Matilda eyed him warily. He looked like he was telling the truth, but there again, he often did. ‘Why all the smoke and mirrors? Olivia would have been none the wiser if you’d carried on with the lie, so why now?’

‘Because she wanted to pay her respects. I could hardly send her to grieve in a churchyard, knowing full well that her baby wasn’t there – even I wouldn’t go that far.’

‘All these lies, William … If you’d just told the truth from the start …’

He rallied. ‘If I’d told the truth from the start, goodness only knows what would have happened to Liv. Her reputation would have been shot to pieces, her credibility in the toilet, and for what? The baby didn’t make it, so she wouldn’t have been any better off than she is now, but she would have been dragging round the reputation for being fast and loose. You know as well as I do how harmful getting a name like that can be. She would have been ridiculed and judged by everyone – she’d never have recovered from such a scandal.’

Matilda stared back at him. ‘You’re the one who would’ve lost out the most, though, aren’t you, William? All your contacts and employees knowing that your underage daughter had had a child with one of your workers? You’d never have lived it down. You pretend you did all this for Liv, but you didn’t, you did it for yourself.’ She shook her head angrily. ‘God forgive me, but thank goodness that baby didn’t survive because I dread to think what you would have done if it had.’

William looked at her as though she had hit him in the face with a spade. ‘What the hell are you accusing me of?’

‘I’m saying I think you’d go to any lengths to protect your precious factory.’ She eyed him levelly. ‘Tell me I’m wrong!’

‘I’ll admit, it was better for everyone that the baby didn’t survive, but if you think for a moment it died by my hand, then you’d better find yourself a good lawyer, because I will drag you and your husband through every court in the land, until you’ve not a penny to your name.’ He paused, then added spitefully, ‘Not that it was your money in the first place.’

‘I never said you’d murder your own grandchild, I simply said …’

‘Well don’t,’ roared William. He eyed her with disdain. ‘Good God, woman, that might be the heathen kind of behaviour you’re used to, but let’s not forget, it was me who got you out of that gutter and if you don’t want to find yourself sharing a roof with ten others, I suggest you keep your libellous trap shut!’

‘Are you threatening me?’ said Matilda, scarcely able to believe the turn the conversation had taken.

‘Too bloody right I am. You open that big mouth of yours to anyone else and all this will have been for naught.’