‘Of course not,’ said Charles, frowning deeply, concern written all over his face. ‘How could you possibly think that?’

He stood up and came to her side of the table, wrapping his arms around her from behind and squeezing her tightly. Relieved that her gut instincts appeared to be correct, her panic subsided a little, but she didn’t respond to his touch. It would be too easy to just accept his hug and his excuses without getting to the nub of the issue. He had bought a house, for goodness’ sake, without discussion and for no apparent reason. That was unacceptable whichever way she looked at it. She needed to know what was going on. She shrugged him off, so he let her go and sat back down in the seat opposite her.

‘So?’ she asked, eyebrows raised and arms folded. ‘Why have you bought a house in Whitley Bay?’

Even though the light was dim, she could still see his face clearly. He fixed her with his tawny eyes and inhaled deeply before he spoke. Grace waited.

‘I have told you a lie,’ he said dramatically.

This kind of statement was Charles all over, and normally the way he embellished the everyday with unnecessary flourishes made Grace laugh. But now she held her breath. Had her total faith in him been misplaced?

‘Well, more of an omission than a lie,’ he continued, his eyes cast down at the table between them, and Grace focused everything she had on his face so that she didn’t miss any clues. ‘I let you think that I am an only child. And that is true, kind of. My parents only had me. But my mother had another child before she married my father.’

Grace’s brain was working hard to keep up. ‘So you have, what? A sister? A brother . . . ?’

‘A half-brother,’ said Charles. He still did not meet her gaze.

‘Well, that’s not so terrible,’ said Grace, her tone more gentle. Was that it, the hidden secret? She could cope with that. The odd extra family member was neither here nor there.

She reached across the table to take his hand in hers. ‘Why did you never tell me?’

Charles swallowed. ‘I was ashamed,’ he said.

Finally, he looked up at her. Her big, bluff husband now seemed more like a child in fear of reprimand. Grace squeezed his hand gently, careful not to risk damage to any part of his fiddler’s fingers.

‘I know I married way above my station,’ he carried on. ‘People tell me all the time. It’s unbelievable that I’m here in this incredible house with the cars and the estate and all that, when I barely had a brass farthing to my name before I met you. I wake up every day and pinch myself, I really do.’