Catherine – the name Sara, although rightfully hers, belonged to another life now – folded her hands to stop them fluttering like distressed butterflies.

She waited for Honor and Edward to react, scanning her husband’s face for signs he knew her secret, wondering how much of the truth Eliza had let slip. Anything – even accusation – would be better than the bruising silence that waited for her.

Concealing her past from the two people she loved most had been a lonely undertaking. For years, she’d imagined this scenario with a kind of excited dread, believing she would find relief in sloughing off her secrecy, but now her hand had been forced, she longed to reset the clock.

Tears were running down Honor’s face.

Catherine put an arm around her daughter’s shoulder, drawing her close. Honor didn’t resist but she didn’t reciprocate either. The baubles hanging from the miniature Christmas tree on the girl’s bedside table gleamed in the lamplight. They’d bought that tree in the January sales years ago and its familiarity made Catherine’s insides ache. She could not allow Honor to believe she was a killer – and yet there was no disputing the black and white facts of her conviction.

As if he had read her mind, Edward stared down at Catherine. ‘You’re a convicted killer?’ he said, enunciating each word as if he couldn’t believe it. As if saying the words out loud would dispel them into dust. ‘And you didn’t think to tell me?’ So Eliza had kept Catherine’s secret to herself.

‘I wanted to,’ she said, rising from the edge of Honor’s bed, reaching for him, her voice climbing too. ‘I tried to.’ He recoiled from her touch, one hand pushing through his hair. His laugh was hard and sarcastic. ‘Of course you did. You tried really hard, didn’t you?’

She spread her hands in a gesture of helplessness. ‘How could I?’ she said. ‘Put yourself in my shoes for a minute.’ A pleading note crept in. She waited for him to acknowledge the difficulty of her position, to paint his words with even the faintest shade of compassion, but he shook his head.

‘I knew it. I bloody knew it.’

‘Knew what?’

But he didn’t answer her. He blew out the air from his lungs, making his cheeks inflate, and bent down to Honor, whispering something that Catherine couldn’t hear. When he stood up, he wiped his eyes roughly with his shirtsleeve. His face was wan and belonged to someone else. With a flash of insight, she understood. It was not anger that prevented him from wrapping his wife in words of comfort, but distress. He was too stunned to speak.