‘So what do you think?’ Barnaby asked tentatively when she joined him in the kitchen, and for the first time since he had sent her packing after discovering that Charlotte was on the way, she gave him a beaming smile, quite forgetting for the moment that she was supposed to detest him.

‘I think with some tender loving care this could make a beautiful home for Charlotte,’ she said with hesitation. ‘But why has it been left empty for so long?’

‘Apparently the sea captain that owned it left it to his nephew when he died. He wanted to come and live in it but his wife didn’t, so in the end he gave up trying to persuade her and decided he might as well sell it. The house is called “The Crow’s Nest” by the way. I think it’s been empty for at least four or five years now and it smells very damp and musty, doesn’t it?’

‘It just needs a good airin’ and a good clean, but you would have to get the windows and the roof repaired before anything else,’ she told him sensibly. ‘And it’s not too far from Whitby either, I could walk there to do the shopping.’

A ray of sunshine was doing its best to pierce through the grimy windows and as it shone on her hair it reminded him of spun gold. Charlotte’s was exactly the same colour and in that moment he realised just how much she looked like her mother.

‘Another urgent job would be to get the fencing all around the garden repaired,’ he said thoughtfully as he stared back at his little daughter. ‘One side of the garden is quite close to the cliffs and we don’t want any accidents with this little madam here. She’ll be walking before we know it, the way she’s going on. So, does the house meet with your approval?’

Again, she smiled and her eyes shone as she looked about the room, imagining how it would look when it was all clean and shining with pretty curtains hanging at the windows and rugs on the tiled floor. ‘Yes, it does,’ she said softly. The only down side to living there would be the fact that she would have to share it with him.

After a quick tour of the garden, they set off back to the town where Barnaby paid a deposit on their new home.

‘It’s a very straightforward sale,’ the elderly solicitor who was handling the house informed him. ‘I can have the deeds signed over to you within a couple of days if you’d care to return with the balance.’

And so it was agreed and as they returned to Greenacres, Amber hoped that she had made the right decision.

Nancy and Becky listened to her avidly as she told them all about it that evening.