Kerensa sat quietly. She was tired from her months of heartache, the events of those months, Kelynen’s birth and Luke’s accident. But Oliver was home and she would never have to bear anything alone again. Here he was, not only back from a long absence but from the hurts of the past, and with an enlargement of the family that meant so much to him.

Jenifer grew pleasantly sleepy. She let herself drift away, and soon she would not fight to come back. She could die content, knowing that she had taught her children their manners and the etiquette of society. They would have little trouble mixing in genteel company and while Samuel had rejected the idea that he belonged in it, his children would take their rightful places. And she was glad that they would have opportunities their father had refused.

‘Bartholomew and the others took the news very well,’ Kerensa said, reaching over the bed and retrieving a pillow that had fallen on the floor.

‘Mmm, they did,’ Oliver agreed in a husky voice.

‘Why are you smiling like that?’ she asked pertly.

‘Why do you think?’

She pretended modesty by covering herself with the sheet. ‘Anything else?’

‘I’m just very, very happy, my dear. Luke is much better, Kane and Olivia are happy to have me back home, my baby daughter is as beautiful as her mother and Bartholomew took the news just as I hoped he would.’

‘I wasn’t surprised,’ Kerensa said, hammering the battered pillows into shape and lying back on them. ‘I had a few words with him back along and he’s grown up since and seen sense about a lot of things.’

Oliver chuckled, and catching her chin turned her head to look at him. ‘My wife, the wise woman of West Cornwall. You spoke to Bartholomew while I was away, I presume.’

‘No, actually it was a day or two before you left. I had reason to believe he was about to seduce Ameline. As she was under our care I decided something ought to be done about it. I was also concerned with the way he was neglecting Jenifer and the children.’

‘You are a brave little thing.’ He kissed the tip of her nose. ‘Fancy a little bit of a thing like you taking on a strapping youth like Bartholomew.’

Kerensa kissed the tip of his nose and said teasingly in a superior voice, ‘Perhaps you big brave men should stop looking on your women as “little bits of a thing” and realise just how tough and intelligent we are. And anyway, you’re all little boys deep down when your thick skin is rubbed away.’

‘Is that how you thought of me a few moments ago?’

The dangerous gleam was back in his dark eyes and she lowered her eyelashes provocatively. ‘Not… exactly…’

‘I still pride myself on some things even if I have changed a great deal,’ he laughed at himself.