‘Well, we both know where we stand,’ came Oliver’s blistering reply. ‘I ask for mercy and you see fit to taunt me!’ He came towards her. He did not touch her, but nevertheless his bearing pinned her back against the door. ‘You are my wife. Think not that this will give you an opportunity to find more time to be alone with that bastard dirt-farmer, to give him the chance to get what he’s always wanted from you. Whenever you go to Vellanoweth, I shall see to it that an escort goes with you and never leaves your side.’

Kerensa refused to be intimidated. ‘That will cause me no injury. For your information, Clem and I have never been alone on my visits to Kane and Harry. Be sure to keep your own self in order. Just go, Oliver, there’s no last word for you this time.’

He stalked off to his own dressing room, saying over his shoulder, ‘We’ll see!’

Returning to the great bed, she climbed up on it, shaking uncontrollably. She and Oliver had said many things in hurt, frustration and temper. And they had acknowledged a truth that, despite the intensity of the love they shared, someone had always been there like a shadow between them.

Clem.

Thirteen

Catherine Trenchard was having breakfast alone with her brother.

His housekeeper brought a letter into the dining room. Timothy Lanyon held out his hand for it, but Nancy Wills placed the silver salver beside Catherine’s untouched plate.

‘For me? Thank you, Nancy. It must be from someone connected with one of my charities.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Nancy replied, eyeing the abandoned bread and butter.

The writing above the red wax seal, bearing Catherine’s own mark, was barely legible. Only someone home at the farm could have written it. She hid her dismay at what she read.

‘Come along, Mrs Trenchard, you’re eating less than the twins these days,’ Nancy clucked round her. ‘And you, Reverend. You’ve hardly eaten a thing yourself.’

Timothy wasn’t listening, his mind was on Olivia. She was spending more time than ever about her paintings. If she wasn’t upstairs in the studio, which Sir Oliver had arranged to be converted from the attics for her, she was taking her easel and watercolours or oils out to field, wayside, beach or cliff top, sometimes accompanied by an animal or human subject. She was adept in any medium, and he was proud of her achievements, but she was sorely neglecting him and her parish duties. It was receiving comment and he was feeling a fool. If he ever brought up the matter of babies, and as a husband he had the right to, she immediately became unresponsive, eventually breaking into a temper that could out-better the fiercest of her brother Luke’s.