She slammed the book shut and watched through the big, twelve-paned window as Luca rode past on the old point-to-pointer they couldn’t sell because it hadn’t raced in years, leading an unbroken three-year-old out to nanny around the village for experience. She’d done it herself a hundred times a lifetime ago, that parallel life she’d all too briefly ridden through last night.

Back out on the yard, safe in the knowledge he’d be gone a while, she made a beeline for Lester’s cob, burying her face in his solid neck and focussing on breathing. In out, in out. Deep lungfuls of that sweet, addictive comfort.

‘Shall we tack him up for you?’

She swung round in alarm to see her mother beaming over the door at her, fresh from a night of sin. She looked radiant.

Did she know about Pax riding? But the smile was unwitting.

‘No thanks.’ She gave the cob a perfunctory pat, hoping Ronnie would think she was just checking him over. ‘Good night?’

‘Better than yours by the look of it. Come and see Lester. I’m driving over there now.’

‘I can’t. I have lots to do.’

‘Nonsense. We’ll take Stubbs. I’ve found a trolley suitcase he fits in perfectly. Is he in the cottage?’ She was across the yard to the wall door before Pax could stop her, calling over her shoulder, ‘Luca’s riding out, I take it?’

Pax followed slowly, pulling off her boots at the back door, knowing exactly what her mother would have just stumbled across. Why hadn’t she put them away? Half-sellotaped letters were spread out on the table in Lester’s cottage.

Ronnie pressed her hands to her cheeks. ‘You found them then?’

Pax stood in the doorway uncertainly.

‘He wanted me to hide them.’

She crossed the room, fighting an urge to do as Lester wanted and stuff them all back in the box. ‘How long have you known?’

‘Longer than I realised. Self-denial is an incredibly powerful thing. Lester was worried you’d come across them. He wanted me to put them in safekeeping, but I couldn’t find the ruddy box, and now—’

‘I’m glad I know.’

‘Is it terribly selfish to say I am too? It’s not an easy thing to carry alone.’

As they stood close together, looking down at the jigsaw of crumpled paper and heartfelt words, Pax felt an extraordinary flood of relief. Something deeper surfaced alongside it, a belief she’d stayed true to through all their years of estrangement, however bad things got: they shared the same capacity to forgive. Her mother – tough and kind and courageous, never giving up on her children – had kept Johnny Ledwell’s secret unswervingly.

‘I can’t imagine how hard it must have been, living that lie.’

‘For all of us. There were happy times, and many of them, but I do so wish they could start afresh today when so much has changed.’ Ronnie turned to smile up at her sadly. ‘The curse of being my age is to want to go back and live one’s life again with the benefit of hindsight. Appreciating how good something is in the moment is so much harder than looking back at it afterwards.’