It seemed to Timothy that Olivia had outgrown their marriage within its first year, and he ached inside, thinking she might feel she had made a mistake. She admitted that she found matters of the church and the parish something of an annoyance, getting in the way of her pastime – ambition, as she put it. She longed for wider acknowledgement for her talent, and he couldn’t make her see that she ought to be putting her duties to him, and those under his cure, before her own desires.

‘Once a week is enough for this,’ he had stabbed a finger at the painting gear she carried downstairs an hour ago. ‘You’ve a meeting to attend this luncheon-tide at Tolwithrick, of the Gentlewomen’s Charitable Trust.’

Out of Olivia’s grey-green eyes came a vixenish glare. ‘I intend to do no such thing. I haven’t painted outside for four days owing to the inclement weather. I’m not about to waste this promise of good light by being cooped up with a roomful of gossiping old biddies, who’ll soon twist all the conversation round to my parents’ troubles. And news of that,’ she accused him bitterly, ‘wouldn’t have got abroad if you’d acted in due haste to wipe out the rumours.’

‘Livvy, you are being unfair. I had no idea there was such talk. If Sir Oliver had seen fit to inform me—’

‘Don’t blame my father for your own failures! The old Reverend Ivey would have had my parents reunited by now.’

‘That’s unjust, Olivia, and you know it!’

‘Oh, get out of my way, Timothy, and let me get on. Then I might be back in time for this stupid meeting.’

‘What are you thinking about, Timothy?’ Catherine repeated a third time since Nancy had left the room. He looked up, his brow furrowed. ‘It’s obviously something very serious.’

‘Oh, it’s Olivia. She’s gone out in one of her moods again.’

‘Except for the unfortunate son who bore the brunt of Sir Oliver’s sickening exhibition at Harry’s baptism, the Pengarrons are a most moody, quarrelsome family.’

Catherine rarely gave vent to passion of an irate kind. She willingly forgave others their transgressions towards her, even without being asked, but not on this account. The hurt, the sense of degradation suffered by her family and herself on that dreadful occasion, was like an open wound to her heart. Clem and Flora could also have ended up at the base of those steps and John would have witnessed it. The twins had been fractious and anxious since then, and Clem had shut the greater part of himself off from her again.

‘Aren’t they just.’ Timothy had never before issued a negative word against the lord of the manor, who had been responsible for giving him the living of the parish.

‘They must be handled carefully.’