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No Conde Olivares since the fifteenth century had ever been known to act as a coward or to shirk his duty, nocircumstances, Alejandro expected no less of himself He reckoned that Jemima was fortunate to be a twenty-first-century woman, for his medieval ancestors would have locked an unfaithful wife up in a convent or killed her for inflicting such a stain on the fah at least his less civilised ancestors had possessed the power of retaliation, he reflected broodingly

While Jemima wrapped the bouquet in clear, decorative cellophane, Alfie peered round the corner of the shop counter, his big brown eyes dancing withcusto one of Alfie’s personality traits

‘Hello He’s a beautiful child,’ the wo down at Alfie as the toddler looked up at her with his irrepressible grin

It was a compliment that often came Alfie’s way, his mother conceded as she slotted the paye her son would reach before that particular description eht ruefully, and in looks Alfie was very eous dark brown eyes, olive-tinted skin and a shock of black silky hair All he had inherited from his less exotic mother was her rampant curls On the inside, however, Alfie had all the easy warmth of his mother’s essentially optimistic nature and revealed only the occasional hint of his father’s infinitely darker and more passionate temperament

With a slight shiver, Jeain With Alfie playing with his toy cars at her feet, she returned to fashioning a flower arrangeraphed a similar piece of floral art at a horticultural show Pure accident had brought Jee of Charlbury St Helens at a crisis point in her life and she had never regretted staying on and laying the foundations for her new future there

The only work she’d been able to find locally while she’d been pregnant was as an assistant at a flower shop She had needed to earn back her self-respect by keeping busy and positive Discovering that she had a very real interest in floristry, she had found more than a job to focus on and had since studied part-time for formal qualifications By the ti to ill health, Jee and vision to take over the business and expand it by taking on occasional private projects that encos and other functions

She was so proud of running her own business that sometimes she had to pinch herself to believe that she could have cohter of a violent, criminal father who had never worked if he could help it, and a downtrodden, alcoholic mother, who had died when her husband crashed a stolen car Jeer Nobody in her family tree had ever tried to climb the career or social ladders

‘Those kinds of ideas aren’t for the likes of us Jeet a job to help out at home,’ her mother had told the teacher who’d tried to persuade the older wohter should stay on at school to study for her A-level exams

‘You’re like your mother—dumb as a rock and just about as useful!’ her father had condeh for that label to have troubled Jemima for many year afterwards

With lunch eaten, she walked Alfie down to his session at the playgroup in the village hall, wincing when her son bounded boisterously through the door calling his friends’ narandfather on Jemima‘s mother’s side of the fa the h Jemima had created a play corner in the backstore rooh space to house a lively little boy for long With the help of a child working hours, but now that he was of an age to join the playgroup in the afternoons and she no longer attended floristry classes she needed a lot less childcare Considering that her close friend and former childminder, Flora, was now often too busy with her bed-and- breakfast operation to help out as rateful for that fact

It was a pleasant surprise therefore when Flora came into the shop an hour later and asked Je up in the small kitchen, Jemima eyed her red-headed friend and read the other woman’s uneasiness with a frown ‘What’s up?’

‘It’s probably nothing I meant to come over and tell you at the weekend, but a whole family booked in with roaned ‘Apparently soe last Thursday and so questions about you in the post office as well’

Je while her heart-shaped face paled below her cloud of wildly curling strawberry-blonde hair and the stance of her tiny slender figure screaht, she had relass angel ornament when they’d first met, but she had later appreciated that nobody as down-to-earth and quirky as Jeht However, her friend was unquestionably beautiful in an ethereal way and if men could be equated to star

ving dogs, Jemima was the equivalent of a very juicy bone, for the male sex seemed to find her irresistible Locals joked that the church choir had been on the brink of folding before Je men had soon followed in her wake, not that any of theot anywhere with her, Flora reflected wryly Badly burned by her failed e, Jeies on her son and her business

‘What sort of questions?’ Je out her stomach

‘Whether or not you lived around here, and what age Alfie was The guy asking the questions was young and good-looking Maurice in the post office thought he was playing cupid…’

‘Was the man Spanish?’

Flora shook her head and took over from her anxious friend at the kettle to speed up the arrival of the coffee ‘No, a Londoner according to Maurice He probably just fancied trying his chances with you—’

‘I don’t re in here last week,’ Jemima pointed out, her concern patent

‘Maybe he lost interest once he realised you were a ed ‘I wouldn’t have told you about hiet wound up about it Why don’t you just get on the phone and tell…er…what’s his name, your husband?’

‘Alejandro,’ Jemima supplied tautly ‘Tell him what?’

‘That you want a clean break and a divorce’

‘Nobody gets aith telling Alejandro what to do He’s the one who does the telling It wouldn’t be that simple once he found out about Alfie’

‘So you go to a solicitor and say what a lousy husband he was’

‘He didn’t drink or beat me up’

Flora grimaced ‘Why should such extrerounds for divorce, like lect—and what about the way he left you at the mercy of his horrible family?’

‘It was his mother as horrible, not his brother or his sister,’ Je as always to be fair ‘And I don’t think it’s right to say I was mentally abused’