I’d learnt that a piece of paper means nothing and Nico understood that, and I loved him all the more for it. I never wanted him to be the second husband because our union isn’t just a marriage, it’s two souls coming together as one.

As we begin each new day together, we pledge that it will be a renewal of our continuing love and commitment. And every time he asks me to marry him, we both know that I’ll say no because it reminds us that we colour outside the lines, as well as inside of them. Being different sums up who and what we are. Two people brought together against the odds. A match made in heaven.

When the time comes and our daughter is old enough for other people to ask her why we never got married, we know we’ll have done a brilliant job if she simply shrugs her shoulders and smiles. ‘Because they’d been blessed already.’

Does ‘The End’ ever leave you wanting more?

I always feel that the ending of a story merely signals the beginning of the next chapter in each of the character’s lives. But even as I type those words, my mind is asking me, But what happened next? Because I’m always curious and always reluctant to let them go.

By now you know them every bit as well as I do and probably have your own ideas about what the future held. But if you can’t resist the temptation to see where my imagination led them, then read on.

Life is a mixed bag, and there isn’t always a nice, neat little happy ending, but sometimes there is…

Nico and Fern

Nico did, eventually, paint Fern sitting in the long grass, gazing out across the lake. It sold, many years later, to a London art gallery for well in excess of one hundred thousand pounds. Entitled: The Angel of Love, the beauty Nico Gallegos had succeeded in capturing enthralled the eye of the beholder. It was his tribute to the woman he had fallen in love with from the very first moment he saw her.

Fern once confided in her daughter that when she eventually admitted to herself that she was in love with Nico, she felt she was seeing everything for the first time. Suddenly the world was bigger, brighter and exciting. And it was, every single day they spent together. Many thought her happiness was due to the success she achieved as a prolific and very popular artist, but looking back on her life her words put everything into perspective: ‘It was only ever the icing on the cake. Nico and my beautiful daughter, Olivia, were the twinkling stars that lit up my little heaven on earth.’

Isabel, the Marquesa de Aytona