She gave a disbelieving laugh. ‘Don’t try and tell me you were in the scouts, Edward Hewitt, because I shan’t believe you!’

Ted jutted his bottom lip out in feigned hurt. ‘Don’t you think they’d have had me?’

‘No, I do not!’ giggled Olivia. ‘Always up to no good, that was you!’

He kissed her on the cheek. ‘You wouldn’t have me any other way.’

She sighed wistfully. ‘For my sins.’

Ted held out a hand to hail a tram as it trundled towards them. ‘Gosh, it’s good to have you home.’

Olivia walked towards the middle of the tram before taking a seat. ‘It’s good to be back. I do miss Liverpool. The country’s all right, but I’m a city girl through and through.’

‘Have you any idea what you’re going to say to your old feller?’

Olivia nodded. ‘I’m going to tell him that we’re courting, and that he’ll have to get used to it.’ She pursed her lips. ‘If he tries to suggest you’re only with me because of my inheritance, I shall tell him that if that’s what he wants to believe then that’s fine by me because I know it’s not true, then I’ll tell him to go boil his head.’

Ted burst out laughing. ‘You were doing so well up until that point.’

She grinned mischievously. ‘I won’t really tell him the last part, because he never does anything I tell him to anyway.’

Ted gave her a grim smile. ‘He’s a daft old sod. He had it all, beautiful wife, daughter, lovely home and plenty of money – why couldn’t he be happy?’

Olivia shook her head. ‘I haven’t the foggiest, Ted. Mum and Nana used to blame the factory, but if that were the case then he should have sold it and been done with it – it’s not like he’d have been short of money.’

The tram journey passed far more quickly than Olivia would have wished, and it seemed she had hardly been in Liverpool for more than ten minutes before she found herself standing outside the door to her father’s house. She rang the bell and then, holding Ted’s hand, stood back.

There was a flurry of footsteps before the door was opened wide and Annie stood in the entrance, slightly out of breath. She stared at them both for a few seconds before the penny dropped. ‘Goodness me, if it isn’t Miss Olivia!’ Stepping back, she ushered them in before closing the door. ‘I do apologise, miss, only I thought you were the doctor.’

‘Doctor?’ repeated Olivia. ‘How come you’re expecting the doctor? Dad’s never ill!’

Annie fidgeted awkwardly. ‘Not expecting him exactly, but he does call in every few days to see how your father’s getting on. You see, your father’s been unwell for ever such a long time now. I would have written to tell you, but he forbade me from telling anyone, saying if I did, they’d soon come crawling out of the woodwork.’