‘She’s too smart with her sharp tongue.’ Cormac snaffled a crispy bit off the top of the beef and got his knuckles rapped with the carving fork. ‘She’s mean-spirited and always has been. She didn’t tell Keelin for months after Dad died that he had haemochromatosis and that was what weakened his heart. She let Keelin believe his heart attack was all her fault, and I won’t ever forgive her for that.’

‘I know,’ Felicity sighed, spooning creamy mash onto Imelda’s plate. ‘But that was all water under the bridge and they’d made up, years ago. Why could she not have kept her mouth shut at the party? She’s her own worst enemy.’

‘And you’re too good to her, and too soft.’ Her husband put his arm around his wife’s shoulder and gave her a hug.

‘Ah, she didn’t have it easy in those years after your da died, and before it. It was no joke looking after her parents and his, and then running the shop when Larry passed.’

‘I took that over,’ Cormac said indignantly. ‘Despite the fact I wanted to study architecture.’

‘It wasn’t meant to be. You’d probably have met some posh totty in uni and married her and been miserable. And here you are, with a thriving business and me for a wife. How lucky are you?’ she teased, flicking him with the tea towel and he laughed, picking up the colander of mushy peas to pour them into a dish.

After they’d eaten the lunch and the dishwasher had been loaded, Felicity placed the Clingfilm wrapped plate of dinner into a shopping bag and added a dessert dish full of trifle.

She was dreading the visit to her mother-in-law’s. She didn’t like being involved in family rows. She was half sorry now that she’d offered to collect Keelin and Armand’s luggage.

Imelda would be shocked to know that they weren’t intending upon coming back to Glencarraig. It was a real slap in the face, even if a deserved one, and Felicity would much prefer not to have to break that news to her. Now she was stuck in the middle of them all when it was really nothing to do with her. One way or another she was in a no-win situation, Felicity thought gloomily, reversing out of the drive to make the short trip down the road to Imelda’s house. She should have kept her mouth shut and let them sort it themselves but she’d felt so sorry for her sister and brother-in-law the night of the party.

‘Were you too lazy to walk?’ her mother-in-law asked smartly, when Felicity knocked on the back door and let herself in.