have anywhere to go?’ Despite everything, Kara was still programmed to think of Jago’s welfare.
‘It’s tough shit, Kara. It really is.’ Star’s Cornish twang became heightened in frustration. ‘He’s been playing you for a fool for years and he’s far too wily to be without a roof for long. He’s made his own bed – in another woman’s house! Let him lie between her sheets now. She can put up with him, poor cow. Now, where are we going?’
Chapter 6
As it was such a lovely day and he needed to stall for time, Jago Ellis had decided to walk the two miles from the Jobcentre to the end of Crowsbridge High Street and on to Crowsbridge Hall, the Cornwall Trust property and previous home to the past six generations of the Penhaligon family. With the Easter holidays upon them, queues had already started to form along the winding drive that led up to the grand Queen Anne-era white mansion set within stunning gardens.
It had been a year ago when he had first met Rachel Penhaligon, twenty-six-year-old daughter of Lord and Lady Penhaligon, the current owners of Crowsbridge Hall. It wasn’t long before he’d learned that Rachel was heiress to an exceptionally large fortune. He’d gone to the Hall to enquire about a gardening job in order to keep both the Jobcentre and Kara happy. And when the promiscuous beauty had made it quite clear that she could show him something far sweeter to bed in the lodge at the bottom of the drive than the begonias he’d been tasked to plant by the head gardener, he couldn’t believe his luck.
And from that day forward, every Friday without fail, Rachel Penhaligon had got the bit of rough she had been craving for. And Jago Ellis had embarked on an illicit tryst with a filthy posh heiress. Rachel was content with their once-a-week arrangement, not wanting anything more than fun and good sex. She hadn’t even asked whether Jago had a girlfriend, thinking that as he always had to get the last ferry home to Hartmouth, he probably did.
Today, she had grudgingly promised her parents that she would oversee the busy visitors’ café in the morning as they were short-staffed, and not knowing what time she would be free, she had suggested Jago make his way there. She could sit and have a coffee with him and would warm him up with a mistress-gardener role play, Lady Chatterley’s Lover-style – the very same scenario that had turned her on right from the start.
Their normal weekly routine was that Jago would go straight to her lodge, where the door would be left on the latch. He would creep up the stairs to find Rachel more often than not in stockings and suspenders, teetering precariously on high heels on her huge queen-size bed whilst brandishing a riding whip. Today, with her parents away at their holiday home in Puerto Banus, Jago was hoping she might even be able to take him up to the main house where there was a private pool and Jacuzzi to add to the fun.
Rachel winked at him as he strode towards the counter. Then, leaning forward to show a hint of cleavage, she whispered in his ear that she wasn’t wearing any knickers and that he should wait for her on the bench nearest the lake where she would be taking down his credentials sooner rather than later.
Chapter 7
Joe Moon pulled two faded red fabric fold-up chairs from the old tug and set them on the Hartmouth quayside. The ferry crossings had kept to the same timetable since he had started working with his dad as a teenager. He knew them off by heart and could recite them like a mantra – something he had to do on a regular basis.
‘Eight until dusk, January to December. Nine until four on a Sunday. Closed Christmas Day. Weather dependent, o’ course.’
His daughters had shown no interest in taking the helm and if he was honest with himself, Joe was quite glad they hadn’t. With his old-fashioned values, he felt it wasn’t the right work or acceptable hours for a woman to undertake. So, he was rather hoping for a grandson to be born to one of them, a sturdy lad who would want to continue the family business. However, so far, the signs were not looking good. Jenifer, his eldest, had turned forty, and was more in love with her international banking career than she had been with any man –