‘Harriet, lass, come here to me, don’t get yourself so upset.’ Archie made his way through the crowd and put his arm around the hysterical woman, whose heart had been broken once more. ‘Come on – come over here with me, away from these folk. Rosie, you and Ethan go and tell Jethro to take us back to Crummock. I don’t think your mother will want to stay and see Christmas in with these good folk.’

‘Yes, Grandfather.’ Rosie looked as bewildered as everyone else, as she and Ethan ran to fetch Jethro to take her mother home. The man who was with Jane was her own half-brother? Where had he come from? Who was his mother? Rosie glanced back as she watched Archie and her mother walk steadily out of the hallway, her mother in tears; and then the crowds of guests turned their attention to her father, standing with his namesake. There was no doubt in anybody’s minds that Danny Atkinson had another son, and Rosie a half-brother.

‘I’m sorry, good people, please don’t let this outburst spoil your evening.’ James stood on the band’s platform and tried to draw attention away from Danny and his new-found son, as they made their way into the drawing room of Windfell. ‘Families, eh, who would have them?’ He was trying to make light of the situation. ‘Come on, we’ve still got a few hours until Christmas Day. Enjoy the band and food, and forget your worries, because compared to ours they will be nothing.’

James grinned and instructed the band to start playing again, as he looked across at his wife and daughter. He was not the first in the family to fall from grace and he certainly wouldn’t be the last, he was sure of that. Right now, he hoped that Danny was doing right by his new son, but also that he would return to Crummock and tell Harriet just how much she meant to him and that he had always loved her. He knew that, like his own fling with Madge, it must have ensued from the thrill of the moment, but unfortunately a son had been born from Danny’s forbidden passion.

‘Thank you, James. Isn’t it all a mess?’ Isabelle linked her arm into James’s and looked at Jane, standing alone and aghast, until Rosie reappeared without Ethan on her arm, making her way to where her father and her newly announced brother had been standing with Jane. Luke was moving through the crowd to join them, not wanting to be disassociated from the breaking scandal. ‘You try to protect your children from hurt and then you, as a parent, do more damage than you could possibly dream of,’ said Isabelle regretfully.