Captain Penhaligon raised a brow. ‘Now that sounds like the voice of experience talking.’
How little he knew! But Emily did not want to taint this surprisingly enjoyable conversation with her sordid past. ‘If I am ever unfortunate enough to fall overboard, I shan’t be trusting to luck to throw a helpful wave my way and cast me safely on the shore. Can you swim?’
‘I confess I can’t, though you’ve made see that I should learn,’ he answered, looking somewhat shamefaced. ‘Perhaps you will teach me?’
‘Not in these winter seas. If you were staying until the summer, it would be another matter entirely. You could join my little class of two pupils.’
‘You teach swimming! Here! Who are these rebels?’
‘They are the niece and nephew of your estate manager, as a matter of fact, Kensa and Jack Bligh. They spied on me for days before they plucked up the courage to speak to me, and it took me a week before I could persuade them into the water.’
‘And what did their parents have to say?’
‘They were afraid they’d be told to stay away, so it remained our little secret. The two of them were like seal pups by the end of the summer, diving in and out of the waves, though of course the weather is far too rough for them now—and they are back at school.’
‘You sound as if you miss them.’
‘Oh, I do. They thought I was a mermaid, when they first saw me.’
‘Oh, no, you are far too lovely to be a mermaid. They are ugly creatures, more fish than female, with seaweed for hair and scales all over their bodies.’
Lovely? He meant in comparison to a fish, Emily told herself sternly! ‘Are you telling me you’ve seen one? Had you been at the ship’s rum ration?’
‘No, and no—I never drink on board, but I’ve heard enough tales from my men to believe there’s something in it—as there is with all superstitions, I reckon. There’s a place on the other side of Penzance known as Mermaid’s Rock, where they are said to comb their hair, and sing a siren song to lure sailors to their doom.’
‘In Lewis, it is not mermaids but selkies the sailors fear will lure them on to the rocks. Selkies are seals who can take the shape of a beautiful woman on land, and who are said to have certain appetites, according to my grandmother,’ Emily said. ‘I remember wondering what on earth she was talking about. I thought perhaps they liked porridge.’
Captain Penhaligon gave a bellow of laughter. ‘She was not, then, quite lacking in superstition?’
‘Oh, selkies are no myth. Ask any Lewisman or woman.’
‘A seal who can take the shape of a beautiful woman,’ Captain Penhaligon mused. ‘I wonder if that’s what your pupils saw, a selkie looking to beguile a sailor?’
Emily chuckled. ‘You will never know, their victims never do know, until it’s too late.’
‘I’m a sailor. Are you warning me off, Miss Faulkner? You don’t look the siren type.’
‘Ah, but that’s why I’m so dangerous.’
‘You are certainly intriguing. I am very glad that I decided to take a walk this morning. Not that we’ve done much walking yet. Or even paddling.’
Emily looked at the incoming tide in surprise. ‘We must have been standing here for at least half an hour.’
‘A very pleasant half-hour, as far as I am concerned, though perhaps I’ve intruded on your privacy too long?’
‘When I saw you standing here this morning, I’ll admit I was irked,’ Emily confessed. ‘I consider Karrek Sands my own personal beach, I’ll have you know. But now—I am enjoying our conversation, Captain Penhaligon.’
‘Will you call me Treeve?’
‘If you will call me Emily.’ There was a warmth in his smile that she could not resist. It seemed to her that fate had brought him to the beach, the perfect antidote to her loneliness for he was, in some ways, as much a stranger here as she. A very appealing stranger, who for whatever reason, seemed to find her appealing too. And whether that made her shallow or not she didn’t care! It was a salve to her ravaged sense of self-worth. What harm could there be in enjoying the moment!
A wavelet, bolder than the rest, washed over Treeve’s brogues, and she burst out laughing. ‘If we are actually going to do any walking today, you’ll need to take those shoes off or they’ll get ruined.’
‘And here was me thinking that you were going to teach me to walk on water too.’ Treeve knelt down, divesting himself quickly of his brogues and stockings. ‘There, now we can both enjoy the bite of the sea on our toes. Shall we?’
The wind blew Miss Emily Faulkner’s cloak and skirts around her legs, revealing tantalising glimpses of her slim ankles, her shapely calves. Her face was tanned. From the long hours she had spent in the Cornish sunshine this summer past, Treeve presumed, swimming here in the cove. He’d give a good deal to have watched her. Miss Emily Faulkner was one of the most attractive women he had ever met. Though it had never happened to him before, it would be no exaggeration to say that he was, in fact, well and truly smitten.
She was not in the first bloom of youth—thirty or so, would be his guess—for though she looked no more than five or six and twenty, her expression had none of the openness of a younger woman, and all the guardedness of one having lived long enough to have secrets to protect. Her hair was the colour of wet sand, dark blonde streaked with gold, and her eyes were the colour of a stormy ocean, grey-blue fringed with long dark lashes. Perhaps she was a sea nymph after all! Her nose was too strong to belong to an accredited beauty, her mouth too generous. Intelligence blazed in her eyes, something that many a man would find intimidating. He thought it merely added to her charm.
‘What brings a Highland lass all the way to Cornwall?’ he asked.
‘I am renting that cottage up there, the one on the furthest point of the headland, which I suppose makes you my landlord.’
‘Forgive me, I’m a rough sailor accustomed to speaking my mind, but frankly you neither look nor sound like a woman obliged to fend for herself.’
‘Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention. I do very well for myself, thank you. And while I know next to nothing about the Royal Navy, I am pretty sure they expect their officers to be gentlemen, not rough sailors.’
‘Oh, I can play the gentleman if required, and the rough sailor too, if the situation demands it. Tell me, is the cottage in good order? If there is anything that can be done to improve it?’
She cast him a levelling look. ‘It suits me very well, and if there was anything needing done, I am sure Mr Bligh, your estate manager, would attend to it.’
‘I was merely thinking of your comfort.’
‘Thank you, but it’s more about how it would look. I’ve already stolen a march on all of Porth Karrek in meeting you this morning. Imagine the reaction if one of your first acts of generosity was towards an outsider like me.’
‘You’re right, it was naïve of me.’
Emily shook her head, smiling faintly. ‘A lovely gesture nonetheless.’
The wind ruffled her hair, dragging thick tendrils free of her ribbon and whipping it around her face. He had been apprehensive about returning to his birthplace, even temporarily, but the prospect of spending the next few weeks in Cornwall suddenly seemed a lot more appealing. A lot more, Treeve thought, as she stooped to pick up an empty crab shell, and the wind tugged at her skirts, outlining her