They were all missing Rosalee in their own ways, herself included. It was a sad fact that her mother and Rosalee went hand in hand. In fact it was one of her mother’s saving graces, the way she looked after her. Yes, they would have to go. For Rosalee’s sake, if for no other reason.

Bernadette watched her husband closely.

‘Why the change of clothes at lunchtime, Marcus? That shirt was clean on this morning.’

He turned from the elaborate mirror on their dressing table and chucked her under the chin.

‘I’ve got to see an important client today. As you know, Briony has expanded her clientele and now I have to deal with some very important people. I have to look respectable.’ His voice had the evasive quality she hated.

‘You looked respectable this morning, Marcus.’

He rolled his eyes and sighed loudly. ‘Look, Bern, I am getting a bit sick of all this questioning. I’m only changing my shirt, not having a bath to meet a fancy woman. Now will you just leave it?’

Bernadette bit back the retort that was on her lips and kept her peace. Fifteen minutes later he left the house without kissing her goodbye. That was her punishment for questioning him. Walking into her daughter’s bedroom she absentmindedly smoothed the quilt on a bed and straightened up already perfectly straight pictures. The girls were too old to take up all her time now, she admitted that fact to herself. Which was why she had too much time to think. Think about Marcus, and his increasing handsomeness.

Why was it a man could father fifteen children, a hundred children, and still look untouched? Whereas a woman like herself paid the price for her children’s birth in every stretch mark, in the sagging of her stomach muscles, in the spreading of waist and hips. Going into her own bedroom she picked up the shirt her husband had discarded and held it to her nose, breathing in the smell of him. His soap, his sweat, and, thank God, for once no smell of perfume. Cheap perfume. That smell had been there a lot lately.

She had known for many years that Marcus was a philanderer. He liked women and was in a job where he was surrounded by them. Beautiful women. Until now it had only bothered her periodically, knowing that as the mother of his children she held the upper hand. That was until about six months ago when she had first noticed the distinctive smell of cheap perfume. The same smell had lingered on a lot of his shirts since then. A cloying, orangey fragrance, a whore’s smell. Only this whore was still in attendance six months later and that worried her.