Sea Holly and Mistletoe Kisses Read online

  Sea Holly and Mistletoe Kisses

  By Laura Briggs

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2019 Laura Briggs

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com to purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Cover Image: “Winter at the Penmarrow.” Original art, "A vector illustration of a Man Traveling Near Seaside" by Artisticco Llc, "A woman wearing Santa clause dress in red and holding a banner Illustration" by One8edegre, “Swirl frame” by sjezica, and “Fashionable young girls” by filitova. Used with permission. http://www.dreamstime.com/

  Dear Reader,

  Christmas greetings from the hotel Penmarrow, where twinkling trees and glittering garlands bedeck the halls, and news of a holiday ice sculpting competition adds excitement to the frosty air.

  Resident chambermaid and budding author Maisie Clark is helping with the holiday preparations. She’s also feeling a bit homesick, and baking cookies or trimming trees isn’t helping chase away the holiday blues—not even when it’s done in the company of attractive groundskeeper Sidney Daniels, who knows part of Maisie’s secret. But there’s a new hotel guest who’s more than willing to step into that special spot in her life, and to make things more complicated, a tiff with Sidney leaves Maisie feeling confused about their friendship, and struggling with the romantic tension between them.

  I have a soft spot for Christmas romances, from Hallmark Channel movies to black and white classics like Christmas in Connecticut and Holiday Affair. I love the cozy, festive settings, the humorous mishaps, and even the occasional love triangle for good measure. You’ll spot a few of those elements in Maisie’s own holiday dilemma, along with a revelation for our heroine emotionally that will leave her on the brink of an important decision.

  And for readers who have been anticipating a certain revelation—say, about a certain mysterious character— there’s a surprise waiting for you in the new year with The Cornish Secret of Summer's Promise, the conclusion of which will change everything, both for the series and for Maisie herself.

  Until then, a Merry Christmas to you, and happy reading!

  Sea Holly and Mistletoe Kisses

  by

  Laura Briggs

  I have known Christmases before that were far from home. To me, Los Angeles wasn’t home at the beginning of my time there, and the years I spent before on the East Coast were spent on unfamiliar ground also. Christmas trees were large only in shopping centers, in miniature on my dormitory desk or the dresser in my apartment afterwards, and the one in my childhood memory was of a homely, shedding aluminum tree that my mom and I rescued from the dumpster beside our apartment building.

  Not quite the ‘coat hanger Christmas tree’ from the storybook, but close enough.

  I have never been so far from home, however, as I am now. Not adrift, but anchored securely on Cornwall’s shore, although it has left me feeling just a bit stranded in a land of cool but snowless Christmases, where trees for decorating are as plentiful as wooded glens on private property, and the bitter, wild scent of pine and evergreen boughs garland windows and doors of Port Hewer’s country dwellings. The scent is even in the carpet of the hotel, crushed beneath my shoes in a perfume of Yuletide cheer as I cross to the window curtains of the parlor and open them to the view of the sea like a dove blue horizon beyond the lawn’s emerald square.

  Curtains aflutter in the cool breeze would encircle me romantically, were I the heroine of a novel like the one I was endeavoring to write in this place, ever since I turned up here as the new hotel maid and writer incognito. My literary heroine Annabel didn’t have to worry about hoovering the aforementioned Christmas tree needles out of carpets and dusting antique knickknacks on a slow day at The Penmarrow Hotel; she only worries whether she was doomed to live without true love.

  Since I feel certain that true love is not in the cards for me or for most people, I have to be more practical in my choices in life. And, for now, a little more careful in remembering the difference between Maisie Clark, the budding novelist in quest of the Tucker Fellowship’s elite mentorship program, and Marjorie ‘Maisie’ Kinnan the maid whose private life was anybody’s guess, except for her sole confident in all of western Cornwall.

  It was a quiet morning at the hotel, with most of our guests enjoying their Cornish holiday in nearby Penzance or joining coastal tours offshore with one of the local boat guides. Behind the desk, Brigette was still polishing her new badge as chief housekeeper, a temporary position that she had been wearing with relish since its former possessor Mrs. Charles eloped while on holiday. I was beginning to think Brigette hoped that Mr. Trelawney would never find a replacement and simply promote her from desk duty and concierge assignments.

  “You could blind someone with light shining off that thing,” said Riley, the hotel’s Irish porter. “It’s not a mirror, Brigette. You look daft, puttin’ the spit and polish on it, like you’re trying to signal ships at sea with its beacon.”

  “I take pride in my appearance. Unlike some people on staff,” replied Brigette. Riley’s white service coat was currently unbuttoned as he lounged unprofessionally at the front desk, reading a catalog that arrived with today’s mail.

  “I’ll tidy myself before anybody walks in,” answered Riley. “Most of the party’s off to some Christmas festival for the day anyway.”

  “We have new guests arriving at any time,” said Brigette, who was re-pinning her badge to be sure it was extra-straight. “Put yourself in order, Riley. That’s a direct order from the hotel’s second in command, not a suggestion.”

  “Heil, commandant,” grumbled the porter, fastening both buttons with one hand. The phone rang on the front desk as Brigette was adjusting her badge one last time, and Riley seized the receiver from its cradle.

  “Fawlty Towers, Manuel speaking,” he said, in a terribly nasal impression of a Spanish accent.

  Brigette snatched it away, a look of horror on her face. “What are you doing?!” she hissed at him. She uncovered its mouthpiece and forced a pleasant smile into her voice before speaking into it. “The Penmarrow Hotel, this is Brigette speaking. How may I assist you?” She clicked a key on the hotel’s desk computer, accessing its registration list. “A room for the twenty-eighth?”

  I was familiar with the reservation procedure, not from working the desk, but from sleuthing. The whereabouts of a certain guest had been important to me a few months ago: the reason, in fact, that I seized the chance in the first place to wear one of the navy pinstripe dresses that constituted the uniform of the hotel’s housekeeping staff. As the months passed, however, and the aforementioned guest never returned, my purpose had began to wander off the path I had impulsively beaten for it through the uncharted wilds that surrounded my mentorship quest.

  To an outsider, what I was doing with my time now might look a lot like an eccentric holiday away from my former reality. Perhaps my former instructor Wallace Scott’s email reflected it best, reminding me that A) I had missed this year’s deadline for the Tucker Mentorship program and would have to reapply for next year’s and B) that I had missed several other opportunities in the meantime, and how was my search for an eligible published writer to sponsor me supposed to end if I had virtually vanished off the face of the earth?

  It had been weeks since I had answered his last email, and I didn’t have a good answer for this question. Not in the least.

  I polished the shiny Christmas globes bedecking the mantel’s garland, and in the reflection of a gold one saw a moving figure behind me in the foyer. Molly the maid was posting a notice for the upcoming ice sculpture contest hosted by the hotel Penmarrow. I had seen several posted recently in the village, listing the times for the ice sculpting classes and demonstrations being offered by the hotel’s hired chef for the holidays, who was a master sculptor posing beside an impressive polar bear in ice in the photo.

  “Maisie, will you switch with me on morning schedule?” Molly asked. “I promised a friend I’d go with them to Truro on my half day, and I’ll be late in coming home.”

  “I don’t mind,” I said. “I’ve been working a lot of morning schedules these past months, so it’ll seem familiar, actually.” Autumn nights of clearing away dinner dishes seemed strange after a whole summer of yawning my way through early morning piles of laundry and setting tables for morning cups of tea and coffee.

  “I like your new hairstyle,” she said, shyly. “Only … wasn’t it a bit odd to trim it so short in winter? You let it be long all summer and in autumn, too.”

  My dark hair had been shortened above my shoulders a few weeks ago at the local stylist’s. I touched the shortened ends of my new tresses, which turned up slightly as if trying to curl. “I saw it in a magazine and wanted to try it,” I said. “I wanted something new. I haven’t worn my hair short in ages, not since I first moved to California.” I cut it short then as a rite of passage, since I was leaving behind my northeastern seaboard university years and my weak-willed former boyfriend in one bold cross-country move.

  “You had such pretty long hair,” said Molly. “I wish mine wasn’t so thin and so very flat. Do you think if I cut it short, it would curl a bit on the end, t
oo? It would make it look a bit more lively, perhaps.” She sounded wistful at this idea – Molly’s hair, a light brown shade, was the fine, soft kind that never holds a curl no matter how much encouragement she gave it.

  “I like yours long,” I answered, since I learned it was definitely better never to give someone advice on haircuts. “Everyone would miss seeing your hair ribbons – that’s how we always know it’s you before you turn around, Molly.”

  “I do like bright ribbons,” she admitted. “It is sort of ‘me,’ I suppose. We all sort of have our own symbols … I always thought mine was the crossword puzzles, though.”

  “We all have more than one,” I said. I couldn’t quite stop myself from touching the faded daisy barrette which pinned back one side of my shortened locks as I shared this idea. It was an old hair ornament from the bottom of my suitcase, one which had been tangled in stuffed Mr. Bubbles’ giraffe mane, and I had been wearing it despite the petals’ faded fabric and a few missing ones, beside.

  It was a silly thing to be wearing, and I knew it perfectly well. I was having a difficult time being sensible on a little point like this one. All the daisies of summer had been scattered to the wind for an age, and the soft petals of fall ‘mums and sleepy dahlias had been wilted by frost, but I was still reaching for this clip each morning among the handful of beads, rhinestones, and lacy headbands on my dresser. I couldn't quite let the daisy of this past summer go, though I know perfectly well I shouldn't be thinking back to that moment, or the person who first paid me a compliment for wearing it.

  “The guests of the Forest Suite are departing early today,” announced Brigette, hanging up the phone. “Maisie, the hoovering can wait until after their room is tidied.” She lifted her color-coded schedule and amended it with a pink highlighter.

  A new guest had just entered the hotel, which put an end to Brigette’s bossier self in favor of the ‘customers only’ smile. “Welcome to The Penmarrow Hotel,” she greeted him. “Do you have a room reserved with us already?”

  “I do. Under the name ‘Crandall’ he said. “A suite for one occupant.”

  His American accent reached my ears with the sound of home across the miles. Impulsively, I spoke aloud. “Where are you from?” I asked, earning a look of annoyance from Brigette for this sort of abrupt question is a ‘no no’ in hotel staff etiquette.

  He glanced my way. “Boston,” he said. “As of two weeks from now. More recently, everywhere else you can think of.”

  “We hope Cornwall will be a pleasant stop on your journey,” said Brigette, as she placed his key on the desk and waited for his signature in the hotel’s physical register. “The Lord Baltimore suite on the second floor. Gomez will take your bags. Gomez?” She snapped her fingers until the porter in question ceased flirting with two attractive young tourists shopping our brochure turnstile.

  The guest turned my way fully, and I was confronted by a tall, handsome man, younger than I expected, with dark hair and a warm smile. He wore a stylish business suit that reminded me of the ones my ex-boyfriend Ronnie had been fond of wearing, with an overcoat draped across one arm, exposing an extremely expensive designer label as he bent down to lift his briefcase. “California,” he said. “Am I right?” He met my eye with a friendly glint in his own.

  “I’ve spent some time there,” I said, impressed. I smiled back. “How did you know?”

  “I’ve been everywhere you can think of,” he reminded me. He followed Gomez upstairs, with Brigette waiting until he was out of earshot to speak to me.

  “Maisie, it’s not the policy of The Penmarrow Hotel to speak so casually to the guests,” she said. “Must I remind you again that the image of the hotel commands a respectful and formal attitude?”

  “Brigette, I just forgot for a moment,” I said. “His accent had an affect on me. We haven’t had a guest from my corner of the world since early October.” I had been so surprised to hear it after weeks of being the only American around – I had even detected a familiar New England twang underneath his Midwestern business professional, just like a classmate of mine who sat next to me in the Tucker Writing Program.

  “But you really must try harder —”

  “I had better hurry with this hoovering so I can help with the Forest Suite’s linens.” I put myself to work briskly, to avoid another of Brigette’s patient lectures. It was my way of avoiding any further trouble by leaving any task undone on her complex timeline of hotel duties. I uncoiled the cord to the cleaning machine and switched it on, making haste to clean up the stray needles shed by the newly-delivered Christmas tree that Gomez had gruntingly helped haul into the parlor.

  The hotel was being decked royally for the holidays. Brigette had us bring dozens of boxes from the storeroom, full of tinsel, lights, and ornaments, while half a dozen more had been delivered this week with all-new ornaments and lights for trimming the downstairs showcase trees. The international hotel’s reputation demanded a jolly holiday image, from frosted evergreen garlands draping fireplace mantels to decorative pencil-like trees tucked in every nook and cranny, and wreaths made of brightly-colored silver and gold Christmas balls adorning the doors.

  Tourists would come close to an English Christmas, maybe, if they squinted in the presence of the generous boughs of holly, pine, and delicate mistletoe, or inhaled deeply the ‘wassail’ scented candles.

  But that was simply how the hotel Penmarrow conducted business as one of the most eclectic, eccentric, and unique grand hotels tucked in a quiet corner of western Cornwall. Its visitors seemed not to care if it wasn’t the most Cornish hotel in the county, or that it wasn’t the oldest or most historically valuable in this part of the world. They loved it for the strange international flair it had, and for the quiet sophistication of its 1920’s elegance, and – I believe – for the feeling one got from a glimpse of its sea-weathered brick facade gazing patiently out to sea from its island of green high above the water.

  Mr. Trelawney’s weekly staff meeting reminded us of the upcoming festivities for the holiday season, including the ice sculpting classes and contest, the tree decorating party on Christmas Eve, and the Christmas Day ‘English Dinner’ buffet planned.

  “As those of you who have worked here for an extended period are aware, the hotel's custom during the holidays is to sponsor a lighthearted event that encourages guest participation. On that note, this year introduces the first annual Ice Sculpting Contest sponsored by this hotel, which will be held through Christmas week,” said Mr. Trelawney.

  “First annual?” I whispered to Molly.

  “Before, it was gingerbread houses,” she whispered back. “He decided this would be a bit more exciting.”

  “I’ll say.” I had seen ice carving before, and it required speed, finesse, and concentration. Probably no chain saws would be used in this one, I imagined.

  “This activity is, of course, to entertain guests remaining at the hotel during the holiday itself, so encouraging them to join the contest would not go amiss,” the hotel manager continued, as he glanced over his notes for his staff, who were stationed in the dining room. “There will be two levels — amateur and expert — and our chef will conduct classes before the contest itself over a period of weeks in order to teach novice participants the basics. Entry is not required to participate. Lastly, the side garden will be prepared as the contest’s site – hotel employees, of course, will be assigned to both set up and clean up the grounds for the event.”

  It sounded like fun, helping create an ice sculpting contest. I hoped my name would be on the list of employees assigned to the task, since it would certainly beat the task of sorting the morning laundry piles, and thus far I had mostly been assigned to dusting garlands and moving boxes of decorations.

  “On that note,” said Mr. Trelawney, in his usual dry tone. “The kitchen will need additional assistance due to our holiday chef’s involvement in the contest. Particularly in the assigned positions of dishwashing and kitchen assistant, which will free more experienced kitchen personnel for culinary duties.”