It still amazed her that he was here in Tilsham, that of all the gin joints in the world, he’d shown up in this one. At sixty-four he was still an attractive man and in good shape. He had kept a full head of hair that was a pleasant shade of light grey and his beard, closely trimmed, was the same colour, if a little darker in places. She supposed in modern parlance he would be called a silver fox.

Glancing up from what he was doing, he gave her a long, searching look.

‘What?’ she said.

‘I was thinking of today, with you up that ladder in the church and our subterfuge.’

‘And?’

‘And that it’s only a matter of time before we give ourselves away, and that when people have put two and two together, they’ll wonder why we’ve been so secretive. They’ll think we had something to hide.’

‘But we do.’

He frowned at her tone which was more severe than she intended. ‘We’re doing nothing wrong,’ he said.

Not now we’re not, she thought with an imperceptible tightening of the tangle of knots inside her.

‘Don’t you want your friends and family to know about me … about us?’

‘Of course I do,’ she said. ‘It’s just that I enjoy what we have. It’s so wonderfully uncomplicated as things are. Just you and me.’

‘Meaning?’

‘Meaning that as soon as I tell Martha and Willow, everything will change. You’ll be horribly scrutinised. Your every motive will be questioned.’

The dressing mixed, he drizzled it over the salad leaves he’d already placed in a large pottery bowl. ‘I have nothing to hide,’ he said. ‘And I’d expect nothing less than your daughters to be suspicious of me. They need to know their mother isn’t going to come to any harm with some stranger.’

‘You’re not a stranger,’ she said faintly.

‘I am to them.’

‘But they wouldn’t need to know the whole truth, we could gloss over a few details, couldn’t we? I wouldn’t want them to think—’

‘Badly of you,’ he finished for her. ‘I wouldn’t want that either. I thought we’d covered all that?’

‘And there’s your stepson to consider as well,’ she went on stubbornly, reluctant to accept that he was right. ‘He might have strong views on you being with someone other than his mother.’

‘I’ve told you before, Lucas has his own life in Los Angeles and has always made it clear that I shouldn’t live in the past.’ He came over and put his arms around her. ‘But that doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate your concerns. I do. You’ve lived here in a close-knit village for more than thirty years and everyone knows you as one half of a couple, the wife of a man who was hugely liked and admired. Who am I to think I could step into his shoes?’

‘Don’t say that.’

‘But I’m sure it’s what a lot of your friends will think. Particularly your daughters. But sooner, rather than later, we need to be honest.’ He kissed her lightly on the lips. ‘I just want there to be a real us.’