‘I’m wet through, Tom, let me change,’ she says, stepping past him. She takes hold of the newel post. ‘As soon as I’m in my dry clothes, I’ll take a good look, I promise.’

He watches her go, brimming with disappointment.

In her room, her fingers shake as she struggles to relieve the sodden knot of her headscarf. She finally works it loose and the drenched material slaps onto the floorboards. Her knees give way and she collapses onto the stool before her dressing table. She studies her reflection, dwelling on the dark crescents below her eyes and her sunken cheeks, stripped of their youthful plumpness and leathered from the summer sun. She lifts her finger to the fine strands of grey that now blight her temples though she is barely old enough to warrant them, even if life has, over the past six years, been hard enough to earn them. She splays her hands. They were never soft, dainty things, but now they seem bloated by work, calloused and tough, her nails bitten and broken. She does not notice the thin band of gold.

She buries her face in her palms, struggling to breathe. He had not known her. He had not shown even a flicker of recognition. Nora had distracted him with her brazen smile and the sultry suggestion in her voice. And Gwen is glad – relieved, even. She had avoided all tell of him for years, apart from the odd bit of gossip muttered over shop counters in the village – Lord Allingham ailing, but clinging on to see his son and heir safely home. He must be a happy man.

She has never given much thought to Gordon’s return. Even when in church Lady Allingham had spoken of him being back, he seemed too far removed to be real. The concept of his near presence was intangible. Seeing him in the road has left her stunned, shocked, and empty inside – whatever feelings she had once nurtured for him died long ago. And since then, she has been too preoccupied with keeping the farm going – meeting her quotas, surviving the war – to contemplate what would happen when the men came back.

But the men are coming back.

Gordon Allingham is back.

She meets her own gaze in the mirror and studies herself anew. Has she really changed so much as to be unrecognisable?

Tom’s voice drifts up the stairs, an impatient whine, demanding of her attention.

Her breath catches.

Gordon Allingham might not have recognised her … but would he recognise his own son?

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Jack

August 1939

Jack loiters in the yard, waiting for Gwen as dawn paints the sky pink. Her bedroom curtains remain drawn. He checks his wristwatch. The herd’s impatient bellows are just discernible in the distance. He can wait no longer.