The children were spending a week in Berlin before returning with their cousins to spend the rest of the summer at Shuttleworth Hall and she would have to tell them.

How would she do so?

How could she tell them?

That Adam would demand she now divorce Berthold and marry him, she didn’t have a doubt. And that Berthold, when he was told the situation, would reluctantly acquiesce to a divorce, she also didn’t doubt. But it would take time. If Berthold were to divorce her for adultery it wouldn’t be granted till long after the baby was born, and if either of them were to divorce the other on the grounds of desertion, the wait would be even longer. In the meantime, Adam’s child would be born out of wedlock and she would be the talk of Yorkshire.

Not, of course, that she would let that trouble her. It was how the gossip would affect Max, Hugo and Nancy that was concerning her. Paul, she was quite sure, would take it in his stride, but then Paul was her nephew, not her son.

What about Max, newly embarked on a career in banking? And Hugo, still at Oxford?

A kingfisher flew low across the river and she watched it, unable to resolve how to go about tackling the difficulties that lay ahead, even wondering if she would, perhaps, have to leave Shuttleworth Hall and live elsewhere.

Suddenly, she heard the sound of him walking towards her over the sun-parched grass. She sucked in her breath, her pulse racing.

For Adam this was going to be a life-changing moment and, in the certain knowledge he was always going to love and cherish both her and the child she was carrying, she turned around, troubled no longer.

‘I have news,’ she said, and began running towards him. ‘I have wonderful news, Adam! Incredible news!’

As his arms closed around her, she said, her face radiant, ‘We’re having a baby, Adam. I’m three months pregnant.’

His handsome face was almost comical in its stupefaction, and then he gave a roar of delight that had every bird in the vicinity taking to flight.

‘Great heavens! That’s astounding! That’s the best news I’ve ever heard in my life!’

Alight with joy, he swung her off her feet and round and round so that they only narrowly missed falling into the river. ‘And now you’ll have to get a divorce and marry me,’ he said, as they collapsed breathlessly on the grass. He kissed her eyelids, her mouth, her throat and then, gazing down at her with eyes blazing with love, said, ‘So when are you going to leave for Berlin, sweetheart? Today or tomorrow?’

‘But I don’t want a divorce.’ Berthold looked dazed. ‘I thought we were happy as we were?’ He took off his spectacles and began polishing them furiously. ‘And why should your having a baby cause talk in Little Ridding? You’re married to me. People will think it is our baby.’