Evie was about to laugh. Such an odd thing to say, but she could see his nervousness was genuine. She wanted to say, just love him, but that seemed a step too far for a man like Douglas. He’d think it soppy and sentimental. Love was not a thing for fathers to admit feeling for their sons. So, she said, ‘Just be here for him. That’s all you need to do.’

Douglas frowned. ‘But he’s so small, so helpless.’

‘He won’t be for long.’ She tried to convey reassurance. She was about to add that Douglas should just be himself, then told herself that if ‘being himself’ meant constantly changing moods, frequent absences and impatience, it was hardly a recipe for good parenting. ‘Look, Doug, your father wasn’t around for you. All you need to do is make time for this little chap, talk to him, spend time with him.’

Her husband nodded, his face grave. ‘It seems such a weighty responsibility now that it’s happened. He’ll inherit the business. I have to make sure he’s prepared.’

Evie shook her head, smiling. ‘There’s plenty of time for that.’ She stroked the baby’s cheek lightly with a finger, marvelling at the perfection of his tiny, perfectly-formed, rosebud mouth. ‘We’ll have to choose a name for him.’

’That’s already decided. He’ll be named Hubert.’

‘What? Don’t I get any say?’ She was indignant. Her little boy was not going to be a Hubert. Far too serious and stuffy. Not to mention old-fashioned.

‘In this instance, no. The firstborn Barrington son is always named Hubert. My father was and his father and so on for generations back.’

‘You weren’t!’

‘That’s because I wasn’t the firstborn son.’

Evie stared at Douglas, shocked. ‘You have a brother?’

‘I did. He died.’

‘When? How? Was it in the war?’

Douglas tensed. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘For goodness sake, Doug. I’m your wife! Don’t I deserve an answer to that? You can’t just announce you’re calling our son after your late brother without so much as telling me a thing about him. Until now, I wasn’t even aware he existed.’

Douglas stared at the backs of his hands where they lay flattened on his thighs. ‘It happened when I was nine. Not long before my mother died. Hubert – or Bertie as Mother and I called him, was eleven.’

Evie felt a swell of emotion, and instinctively held her new son closer to her. ‘How awful that must have been for you. I’m so sorry, Doug.’

He turned his head away and stared into the middle distance. ‘It was my fault.’

Evie could barely breathe. ‘Your fault? How could it be? You were only a child. Not much older than Jasmine.’

‘We were playing hide and seek. At our family home in Lincolnshire. I climbed out of one of the attic windows onto the roof. We weren’t supposed to go into the attic and certainly not out onto the roof, so I thought Bertie would never find me. I was going to wait up there until the time ran out so I’d be the winner. But he spotted me from the terrace and came rushing upstairs to tag me.’ Douglas squeezed his eyes shut and took a few short breaths. ‘I heard him come into the attic and so I hid behind a chimney stack. When he climbed out onto the roof I crept up on him and said boo. He jumped out of his skin with fright, lost his footing and fell from the roof, screaming.’