‘Edward!… Oh, my boy, it’s good to see you.’ Caleb Crowther slapped one large hand on the young man’s shoulder, and with the other he took Edward’s hand into his own, gripping it hard and shaking it enthusiastically as, at the same time, he propelled his grandson into the study, kicking shut the door behind them. ‘What’s brought you here today?… Why aren’t you at the infirmary?… Are you with your mother?… Is Martha here?’ His questions tumbled out one after the other, until, realizing he had hardly given the young man time to draw breath, he laughed aloud. ‘Forgive me,’ he said, ‘but I really am so very pleased to see you.’ He gestured to the deep leather armchair on the near side of the desk opposite his own seat. ‘Sit down… do sit down, Edward,’ he urged. Then, when the young man had done so, he went quickly to the walnut cabinet by the fireplace, and here he part-filled two tumblers with whisky. ‘Drink up, my boy,’ he told the young man, who reluctantly took the glass. ‘We’ll drink a toast to me… your grandfather… who will soon show the Emma Tanners of this world that they take on too much when they take on Caleb Crowther!’ He swung the glass up high in a gesture of salute, before putting it to his mouth and emptying the fiery liquid down his throat. A look of consternation crossed his features when he saw that, instead of following his grandfather’s example, Edward had put his own glass to the desk. ‘What?… You won’t drink to your grandfather’s victory over a wretched creature who would see him paupered?’ He stared penetratingly at his grandson, before drawing a hard, long breath that swelled his chest to enormous proportions. Noisily releasing the air through flared nostrils, he slammed his glass on to the desk. ‘What ails you?’ he demanded, suddenly realizing from the serious look on Edward’s face that his grandson was here for a particular reason; one that was not too pleasant if his quiet and disapproving manner was anything to judge by. ‘And what brings you to Breckleton House… if it isn’t to console your old grandfather?’

He spoke with an injured tone as he sat heavily into his chair and continued to stare at the young man, grudgingly thinking how he would forgive him almost everything. Edward was his only grandson and, thankfully, had inherited none of his mother’s petulant and selfish ways. Martha was a weak-willed, grasping and repulsive creature, who had alienated her father from a very early age.

From the day of Martha’s birth – and for very secret reasons to do with Emma Tanner’s lovely mother, Mary Grady, whom he had adored beyond reason – Caleb Crowther had taken a deep dislike to his daughter. Martha did not earn his love when she was a new-born in his wife’s arms; she did not earn it when she was a child; and she had not earned his love when she became a woman. If anything, she had earned only his intense loathing. There were times when Caleb Crowther was forced to examine the unpleasant and shamefully weak traits in his daughter’s character and to question himself about their origin. Certainly they were not inherited from her mother, for Agnes Crowther could never be described as weak, or petulant. Grasping perhaps. And devious on occasion. But by and large she was a strong-willed and determined woman, who was not afraid to show her claws, a characteristic that had greatly irritated him of late.