‘I cared for your baby, Hugh. I’m not evil. I’m a good person. I went through the motions, kept her fed, changed her when she was a baby, even sung to her a couple of times, but she was surplus to requirements.’

‘Aunt Verity?’ Tiger looked up at her with watery eyes, and Verity stroked the child’s cheek, pushed back her dark hair.

‘You can call me Mummy now, sweetheart,’ she said. ‘And I can finally call you Faith.’ Verity turned her eyes back to her brother. ‘The perfect name, don’t you think? You’ve got to have faith, haven’t you?’

Tears filled Hugh’s eyes. What had she done? What had he done?

‘To be honest, I never expected to feel anything when Faith was born. Nobody was more shocked by the overwhelming love that grew inside me for my daughter. And I wanted you to love her too, Hugh.’

‘I would have loved your child, Verity.’ He swiped his sleeve across his eyes.

She shook her head. ‘No. Not in the same way I thought you would love your own daughter. I wanted you to be a father to her. I hoped, once you got over your terrible grief of losing Pippa, that your child – yours and Pippa’s – would become the most important thing in your life. I thought if I substituted her for my daughter, she would become the object of your love and affection. Something I’d accepted I could never be.’

Hugh shook his head, the shock of what she was telling him bouncing around his head like a grenade waiting to go off. ‘You’re crazy.’

‘All I wanted was for Faith to feel your love. But it never happened, did it? You’ve rarely wanted to see her over the years. That bond never came.’

Hugh looked at the little girl who had called him Daddy for so long. Verity was right. There was never a bond between them, never that surge of love he had hoped he might feel for the daughter Pippa and he had made. He liked the kid, a cute little thing, but she could have been anybody’s child.

‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered for the kid’s ears. ‘This was never about you, little one.’

The child broke free of Verity, headed across the room and held her cuddly tiger up in the air. ‘This is for you,’ she said to the child in Hugh’s arms, but the little girl didn’t respond.

‘Thank you,’ Hugh said, taking it from her.

‘It will make her happy.’

‘I’m sure it will.’