‘There are a few about like him rather than the reddish-brown variety. The vixen is much lighter.’
Rosie looked at the pictures. Some were painted in water colours, others in oils. All were scenes of woodland, moorland or seascapes. ‘Did you make these pictures, sir?’
‘Some of them, the others were painted by Arthur Beswetherick, the uncle of Miss Ameline who is presently staying at the manor.’
‘I met her the last time I was there helping Beatrice. She has some lovely clothes and her hair was done beautifully in the latest style. I know that because her maid was boasting about it. Miss Ameline happened to see me when she was looking for someone to ask one of the stable boys to saddle a pony for her. She spoke quite nicely to me.’
‘You sound quite surprised, Rosie.’ Oliver looked at her inquisitively. ‘Did you expect Miss Ameline to ignore you?’
‘Some ladies do, but most treat folk like me as very much beneath them. You’re lucky to get a civil word out of some, and some gentlemen.’
Oliver looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I suppose you’re right. People in my position ought to think more about life as it is for those less fortunate – what it really must be like to be forced to labour for a meagre living or to starve.’
‘But you’ve always been kind to me,’ Rosie said shyly, adding emphatically, ‘You’re kind to everyone.’
‘There’s many who wouldn’t agree with your sentiments,’ he returned philosophically, relaxing his back against the wall of the hideout and putting his booted feet up on the chest.
‘I’m sure you’re very good and kind to Kerensa – I’m sorry, I mean Her Ladyship. She says for me to call her by name, I keep saying it as I first knew her.’
Oliver said nothing and Rosie looked away, fearing she had offended him by mentioning Kerensa by her Christian name. She wished she knew more about how she should treat the gentry. She gulped and brought the conversation back to the foxes. ‘Would… um… Miss Ameline like to come up here to watch Kywarn and his mate, sir?’
‘Not Ameline,’ he said with a laugh, and Rosie was reassured she had not committed a breach of etiquette as far as he was concerned. ‘She’s far too refined.’
‘How about Kerensa? I’m sure she would.’
Oliver tapped the chest with the toe of his boot, making it rock. ‘Yes…’ His voice grew low. ‘Kerensa would…’
‘You must bring her up here sometime, she would enjoy it.’
‘Yes… I suppose I must… I don’t know why it hasn’t occurred to me before.’
‘Probably because you’re deep.’ It was a word she had heard Beatrice use to describe Oliver and it was out before she knew it.
‘Deep?’ Oliver sounded amused. ‘Have you been thinking about me, Rosie?’
‘A bit,’ she confessed, keeping her face turned away.
‘I’m flattered that an old man can find a place in your thoughts, my dear,’ Oliver said in indulgent tones.
‘You’re not old,’ Rosie said vehemently, turning back. Her cheeks glowed hotly and her blue eyes looked into his with a new confidence.
‘I shall be forty-three on the eve of Christmas,’ he said, giving her a pleasant grin and a steady look. ‘That’s a few years older than the average working span of a miner and makes me old enough to be your father.’
‘You don’t look nowhere near that age and anyway forty-three’s not old. You’re the kind of man who will never grow old.’
‘I suppose I should thank you for that.’ Oliver moved closer. He put his strong dark features a bare inch from Rosie’s face. ‘Is that the kind of man you would like, Rosie? The kind of man you want?’
After the smallest pause, she murmured, ‘Yes… I think it is.’ She stared at him, but although he was very close she could not read his thoughts. Not even Kerensa could easily do that. What would he do? What did she want him to do? She was frightened of him, not afraid he would hurt her, but of something she didn’t understand about him, but she didn’t want him to move away and she didn’t want to leave.
His hand came up and delicately touched a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘I prefer your hair to Ameline’s, it’s soft and natural.’
Rosie was totally mesmerised. She looked back into his dark eyes without blinking.
He moved his hand behind her and lowered the blanket from her shoulders. She wore her hair in one long plait. He ran his hand down to its tip and wound it round and round his index finger then up and over his hand until the silky length was at the nape of her neck. With a gentle tug he tilted her head back and slid his other hand under her chin. His fingers were resting on the sides of her neck and he brushed her ear lobe tantalisingly with his thumb. Then with the hand gripping her hair he pulled her to him.
Rosie closed her eyes. She had never been kissed before and he gently coaxed her trembling lips apart with his. The kiss went on and on. She was overcome by a strange weakness and leaned into his body. When she felt she could no longer breathe and had no care if she ever did again, he moved his mouth away. Running a gentle finger along her lower lip he gave it several tiny tender kisses that made her body tingle and her head wonderfully dizzy.
She let out a low moan. He lowered her down on the bench and put cushions under her head.
Sometimes when Oliver wanted to make love desperately his body gave a tremendous shudder. In her innocence Rosie misread it for him feeling cold and she rubbed her hands in circular movements over his back and arms to warm him. Encouraged by her stroking, he kissed her passionately and caressed her with his fingertips, years of practice and expertise enabling him to know what Rosie liked and when to proceed. He had not wanted another woman since his wedding night, not even in the early days of his marriage before he had fallen in love with his seventeen-year-old bride. But now he uncompromisingly wanted Rosie Trenchard.
Without her realising it he had released her stays, pushed his hand inside the opening of her dress and rested it on her bare stomach. She pulled her muscles in so tightly he felt the edges of her rib cage and after a few moments he looked at her to see if she was breathing.
Rosie’s hair had fallen loose from her plait, her face was flushed. She looked like a little girl awakened from a long dreamy slumber. A little girl, an innocent, trusting little girl – and it hit Oliver with an awesome force that he was about to utterly destroy that innocence. To embark on an affair with her would almost certainly forbid her making a good marriage, would destroy her faith in her superiors and lay her future in ruins.
Was he going to emulate his cruel, amoral father? Before his marriage he had lived by his own moral code, entertaining himself only with society women of a similar mind or the higher class professional. He had never violated a village girl, and now here he was in the throes of seducing a tenant’s young daughter, perhaps to leave her with a child to grow up as another Samuel Drannock…
Horrific pictures flashed through his mind. Rosie seduced and betrayed. Morley Trenchard, never to respect and trust him again. Alice, no longer his friend. A pregnant Rosie, offered marriage by Matthias Renfree, cuckolded before his wedding night and bringing up another man’s child. Rosie and Matthias leaving the estate, Adam Renfree too. And even more hate heaped on him by Clem; although he disliked and distrusted Clem, at that moment Oliver did not want him to suffer any more heartbreak on his account. Then came a vision of Kerensa’s beautiful, precious face. He could never reach the level of love and self-giving with anyone in the way he did with her, the woman he adored. There was a rift between them; was he going to risk making it deeper, perhaps unbridgeable, permanent? Could he give Kerensa more pain, that much pain?
Rosie lay quiet, horribly perplexed by his stillness and the mortified look on his face. The passion he had inflamed in her was gone, fear and shame taking its place. It was a relief when the hand that had grown heavy and was now hurting her was taken away. As quickly as her shaking hands allowed she relaced her stays and pulled the blankets protectively about her. Gently, he raised her to sit beside hi
m but he held her in a loose, fatherly embrace to stop her shivering.
‘I’m sorry, Rosie… I had no right to bring you here… no right to try to make love to you. It’s a good thing that I love Kerensa so very much… or… You did not mean anything like this to happen, did you?’
‘No,’ she said miserably, her face buried in her hands. ‘I don’t really know what I wanted to happen. From the time I got to know you when I visited the manor as a child I’ve been fascinated by you. I just wanted to spend some time with you, that’s all…’
‘Dear God, Rosie!’ Oliver gasped and shuddered. ‘I very nearly ruined you today.’
‘It wasn’t your fault, sir,’ Rosie said, using his title to restore their previous standing. ‘I shouldn’t have wanted to come, I should have known better.’
‘It most certainly was all my fault,’ he stressed. ‘I have every reason not to behave in such an irresponsible manner. Marry Matthias Renfree, Rosie, be like Kerensa and Alice and let your husband be the only man in your life. You’ll never regret it, Matthias is a good man.’
‘That may be so,’ she said rather bitterly, ‘but it doesn’t mean he wants to marry me, he hardly notices me.’
Oliver lightly kissed her forehead. ‘If he doesn’t one day soon then he is the biggest fool on God’s earth.’
Rosie pulled away and arranged her hair back into its neat plait. With a weak smile, she said, ‘Thank you for showing me the foxes, sir. I’ll never forget them. You really ought to bring Kerensa here to see them, specially next spring when more than likely there will be a litter of cubs as well.’
Oliver looked vacantly across the hideout at a picture he had painted of a raging storm sweeping into Trelynne Cove. ‘I’ll do that, Rosie… one day.’
Rosie wanted to be alone but she allowed him to escort her back to the stepping stones. The ground was slippery from a sudden heavy shower of rain they had not heard in their intimate moments in the hideout. She crossed the stream and walked on carefully until she knew she was nearly out of his sight. Instinct made her turn round and Oliver was still there, watching her, and some of Rosie’s guilt and shame melted at this show of courtesy and concern. He raised his hand in a small wave, like a salute to a friend.
* * *
Oliver returned to the hideout with the hope in his heart that the adverse aspects of the afternoon Rosie had spent with him would not stay in her mind for too long. His eyes found the painting of Trelynne Cove. In his mind’s eye he saw a poignant vision of Kerensa walking along the beach holding hands with Clem Trenchard as they must have done in the days of their betrothal. It was strange, he thought, how all the females closest to Clem were drawn to him. It was no wonder Clem hated him so much. He had taken Kerensa away and then she had fallen in love with him. Alice had turned to him for comfort in her moments of despair. Even Clem’s small daughter wasn’t shy of him and had climbed up on his lap. And now Rosie.
Oliver next fancied he saw Kerensa alone in the picture, standing on the rocks lost and distressed. He wanted desperately to be with Kerensa at that moment. If only he could go and take her in his arms, sweep away the sorrow in those hauntingly deep grey-green eyes. He knew he was responsible for that sorrow and felt guilty at her wretchedness yet at that moment he also envied her. Kerensa was content with herself deep down, never having known the inner turmoils he had suffered throughout his life. Despite his years, experiences, position and wealth he had been torn apart at the innermost part of his being. He was wracked with pain at Kerensa withholding the secret of Samuel Drannock’s true identity from him but what tortured him even more was his reaction to it.
He needed time to think. Time for a deep search inside himself. Time to be alone and make what would be a painful journey. Suddenly, Oliver knew what he had to do. In the not too distant future, when he had made suitable arrangements, he would go away. Far away from Cornwall, the estate and his wife.
Chapter 17
Ted Trembath and Lou Hunken were married on New Year’s Eve. After a quiet ceremony, attended by half a dozen people in St Piran’s, Perranbarvah’s parish church, the wedding party gathered with a greater number for a celebration held in a barn on Ker-an-Mor Farm. Many turned up out of affection for the amiable ex-miner and his widow bride, quite a few more tagged along in hope of devouring foodstuffs, ale and rum laid on generously by Oliver.
Adam Renfree made sure the liquor flowed freely and despite Matthias’s attempts to hide away the jugs of ale under bales of hay at the back of the barn, the party was in a merry mood by late afternoon.
‘Bring ’em back out, boy!’ Adam yelled at his son. ‘’Twas a bloody damned miserable Christmas and we’ve a right to make up for it now.’
‘Marriage is a holy sacrament,’ Matthias argued, to no effect, ‘not an excuse to get shamelessly drunk. And please stop that swearing, Father, there’s ladies present.’
‘Where? What ladies? I can’t see no one here who hasn’t heard it all before. Look around ’ee, son. Some of these women here are drunker than the men.’ Adam swept his bloodshot eyes round the barn until they alighted on a group set apart from the others. They were smiling pleasantly and tapping their feet to the music. ‘’Cept for your ruddy Methodies over there, of course,’ he added disparagingly.
‘They’re enjoying themselves without drinking and doing anything to spoil other people’s enjoyment. Lou’s not drinking, nor’s Ted, and they’re not miserable.’
‘Course Ted’s not drinking,’ Adam said, nodding at the bridegroom who was bouncing his youngest stepchild on his knee. ‘He’s saving his energies for later on. A man who’s stayed unmarried as long as he has will need a clear head to satisfy a comely widow like Lou.’
‘Really, Father!’ Matthias complained in exasperation.
‘Ahh, get on with ’ee, boy, a little bit of that would do you a power of good. Ted’n right for a man to be going without, don’t know how you put up with it.’
‘Must you bring that subject into everything you ever say? And there is nothing wrong with a man being chaste. There’s plenty against being morally loose!’
Adam was unrepentant. ‘Yah! Nature’s nature and that’s the end of it. I’ll see about lighting some lanterns, be getting dark drekkly.’
Matthias knew he would never win with his father. Adam was a law unto himself. Inclined to fits of hot temper, he liberally added a variety of swear words to every other sentence. He even swore in front of Sir Oliver, who rarely uttered an oath himself and disapproved of it in others. But he seemed to be oblivious to his farm steward’s bad language. Matthias had given up trying to convert his father; Adam was extremely antagonistic to any form of church or Christian fellowship and Matthias had decided the task was best left in the hands of the Almighty.
‘Don’t worry, Matthias,’ Clem Trenchard said in his friend’s ear. ‘Your father can hold his drink.’ Clem had no interest in weddings but he had joined Alice, Rosie and the children in the hope that the occasion would provide him with an opportunity to get his sister to notice Matthias. He was also hoping Kerensa would be there.
‘That’s not the point,’ Matthias responded soberly. ‘He’s dependent on the bottle now.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, but never mind that now, we’re here to celebrate a wedding.’
Clem made a quick movement forward. Matthias turned and saw the reason why. Kerensa had entered the barn with her three children. She was smiling and gaily greeted everyone. As she approached the two men, Adam’s voice reached them loudly as he concluded a ribald joke.
‘I’m very sorry, m’lady,’ Matthias apologised.
‘It’s all right, Matthias. It’s only Adam being Adam and I don’t think the children heard, they’re too busy looking about,’ Kerensa said brightly.
She looked beautiful, though pale and a little thin, and had dressed plainly so as not to detract from the bride. Clem stared at her and wanted to ask if she was ill but it would be improper – improper to ask after t
he welfare of the woman who should be his wife! Was she ailing? Alice had not mentioned anything of the kind, but she had been unusually reticent in mentioning Kerensa of late.
She turned to Clem and smiled lightly under his gaze. She was obviously pleased to see him. ‘Hello, Clem, it’s good to see you here, and all the family.’
‘Hello, Kerensa, it’s good to see you too. It’s been a long time.’ He always called her Kerensa. How could he call her anything else, the girl he had nearly married, the woman he loved?
Kerensa gave a small nod and Matthias thought he detected regret in that gesture. She moved away and seeing Alice sitting on a bench greeted her, kissed her and sat down beside her. The Trenchard children instantly rushed to their mother like chicks to a broody hen. The six children eyed each other, it was one of the few times they had all been together. Kerensa had not overdressed her children either and apart from the obvious superior quality of their clothes they melted in quite easily with the other children, as was their mother’s intention.
As their mothers chatted about the wedding, Kane attached himself to Philip and David. Olivia admired Jessica’s blue flounced silk dress, making no mention of its once being one of her own. She retied the new bow Alice had proudly added at the back and was allowed to take Jessica by the hand and lead her across the yard to see the growing foal at the stud. Luke was invited to play with the other boys but refused, going off by himself.
Clem tried to keep Rosie by his side and make sure Matthias was at the other. He glanced often at Kerensa, longing to ask her to dance with him. It seemed such a long, long time ago that they had danced together as two very young betrothed people in love. It hurt and angered him now that it was improper for him even to speak to her unless she spoke first and then only for a few moments. And he was becoming irritated at the inexplicable way Matthias was watching him rather than making eyes at his sister.
Clem put his arm round Rosie and hugged her, hoping she was enjoying the party. She seemed so unhappy these days and had to be coaxed away from the sanctuary of the farmhouse, even to the wedding today. For a brief time she had been different, exhilarated somehow and secretive. The family suspected she was meeting someone and although Clem knew it wasn’t Matthias he would have been pleased to see her happy and in love. He knew only too well the painful loneliness of losing the one you loved. If there had indeed been a man in Rosie’s life, he was there no longer and his dear sister was miserable, and as Clem looked into the beautiful face of the young woman at his wife’s side he knew that she was miserable too.
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