‘That’s enough, Cinderella, home time for you.’

‘But I don’t want to go,’ she said. ‘Just because you don’t like other people, it doesn’t mean I don’t. I like dances and other people and—’

‘Yes, I can see that,’ said Peter and he had a nasty little smile at the corners of his mouth. Then he added, ‘You don’t know what you’re getting into, Ver. Besides, it’s foul outside, a storm is coming.’

She looked around desperately for Jack but couldn’t see him.

‘You’re not my father, Peter,’ she said, words tumbling out. ‘You’re just jealous!’

‘I’m getting you out of here,’ he said, his teeth gritted, grabbing her and hurting her arm. Under his breath he hissed, close to her face, ‘Bloody disgrace.’

Where the hell was Jack? She scanned the bodies in the hall but could see no one with red hair. Peter had a hard grip on her arm and although she struggled against him, he propelled her out of the door.

Outside in the dark, she yelled, ‘Get off me! Leave me alone!’ but he ignored her, keeping a tight hold on her arm and looking grimly ahead until they got to his bike.

‘Hitch up on the back. We need to get home to the farm. Father needs us. If you hadn’t been such a silly tart then I wouldn’t have had to come and get you.’

‘You didn’t need to come and get me. I am not a child,’ she spat. ‘If you were normal you’d understand.’

He stared at her coldly and just said, ‘Get on.’

Glaring back at him, she did as she was told, afraid of his reaction. With a hollow thud, the realisation hit her that he was in love with Jack and had been from the beginning.

But he didn’t say anything about Jack, he just said, ‘Focus on bloody holding on, you’re going to have us both over in a minute. You’re drunk, you stink of it. You’d better start sobering up before we get home.’

She clung onto his sodden trench coat on the back of one of the farm bikes, her face against the wet cloth as he wove as if drunk himself against the wind and the rain, towards home.

He was wrong. She wasn’t blotto, she couldn’t be. She’d hardly managed to drink anything before Jack had whisked her onto the dance floor and before Peter had turned up. Two whisky sours, hardly worth writing home about. She wished she was drunk.

‘Bloody hell!’ Peter shouted. ‘Look at that.’

Water was already lapping over the quay wall, splashing onto the quayside.

‘Christ, we need to get a move on. There must have been a breach already. Get on,’ Peter shouted and she obeyed, perching herself back on the bike after slipping off.