‘My father made no mention of you… only of my mother, who refuses to answer his letters.’

Caleb Crowther impatiently waved his arm in a gesture of dismissal. ‘Enough!… I am not interested in your father’s domestic squabbles. If Martha has turned her back on him, then it’s no more than he deserves!’ Secretly he was delighted, and if his constant interfering was worsening matters between his daughter and her husband, then so much the better.

‘Did you know that Emma was in Australia?… And that she and Marlow Tanner have met up with my father?’ Edward Trent eyed his grandfather closely, gauging his reaction and hoping against hope that the animosity between this man and his own beloved father might diminish with the passage of time. However, Caleb Crowther’s next words dashed his hopes to the ground.

‘Always the traitor, eh?’ The news had been an unpleasant shock. That blasted woman at the Tanner house had not told him that Emma had sailed to Australia, only that she was ‘out of town’. Damn and bugger it! What was Emma Tanner up to?… What devious little game was she playing at? He had been furious when the courts agreed to Marlow Tanner’s request of a postponement of the hearing on the grounds that Emma had suffered a tragic bereavement. He stood to suffer more than that! And would if she had her way. He wanted this business over and done with, and to that end he had gone to a great deal of trouble and expense in falsifying certain ‘evidence’, some of which would show how Emma had systematically robbed her own father while he lay dying. That was the most difficult of all the manufactured documents, but a guinea or two extra had been enough to procure them. Now, when he had all these little surprises in store for her, she had upped and departed, leaving him floundering and frustrated. Oh, she was a wily one! Now here she was, hobnobbing with his traitor of a son-in-law. What were they up to? What in God’s name were they up to? Not knowing her next move was more than he could bear. ‘What else did your father have to say with regard to that creature?’ he demanded to know. ‘How long does she intend to rob me of my moment in court… when I mean to turn the tables on her!’ He chuckled, but was quickly silenced by the condemning look on Edward’s face. ‘What… you don’t see the funny side of it? Oh, you will… believe me, everyone will! She may have been the one to instigate proceedings, but I’ll be the one to finish them.’ His smile was darkly unpleasant. ‘I intend to see Emma Tanner regretting the day she ever locked horns with such a fellow as me.’

There followed an uncomfortable silence, during which time the two men regarded each other with a degree of hostility. ‘I want you to end this dispute with both my father… and Emma,’ Edward declared in a quiet and serious voice. ‘She is a good woman… and have you forgotten that she has recently lost her only child?’