‘Did . . . did you hurt him?’ Merrin hated her level of concern after what Digby had done, her humiliation still raw.

‘Only his nose.’ Her sister smiled and flexed her knuckles.

‘God, Ruby, why? You just can’t leave things alone, can you!’

‘Calm down! I’m joking. I didn’t hit him, but I might have smacked a wall and pretended it was him. And you should be thanking me for having your back, not worrying about that arsehole! That’s typical of you.’

The fact that Ruby had hurt herself on her account added another fine layer of guilt to dust Merrin’s bones, atop the horrible sinking feeling in her gut because her parents were out of pocket, and at the thought of her mum’s awkwardness when she next went to work. Her lovely mum, who only wanted to go into a house, scrub it and leave, cleaning ninjas . . .

‘You can’t punch your way through life!’ Merrin paced back and forth. ‘Hitting him or a wall or anything else does nothing to help me, nothing at all, it’s just another shit thing to deal with. I give up!’

Leaving her sister standing near the slipway, she raced along the road that met up with the coast path, her heart beating faster and faster as she climbed higher and higher.

‘Oh, and you’re very welcome! As I said, you’re lucky I care enough to want to sort him out! Thank you, Ruby!’ her sister yelled after her.

Merrin ignored her, without the energy for anything other than finding and speaking to Digby. There was only one way into and out of the spit of land so if he was heading back to town, she would see him. Inside, she felt a strange mixture of joy and trepidation at the thought of coming face to face with the man she should by now be married to. My husband . . . It was a thought that had sustained her since he had proposed. In fact, from their first conversation, he had filled her thoughts and crowded out any suggestions of a future without him. Because it was love, pure and simple. A deep, deep, all-consuming love. Not that she had believed in such things until it happened to her.

Merrin’s life had changed in a minute on the day she met him. She had woken on a ‘couldn’t be bothered’ day. With her hair unwashed and half tied up on top of her head, her clothes plucked from a pile on the bedroom floor and her less than fragrant trainers shoved on to her feet, she had set off up the coastal path in her mother’s shadow to help her clean the Mortimers’ house. It was only hindsight that would leave her wishing she had scrubbed, fussed and groomed until she sparkled.