‘Why? In case something bad happens to me?’ Now her words were coated in a bitterness that was tangible. ‘I want you to go, all right?’

Adam stared at her. ‘We can’t leave it like this, not after all we’ve meant to each other. Please, Ruby, you must see that? We can sort it out. I promise you, we can sort it.’

She said nothing but her small chin rose a fraction and her mouth tightened. He wouldn’t see her cry, she told herself.

‘I love you, Ruby.’ He wet his lips, one over the other. ‘I’ve been a fool, but you know I love you, don’t you?’

After a few more seconds when she neither moved nor spoke, his head twitched in a little jerk. ‘I’ll go now if that’s what you want, but we have to talk some more. I won’t take no for an answer.’

She remained straight and still as she watched him walk away, his shoulders hunched. It was only when he had disappeared from view that her body gave a visible shudder. In just a few short minutes her life had changed for ever – how was that possible? She had lost Adam and she had lost her sister too; however this turned out she wanted nothing to do with either of them again.

She wasn’t crying. The pain was too fierce for the relief of tears, burning and consuming every emotion except that of furious rage. Now that Adam had gone, now he wasn’t standing in front of her, her anger was directed at Olive. She shut her eyes for a moment, picturing her sister creeping upstairs like a spider, knowing all the time what she intended to do. How could any lass lower herself to trick a lad like that, but especially when it was her own sister’s fiancé?