12. Chapter 12
Irefuse to lose my heart to a duke. But he hums when he sketches, and his confident hand captures the indescribable beauty of the cliffs— my cliffs, my sea.
Boxing Day has dawned cool and bright on Porthmeor Beach, with snow dusting the docks where displaced miners and their families now shelter in droves.
Usually we send the servants to distribute food parcels and little gifts, but when a soon-to-be duke dressed as a vagrant invites one to deliver these things with him, one does not refuse.
How curious he is, neither poor nor wealthy. Perhaps he’s both.
One certainty is this: his eye for beauty is unmatched. People in tattered garb press in between us to watch the magnificent cliffs take shape on paper through this stranger. They’re as drawn as I.
A disheveled figure is added into the foreground, bringing just the right touch of warm humanity. Of life. I stare at the solemn man creating something from nothing and remember.
He’s a duke.
Almost.
Now, watching him produce such effortless beauty, and with my mother’s pastels, no less, I shiver. How has a man who says so little engaged me so intensely? Clearly he does, for here I am, braving the icy wind on Boxing Day while the other guests are hunting further inland.
I move closer through the crowd and realize his humming has turned to storytelling—a folk tale about a boy apprenticed to an old lantern-keeper along the coast. The ring of vagrants tightens around him as the tale winds and gathers power, his hand flying over new butcher paper to create the story’s imagery.
“The old man taught him where to place each light,” Simon says, his voice low and even.
“How to read the wind, and how to make certain his flame would hold.”
His hand moves steadily across the wrinkled parcel paper. I lean closer, wondering how a noble would have heard such a tale.
“Each night the boy walked the same path home, and the man was there to meet him, see him safely back.”
A pause.
“Until one night the lamps were lit, and the path lay empty.”
My lantern has gone out. Those words echo in my head.
He clears his throat. “He knew he must continue lighting the lamps. The sea does not pause for grief. So he faithfully lights them every night, looking out over the water. And then…”
The silence pulses. One, two beats. The heaviness lingers.
“And then one evening,” I say softly, stepping forward, “someone steps out of the fog. ‘How lovely to see you,’ she says.”
He lifts his eyes. Those soul-stirring eyes that draw me in, no matter his clothing.
“She’s come in on the tide,” I say. “She’s half numb with cold, but she takes his hand as she steps from a boat. ‘I nearly missed the shore,’ says she, ‘and would have done, if not for the lamps you lit.’”
He nods, life creeping into his dulled face again. “She walks on,” he finishes. “And the boy stays to light the lamps again.” He lowers the pastel. The drawing is complete.
There’s applause, a mere noise on the fringes of my mind, for I can see only his face, that steady presence that’s both burdened and beautified by life’s hardships.
This isn’t how our Christmas story is meant to happen, where I begin to fall for the man I’ve rescued, but at times real life overwrites the story we’ve created for ourselves.
I’m tumbling, suddenly unstable, even while standing upon the docks I’ve known all my life. The ground has shifted beneath my feet.
I cannot read the expression he fixes upon me, but the space between us tightens, unseen strands tugging to close the distance. Yet we both remain where we are.
Suddenly the delicate strands are sliced by the bump and rattle of a cart on the path. It’s Jasper, our footman, with food the servants boxed up in my absence.
I spring into action. “Food! Food is here.” I load up my arms with parcels when Jasper arrives, and stand before the crowd.
More people descend into the harbor, appearing from boathouses and from under upturned boats and rafts.
They come trickling in—rugged, worn miners out of work, and their wives and children.
Mining has ebbed and flowed in St. Ives, and this time it isn’t because of an accident—the mines are simply drying up.
I hold out parcels of food as fast as I can gather them, and they’re accepted by dirty hands in fingerless gloves with polite thanks and downcast eyes.
Yet Simon moves right into the midst of them with handfuls of small toys in his fists. “What should I do with these?” he calls with a playful lilt. “I’ve a few to spare.”
Earlier I waved off his impractical suggestion of including toys for Boxing Day, yet suddenly, they seem like a Christmas necessity.
Gaunt, disheveled children climb the man to snatch toys with raucous laughter, leaving ashy handprints and smudges on his white shirt.
Then he sweeps up parcels of food from the cart and hands them out. He catches my eye and throws me one.
Before I can object—I’ve eaten quite well this morning—he opens a brown-wrapped parcel himself, folds his long legs, and sits on the ground with them, exclaiming over the bits of meat and cubed potatoes.
They all eat with their hands, for I haven’t thought of flatware.
I’ve never thought to send flatware. Now I wish I’d taken the morning to fold these into flaky dough crusts and make warm pasties.
He’s laughing now, and the children continue climbing on him, and I wonder how he can be both duke and vagrant. Poised and commanding, yet approachable and natural. Sadness is evident in his expression, yet somehow warmth glows around it, spilling onto everyone around him.
Exactly like Papa.
I watch the animated, dirt-smudged face of the would-be Duke of Ashbourne who might have the most incredible story of them all. Yet he’s listening now, drinking up all their tales as if they feed his soul. Perhaps they do.
As they chatter around him, he flips the parcel paper over and sketches as he listens, drawing their stories to life.
A child is shoved into my legs, and I stumble, dropping parcels.
She’s a small girl in a faded pink dress, gaunt and pale, holding up eager hands for a parcel.
I fill her hands and look past her at the woman who has thrust her starving child at me.
I lock gazes with the mother… as she falters and collapses.
I dive to catch her, struggling under her weight. Horrified by her bony frame. I rouse her with a few gentle pats to her face, but her lids remain heavy. “Come now, eat something.”
Her mouth has gone slack so I urge water and bits of food between her lips while she blinks at me, dazed. She struggles upright.
“Come on then, just a bit more.”
Potatoes. More water. My cloak around her frame. The stark paleness accentuates large, jagged burns across her face and neck, tightening her cheek and tugging her left eyelid down. “Mercy me,” she whispers around bites of food.
More water. More food. A few more hard swallows, and eventually color seeps back into her cheeks.
Her lashes flutter. I cradle her bony back, wondering how she’s stood upright all this time. She shakes her head and I help her sit, bracing her with one arm at her back.
She grabs a bracken-covered rock and I see that scars have marred her long, slender fingers as well, and even the palm of her hand.
Questions bubble to the surface—whether she’s able to work, if she’s considered hiring on as a scullery maid.
Yet the word story wraps around my unspoken advice, tightening on it before it can spill out.
Instead, I point to her hand. “It seems you have quite a badge of honor. I wonder—where did you come by it?”
A smirk livens her face and she struggles to sit, wiry and growing more alert. “The kitchens of the Red Lion, up Redruth way.”
“You’re a cook.”
“Were a cook.” Her look invites no further probing. “Thank 'ee kindly for the food.”
When she’s more stable, her face more alert, I meet her gaze. “What is your favorite dish to prepare?”
“Short crust mostly. You can’t bully it. It knows when ee’re afeared.”
“Does it indeed?”
The child readjusts until she’s on both our laps, leaning on me, and my arms instinctively go around her.
“You’re warm,” she says, and snuggles into me.
“There now, don’t go bothering the lady.” The woman tugs the girl’s arm.
“Oh, no,” I whisper, patting my charge’s little cheek.
“She’s no trouble.” I wrap my arms around the girl in the pink dress that so resembles the one that became patches for Papa’s coat and lean her against me.
“Tell me,” I ask the woman, who looks slightly unsettled.
“How did you learn to bake short crust?”
“I bake by feel,” she says. “Once I get to kneading, I ken exactly what it needs, and me instincts is never wrong.” Her long lips are curled into a smile of remembrance. “Finest short crust e’er to come out of a Cornish oven.”
“They must have loved you there.”
“Aw, iss, they did. Put me o’er breakfasts, they did.” She grins, flashing perfect teeth and eyes that crinkle.
“I don’t suppose you’d care to teach someone else.” I think of young Esther, who’s been hidden away in the kitchen ever since her encounter with the colonel. How she longs to cook or serve, to do anything of import, but the cook hasn’t the patience to teach her.
Her mouth opens, and one eye squints. “I couldn’t take on no one who fancies they already ken a thing or two.”
I smile. “She’s fresh as a daisy and waiting for guidance.”
She crosses her bony arms, hitching up one shoulder. “I suppose I could take her on. Not too many hours, mind, or I’ll have to be paid for me troubles.” She shoves her hair back, as if to make her scars plain to me. Her eyes are hooded with doubt.
“I mean to pay you anyway.” I shiver as the wind whips through the fabric of my gown. “Perhaps you shall become a regular in the kitchens at Dunn House, if the place suits.” I extend one hand. “Shall we give it a go?”
She grasps it in her cold one and gives one firm shake, face rosy now. “Suppose I could spare a few hours.”
“Wonderful. I’ll be delighted to taste this short crust myself and decide if it lives up to its fame. I’ve had a fair amount of it in my lifetime.”
Her eyes brighten at the challenge. “None like this.”
I smile, and suddenly I am aware that Simon’s story has fallen quiet.
When I glance up, he is watching—not the woman, but me.
It isn’t disapproval upon his brow, exactly.
Something tighter than that, as if I’ve stepped into a place he did not expect to find me—and he does not yet know what to make of it.
Perhaps he considers what I’ve just done charity, and he resents it. Thinks me foolish.
I meet his stare boldly, and will him to understand. She needs a good turn.
When his gaze narrows, trying to make sense of what he sees, I shiver.
Just as I move closer, Sally appears at my side, rubbing my arms. “I’m taking you home.” Uncle has tasked her with keeping charge of me today, yet I managed to slip her hours ago to come here.
She has found me.
Now she is once again the hawk watching over me, spying for the enemy.
I glance at Simon and he strides over, weaving between the people. “You’re not hurt, I trust?” he asks, looking me over. “I confess, I’m surprised you came. Surprised and a little impressed, especially in this weather.”
“Don’t be.” I glance back at the wiry woman now eating with one hand and handing more to her daughter with the other. “I’m not the impressive one.”
“You ought to go with your maid.” He removes his coat—Papa’s old one—and wraps it around my shoulders. He has layered several wool and flannel shirts and somehow, even without the coat, does not seem chilled.
“Not yet.” I dig out more parcels from the cart and toss second helpings to anyone who comes my way with that peaked, anxious look. There are more stories to hear. My eyes are only beginning to open.
Simon remains near. I don’t move, lest I disrupt this tenuous closeness by drawing attention to it. When Sally levels a glare at me, I have a flash of brilliance. “I am feeling chilly,” I say, looking up at Simon.
Without thinking, he draws me closer even as he turns to attend to something else. For one breathtaking moment, I completely forget any scheme. I lay my head on his chest ever so lightly.
Sally gasps. “Miss Snow,” she hisses from behind me, but a deep calm has stolen over me. I’m immune to her reprimand.
“What is it, Sally?” I lean into Simon Balfour, who is focused on the man’s story, hardly aware of the intimacy and the scandal it would cause if witnessed by anyone in my circles.
Sally stiffens, now unable to merely stand by. However, she wouldn't dare risk a scene by yanking me away from him, nor will she scandalize both of us by speaking out in public.
There’s only one thing left for her to do. She springs up with an angry swish of her skirts and marches away. Though it will be hours before the others return from the hunt, she plans, I am certain, to send one of the under footmen to alert my uncle.
I cannot help but laugh.
When we set out to leave, the warmth of Simon’s arm still lingers about me.
He walks beside me in silence, winding up the narrow footpath along the edges of the cliff.
His stride is measured, his face turned toward the sea.
Now that we’re free to speak, the weight of all his secrets and untold stories thickens in the air around us.
I look up at his handsome face, wondering where to begin and how much I might ask.