‘Look at the pretty flowers, darling.’ Amber turned the perambulator Mr Greenwood had bought for Charlotte towards the copse of trees and the sweet little girl sucked on her thumb as she stared in awe at the sea of bluebells beneath the tender green leaves. It had been a long hard winter and now Amber was loving being able to take the child out into the fresh air, although she still had to be careful because the April showers could come from nowhere and she didn’t want the baby to get wet and catch a chill. Charlotte was now seven months old and the apple of Amber’s eye, and now when she looked at her she wondered how she could ever have thought of giving her away.

However, over the last few weeks Amber had become increasingly unsettled and more and more she thought of how wonderful it would be if she were to have her own little home where she could have Charlotte all to herself. She was painfully aware that Mr Greenwood had only given her the position of Charlotte’s nanny because of guilt but she hated to feel indebted to him. And so for the last few weeks she had spent her Sunday afternoons searching for a position that provided accommodation where she could take her baby to work with her – after all, she had reasoned, lots of other mothers worked. But it was proving to be far harder than she had thought it would be and up to now she’d had no luck at all.

She knew deep down that Barnaby Greenwood would be devastated if she were to take the baby away, for since losing David, he had grown even closer to the child, but the way she saw it, she had every right to. Charlotte was her daughter too and she doubted he would cause a fuss in case she was to tell everyone how the child had come about. In addition, his wife was now holding on to life by a thread, if the rumours that Becky brought back to the nursery from below stairs were anything to go by, and she doubted he would want anything to upset her to the point that it would speed her end. And so Amber felt quite within her rights to claim the child and as far as she was concerned, he would just have to get used to it. After all, had she done as he had ordered her to, Charlotte would never have been born.

She spent the next hour happily wheeling Charlotte about the manicured lawns pointing out things of interest to the child until the sun suddenly went in and the sky became leaden, so she hurried inside before the rain came.