Clem couldn’t help himself from lifting the sheet and looking lingeringly down her body from head to toes. ‘You are so very, very beautiful, Kerensa,’ he said appreciatively.

‘You’re rather beautiful yourself, Clem Trenchard,’ Kerensa murmured, adding not at all coyly, ‘I have noticed.’

They kissed, for the sheer pleasure of the contact of their lips, then Clem suggested they go back into the other room.

‘I’ll cheer up the fire and leave you to get dressed. You, um, you wouldn’t tidy up the bed, would you? I’m not very good at that sort of thing.’

‘I’ll join you in a little while,’ she told him with an amused face.

As they entered the snug living room in turn Charity looked up, but having been deserted by them earlier she decided to ignore them now. She replaced her head on the hearth and went back to sleep.

‘Charity is vexed with us,’ Kerensa observed, ‘just as Bob was with me for not allowing him to come with me today.’

Clem stroked Charity’s back. ‘You warm enough, Kerensa?’

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she replied, resuming her place on the settle.

‘You didn’t tell him about the baby, did you, Kerensa. If you had I’m sure he would have stayed.’

‘I wanted to, Clem. I very nearly did, but I didn’t want him to stay and feel trapped. This is something he has to do and maybe when he comes back…’

‘He’ll come back,’ Clem said at once. ‘He wouldn’t leave you and your children and his responsibilities for ever.’

‘Yes… I believe Oliver will come back, but it will be agony wondering what he’ll be like towards me when he does. There have always been depths to him that I’ve never been able to fathom. What if he comes back hating me, never to forgive me?’

‘It won’t come to that, I’m sure. But will you be able to forgive him?’

‘I think so. You see, I do understand a little of what he’s going through. I just want things to get back to normal.’

‘They will, I’m sure, it just takes time.’

‘Dear Clem,’ she said wanly, ‘you’re trying to say the right thing but you know so little of what Oliver is really like. I’ll just have to wait and hope.’

‘You have me to wait and hope with you, my love,’ Clem said, sitting beside her on the settle. ‘Do you have to go home yet? I can stay another couple of hours. Father won’t be pleased, but no one questions me going off on my own and I can make up my work on the farm tomorrow.’

‘I can stay. I told Polly I needed to see a few people and then wanted some time to myself.’