‘Why don’t you go and get changed?’ he suggested and for once Amber didn’t argue with him. She’d had quite enough unpleasantness for one day and it had upset her deeply.

‘Don’t you have to get back to work?’ she asked him when she came back downstairs.

‘No, it won’t hurt if I don’t go back today. Jimmy can see to what we were doing and I’d rather hang about here in case there’s any more unpleasantness. I’ll make myself useful in the garden,’ he said, leaving the room and going upstairs to change.

Amber stared after him thoughtfully. What had happened to her in the town seemed to have upset him almost as much as it had her and it surprised her. After all, she had never been anything more than a laundry maid he could toy with and then dump when he tired of her, had she?

Then, with a shrug she began to put the groceries away.

*

Early in the morning on the day before her uncle’s wedding, Amber, wearing her best dress, carried the last of the luggage out to the barouche and Barnaby, looking very handsome in a smart pin-striped tail suit and a starched white shirt, loaded it onto the back.

Amber had written to her mother to tell her to expect them and her mother had written back to say that her uncle had bought her a new outfit for the wedding that he hoped would fit her and Amber could hardly wait to see it.

‘Is that the lot?’ Barnaby asked.

She nodded and clambered up onto the seat next to the driver’s as Barnaby handed Charlotte up to her. The baby had started to jabber away in her own little language and if it was possible Barnaby seemed to be even more devoted to her.

‘We should be there by early this afternoon if we make good time,’ he told her as they set off, Charlotte giggling in delight.

As Barnaby had forecast, they drew up outside her uncle’s home in Scarborough shortly after lunchtime and whilst Amber and Charlotte went to knock on the door, Barnaby began to unpack their luggage.

Her mother and Martha Carter answered the door and instantly started to coo over Charlotte.

‘Oh, she’s got so big,’ her mother cried with delight. ‘And she’s so beautiful. The absolute double of you when you were her age.’

Her smile faded as she glanced towards Barnaby and she said politely, ‘Thank you very much for bringin’ them.’

‘It was my pleasure, Mrs Ainsley.’ He tipped his hat and gave a little bow and Alice couldn’t help but notice how handsome he was. It was no wonder he had turned Amber’s head.

‘How shall we be able to let you know when she’s coming home?’