just visible, the waves cresting white as the incoming tide broke over them. Beyond the wall the sea was grey-blue, but inside it was calm, turquoise, the sandy seabed visible, shoals of tiny fish darting about in the seaweed.
Picking her way back through the ropes, creels and nets, she saw a tall figure striding down Budoc Lane, recognising him immediately. Treeve didn’t get far before he was waylaid by the butcher. The two men struck up what looked from this distance like a friendly conversation.
Emily stood in the lee of the Ship Inn, curious to see what the other villagers would make of their new landlord. Phin was laughing at something Treeve had said. The two men shook hands. The butcher, in her view, had an inflated opinion of himself but there were no sides to him, from what Emily had seen, and she liked that about him. When she’d arrived in the village back in April, Phin had been openly curious rather than hostile, his blunt questions as to where she had come from and what she was doing in Cornwall a refreshing change from the mutterings and speculation of most of the others. She had, of course, answered none of his questions, and to his credit he’d not persisted either. A man who liked plain dealing. He and Treeve would likely do well together.
How the Menhenicks received Treeve, she had no idea, for he disappeared into the shop for a good ten minutes. Several other villagers watched his progress towards the harbour front, some answering his ready smile with a doffed cap, a curtsy, a handshake, others a sullen look, one or two with a pointedly turned back. She could have avoided him altogether and headed back up Budoc Lane while he was in the Chegwins’ shop, clearly on a mission to make himself known to one and all, but that would be to attach an importance to him she had decided she didn’t want to encourage. So Emily waited, intending to bid him a polite good day, before heading home.
‘Ah, the very person!’ Treeve exclaimed, emerging from the shop. ‘If I hadn’t bumped into you here, I’d have called at your cottage. I’m afraid I haven’t had a moment to call my own since I last saw you.’
‘I did warn you that would be the case.’
‘You’re on your way home,’ he said. ‘I don’t suppose you can wait for half an hour or so, then I can walk back with you? No, it’s wrong of me to ask. The light is good. You’ll be wanting to get back to your workbench, so I won’t detain you.’
‘I can spare half an hour,’ Emily found herself saying, which she wouldn’t have, had not Treeve acknowledged that she too had other claims on her time.
‘Thank you,’ he said, smiling. ‘I appreciate that. I’m told I can get a decent cup of coffee at the Ship, will you join me?’
‘I’m not sure that I’ll be welcome there. As a female, I mean.’
‘This is not London, Emily. The Ship has always been the hub of the village, a place for men, women and children to relax—not in the taproom, obviously, but there is a parlour.’ Treeve pursed his lips. ‘But you must know that, you’ve lived here long enough. What you mean is that you don’t think you’d be welcome as an outsider. I’ll let you into a secret. I am not convinced I’ll be welcome either, and I own the place. Shall we step inside and find out?’
‘Oh, what the devil,’ Emily said, earning herself a raised brow and a conspiratorial smile.
The parlour of the Ship was empty. It was cosy and low ceilinged, a fire smouldering in the stone grate that took up most of one wall. The floors were bare boards, pitted and scarred from decades of contact with the customers’ hobnail boots, the seating a combination of tall settles on two walls, and rickety chairs, with a scattering of small wooden tables, as scarred and pitted as the floor. The air was pungent with the smell of stale ale and the vinegar used to mop it up. The room was dark, lit only by a small window, and smoky, not only from the fire but the open hatch through which the taproom could be seen—and could likely be heard too, Emily presumed, were it not for the deathly silence which greeted their arrival.
Treeve pulled two chairs and one of the tables closer to the fire, stretching his long legs out to rest on the hearth. He was wearing buckskin breeches and boots today, another wide-skirted coat, dark blue, made of fine wool, with a waistcoat to match. His linen was pristine, making his beard seem more blue than black—not that it was quite a beard. Emily wondered how he managed to keep the bristle in trim, for he looked like a man who must shave at least twice a day, yet it was every bit as neat and tidy as it had been when she first saw him.
A low mutter had resumed in the taproom, but no one had yet appeared to serve them. Treeve, rolling his eyes, was just pushing back his chair to get up, when the door opened.
‘Captain Penhaligon.’ Derwa Nancarrow, the Ship’s formidable landlady, was about the same age, Emily reckoned, as herself, with the black hair and very pale skin of the Celt so common in Cornwall. She was a handsome woman, with deep-set brown eyes and a mouth that was capable of producing a sultry smile, but today was decidedly sullen. ‘How may I help you?’
‘I see I have no need to introduce myself,’ Treeve said, getting to his feet. ‘How do you do, Mrs Nancarrow? I don’t think we’ve met before.’
‘I’m from Helston. You had left Porth Karrek for the navy before I married Ned. Your brother is much missed. He was a true Cornishman.’
If she had not been watching him closely, Emily would have missed the slight tightening of his mouth at this barb. ‘None truer,’ Treeve replied blandly enough, however. Not indifferent, but determined to be seen to be. She admired him for that.
‘What can I get you?’
‘I’m not your only customer. This is Miss Faulkner, who is renting one of the estate cottages,’ Treeve said.
‘I know who she is. I’m assuming it’s coffee you’re after?’
‘If you could find it within yourself to bring us some,’ he answered sardonically, ‘that would be delightful.’
‘I warned you,’ Emily said as Mrs Nancarrow disappeared again, her entrance next door clearly marked by the sudden increase in voices.
‘I wonder, if I’d asked her, if she’d have served me a fine French cognac.’ Treeve sat down again beside her. ‘No, she’d have told me they don’t stock such things, even though they almost certainly do.’
‘You think that is why she was so…’
‘Sullen? Wary? Yes, because she doesn’t want a navy man asking awkward questions as to whether it is contraband or not.’
‘Especially since you own this inn now.’
‘I wish to hell that I did not. Excuse my language.’
‘Oh, for a rough sailor, your language is remarkably civilised.’
Treeve gave a snort of laughter. ‘You have no idea.’
‘If you came here in the hope of gaining acceptance,’ Emily said, keeping her voice low, casting a wary glance at the open hatch, ‘you’d have been better off in the taproom, taking a glass of rough cider and rubbing shoulders with the men.’
‘I’m not sure I’m looking for acceptance. It might be different if I planned to remain here.’
‘You’ve decided that Mr Bligh is trustworthy
