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Back Pengarron Dynasty
Chapters (50)
  1. Cover
  2. Dedication
  3. One
  4. Two
  5. Three
  6. Four
  7. Five
  8. Six
  9. Seven
  10. Eight
  11. Nine
  12. Ten
  13. Eleven
  14. Twelve
  15. Thirteen
  16. Fourteen
  17. Fifteen
  18. Sixteen
  19. Seventeen
  20. Eighteen
  21. Nineteen
  22. Twenty
  23. Twenty-One
  24. Twenty-Two
  25. Twenty-Three
  26. Twenty-Four
  27. Twenty-Five
  28. Twenty-Six
  29. Twenty-Seven
  30. Twenty-Eight
  31. Twenty-Nine
  32. Thirty
  33. Thirty-One
  34. Thirty-Two
  35. Thirty-Three
  36. Thirty-Four
  37. Thirty-Five
  38. Thirty-Six
  39. Thirty-Seven
  40. Thirty-Eight
  41. Thirty-Nine
  42. Forty
  43. Forty-One
  44. Forty-Two
  45. Forty-Three
  46. Forty-Four
  47. Forty-Five
  48. Forty-Six
  49. The Pengarron Sagas
  50. The Harvey Family Sagas

When Jack went in to see his daughter, he took Luke with him.

Forty

Around the Cornish peninsula on the south coast, heavy rain had fallen all night. It eased off at dawn, leaving the sky unsullied, the air hushed and fresh.

The shingle and rocks of Trelynne Cove were drying out at mid-morning when Kerensa and Oliver looked down on them. They were in a pensive mood, worried that there might come another crisis to rock their newly recovered world. Both had good reason to be feeling this way.

‘Shall we go down?’ Oliver said softly.

‘I’ll lead the way,’ Kerensa replied, taking Kernick forward.

The black granite cliffs of the empty cove had a dramatic shape, like that of a horse shoe, the steep rocky path leading down to it wound in a figure three. Over the years, hardly a week had gone by when Kerensa had not come here, yet this was to be the most poignant, the most painful journey she would ever make down to the place where she had been born and raised in her grandfather’s tiny cob-walled cottage.

The cottage was long gone, as were Old Tom Trelynne’s neglected rowing boat and worn-out crab pots. Old Tom had been scrawny, cunning, and more wicked than Kerensa would ever have believed. He had hidden contraband and stolen goods in a heavily concealed shallow cave. It was where he had died at the vengeful hands of a tinner, for committing a Cornishman’s most grievous sin; betraying a smuggling run to the Revenue men. It seemed part of another life to Kerensa now.

Leaving Kernick, she crunched over the shingle to the shore. This was the beach where she had walked and held hands with Clem in their youth, and where, two years ago, they should have said goodbye, in their hearts, for all time. Tears stung her eyes. Clem would soon know she had let him down again; Timothy or Jessica would write with the news that she and Oliver were once more a loving couple. How many times could Clem bear it?

Was he miserable without her at home on his farm? He had something she did not, a granddaughter. Matthias Renfree had told her of the event, written in a letter from Kenver to Rosie, of Rebekah Trenchard’s birth. She prayed Rebekah was making Clem happy.

‘This is where it all started for us,’ Oliver said, at her side, his words carried across the cove by the ever-present winds. ‘I accept that my agreement to Old Tom’s outrageous proposition that I marry you to claim the cove back as Pengarron land, was wrong. But, my love, as I’ve said here once before, I’ve never regretted taking you as my wife.’