As she got dressed, she thought it through for the hundredth time: the logistics of how she could make it work. She would have to go back to Suffolk. With no job and no savings behind her, she couldn’t afford to live on her own in London. She’d need to speak to Joan and demand her share of their parents’ inheritance. Until now she had shown no interest in it. She’d been so determined to be independent and make her own way in the world that to make Joan sell the house and release her share would have looked like a failure, and there had been no way she would give her sister the satisfaction of that.

But a baby would change everything. She couldn’t afford to be independent when there weren’t just her own needs to consider. Puritanical Joan would be horrified, but she wouldn’t kick her out on the street, and even if she wanted to, Peter wouldn’t let her. She would make Evelyn’s life hell, though. There would be all the snide comments about having to come home – and come home in disgrace to boot. There was no way Joan wouldn’t make the very most of any opportunity to make Evelyn look small and cheap, but that was just the price she would have to pay if she decided to keep the baby.

It wouldn’t be forever, though. When the child started school, Evelyn would be able to go back to work. That was what modern women did, wasn’t it? Women like Detective Constable Karen Walker. Evelyn would only lose four years of her career, five at the most, and she would emerge at the end of that time with a beautiful child and a whole host of new life experiences on which to draw for her acting. Sacrificing the role in Into the Blue would be a very, very great shame, but it would be worth it in the long run.

As she brushed her hair, Evelyn realised she had made her decision. It wasn’t a surprise. If she was honest with herself, she had known all along that she wouldn’t be able to let the baby go. She would never tell a living soul who the father was, though. She had her reputation to think of, and she definitely didn’t want him to find out. Her baby was nothing to do with him. She had been so very naive, but she had learned her lesson and she would never let anything like that happen again. If there was ever a next time, she would walk into it with her eyes wide open.

So now all she had to do was . . . Evelyn felt sick at the thought of it. Julian, Joan, Ted. She would have to tell them all that she, Evelyn Mountcastle, was going to have a baby on her own.

20

‘You want to do what?!’

Julian whisked his stockinged feet off his desk, sat forward in his chair and stared at her open-mouthed.