When she turned to go, he wondered how he would ever manage without her. This house which had been their home and where they had known much happiness would be empty and cold. He would be all alone. Oh, he could go away as he had planned but somehow, without her, it seemed a futile thing to do. Besides, where would Bridget go? How would she manage? Loathing mingled with love, and he was lost in a sea of emotion.

‘Will you go to him? The truth now!’

Bridget shook her head. ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I don’t love him, not the way I love you.’

‘So, you do love him?’ Jealousy raged like an inferno inside him.

‘In a way, yes. But it isn’t the same.’

‘I don’t understand you any more.’ Moving away from her, he walked up and down the room, his fists clenching and unclenching as he fought to control the tide of loathing he felt towards these two people, for they had turned his world upside down. The loathing showed in his voice. ‘Does he know you’re with child?’ Bridget’s answer was given swiftly, and with the smallest glimmer of hope. ‘He has no idea.’

Tom laughed aloud, startling her. ‘What kind of justice is it when one man makes a child without even knowing it while the other craves to know the joy of being a father and never will be?’

Bridget thought it wise to say nothing, but her heart went out to him.

‘Do you intend telling him?’

‘No.’

He turned to stare at her. ‘You realise I can never forgive you.’

‘I know.’ In pain and weakened by his attack on her, Bridget felt herself falling. Pushing herself upright, she pressed her weight against the door.

Ignoring her obvious distress, he resumed his pacing, up and down, like a caged animal, his mind working and weaving, and his fists doing the same. And then suddenly he was beside her, drawing her into his arms and thrusting her into the armchair. ‘I don’t want you walking the streets looking like this.’ Gesturing to her bruises and cuts, he felt only a fleeting remorse. ‘I don’t want folk knowing what’s been going on in this house. If this gets out you’ll be looked down on by every God-fearing woman in Lancashire – though you will have brought it on yourself! As for me, no doubt I shall be laughed at for the failure I am.’

He squeezed a cloth under cold water and threw it into her lap. ‘Tidy yourself up. Keep your mouth shut about what’s happened here tonight and, God willing, we might be able to salvage something from this bloody awful mess.’

For a moment Bridget wondered if he had found it in his heart to forgive her.

The coldness in his voice told her he hadn’t. ‘For the sake of your soul and my sanity, we need to keep everything as it was. Stay here. Have the child by all means, and raise it as ours.’