‘The King, the old King, had led us into battle. He was grieved when the news reached him. He sent his personal condolences to Martin and Lady Ameline, but it’s hard to take the death of a youngest child… the death of your only close friend.’

Oliver pulled Kerensa down so he could hold her. ‘I stayed there and mourned Arthur until I felt a sense of peace. Sometimes it was as if he was there with me, telling me to forget him, to go on with my life, and then… then I had to work out my feelings for you. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life. I wandered about the countryside like a lost soul, moving from village to village, from country to country, keeping away from people except to buy food and wine. I ended up in Brittany where there was so much to remind me of my own beloved county. It was there, my precious love, that I began to get things straightened out in my mind.

‘I had run out of money again but managed to get work on a farm for just my food and milk or water. The old couple who rented it were very poor and disapproved of alcohol. I suppose it helped to clear my head.’ Laughing wryly, he swallowed from a glass of water at the bedside.

‘Jules and Michelle – that’s where I got our baby’s other name from – were very old and practically infirm. They told me they had had four children, all of whom died in childhood. They’d had a tragic life, yet always they were content. They were so close to each other, their marriage was truly like the Biblical “one person”.

‘They knew I was no peasant, and a foreigner, yet even with my secrets they treated me as their own son. As time went on, although I didn’t realise it, they broke down the barriers I’d put up. I asked them why they were always happy. They replied, just a simple trust in God, and love and trust in each other.

‘Michelle knew her man well, and she soon began to know me. She didn’t have to guess I was married, that it was an affair of the heart I was running away from. Eventually, she got the whole story out of me. She asked me if I loved you. I answered, of course I did. Then she asked if there was any reason on God’s earth why I couldn’t trust you. It only took a moment’s thought to say there was not. Michelle made me see it wasn’t you, my love, who was the problem, or the fact that you had kept a secret from me. It was my own petty pride. Stupid.