He knocked a few more times and then all went quiet but she still sat in the darkness for some minutes more before getting up and lighting the lamp. Davey had been her rock but not only that, he had given her his name and respectability along with a new life, that of wife and mother, and he had loved her. Oh, how he’d loved her. He had told her so every day and it had had the effect of causing the wounds of her childhood and early youth to fade as she’d settled into her new role. For the first time in her life she had felt safe and treasured.

Her eyes darkened as she looked at the locked and bolted door and her stomach turned over.

Now everything was different, terrifyingly different, and the future had gone from being something to look forward to and dream about to something grim and dangerous, because Nathaniel was always going to be there. Immediately the thought came she told herself not to be so silly. She was panicking and there was no need to. Nathaniel was a man, just a man, and even if he did like her in ‘that’ way as she suspected there was no need to be scared of him. She was Davey’s wife – widow, she corrected painfully – and Nat had been his best friend since childhood. Like Nat had said himself, he loved Davey, and that in itself was protection for her. Wasn’t it?

From his vantage point in the back lane Nathaniel saw the light come on in the kitchen and he ground his teeth, his eyes narrowing. He’d known she was in there, damn it, so why hadn’t she answered the door? He’d been taken aback when he’d found it locked but then in the next instant he had told himself that she was a woman living alone, and a beautiful one at that, so maybe it was just as well. But he’d expected her to let him in once he’d called to her.

He debated whether to go back and bang on the door until she opened it but decided against it in view of the neighbours. It didn’t take much to get folk gossiping and he was well aware he needed to be canny in the circumstances. He stood for a while longer in the quiet cold night, big fat snowflakes settling on his cap and the shoulders of his coat, and his gaze fixed on the kitchen window. All day he had been thinking of her and it had fair driven him mad at his mam’s with everyone so jolly and the bairns running around yelling and screaming.

After a few more minutes he tore his eyes away from the faint glow of the window and turned the way he had come, his stride long and quick as he walked, his hands thrust in his pockets.