‘No, but I’ve missed the sea.’
‘You must take the opportunity of its nearness.’ But not Trelynne Cove, she wanted to add. It was a special place to her.
‘I will. What think you of the bed? Shall we knock two of the farm’s bedrooms into one and buy such a giant?’
Clem was gently pressing his fingers on the softness of Catherine’s neck. With nothing to do until they were due to dine with Jessica and Kane in the evening, he felt a desire for his wife. Intimacy between them was long overdue. The twins’ recent attack of croup, and the unexpected gales of two weeks ago, resulting in damage to farm buildings and early crops, had seen to that. And Catherine was watching him, trying as she sometimes did to get inside his thoughts; she knew the reason for his lighter spirit. Making love to her would put her off guard, release him, at least for a while, from her probings. ‘We’re also s’posed to be resting after our journey.’
Catherine moved the tiniest distance away from him. ‘Clem, my brother and sister-in-law are at home. What if they hear us?’
‘What if they do?’
He was nuzzling behind her ears, his breath inflaming her skin and her inner regions, distressingly so. Catherine was elated that his thoughts and desire were for her. She desperately loved this good-looking man of the lower orders, who sometimes liked to tease her with his roughcast ways, but she was a creature of right, of etiquette, of modesty.
‘Well, I—’
Clem took her to the bed.
‘Clem, don’t you think we should wait?’
Smiling, he threw his riding coat to the floor, having no care for the finer clothes he wore from the elevated state of this second marriage. ‘I want you now, Cathy.’
His hands were on her and he was kissing her mouth.
Dazed by his intensity, she allowed him to position her on the bed and lie over her and lift her skirts. While he was freeing himself and seeking her, she was praying the bed would not creak and incriminate them. The moment they were joined as husband and wife, when she indeed had all of him to herself, she gave way to his dominance and set her passion for him free.
* * *
‘You are going abroad, Clem?’ Olivia Lanyon enquired, having followed him to the parsonage stables.
‘I am. If it’s agreeable with you. I thought t’ look at Trecath-en Farm, spy on the new tenant, see what he’s doing with my old fields.’
‘You’re perfectly free to go where you will. I am concerned only that you are comfortable. With Catherine still resting, I’m unable to ask her.’
Clem viewed Olivia with impatience while enjoying the spectacle of her standing quite still, allowing the wind to catch her red hair. She was so much like her mother in colouring and femininity, but the resemblance ended there. She had Pengarron’s overbearing stance and disdain in almost every gaze. He had heard her giving orders to the staff in a curt manner, flustering the housekeeper, Nancy Wills, who was a nice little body. Catherine thought her selfish, she complained after every letter of Timothy’s that it seemed all Olivia wanted to do was paint – hardly a suitable pastime for a vicar’s wife.
Giving her a short bow, Clem mounted the black stallion – a superior piece of Pengarron horseflesh – brought to him by the parsonage groom. He was allowing his own mare, Tally, to graze in the parson’s paddock.
Nearly two miles on and he made the border, a high hedgerow of earth, rock and hawthorn which ran between Trecath-en and Ker-an-Mor, the Pengarron home and stud farm. Honeysuckle weaved in joyful disorder through the long grasses, as did cow parsley, pink ragged robin and nettle flower. He felt unemotional to be back on his old land, this wasn’t what he had been loathe to leave behind.
He raised his wide-shouldered, lean body in the saddle to inspect the fields. Oats, barley, wheat and animal feed were in their infancy, not tall enough yet to be swayed in the light winds, but healthier in comparison to those of his own fields, advanced more by the kinder climate here in Mount’s Bay, tucked in as it was on the south coast. Barring treacherous weather, in a few weeks the fields would be aburst with harvesters – men, women and children; tinners, fisherfolk, drifters, locals without permanent jobs, earning a little something to offset their families’ hunger pangs. His brother-in-law would count his tithes and the conceited owner and landlord of the estate would count his profits. Damn him.
Clem trotted down Trecath-en’s steep valley. He stared at the silent trio of elm trees on the river bank, where he had seduced and impregnated his first wife, Alice, once Kerensa’s personal maid. He had come to love Alice, buried now in Perranbarvah’s churchyard, although not in the passionate way he had, and still did, love Kerensa. His feelings for Catherine were not destined to eclipse those either. Nothing ever would.
Before Alice’s time, he had sat under these elm trees with Kerensa planning their future, holding hands and kissing chastely. It had been enough just to be with her. They would have had many children. Been so happy. Together always and forever.
That last day, saying goodbye in Trelynne Cove, he had asked her to remember him with more than affection. He had not given her time to answer before striding away, his heart in pieces again, for the second time in his life to face the future without her, pretending to himself that his pregnant wife and the new farm miles away on the moor would finally purge his pain and sense of isolation. But without Kerensa, his soul was doomed to grieve and fester in bitterness, at times with hatred, for the man who had stolen Kerensa away from him.
He lived with a little hope. Kerensa had embraced him warmly during their last meeting, clung to his hand until the last moment. Did she still love him? So many times she had told him that she always would.
There was no point in looking at the farm buildings. He had chosen to leave them and move on with his life. It had become unbearable to dwell any longer under Oliver Pengarron’s sufferance and egotistical, watchful black eyes. Let the new tenant, Bennets was his name, so Jessica had written, keep his privacy. Clem missed Jessica so much. He had seen her only a handful of times since vacating Trecath-en, on brief visits to her home when he was sure Pengarron must have known of his imminent arrival and ensured Kerensa would not be there. Jessica had come only once to his farm, on Catherine’s confinement. Thank God, she had married Kane Pengarron, their baby gave him reason to see Kerensa again, and he liked Kane; he had no Pengarron blood in him.
Heading the stallion back up the valley, he rehearsed what he would say to Kerensa when next they met, in the little stone church at Perranbarvah. For Catherine’s sake and to put Pengarron off his guard, he would be respectful and discreet. Kerensa would know how he felt about her by the secret messages in his eyes.
At the top of the valley, a man on an equally good horse was closing the boundary gate. The stud breeder. The Lord of the Manor. His daughter Kelynen was with him, her black retriever bounding along close behind.
The two men glowered at each other in mutual despite.
‘You are trespassing on my property, Trenchard, and have a care with that horse,’ Sir Oliver Pengarron said coldly.
Clem lifted his tricorn hat, inclined his head a fraction. ‘My humble apologies, Sir Oliver,’ he replied insincerely. ‘Good day to you, Miss Kelynen.’
The girl, whom he had delivered in his and Alice’s bedroom, after Kerensa’s premature labour, following an attack by footpads on her and Jack near Trecath-en, was fully a woman now. Not much like either parent in looks, she bore an air of confidence as befitted her status, but not, Clem was pleased to see, the boorish condescension of her father. He had always been closely interested in the child, baptised with the name Kerensa had asked him to choose for her. Pengarron and Kerensa had been briefly estranged at the time, and Pengarron only ever called her Shelley, derived from the French name Michelle he had chosen for her, on his return from Brittany.
‘Good day, Clem,’ she replied politely, then glanced at her father as if to read his thoughts.
‘Shelley, you go on ahead,’ Oliver said
firmly. ‘I shall be but a minute.’
When she had moved out of earshot, he turned his sharp eyes on Clem. ‘Be sure you conduct yourself appropriately under my other daughter’s roof, Trenchard.’ Oliver appraised his old rival’s fine apparel and confident manner. ‘You look well. Moorland air obviously agrees with you. How goes your wife’s and your son’s farm?’
Clem’s face clouded over. The bastard. Bastard-crow! So, it was straight in on the attack. To belittle him with the fact that it was Philip’s wrestling purses and the one thousand pounds settled on Catherine which had bought him his new position.
After ten disrespectful seconds, Clem spat, ‘Harry’s as much my grandson as yours.’
‘He bears my name.’ Oliver smiled grimly under constricted eyes.
‘Even so, the Almighty won’t hold back his angels from watching over him. And,’ Clem also had a sword with which to pierce the other man’s heart, ‘he has my blood in him, not a drop of yours, Kane being sired elsewhere.’
Oliver rested his large hands on the pommel of his saddle and leaned slightly forward. ‘Kane has done well in his own right. You never will, Trenchard. You’ll never have the means to get anything you really want.’
So, as always, everything came back to Kerensa. Clem recalled again her last show of affection to him.
Slowly replacing his hat, nudging his mount with his knees to move along, Clem mouthed in a scathing manner, ‘See you in church, m’lord. My regards to Kerensa.’ He heard Pengarron’s angry intake of breath and laughed to himself.
* * *
Oliver stole upstairs to the master bedchamber. He had a present for Kerensa, an exquisite diamond bracelet to give her on the day of the baptism, to wear as part of their own private celebration of the event.
He smiled at finding the bottom drawer of her dressing table slightly open and things protruding from it. Kerensa kept the things she cherished in there and had likely hidden away a gift for him. He pulled the drawer out further to rearrange the things and close it properly. He did not want any surprise she had in store for him to be spoiled for her.
A river of shock, distaste, hurt and betrayal rushed up his spine.
It was unbelievable! Lying crammed in amid the miscellany of empty perfume bottles, good-luck charms, babies’ milk teeth and first-hair clippings, was a box, and in the same way in which he had found the drawer, it was not quite closed. Something fair was sticking out of it at the corner. The tips of a lock of hair. No one in the family had such colour hair. There was only one explanation for this and it sent the world he thought he had delighted in for so many years of devoted love and honour, crashing down, splintering his heart. Reducing him to a fool, a blind, deceived fool. Other things that complemented the lock of hair were also in the box, things which he had come across during the first fateful year of his marriage, while nursing Kerensa, fearing he was losing her to foul-water poisoning.
For all these years, Kerensa had kept the things Clem Trenchard had given her as a lovesick youth. No, damn him! Trenchard had never been lovesick. He had loved Kerensa in the same way as he did, with a man’s love, all-enduring, uncompromising, everlasting. And Kerensa had been in love with him. Still was, if she had needed to keep his love gifts and take them out and look at them.
Had she been holding them, just a while ago, to her breast? Regretting the outcome of the past? Wanting Trenchard, longing for him? Just how much was Kerensa looking forward to seeing her old love at their grandson’s baptism?
He went to his dressing room and threw the bracelet into a closet, then strode downstairs. He knew where Kerensa would be at this time of day.
She was in her private sitting room. Busy with the menu for the baptism, she put it aside at once and rose to share an embrace with him. They sat on the sofa.
Kerensa gazed at him. He was holding her very tight.
‘The Bennets family are all well.’ He anticipated her first enquiry as to how his day had gone. Kerensa felt she had a duty for the welfare of the entire parish and estate. ‘They send their thanks for the lace you sent over for the elder daughter’s wedding.’
‘Let’s hope all goes well for the ceremony next month. Where’s Kelynen? The dressmaker arrived for a fitting for her dress for the baptism, but as usual she had slipped away to be with you,’ Kerensa said vexedly, yet could not help smiling.
‘You are so good not to begrudge the time she spends with me. She’s taken a kitten to the hut. It was blinded in one eye after an unwise encounter with one of those fierce cats that always seem to be about Trecath-en. Jacob Bennets was about to put it out of its misery, but Shelley pleaded for it. With the help of one of Beatrice’s potions the wound should soon heal. She’ll have to find a home for it elsewhere, of course, I can’t be doing with constantly watering eyes.’ Oliver looked thoughtful, ‘Our daughter is full of compassion as well as being intelligent and talented. She takes a keen interest in all the affairs of the estate. She could very likely run it as efficiently as any man.’
‘I know, Oliver. Beloved, I can’t see why she shouldn’t do something to help run the estate. It’s what she wants.’ Kelynen had implored Kerensa that very morning to impress this fact upon her father.
‘Luke will be home shortly and it would not do for him to see his younger sister, barely out of childhood, taking over his occupation. We may well have a hard task getting him to settle as it is, if his mood has not improved.’
‘But otherwise you’d have no objections?’ Kerensa ran a delicate finger along Oliver’s strong jaw, then down his throat and lower still.
He caught her finger. ‘I haven’t given it much thought.’
Kerensa smiled into his eyes. ‘But you will?’
‘I shall consider Shelley’s daydream. Now, let us speak of other things. I’ve just had strong words with Michael and Conan. They’ve allowed Jack’s high standard in the stable yard to slip disgracefully. I’ve given them until the end of the day to rectify matters. Thank goodness Jack will soon be back.’
‘You’re sure of that, Oliver? You’ve received word?’
‘No, but Luke had better not scorn his obligation to be at Harry’s ceremony or delay much longer in returning Jack to his duties.’
‘If only he’d kept in touch more,’ Kerensa lamented. ‘When, at last, he comes home I hope he’ll not be in an ill humour. I hate it when our children are on bad terms.’
‘Kane will not allow his brother’s churlishness to continue, but it is to be hoped Luke will have had a change of heart. In that, I mean, that he’ll have purged his restlessness and is ready to resume his duties.’
‘We can only wait and see, but let’s be hopeful. Beatrice implored me today not to fret so much over the children. I suppose she’s right.’
‘Is she? Should a woman not be concerned almost entirely with her family?’
Again there was that sharpness and Kerensa eyed him quizzically. What had happened to put him in a bad frame of mind? Oliver was a complicated man, given to rapid mood changes. He seemed always to have too much energy, which he channelled into hard work and advancement, or social activities, where he was happy to mix either with gentry or people of Kerensa’s own class. He ran the estate with precision, endurance, and a keen sense of duty, and expected everyone else, no matter how lowly their position, to do likewise. While he overlooked the occurrence of a poached rabbit to feed the empty bellies of a deserving family, he never ever suffered a fool, a liar or a lazy workman, but she thought the misdemeanour of the stable boys unlikely to be the cause of his present ill humour. He seemed cool towards her. So far he had offered none of his usual kisses and endearments.
‘Speaking of Beatrice, she slipped on the stairs today. She landed on her backside, and thankfully that’s well padded, but I think it’s time she had a room downstairs before she has a serious accident.’
‘Good idea.’
‘Oliver, are you tired?’
‘Not at all. Why do you ask?’
‘I just tho
ught – it doesn’t matter.’ He seemed to be waiting… She asked, ‘Has anything of particular interest happened today?’
He stared straight into her eyes. ‘I saw Clem Trenchard. Yes,’ he repeated, piercing her again with his black eyes, ‘I saw Trenchard.’
Kerensa thought she knew the reason for his disquiet. ‘Oh, where?’ She tried to sound impartial, but felt a flicker of excitement at the thought of Clem actually being here in Mounts Bay. She regretted the emotion, for the severity of Oliver’s gaze told her he had sensed it.
He answered as if he had something bitter in his mouth.
‘He was skulking about Trecath-en Farm, trespassing as if the Almighty Himself had given him permission to do whatever he wished.’
Her next question was asked a little anxiously. ‘Did unkind words pass between you?’
‘Naturally.’
‘Oliver, I don’t want there to be an atmosphere on the day of the baptism for Kane’s, Jessica’s and Harry’s sakes.’
‘Then you must hope Trenchard’s behaviour gives no rise to unpleasantness.’
A few minutes ago, as if touching something vile and contaminated, he had secured the farmer’s lock of hair back in its hiding place and closed the dressing-table drawer firmly. He would not reveal to Kerensa that he knew of her secret hoard. But he would be watching her, to see if, indeed, he had the need to feel as devastated as he now did.
He smiled at her, as if he was as content as when he had risen that morning. ‘Now, my dear love, how long until dinner?’
Five
Hours later as dusk fell, three riders, weary, hungry and travel-stained, hobbled into the stable yard.
The two men of the party looked all about them, bewildered.
Pengarron Dynasty Page 3