“You haven’t changed your mind, have you?” Alice said quietly.

It had been Ruth’s idea for her to stay with Aunt Hope, have the baby and return pretending that it was an invented cousin’s. There were so many war orphans to look after now that one more wouldn’t create any suspicion.

Ruth looked up, her moss-colored eyes finally meeting Alice’s.

Alice smiled at her. “I can’t do this without you.”

But her mother’s expression was cold, and she held her daughter’s gaze for barely a moment before looking away. “Are you ready to tell me who the father is?”

“I told you, it won’t make any difference.”

“It will to me.”

Alice’s heartbeat quickened as she remembered the first time: his hot ragged breath in her ear, the agony as his cheek pressed down on hers, her initial struggle as he pinned her beneath him, the roughness of his hands. And, as he forced himself inside her, a stinging sensation and the sharp stab of pain. Afterward, her soreness and the strong musk of his sweat as it dribbled down her neck, collecting in the crook of her collarbone when he collapsed on top of her.

“How do you know he won’t come for his child?” Ruth pressed.

Even now it was still difficult to think about. Alice would probably have consented if he’d asked, but he hadn’t, and it had been too late when she realized what was happening. She should have known then, taken it as a sign of his character that he’d tricked her, but she’d been foolish enough to think he cared about her—that she was the only young woman in his life instead of one of many whom he’d seduced, as she’d later found out.

Alice closed her eyes, trying to dispel the image, to imagine him as he was when she’d first met him: the gentleman everyone thought him to be.

“He won’t come for his baby,” she murmured. The knowledge that he was no longer in the country was her only comfort.

Outside the wind had worsened, howling along the street as tree branches battered against windows, the same storm that had been lashing the south coast for days.

Her mother moved closer. “God forgive you, Alice. And may he forgive me too, for helping you.”

Then Ruth was gone, her footsteps on the wooden staircase echoing noisily through the cold, empty house.

Left alone to finish packing, Alice considered whether she should tell her mother the truth. But while Ruth might believe that she’d fought the first time, would she believe that Alice couldn’t resist him the time after that? Or that he’d promised a future for them, before admitting it wasn’t one in which she’d be his wife?