‘Jealousy’s a terrible thing,’ said Giles. ‘It can be responsible for some awful actions. Lorna’s always been insanely jealous of Mum. All through their childhood Mum was the better loved – by everyone. It must have been hard. Then Lorna not only wanted to marry me but – and this I only discovered afterwards – had set her heart on Glendrochatt too – had a completely false picture of herself as its chatelaine. And Mum got both. Then we had you and Edward, and Lorna, who’d always said she longed for children, was desperately envious of that too.’

‘She certainly wasn’t envious of Edward,’ said Amy resentfully. ‘She was always dreadful about Ed. Horrible.’

‘No, not about Ed,’ he admitted. ‘Which makes it all the more difficult to understand why, when she’d always professed herself desperate for children, she could turn out to be such a rotten mother when she got a beautiful baby of her own like Rory. In South Africa there were always nannies and staff to look after him but Granny and Grandpa looked after him more than she ever did to begin with. They went out there and he spent long periods with them in France – but never when we were there.’

‘So how come you and Mum can send him back to her now?’ asked Amy accusingly.

Giles sighed. ‘It’s very hard for your mum. How do you think she feels to see the evidence of my unfaithfulness under her nose all the time? How do you think I feel when I respond to him as my son, and see the pain in your mother’s face?’

‘But she loves him,’ said Amy doubtfully, looking very troubled.

‘Yes . . . because she’s an exceptionally generous person and because he’s a very endearing child. But how generous are you, Amy?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You weren’t exactly thrilled when he arrived – and I didn’t blame you. You probably feel very resentful of him now.’

Amy swallowed. ‘But Ed will be devastated if he goes now. He adored playing with Rory . . . and Rory hero-worships him.’

‘Yes, that’s all true . . . for now. But Rory will outgrow Edward as all his playmates do,’ said Giles inexorably. ‘How will it be for Ed then?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’ Amy was on the verge of tears. ‘I only know I hate the thought of him going back to Aunt Lorna . . . but you make it all so sound so complicated,’ she muttered.

‘Because it is complicated. Because the cruellest thing of all would be to try to keep Rory for a bit longer now . . . and then abandon him. Even if we managed to get Aunt Lorna to agree to give him up – which would be very out of character – it still wouldn’t be easy. We’d all have to make a huge commitment to him and that would mean you too, Amy.’

‘So what are you going to do?’ she asked.