Oliver was highly conscious of the light weight of her hot damp body on his. In the delicious moments of their coupling he had forgotten the anger he felt towards her, his emptiness, the pain of the loss that could never be regained. He stared sightlessly at the canopy above them. If he did not love Kerensa so very much then her betrayal would not have cut so deeply, leaving this bitter, helpless agony.

More hurt came in his secret acknowledgement that Kerensa was right about his dead friend, Arthur Beswetherick, Sir Martin’s youngest son. Oliver had grown, been schooled and matured into manhood side by side with Arthur Beswetherick. Everything they had learned they’d learned together. They had planned to take a suitable bride in the same year, rear large families and grow old together, comfortable in a never-ending companionship.

When Arthur bled to death on the battlefield of Dettingen, Oliver had been left distraught and lonely. The memories of his lost friend came back often to haunt him. The comradeship of two men who took up arms to fight, prepared to die side by side, was unique, unlike that of an ordinary friendship or the affection for a member of one’s family. In the lonely years until Kerensa had become his wife he had taken comfort in those memories. Oliver didn’t want to admit it but Kerensa had been right in what she’d shouted at him about Arthur Beswetherick. It was time to leave him in the past, but with the way things were he couldn’t do it yet.

Agonising thoughts of the lost brother denied to him, of how things might have been between himself and Samuel Drannock, refused to be blocked out. They grew and grew and festered like an open wound. Suddenly he thrust Kerensa away.

‘Oliver! What’s the—’ She was interrupted by a child’s cry along the corridor.

‘I’ll go,’ he said tersely, kicking the bedcovers so violently they became untucked and hit the floor.

Kerensa lay frozen as she listened to him hastily pulling on clothes. She remained still as she heard him order Cherry back to bed and go himself to soothe away the terrors of another of Kane’s nightmares. The two bedroom doors closed, one after the other. She was shut off. Retrieving the bedcovers, she wrapped them round herself like a cocoon. She knew Oliver would not come back to share them with her again that night.

Across the grounds, Jack left his tiny cottage in his one good suit of clothes. He was proud of his suit. He had bought it secondhand from a market stall and was convinced its good fabric and condition meant it had belonged to a man of means either bored with it or down on his luck. And as luck would have it for Jack, it suited his colouring and was a perfect fit.