A Sprinkling of Christmas Magic

by Elizabeth Rolls

  ‘Perfectly understandable. You are enjoying the peace and I am disturbing you.’ He smiled as if he understood exactly how he disturbed her.

  She returned to her original stance at the bulwark, keeping her eyes out on the gentle movement of the waves rather than on the man by her side. A small silence opened between them. ‘Thank you for helping me last night when I was...unwell.’ Her cheeks burned all the hotter.

  ‘I was glad to have been of assistance.’

  ‘The ginger is most effective.’

  ‘So I see.’

  She swallowed, but did not look round. ‘Do you suffer with seasickness yourself?’

  ‘Never. But I know many that do.’

  She gave a little nod.

  ‘You take a great risk in coming up here alone at night. One larger-than-expected wave and you could be swept overboard without a soul to know your fate.’

  ‘Should I take the advice of a gentleman with a penchant for taking the midnight air and who ended up alone in the ocean?’

  The flicker of a smile pulled at his lips. ‘If you’ve a mind to take the midnight air any night, knock upon my cabin door and I will accompany you.’

  She laughed at his sheer audacity. ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Just like that, Mrs Ellison.’

  ‘Mr Alexander, I am not the sort of woman who goes knocking on a strange gentleman’s cabin door in the middle of the night.’

  His eyes met hers as if to say that was a shame. ‘In that case, I’ll wait for you on deck. Try not to drop the lantern this time.’ He smiled.

  She shook her head and tried to stifle her own answering smile. He was unbelievable.

  ‘Enjoy the view, Mrs Ellison—undisturbed.’ He smiled again and was gone.

  But Sarah did not return her gaze to the view. Rather she watched the retreating back of Daniel Alexander and wondered at the ease with which he had just disarmed her and turned what should have been an awkward encounter into something else. It was only when he had gone and she looked once more at the ocean that she thought to question what a man who did not suffer from seasickness had been doing alone up on the deck in the middle of the night.

  * * *

  Daniel found Mrs Ellison at the larboard stern the next day, diametrically opposite her usual spot and hidden from casual view by the aft mast and wheel. He knew he should not have sought her out, but it seemed natural and harmless, and besides, he wanted to know why a woman like her had built her defences so strong and high.

  ‘Are you hiding from someone, Mrs Ellison?’

  ‘Not at all. Whatever gave you that impression?’ The cool confident look had not been fixed in place quite quickly enough to mask her reaction to his approach.

  So much for a man’s ego. He smiled.

  ‘It is beginning to rain, sir.’ She made to leave.

  ‘Are you about to tell me that you must rush away to the confinement of your cabin to which the rain...’ he glanced across to the horizon where the sky was dark and heavy and blowing towards the Angel ‘...that will soon come in earnest will banish you for the rest of the day?’

  She checked her movement. ‘Your words persuade me otherwise.’

  ‘Not the prospect of my company?’

  A reluctant smile curved her lips and he felt something of her rigidity relax.

  ‘You wound me, madam.’

  ‘And yet I think you must feel the confinement worse than I.’ Her eyes flickered over him. ‘The top of my head brushes the ceiling.’

  ‘One grows used to it over time, with the aid of a few bruises.’

  Her focus shifted to the exposed, newly healing scar on his forehead.

  ‘Although that is one more than I anticipated,’ he murmured, then sought to steer the conversation away from that subject. ‘No taking of the midnight air last night?’ He teased, knowing he had ensured she would not risk that again.

  She smiled, easier this time, and returned her gaze to the stretch of ocean once more. She was a woman who had been made to smile, yet he had the feeling that whatever life had dealt her, happiness was not foremost on the list.

  They stood in silence watching the weather roll towards them.

  ‘When do you return to America, Mrs Ellison?’

  A shadow flitted across her face. ‘I am not sure I will.’ She glanced away, but not quickly enough to hide the unease in her eyes. ‘It has been on my mind that I might move back to England for good.’

  ‘You are not happy in New York?’

  ‘Perfectly happy.’ But she was lying—he could see it in the way she did not meet his gaze.

  ‘Do you sail often for business, Mr Alexander?’

  ‘Very often, indeed.’

  ‘Even over Christmas?’

  ‘Especially over Christmas.’

  She met his gaze directly and this time there was nothing of the cold mask there. This time, it was as if she were allowing herself to look at him properly. She smiled again, a slightly shy smile, a warm smile. Whatever unhappiness she had left behind in New York was forgotten and he had no wish to remind her of it.

  ‘How terrible.’ She said it teasingly.

  ‘Not so terrible, at all.’ He leaned slightly closer. ‘I confess to preferring it that way.’

  ‘You do not like Christmas?’

  ‘Not in the slightest.’ He admitted it freely enough, as if it meant nothing.

  ‘You are a cynic, sir.’

  ‘Undoubtedly.’

  She smiled and so, despite the topic, did he.

  ‘Whereas Christmas is your favourite time of year, Mrs Ellison.’

  ‘You are a mind reader, sir.’

  They chuckled.

  ‘We Scots prefer New Year.’

  ‘New Year celebrations are paltry in comparison to Christmas.’

  ‘Paltry? With the ceilidh dancing on Hogmanay? The first footing after the bells? And a fine feast on Ne’erday?’

  ‘First footing? I have not heard of it.’

  ‘After the stroke of midnight the first foot to cross your threshold sets your fortune for the year to come. A tall, dark-haired, handsome man brings the best luck. He carries with him a lump of coal that your hearth shall not grow cold, a black bun that your belly will not be empty and a dram of whisky to toast the New Year.’

  ‘It does sound rather good.’ She smiled and a little thinking line crinkled between her brows. ‘But I still do not understand what there is to dislike of Christmas.’

  ‘What is there to like?’ he countered. ‘You will not persuade me as to the merits of Christmas, Mrs Ellison.’ So easily said and with a good nature that hid the darkness of that truth.

  ‘Really?’ There was a hint of mischief in her eyes, a glimpse of the woman she must have been before... Before what? ‘Have you considered the snow?’ She looked at ease. She looked happy and Sarah Ellison happy was a sight to warm any man’s heart.

  Daniel encouraged her all the more. ‘Snow is an impediment to travel and transport. It argues against Christmas rather than in its favour.’

  ‘Bah, humbug!’

  ‘The point still lies with me,’ he insisted.

  ‘What of the song of red-breasted robins?’

  ‘Annoying wee beasties.’

  ‘Deep-green polished holly and evergreens and kissing boughs of mistletoe?’

  ‘I concede I could perhaps be persuaded by the latter.’

  ‘Roasted chestnuts and mince pies?’

  ‘I’m warming further to the idea.’

  ‘Christmas hymns sung loud with cheer?’

  ‘You would change your mind were I to sing, Mrs Ellison.’

  Her smile widened. ‘Gifts exchanged on Boxing Day?’

  ‘Of what kind of gifts are
we talking?’

  She laughed, a woman’s laughter, soft and pure after the harshness and stench of the days with Higgs. Like soothing fingers against a brow tense with knowledge he would rather not possess but could not forget. But when he was with Sarah Ellison he was not thinking of Higgs.

  ‘Not to mention the mulled wine made by my own hands to my great-grandmother Bowden’s recipe. I’ve a portmanteau full of the stuff. It is a most potent brew.’

  ‘Now you’re bringing out the big guns. Mulled wine, indeed.’

  She smiled. ‘Have I won the challenge and convinced you?’

  ‘No, lass,’ he said quietly and shadows from the past stirred when he would have left them undisturbed. And even though he wanted to keep her smiling, and even though he was already lying to her, that was one lie he could not bring himself to tell. ‘That’s a challenge you’ll never win.’

  The blue of her bonnet had grown damp from the drizzle and the ribbons that tied it no longer fluttered, but stuck to her neck. The fading of her smile was soft and gradual, but the unhappiness did not return, nor were the barricades re-erected. Instead, her eyes studied his in the silence, as if she could see something of those things he kept hidden deep and dark within. Daniel turned his gaze away and felt a relief that the rainclouds opening in full meant the end of the conversation.

  * * *

  She was a widow of nine and twenty.

  He was a man she scarcely knew. The wrong sort of man. She only ever attracted the wrong sort of man—scoundrels, men who lied and cheated, men who were never what they said they were. And yet that look in his eyes when they had spoken of Christmas... She shook her head, knowing the rawness she had seen there was something she had never seen in any man’s eyes before. It touched her to the core. A man with such depths in his eyes couldn’t be like Robert. Could he? She frowned at the direction her thoughts were taking.

  She was here to take Imelda home and escape another wrong sort of man, not enter into some flirtation. And yet... She bit her lip, not wanting to admit the truth even to herself.

  Daniel Alexander wanted her. She could see it in his eyes, and in a way the knowledge repaired something of the tattered shreds of her self-confidence. All those years of humiliation, all those times she had held her head high in the best of New York’s drawing rooms and ballrooms, pretending she did not see the knowing looks or hear the whispers. Robert had not even had the decency to be discreet. All the doubts came crowding back, all the fears.

  In the small peering glass fixed on the cabin wall, Sarah checked her hair for the tenth time and then chided herself for doing so. She should be steering well clear of him, not going up there to meet him—again. But she would go today, just as she had gone all the others, because when she was with him he made her forget all of those shadows and insecurities. Because he made her feel as if the darkness of the past had never been. And what was wrong with a few days of that? Whatever she thought of men in general, of relationships and sex and marriage, this was nothing of any of those. This was nothing but a journey home, a journey conducted in front of a captain and his crew, a journey in which nothing could happen.

  ‘You like him, don’t you?’ Imelda grinned.

  ‘If you are referring to Mr Alexander, I barely know the man enough to say whether my sentiments towards him are those of like and dislike. But we must, as ladies, contrive to behave in a civil manner to all persons at all times.’ Lord, that sounded pompous!

  Imelda was not dissuaded. ‘He likes you, too.’

  ‘I am quite sure that Mr Alexander is not concerned in the slightest with me.’ But he was. She knew he was, and the knowledge relieved and excited and worried her in equal measure.

  ‘Fanny and I think him very handsome...for a pirate. Isn’t that right, Fanny?’

  ‘Hush now, Miss Imelda,’ Fanny warned.

  ‘If you and he were to marry, would that make him my uncle?’

  ‘What nonsense you talk, Imelda. One husband is quite enough in any woman’s lifetime.’ A husband ground a woman’s pride in the dirt before the eyes of an entire city. And had Robert not been proof enough, there was Brandon... She shook the bitter thoughts away and did not allow her mind to travel down that dark route.

  ‘But I would like to have a pirate for an uncle.’

  Sarah raised an eyebrow, determined to nip such talk in the bud. ‘Have you started your French study for today?’

  ‘Oh, Aunt Sarah!’ protested Imelda. ‘I couldn’t possibly concentrate on French. Besides, this is our time for taking the air.’ She smiled sweetly. ‘And Mr Alexander will be waiting.’ Grabbing her cloak but without a heed for her bonnet, Imelda ran out of the cabin.

  ‘Sorry, ma’am. Shall I fetch her back?’ Fanny asked.

  She shook her head. ‘We probably should take a little air.’

  But Sarah knew, even as she and Fanny slipped on their cloaks and bonnets, that she was not going up there to take the air.

  * * *

  She stood there by the bulwark, looking out to sea, and Daniel knew by the way she did not turn her face to his that she was very aware of the growing desire between them.

  All these days of talking and he did not yet know her story. Most women wanted to spill that within hours of meeting. Yet Sarah Ellison parried his every attempt to tread close, especially when it came to her late husband, although Daniel took some solace in her subtle enquiry as to whether he was married. Heaven only knew why! He didn’t even know why he had pushed them to this routine of daily meetings. Why he was pursuing her when he could not, in all honour, have her.

  He raked a hand through his hair. The way things were he needed neither games nor complications. Part of him craved to bed her and be done with it. By God, she would be a salve to the underlying ache that always came at this time of year. And part knew he should walk away from her and focus only on Higgs, on what the hell he had stumbled into. But Daniel could do neither, and not just because they were stuck together within the confines of a ship. He closed his eyes, knowing he had a complication whether he wanted it or not.

  And in nine more days they would be in Plymouth.

  Her voice when she finally spoke was soft, her words echoing his thoughts. ‘In nine days we shall be in Plymouth.’ She still had not looked at him, just kept her gaze fixed on the expanse of ocean.

  ‘There is much that can happen in nine days.’ He did not know why he was saying it, only that he could not help himself.

  He could see the slight tensing of her body in response to his words.

  ‘You are mistaken.’

  ‘Am I?’

  ‘I am not the sort of woman who indulges in dalliances.’

  ‘I am not the sort of man who dallies with the woman who saved his life.’

  She swallowed. ‘Nor am I seeking another husband.’ She gestured down at her dark skirt. ‘I am still mourning the first and always will be.’

  ‘I am not seeking a wife.’

  ‘Then we understand one another.’

  He did not challenge her assertion. They understood each other too well, yet it served not to alleviate the underlying sensual tension between them, but only to tighten it.

  She took a breath. ‘And I hardly saved your life.’ She glanced round at him.

  ‘What did you do that day?’

  She averted her gaze again.

  ‘Shall I remind you?’ He did not wait for her reply. ‘You were standing on this same deck, wearing the same cloak and bonnet, as dark a blue as to appear black. I thought I was dreaming, for what man cast into the North Atlantic midwinter is rescued?

  ‘I watched you run to Seymour. I watched you persuade him. I tried to swim to you, but the current was too strong and my strength was spent. You reached for me, as if you would pluck me from the water yourself. “Hold on,” you said. “Just a
little longer. We’re coming.”’

  She moved so that they stood facing one another squarely, one hand still anchoring her to the bulwark. ‘How could you possibly have heard my words?’ Her eyes were wide with shock, her voice, barely above a whisper.

  ‘I saw them shape upon your lips. I heard their whisper in my ear.’

  Her eyes never shifted from his. Brown velvet, ringed in charcoal grey. Beguiling as the woman herself. Daniel forgot everything else. Forgot Higgs. Forgot the lies he was weaving. Even forgot Netta. All he was aware of was Sarah Ellison.

  He stepped closer, never breaking his gaze. ‘Mrs Ellison, Sarah...’ And despite all that he did not intend, he lowered his face towards hers. And despite all that she had said, she moved her mouth to meet his.

  ‘Mr Alexander!’ Imelda’s voice shouted from the other side of the deck.

  Sarah started.

  ‘Come and look! I see your pirate ship in the distance!’

  The moment was broken, allowing him to regain his senses. He stepped back from the brink, from where Sarah stood blinking at him in shock before her composure slotted back into place.

  ‘If you will excuse me, sir.’ He could hear the breathlessness in her voice, and see the embarrassment that coloured her cheeks. ‘I must attend to my niece.’

  ‘Allow me to accompany you, Mrs Ellison.’

  ‘I think it better if you do not, Mr Alexander.’

  They looked at each other, the desire that pulled between them strong as the wind blowing across the ocean, finally unmasked for what it was. But Daniel’s control was back in full, and so too were all of Sarah Ellison’s barricades. But whatever he would have said to repair the damage was forgotten in the next moment.

  ‘Ship ahoy,’ came the call from the seaman who had climbed up into the crow’s nest.

  * * *

  Sarah watched Daniel change as the man’s words reached them. His expression hardened. His jaw tensed. His eyes narrowed with focus, and through his body rippled a wariness, an alertness, an edge of steel.