A ripple of guilt spread through her. She’d never understood because she’d dismissed too easily Imelda’s moans about being abandoned to slavery – as she termed it – looking after their parents. The accusation that their father had given her a good dowry to the detriment of Imelda’s chances of bettering herself stung! And it stung because it was true, Brigid admitted guiltily.

Only one of them had been given the chance to escape the life of drudgery on the farm – and she had not only seized that chance, she’d taken it under false pretences. She’d had no vocation when she entered the convent, and Imelda knew it, just as she’d known all along that Brigid’s only thought was to get away from Ardcloch and her broken dreams. And Imelda was right, she’d been thoroughly selfish, uncaring and insensitive, giving no thought to the dreams her sister had harboured but would never realize. Brigid felt shame at the realization of how high and mighty she had been. For years she’d had a wonderful life, driving around the African bush in her jeep, feeling mighty important, telling herself what a difference she was making to the lives of mothers and babies. She’d never spared a thought for the life of unrelenting hard work Imelda had endured, rearing her own babies and looking after her parents and mother-in-law.

Everything Imelda had accused her of earlier was true, Brigid thought, looking at the metaphorical mirror that had been held up to her by her sister. It was time for her to face her own past and be honest with herself. ‘To thine own self be true,’ she murmured sadly.

She took another mouthful of brandy, draining the glass. Maura had been generous in her pouring, Brigid recognized, replacing the empty goblet on the bedside locker and easing herself back onto her pillows. Unaccustomed to drinking alcohol, she was feeling a tad woozy. Her eyelids began to droop. She felt disconnected, as if she were floating off somewhere. Not an unpleasant feeling, to be sure. She was warm now, the earlier chilliness of delayed shock having thawed under the effects of the brandy.

A thought struck her. This was not the worst night of her life, despite the humiliation inflicted on her by Imelda. The worst night of her life had been on that lonely hillside on Christmas Eve, when her precious baby had flowed out of her and her heart had broken into a million pieces for all that she’d lost.

Imelda might have thought she’d revealed the most shocking details of Brigid’s shameful past, and perhaps she had, but Brigid still had one precious secret: her pregnancy. Her brief, never to be forgotten experience of motherhood, when she’d cherished the knowledge that her child was growing in her womb. That would always be hers and hers alone.