She didn’t dare to hope that he was here for what she really wanted and she turned her back on him, hammering in a nail to fix the fencing on the bottom of a coop to fortify it against attacks from predators.
Kane tightened his features at her unfriendly gesture but he wasn’t deterred.
‘I want to talk to you, Jessica,’ he almost bellowed, going round to face her stooping figure.
‘What do you want?’ she said in an offhand manner, dropping the hammer and turning away from him again to pick up the second laying of eggs.
‘I’m not here to pay a social call.’
‘I gathered that!’
Kane sighed heavily and drummed his fingers on the wood above her head but she refused to look up from the nesting boxes.
‘Will you please turn and face me? I have some things I want to explain and I have no intention of talking to your back!’
Jessica picked up all the large white and brown eggs in the coop she was stretching into. Only then did she face him. ‘Well? I can’t stop you and I suppose I should be grateful that at least you said please.’
Kane looked at her irritably. Must she make it so damned difficult?
‘I know I upset you after you were rescued from Zack Maynard and I’ve neglected to apologise for it. Don’t you realise how frightened I was for you, Jessica? It was only days after Hezekiah Solomon had held Olivia prisoner and he was going to rape her, humiliate, torture and murder her. I was terrified Zack Maynard was going to do that to you before I could reach you.’
‘Well, I’m very sorry to have frightened you, Mr Kane Pengarron. I should have remembered to put your feelings before anyone else’s. You men want us women to be quiet and meek, don’t you? You don’t like it if we step out of line from the expectations and rules you put on us, and when we do you hate it.’
‘You were very nearly murdered, damn it, Jessica! Don’t you see or are you too stupid?’
‘I can see you don’t like it that I wanted a bit of adventure! Why should you men have all the excitement and we women have to stay meekly at home waiting for one of you to do us the dubious honour of making us your wife and having us at your beck and call! Go away, I never want to speak to you again.’
Kane looked at her calmly and coolly. ‘Do you really mean all that, Jessica Trenchard?’
She flung up her head, making her curls bounce. ‘Yes, I do.’
‘Very well. I hoped you would see reason, but…’
He walked quickly away and Jessica’s heart plunged to her feet. She stared after him. ‘But what, Kane?’
She was still there moments later when he came charging through the yard on his horse, scattering her squawking hens in all directions.
‘What on earth—’
He snatched her up and put her on his horse, imprisoning her in front of him. Her basket of eggs fell from her hands, breaking all over the ground. She screamed and struggled and got a glimpse of her father and stepmother laughing at a window as they galloped past.
Kane rode up to the top of Trecath-en valley with her struggling and protesting all the way. He pulled her off his horse and pushed her into Ricketty Jim’s shack then stood in front of the doorway to block her escape.
Jessica shook her dress and cloak down to cover her legs and raged at him, ‘And what do you hope to achieve by this, you… you…’
Bending towards her in a mocking fashion, he said, ‘So you want adventure, do you? How about this, Jessica? I’ve just kidnapped you. Is this adventure enough for you?’
‘You’re mad!’ she shouted, tossing her head and making her hair swirl about her shoulders. ‘You think you can do anything you like. Riding like a fiend through somebody’s yard, breaking their eggs, frightening their chickens. My hens probably won’t lay for months now and it’s all your fault!’
‘Never mind your ruddy chickens, this is more important.’
‘Oh, of course it is. Everything a gentleman like you does is far more important than anybody else’s life.’
‘I tried to speak to you reasonably, calmly and sensibly but you wouldn’t have it. It’s your fault we’re here like this!’
Her heart was pounding in her chest. Must he look so wild and handsome when he behaved like this? She mustn’t look into his beautiful sad brown eyes or she’d be lost. She was drinking in those eyes and had to turn away from him.
‘Why don’t you look at me?’ he demanded. ‘Look at me when I’m speaking to you.’
‘Why should I?’
He lowered his voice to a husky softness. ‘Why don’t you look at me, Jessica?’
‘It’s… it’s your eyes.’
‘What about my eyes?’ he asked, totally puzzled.
Jessica was finding it impossible to stay angry with him. She was enjoying his gesture of ‘kidnapping’ her, his determination to make her listen to him this time, and she knew with a joyous freedom in her heart what he was going to say to her at last. She was smiling blissfully and couldn’t stop doing it as she answered him. ‘I find them… irresistible.’
He moved round her and raised her chin with a gentle hand. ‘When I look at you like this?’
‘When you look at me at all,’ she whispered back.
He reached out and picked up two handfuls of long golden curls, then he bent his head towards her face but she was already making to kiss him. They kissed with heat and passion and a wild abandonment, hungry for every sensation, for knowing each other’s lips and souls completely.
When he finally broke away, he said softly, ‘You must know that I’ve bought my own farm, Jessica.’
‘Everybody seems to be doing it these days,’ she murmured, remembering how he had just made her feel and how she had enjoyed it so very much.
‘Would you agree with me that the best woman to become a farmer’s wife is a farmer’s daughter?’
‘Mmmm, I suppose I could.’
‘You’re a farmer’s daughter,’ he murmured, kissing her shining curls.
‘That’s true,’ and she kissed his chin.
‘You’d make a good farmer’s wife.’
‘It has been said before.’
‘I’m no longer a soldier but a farmer.’
‘Vellanoweth is a good farm, so I’ve heard.’
‘It is, except for one thing.’
‘Oh?’
‘It lacks a mistress, a good farmer’s wife. You could be that wife, Jessica. How do you feel about giving that poor overworked parson, my future brother-in-law, some more work?’
‘I think I could be persuaded,’ she said dreamily.
‘And how do I do that?’
‘You could try looking into my eyes.’
He gazed at her longingly, and as he saw the love and passion she held for him in the depths of her eyes, the sad startled effect that had been in his for so much of his life drained away. A new radiance was there, glowing with love, joy, hope, and fulfilment. And this would be the way he and Jessica would look at each other for the rest of their lives.
The Pengarron Sagas
Pengarron Land
Pengarron Pride
Pengarron’s Children
Pengarron Dynasty
Pengarron Rivalry
Find out more
The Harvey Family Sagas
An emotional and unforgettable wartime family saga, following the women of the Harvey Family as they face life’s trials with strength and determination through two world wars.
Touch the Silence
Moments of Time
From a Distance
Never Just A Memory
A Stranger Light
A Whisper of Life
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First published in the United Kingdom in 1993 by Headline Book Publishing
This edition published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
57 Shepherds Lane
Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU
United Kingdom
Copyright ©
Gloria Cook, 1993
The moral right of Gloria Cook to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781788630719
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Pengarron's Children Page 43