the other.’ He eyed her coolly. ‘I am not a thoroughbred to be put to stud, Emily. If I married, it would be because I had found a woman I didn’t want to live without, not to provide Karrek House with an heir.’
‘I was only teasing.’
‘It didn’t sound as if you were.’
Mortifyingly aware that he was right, that her words had been laced with an inexplicable and most unworthy envy, Emily pushed back her chair, but Treeve stayed her with a hand on her wrist. ‘Why do you consider yourself so beneath them—the Trelevens, I mean? No, don’t deny it. “I have not met them, of course”, that’s what you said. Why of course?’
‘I’m a silversmith, the daughter of a silversmith, eking out a living in one of your cottages.’ She tried to free her wrist, but his fingers tightened around it.
‘Your mother was the only child of a clearly respectable and wealthy Lewis family. From what you’ve said, your father was no lowly artisan. Your accent and manners betray your roots and your education, the quality of your clothes, the fact that you need to eke out a living is a relatively recent development. The only thing that makes you an unlikely friend for the Miss Trelevens is your age.’ He smiled at her. ‘Quite in your dotage as far as they are concerned, though I consider you the perfect age to make for interesting company.’
‘A back-handed compliment if ever there was one,’ Emily said drily. She was flattered, but wary too, for Treeve had garnered a great deal from the little she had told him of herself.
‘A compliment, sincerely meant.’ Treeve let go of her wrist, but only to cover her hand with his.
‘I’m sorry. I’m not used to compliments.’
‘You have been hiding yourself away for far too long.’
‘I think you might be right.’
She smiled. Treeve smiled back. Their eyes locked. Her fingers tightened in his, and she felt a quivering response, saw a flare of heat in his eyes that she was sure was reflected in her own. She wanted to kiss him. He wanted to kiss her. The possibility drew them towards each other, then the grating opening of the door sent them jumping apart.
‘Mr Penhaligon.’ Jago Bligh entered the parlour, pulling up short when he saw Emily. ‘Beg pardon if I’m disturbing you,’ he said, drawing her a look that made it very clear he disapproved of her presence, ‘but I believe we had an appointment.’
‘As you can see, I am currently otherwise engaged.’ Treeve eyed his estate manager with some hauteur. ‘Why you felt it necessary to seek me out when there are, as you have told me several times now, not enough hours in the day for you to attend to your work—’
‘We have important matters to discuss,’ Jago interrupted truculently.
‘I do hope, Mr Bligh, that you are not implying that my discussion with Miss Faulkner is of lesser importance?’
Treeve spoke with an air of quiet authority. His expression was bland, but his message was perfectly clear. Jago Bligh’s jaw tightened. ‘I shall await your convenience back at Karrek House,’ he said finally.
‘Good man. I will see you there once I have escorted Miss Faulkner back to her cottage.’
‘There is no need.’ Unwilling to be the cause of any other further tension, Emily got to her feet, pulling on her cloak. ‘I’ve detained you long enough. In any case, I intend to walk the long way around the headland, get some fresh air while it lasts. Good day to you, Captain Penhaligon, Mr Bligh.’
Outside, the clouds were ominously black, the wind was up, and her cloak whirled around her as she climbed up to the cliff path. Looking back, she saw Treeve emerge from the tavern, striding ahead up Budoc Lane, his estate manager lagging slightly behind, gesticulating in a way that made it clear that whatever he was saying, he wasn’t happy.
Mr Bligh was not unattractive, with craggy but regular features set under a thatch of thick dark hair, and a beard which he kept neatly trimmed. She reckoned he must be about ten years older than Treeve, though he was very fit and muscled, his bulky shoulders and barrel chest testament to the hours he spent at sea, skippering his pilchard boat. Both he and Treeve were captains—how odd that this hadn’t occurred to her before—but they could not be more different.
Jago Bligh was very much respected in the village—though as she had observed for herself in a confrontation between Mr Bligh and Abel Menhenick, it was a respect bordering on fear. She did not like him, and it was not simply because he treated her with the contempt of a man who considered her beneath his notice. He looked to the right when he spoke, never quite avoiding her eyes, but never quite meeting them square on. And he was not confident, he was arrogant.
‘Foolish man,’ Emily muttered to herself, as the pair disappeared from view. ‘In any conflict, I know who my money would be on.’
‘Of course, these are small-scale pieces compared to my father’s,’ Emily said, ‘but the techniques are the same, whether you are making a tea urn or a snuffbox. The first task is to cut a shape from a sheet of metal, such as this, using a template. I make them myself, from practice pieces of brass or copper.’
Treeve watched, fascinated, as she demonstrated, seated at the long wooden bench which took up most of the living space in the cottage. He had planned to call on her yesterday morning, having reluctantly allocated Bligh the rest of the day before, once the blasted man had sought him out at the Ship Inn. But once again his best-laid plans had been holed below the waterline, this time by Austol’s lawyer—correction, his lawyer, who had arrived unannounced with another wooden chest full of documents to be perused. This day, he was absolutely determined to claim for himself, and if he could persuade Emily to spend it with him, then all the better.
‘Next,’ she continued, ‘I use a small hammer to beat out the shape I require.’
‘You don’t need to heat the metal then?’
‘No, it is hammered cold, but as you work it, the silver hardens, so you do have to soften it now and then—we call that annealing. I have a small brazier which burns charcoal, which I keep outside, so you need not worry that I’ll burn down your cottage by dropping hot coals. It’s not big enough for me to do any casting, which is why everything I make is on a small scale.’
‘What happens next?’
‘The piece is soldered together, if required—if it is a box, for example. And of course if I’m making jewellery it requires extensive soldering, using silver wire. Then the last stage is the decoration, which is the part I enjoy the most. See, here are some samples which are