Mrs Tregonning side-stepped the request and broke a rule she had kept the entire time she had spent as the Reverend’s housekeeper. ‘What on earth was all that shouting about?’

‘I really do wish I could tell you, Mrs Tregonning. Before you fetch the cloth will you please pour me a large glass of port wine.’

She stared anxiously at him as she poured the drink, and placed it on his desk. The old parson left it untouched. He was too preoccupied wording a prayer that when Oliver got home and told Kerensa the news that had shocked him her reaction would be the right one.

‘Oliver!’ Kerensa was greatly surprised at his sudden entry into her sitting room. ‘Did you forget something?’

‘I had to come back, Kerensa. I needed to see you.’ The distress with which he had left the parsonage and galloped recklessly home was unmistakably written on his face.

She rushed into his arms. ‘What is it, my dearest? What’s happened?’

He held her tightly, crushing her against him so that her face was pressed against his chest. His shirt was wet with sweat and through the linen she felt his skin feverishly hot. She prised her face away and looked up with anxious eyes while ice clamped her stomach and tormented her heart.

Her husband was a strong, capable, confident man. She had never seen him like this before. Something was terribly wrong. It couldn’t have anything to do with the children, she had heard them playing in the garden just half an hour ago and now they were safely out for a walk with Cherry their nursemaid, Ameline Beswetherick and her personal maid. There could be nothing wrong with them. Someone must have died. Why else would Oliver be so upset? Kerensa had no living relatives and Oliver had only distant ones; he would not be brought to this by the loss of one of them. Alice was her closest friend. Had something happened to Alice? Was she…? Oh, please God, not Clem! But then Oliver would not grieve for Clem.

‘What is it, Oliver. Tell me!’

He answered her plea with a long, pained exhalation of breath that warmed her brow. Then at last he spoke. ‘Today, my love, I have learned,’ he said each word so slowly Kerensa creased her beautiful face and searched his as though to help and hurry him, ‘something that has left me very badly shaken. I have just come from Perranbarvah where I called on the Reverend Ivey.’

‘The Reverend has… has passed away?’

‘It is nothing of that nature, my love… Kerensa,’ Oliver held her at arm’s length, ‘tell me, has it ever crossed your mind that Bartholomew Drannock bears a likeness to me, his eyes, his hair, his mannerisms?’