There is something strange here and I will not go away, as you say I must, until you have told me what it is. I must apologise for my obstinacy but . . . well, she will have told you, Tessa and I are very much in love. I am not a boy, madam, in the first flush of calf love but a man of nearly thirty . . .’ ‘I know that . . . Mr Atherton . . .’ Jenny’s voice trembled and almost broke. ‘You know?’ He looked surprised. ‘I . . . I had guessed you were . . . older than . . .’ ‘Then you will know that I do not take my feelings for your daughter lightly.’ Dear God, he was just as she had known in her heart her son would be, had he lived. Though his father was Harry Atherton, a man who had given thought to no one’s needs but his own, who had been greedy and cruel, heartless and dealing only in easy charm, this man, her son, had a strength, surely, at least a stubbornness that would not easily be turned away from the woman he was certain he would marry.
