‘No,’ she said, refusing to let me shoulder the blame. ‘Like I said earlier, I underestimated the power of love and that was foolish of me.’

As a result of everything that had happened since, I’d forgotten she’d said that earlier.

‘You do know,’ she carried on, ‘that Beamish has fallen in love with you, don’t you, Hattie?’

‘Of course, he hasn’t,’ I said, my temperature rising.

He might have liked me, even fancied me a bit, but he wasn’t in love with me. How could he be when we’d known each other for less than a month?

‘I should have realised it sooner,’ Dolly tutted, ‘but with everything else that’s been going on I didn’t spot the signs.’

‘You’re wrong,’ I tried to tell her.

‘And,’ she carried on, talking over me, ‘I think you’ve fallen in love with him.’

I shook my head. I knew now that the ‘L’ word wasn’t one to casually bandy about. I would readily admit that there had been a spark of attraction, one that had led to our near-kisses, but it had been well and truly snuffed out now. The look of hurt on his face earlier was enough to confirm that we were done for. There was no room for even a hint of a friendship, let alone a loving feeling.

‘If you had seen the look Beamish gave me when he left, Dolly,’ I told her, ‘then you’d be as sure as I am that the last thing he feels for me is love. He hates me for my deception and harbours no other feeling than that.’

‘Rubbish,’ said Dolly vehemently.

‘It isn’t,’ I batted back, ‘it’s true and even if it wasn’t, we could hardly do anything about it, could we?’

‘Why not?’

‘Well for a start I’ve just ended one relationship so I could hardly fall straight into another, especially with a man I barely know. It wouldn’t be appropriate.’

Dolly was looking mutinous.

‘Since when,’ she demanded, ‘has true love ever taken into account what’s appropriate and what’s not?’

Chapter 26

Chapter 26

As I gradually drifted up through the layers of sleep, I realised I wasn’t alone in the bedroom. I cautiously opened one eye and found Dolly standing next to the bed.

‘What’s wrong?’ I panicked, sitting straight up and feeling instantly awake. ‘What is it? Have you got a pain? Why didn’t you wake me before?’

Dolly let me blow myself out before she said anything.

‘Do you know what today is?’ was her first question.

I took a quick mental jog around the calendar. I didn’t think I’d slept right through to Christmas day, but I couldn’t be sure. I’d felt emotionally wrung out by the time I crawled into bed so it wasn’t beyond the bounds that I’d slept for days rather than hours.