Gabriella was a lovely girl but she had been incapable of taking proper care of those children. She was like that Celeste and everyone knew she hadn’t been the full shilling. No, the general consensus was that Cynthia, whatever people might think of her in the past, had proved herself in the end.

Cynthia felt the tide of good wishes and basked in their warmth and, as she stood by her daughter, hand on her arm, her granddaughter clutching her other hand, she knew that she had won, at least where public opinion was concerned.

Everyone watched her pull Gabby into her arms, and they said afterwards that when it came down to it, no matter what, you always wanted your mum when things were bad.

Chapter One Hundred and Fifty-Four

It was almost nine months since the funeral of little Vince, and Gabby was finally getting back to some kind of normality. It had not been the greatest of times, and she knew it would take a long while before she felt strong enough to feel anything close to happiness again.

Vincent was home, working at a garage in East London and they were gradually getting things together. It had been hard for them; he had never really known his son, but he had grieved for him as they both had. Cherie wasn’t living with them, but they saw her a lot, and that was enough for Gabby these days. As Vincent said, it was a shame to take the child away from her nanny until they had replaced everything and had a proper home for her. But Gabby knew it was because Cherie didn’t really bother with him. He had been away for so much of her life, she just didn’t know him any more. It was sad but it was a fact of life.

Now she was pregnant again, although she was too frightened to get excited about it. Vincent was over the moon; he saw it as a chance for them to start again with the family they both had always longed for. Gabby wouldn’t allow herself to get too caught up in his dreams. She had never been lucky in that way – every time she had believed her life was back on track it had been destroyed.

She had a lot of trouble with her hands still. It didn’t bother her that they were scarred, but it was difficult to pick up small things, like pins or stamps. Even a knife could be quite difficult for her, but she was doing a lot of physio, and soon she would have another skin graft and then things would be even easier. She supposed they might put that off now until after the baby was born.