Pengarron Land by Gloria Cook

Author:Gloria Cook
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canelo Books
Published: 2019-04-11T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

‘Now what are you doing?’ he demanded impatiently from the bed.

‘Picking up your clothes. You’re not at home, Oliver.’ Kerensa gathered them up and folded them neatly over the back of a chair.

‘Never mind all that. Get into bed, will you? As it was I thought that woman was never going to finish with you.’

Kerensa looked at him squarely. ‘Rantings and ravings,’ she said, reminded of what Jake Angove had said about him; and Beatrice: ‘Tempers ’n’ tantrums.’

‘What’s that?’

‘You should learn to be more patient, Oliver. If I was a long time with Polly, it’s because she likes to be thorough.’

‘Are you deliberately being difficult, girl? Perhaps I should get out of here and drag you into this bed.’

‘If I’m being difficult maybe it’s because I’ve had a good teacher in you,’ she returned pertly, ‘but I’m coming now.’

She blew out all the candles but the ones in a triple sconce on Oliver’s side and climbed into bed beside him. ‘I thought you were going to stay down and talk with William,’ she told him, as he pulled her against his bare chest.

‘I don’t recall that I was,’ he said moodily, ‘and I’m not sure I approve of this new you. Has Rachael been encouraging you to be rebellious towards me?’

Kerensa pulled away a little from him and looked him in the face. ‘Are you cross with me then?’

‘No,’ he laughed. ‘It’s good to see you gaining in confidence.’ He kissed her neck then added in mock threat, ‘But don’t let it get out of hand or…’

‘Or what?’ she whispered.

‘Oh, I’ll think of something,’ he said, untying the ribbons down the front of her nightgown.

Kerensa held his hands still. ‘You were going to tell me about Alice and the others,’ she teased him.

‘Not now,’ he said, roughly pulling the nightgown off her shoulders, ‘not now…’

He had spent one of the most trying days of his life. The four-mile ride over to Tolwithrick had seemed much longer than it usually did that morning. The time spent with the new baby and his older brothers and sisters had been a torment to him. Even the hours he’d spent fishing for trout with young Martin in the nearby Withy river, because Rachael had insisted on Kerensa joining her for the afternoon, had dragged interminably, instead of proving as enjoyable as they normally would have been. He felt as though a worm was relentlessly chewing into his gut with every hour he endured, longing to be alone with his young wife.

Promptly at four o’clock, with William and Rachael, they’d eaten a plentiful dinner of goose and roasted lobster, plum pudding, jellies and custard. Oliver had hoped Rachael would lie down for a rest before supper when it would have been easy enough to suggest to William that he might like to take himself off to his study for an hour or so. But Rachael, starved of society for too long at the end of her pregnancy, kept them all occupied with gossip

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