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Forward? What did she think that meant, she berated herself, while she waited out the awkward pause. Going forward with Harry? Without Matthew? Divorce? Impossible. What was she thinking? She would never do that to her parents, to her family’s name, to herself. Imagine the humiliation. When it came down to it, she may not worry so much about what her immediate family thought of her and her actions but it seemed she did care enormously about what people beyond the doors of Tilsden Hall thought of the Frobisher name.

She heard him clear his throat and refocused.

‘It’s not that I haven’t been honest with you but I haven’t explained my situation. Firstly, you need to know my name is Henry Blakeney. But I’ve always been called Harry by my family and for ease of not being treated differently, I called myself Harry Blake with everyone I introduced myself to in the army.’ He shrugged. ‘It stuck. I’m dreading going back to Blakeney.’

‘Blakeney,’ Alex repeated in a half whisper. ‘You don’t mean the Blakeneys of Southampton, do you?’ She blinked in shock. ‘Yes, of course you are . . . You passed yourself off as in imports.’

He had the grace to pull a sheepish shrug. ‘Well, strictly speaking . . .’

She ignored his attempt to sidestep, swinging out of bed, reaching for a familiar dressing-gown hung behind the door. It floated around her in a swish of chartreuse silk as she pulled it on, suddenly needing to cover her nakedness. ‘Don’t use semantics with me, Harry. Your family owns the shipping empire that I’m sure Rowntree’s uses to bring in its cocoa and vanilla, and other goods.’

He nodded, sighing quietly with resignation. ‘That’s us. Southampton is where our business is; I keep a house in London and the family home is in West Sussex just outside a village called Cuckfield. My father passed away but my mother is still alive, alert and bullying the parish priest about his sermons.’ He gave a soft smile of memory.

‘Oh, Harry,’ she said, half awed, half horrified, her voice not much above a murmur. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘What good would it do?’ He sounded plaintive as he scratched his head, clearly embarrassed. ‘I’ve only known you a couple of days and in the beginning it just didn’t seem to matter who I was, other than a former soldier on a mercy mission. No details about me felt necessary, I suppose, until a night ago and then I simply didn’t have the opportunity. Besides, the truth is, I hate being judged because of my family name. Imagine your mother’s response . . . even you would have treated me differently.’

‘Do you really think so?’ she asked, accusation in her tone.

He raised his hands in mock surrender. ‘I accept that was unfair, but you of all people should know what it’s like. Didn’t the people at Rowntree treat you slightly apart from the general worker? You can’t deny it.’

She felt a flash of guilt warm her face as she remembered the remark about her cut-crystal manner of speaking and how she would make the ideal VIP tour host. She was also reminded in that instant of the girls on her first day who kept a distance from the new recruit who lived on The Mount and could afford to volunteer her time because wages were unnecessary. She knew he saw it from the way his lips pursed as if preventing him from taking any pleasure in being right; still, she kept her gaze steady and said nothing. Harry continued. ‘Most of all I didn’t feel like explaining myself, Alex; I liked being just “Harry No One” on our tour. I just wanted a few more days of anonymity, and before you accuse me, I didn’t set out for this to happen between us. As strangers flung together, I didn’t expect to see you beyond that day at the factory.’

‘But you did, Harry, and you were hardly reticent. The very least you can do is be honest.’

He began to pace, cracks in his normally controlled manner showing as exasperation pushed through. ‘This is my first opportunity to tell you everything you deserve to know; think back and you’ll know I am being honest.’

‘You could have told me two nights ago.’

‘Yes, I could have walked in, taken off my hat and said, “Now, look here, Mrs Britten-Jones, let’s not have a few moments of laughter together before your parents arrive and instead let me tell you all about my miserable background. It’s going to make you look at me differently and perhaps even hate me”.’

It was her turn to purse her lips. ‘No need to be sarcastic.’

‘Love was the last potential event on my mind, Alex. However, just like you say, fate stepped in . . . as if to have some days of amusement at our expense. I promise you that learning this background will do you no good. If anything, I think it will injure and that’s what I don’t want.’

She was not to be deterred even though his argument sounded fair . . . even kind, but Alex was hurting now and that pain came from a woman – a perfect stranger – called Bethany.

‘Nevertheless, you ruthlessly make love to me and then what, just walk away, say farewell like acquaintances . . . hope our paths cross again sometime . . . that sort of thing? How kind. How very thoughtful of you,’ she remarked, unable to disguise either the tart note or her expression that she knew must look as though she were sucking on a quarter of lemon.

He opened his arms in surrender. ‘Alex, I can’t win.’

‘You mean if you’d told me first there was a romantic commitment in your life, I likely wouldn’t have let you make love to me, so it was in your interest to save that gem for after the seduction?’ Was this jealousy, she wondered, privately ashamed of how dramatic her response was.

‘No,’ he groaned.

‘Then, do you have plans to renege on any commitment you may have made to this woman?’

He hadn’t yet mentioned any promise and yet she was leaping to her own conclusions; the challenge was out before she could rein it in. Now it hung like a noose at the gallows, full of fearful and lonely misery. Did she really expect him to answer such an enormous question here and now? And to what end? It wasn’t as though she were free to elope with him.

Alex watched Harry blink, presumably at how carelessly she referred to Bethany and undoubtedly at how acid she sounded. It occurred to her that Minerva Frobisher could be rightly proud of her daughter today; she was demonstrating all those shrewish qualities of her mother that she despised and believed she’d been spared. Or was she quite simply making herself look a fool because of the deeply felt envy? It hurt more than she could imagine a non-physical injury could pain. It was so unexpected and yet it passed through her like a barbed arrow, its jagged edges tipped with poison. She could feel the contamination of it, accelerating through her veins with each heartbeat. She couldn’t be still so she busied herself dressing.

He was talking again, to her back now as she pulled on garments. He sounded broken. ‘Please let me explain. Bethany was engaged to my elder brother. Edward was everything I’m not.’

‘And what does that mean?’ she demanded, as she pulled on her blouse, regretting that she’d chosen this one that buttoned at the back. She reached behind but before she could begin, Harry was close and she felt his fingers fussing with the buttons instead. She didn’t stop him but her body was rigid at him being close enough that she could feel the warmth of his body.

‘I’m like an old red claret to his sparkling champagne,’ Harry admitted. She waited, bending her head and pulling aside her hair. ‘Ed was fun, happy, always cheerful, never broody, loved family and our firm. He was the perfect son, the ideal heir, the best brother.’

‘And Edward died?’ She spoke the presumption aloud, stepping away as she felt the final button slip into place. She didn’t trust herself not to want to pull him close in sympathy so as she turned she straightened her clothes, looked for her boots.