‘One?’ Dora said. The sins of the fathers. Could she draw him out? ‘You have others?’

‘Who doesn’t? I bet you have a few, Nurse Simon.’

She shook her head but a blush was working its way up her neck, burning as it went. He brushed the back of his fingers against her cheek and pulled her close so her head rested on his shoulder. She wanted him to kiss her then, but he didn’t make a move. Perhaps he didn’t care for her, not deep down. Perhaps her breath smelled, her diet was not a healthy one. Perhaps he had another girlfriend who visited at the weekends. What was it Sir Leonard had said? A most unsavoury character. Or perhaps he was still in love with Margaret’s mother, even though he never talked about her. It was silly to be so unsure, but she didn’t know if he loved her, too. He’d never said.

‘Tell me about your wife.’

‘What do you want to know?’

‘What was she like?’

He paused. She felt his chest rise and fall as he breathed, heard him swallow, a hard gulp shoving past his Adam’s apple and down his gullet.

‘I’m sorry,’ Dora said. She felt a rip of panic, a premonition. Perhaps he’d abandoned her. Or something dreadful had happened. An accident. Worse. ‘I shouldn’t have asked.’

‘You have every right to ask,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure how to answer. Bea died, in childbirth. I’d met her nine months earlier. She’d been here on holiday.’

‘Oh,’ Dora said. ‘How terrible. How did she die exactly?’ It was such a risky business, childbirth.

‘Eclampsia.’ He rested his chin on her head and she listened as he breathed in the kitchen air with its steam and wood smoke.

‘Like her daughter,’ Dora said.

He nodded. ‘I was powerless to help her. I thought her the most beautiful creature that walked the earth,’ he went on. ‘If that doesn’t sound too corny.’ He pushed Dora away, held her shoulders at arm’s length, added, ‘Before I met you, that is.’ He smiled and pulled her close again. ‘I thought my grief was fathomless, that I could no sooner see my life without her than live on the moon. I wandered the beaches longing for a rip tide or a freak wave to suck me away and into oblivion.’

Dora pressed her hand against his waist. I know about sorrow. She shouldn’t have raised the question, but she was glad she had. He had loved his wife very much. She thought she’d be jealous, but Geoffrey was sharing this part of himself with her, this intimacy, and she felt included, part of him, one with him. She knew now that he was capable of great love. Passion. Rage?

‘My parents were still alive then. My mother was looking after Margaret.’

‘And?’ Dora said.