‘Where was he? Where did you see him, Gran?’ she asked, and for the first time since sitting in the vestry, hope spiked inside her. He hadn’t rushed off to the airport! He was still in Port Charles! Her instinct was to run out of the door and go to him.

‘Round the back of the pub, standing by the wall; looked like he might be hiding.’

‘I bet he bloody is!’ Ruby snarled.

Despite the situation, Merrin felt protective of Digby and didn’t want her sister to talk about him like that. ‘I need to go and get changed.’ She scrambled clumsily from the window seat and up the stairs.

‘I don’t think you should go and find him, Merry, I really don’t.’ Ben spoke softly, but his eyes belied his words, as if a deep fury simmered behind his kind tone.

‘Surely you’re not going to go? That’s a bad idea!’ her gran hollered. ‘You need to let it be, girl. I know you’re hurting and I know how bad, but life isn’t always about love – sometimes it’s about doing what your father tells you and making the best of it and hoping it all works out, or at least it was in my case. And if you can have great love once, you can have it again, my little maid.’

Merrin ignored her, not willing to have the same conversation she’d had with the girls again. ‘Can you come up, Bells? I need you to undo my frock.’

She heard Bella’s footsteps thump upstairs and at the same time the slam of the front door.

‘Has someone gone out?’ she asked her best friend, worried for Digby and hoping that nothing damaging would be said to his face, knowing how awkward that would be when all of this was over and they sat down here to a family Sunday lunch, as they did every other Sunday, taking it in turns to eat with each set of parents.

‘Ruby might have nipped out.’ Bella turned her by the shoulders until she was facing the small back window between their beds and began to undo the fiddly little buttons. Merrin stared out at the yard, which adjoined her gran’s yard next door via a rickety wooden gate. She pictured her and Digby kissing right there on the back step before saying goodbye only a day ago.

‘One more sleep . . .’ His words full of promise as he had pulled her towards him, running his fingers through her hair, as flames of desire warmed her from the inside out. ‘I can’t wait, Merrin Mercy Kellow!’

‘Has she gone to find him?’ Concern dripped from the question.

‘I don’t know.’ Bella kept her voice small and withering, rubbing furiously under her nose with her finger, as she did whenever she had to tell a lie.