Chapters (50)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- Forty-One
- Forty-Two
- Forty-Three
- Forty-Four
- Forty-Five
- Forty-Six
- The Pengarron Sagas
- The Harvey Family Sagas
Luke couldn’t have brought her to a better place. The Pengarrons had been kind to her, although Sir Oliver seemed rather aloof. Alicia felt he neither liked nor trusted her, and he had made it clear to Jack that he suspected he and Luke were lying about their London venture; Alicia had supposedly been a governess to a family visiting the capital. If a certain name – Trenchard – was mentioned, she noticed Sir Oliver became scornful, unpleasant even, and her ladyship appeared to become impatient with him. She must ask Jack what was behind this. She did not want to make an indiscretion.
The servants were friendly, not pressing her for information after she had lightly warded off their first curious attempts, but she could hardly make out a word they said. Their dialect, especially the hideous old woman’s, was less distinct than even the broadest cockney she had heard. She was bemused at the close-knit community she now found herself in, but it worried her that the anonymity she had taken for granted in London, unless in the social sense, was almost entirely lacking. The Cornish were a superstitious race and employed all manner of odd sayings and practices to ward off bad luck, poverty and divine judgement. No matter, she didn’t intend to mix with them beyond the daily excursion to the kitchens with Jack to eat a cooked meal and collect fresh food for the remainder of the day.
She missed the noise and bustle of the city. It was strange to notice the weather conditions every day, and although she found the wide expanse of the sea awesome with its changing colours and constant movement, the mist that sometimes came suddenly rolling in off it was somehow frightening. The smoke and fog of London had given only nuisance value, it had never seemed alive and threatening.
She shook herself out of getting fanciful like the locals, and she tried to laugh at herself for believing the claim of the charlatan actress back in the capital: three, strangely connected, would die. She, Jack and Luke were safe. She placed a hand over her stomach where her precious baby was growing. Safe and protected.
Her new home, although small and ill-equipped, was welcomingly secluded from the great house and its everyday business. Luke had been the first through the front door on the morning after their arrival at Pengarron Manor.