‘Do we have to go and live with him?’ said Tiff. Wordlessly Juliet shook her head.

‘That’s all right then.’ Visibly relaxing, Tiff turned his attention back to Sophie. ‘They’ve got a Playstation 2 on this ward, one of the nurses told me. Do you want to have a look at the tube going into my arm?’

This was the invitation Sophie had been waiting for. Next moment she was perched on the bed next to Tiff, avidly poring over the spot where the plastic tubing actually disappeared through the skin, and bombarding him with questions about how much it had hurt.

Jake drew Juliet to one side, away from the bed.

‘Damn, so that’s what I’ve been missing all these years — the ultimate chat-up accessory, an IV

drip. Think of the girls I could have pulled if only I’d known.’

Scarcely able to believe that the question of Tiff’s paternity had apparently been answered and dismissed as not terribly interesting in half a minute flat, Juliet breathed a shaky sigh of relief and leaned against Jake.

‘You didn’t do so badly.’

‘Ah, but you might not have been able to resist me in the first place if only I’d had an IV tube to enthral you with.’

Juliet smiled, enjoying the feel of his hand on her back. ‘You were pretty irresistible as it was. I just told myself that was the problem.’

‘You weren’t so shabby yourself.’ Lowering his voice further still, Jake murmured into her hair, ‘Is it time to tell them, d’you think?’

‘Tell us what?’ said Sophie immediately, her head jerking up like a meerkat’s.

Jake and Juliet glanced at each other.

‘Something soppy,’ Tiff observed with a sly smile. ‘Your dad’s got his arm round my mum.’

‘So?’ said Jake.

‘Bleeeuurrgh, gross,’ Sophie and Tiff cried in unison, breaking into fits of giggles and pointing at Juliet and Jake. ‘You’re in lo-ve, you’re in lo-ve.’

It wasn’t the first time this had happened. Any fleeting demonstration of affection between adults was routinely greeted with jeers and the same chanted accusation. As a rule, the best way for the adults concerned to deal with it was to ignore them.

‘Yes,’ Jake said simply, ‘we are.’

That stopped Tiff and Sophie in their tracks.

‘What? Are you joking?’ Sophie narrowed her eyes, suspecting a trick.

‘No,’ said Jake. ‘Deadly serious.’

‘What, you mean you really love each other?’

Jake nodded. ‘We really do.’

Juliet held her breath.

Tiff and Sophie looked at each other, then started to snigger again.

‘What’s so funny?’ said Jake.

‘You’ve been mating.’ Sophie rocked backwards on the bed, whooping gleefully into her cupped hands.

‘That’s what you do,’ confirmed Tiff. Interestedly he added, ‘If you’ve mated, you’ll have another baby. What are you going to call it?’

‘This could be one of those conversations you wish you’d never started,’ Juliet whispered in an undertone to Jake.

‘Where’s it going to live?’ Sophie’s eyes were bright with interest. ‘I know, if we give it to Mr Taylor-Trent, it can live with him. Then everyone will have a child to look after.’

‘Interesting thought,’ said Jake. ‘But we’re not having a baby. Not just yet, anyway.’

‘Right. But when you do, can we choose its name?’

Not over-keen on the prospect of any child of his being called Spiderman, Jake said, ‘Mind out of the way, the nurse is trying to get through. So are you OK with that, then? Me and Juliet, you and Tiff?

All four of us living together?’

‘Great!’ Sophie beamed as the nurse squeezed round to her side of the bed. ‘Just so long as you don’t get married, because I’m not wearing a sissy bridesmaid’s dress for anyone. Oooh.’ She leaned forward ghoulishly as the nurse unwrapped a syringe. ‘Are you going to take blood? Can I watch?’

Chapter 50

Kate was working the lunchtime shift at the Angel. Out by the pool at Dauncey House, Norris lay on his side on the sunbaked flagstones, lazily flicking his ears at passing insects and keeping one eye open should anyone feel like volunteering to take him for a walk.

Anyone being Oliver, the only human being currently on the premises. Norris sighed and closed his eyes; he wasn’t getting his hopes up.

Inside the house, Oliver was unable to relax. For the past hour he’d found himself pacing restlessly from room to room, visualising the wreckage that was his life. For as long as he could remember, he’d used his position to control people. They did what he said. If the fact that he was a powerful man didn’t intimidate them, he resorted to money instead. Whichever, he was used to getting his own way.

Until now.

Oliver paused in the doorway leading through to the drawing room. In a matter of days, his world had spun out of control. Estelle was gone, God knows where. She’d been having an affair with a younger, poorer, scruffier man and there was nothing he could do about it. The extent of his reaction had come as quite a shock; it was like assuming that if you had a big toe amputated you wouldn’t miss it that much, then discovering afterwards that, actually, you couldn’t stay upright.

Too late, he was discovering that Estelle was in effect his big toe and that for some time now he’d been taking her for granted.

In truth, he’d taken his entire life for granted. And where did that leave him now? With a seven-year-old son who didn’t know him. A defunct marriage. A daughter who was siding with her mother. And an ex-mistress about to leap into an affair with the local Casanova.

Oliver closed his eyes briefly and rubbed his forehead; if he was honest, he possessed a begrudging admiration for Jake Harvey. Jake had done a good job of raising his daughter. He clearly thought the world of Tiff, and Tiff in turn adored him. The thing between Jake and Juliet wouldn’t last, no question about that, but at least they thought it would. And Jake was no tycoon; he might have the looks but he’d never have money. Yet it didn’t seem to bother him, he truly didn’t care. How people could live like that, Oliver would never understand, but for the first time in his life he found himself almost envious of Jake.

God, what was happening to him? As the emotions welled up, Oliver found himself having to swallow hard. The next moment a sudden noise made him jump; having come in search of companionship, Norris had raised himself up on his hind legs and was pressing his wet nose against the closed French windows. Oliver hurried across the room to let him in before he started frantically scrabbling and leaving paw marks on the glass.

Norris licked his hand and Oliver realised that, just now, Norris probably liked him more than anyone else in the world. If that wasn’t enough to reduce a grown man to tears, what was?

‘Ugly mutt,’ he told Norris gruffly, giving the dog’s broad silky head a rub.

Norris gave him a not-very-hopeful look.

Oh, what the hell, it wasn’t as if he had anything else to do.

‘Go on then,’ said Oliver, clicking his fingers and pointing out to the hall. ‘Fetch your lead.’

Norris couldn’t believe his luck. Was he hearing what he thought he’d just heard? This was the one who never took him for a walk. Mesmerised, Norris hesitated, awaiting the magic word that would put him out of his misery.

‘Walk,’ Oliver said at last.

Yay! That was the magic word. Joyfully Norris scrambled out to the hall, locating his lead on the cushioned window seat. It was weird, when he’d first come here he hadn’t enjoyed going for walks at all. Who’d have believed that these days they’d be his absolute favourite thing?

The phone began to ring as Oliver and Norris were leaving the house. Since it couldn’t be anything to do with Tiff – Juliet would have rung his mobile, not the landline – Oliver locked the front door and set off without answering it.

Twenty minutes later, a taxi pulled up the drive. Gulping a bit at the sight of Oliver’s car, Estelle dialled the number again and breathed a sigh of relief when it went unanswered. Oliver was probably still at the hospital, at Tiff’s bedside. With Juliet.

‘I’ll be half an hour,’ she told the taxi driver. ‘There’s a nice pub in Main Street if you want to wait there, then come hack and pick me up at two.’

The look on the taxi driver’s face suggested that if Estelle had an ounce of decency about her, she would invite him into her vast house and make him a nice cup of tea and a sandwich. But for once in her life Estelle didn’t care. She didn’t have the energy to make polite conversation with a complete stranger. This was her home, where she’d lived for the last twenty-seven years, and she needed to be alone in order to say goodbye to it.

Having watched the disgruntled driver execute a three-point turn and head off down the drive, Estelle fitted her key into the front door.

It felt strange to be back, stranger still to be tiptoeing through her own house. Except there was no need to tiptoe, was there? Everyone else was out. She was here to collect the rest of her clothes, hopefully without interruption.

In the kitchen, which smelled heartbreakingly familiar, Estelle located the roll of black bin liners in the cupboard under the sink and took them upstairs. The suitcases, dauntingly, were piled on top of the wardrobe in the unused spare bedroom. Wasting no time, she rifled through her own wardrobe, pulling out anything she was likely to wear again. When she’d finished doing the same with the chest of drawers and dressing table, she stuffed everything willy-nilly into the bin liners. Oh God, that looked terrible, she couldn’t do it. Was there anything more naff than leaving home with your belongings in a bunch of bin bags?