Mallory should have been grateful, but it was a bleak and bitter way to live, and she had been wondering recently how she could try and put things between them on better footing somehow. But Torr showed no interest in meeting her halfway, and in the face of his continued icy withdrawal, her fragile confidence had faltered.

Now she would have to try again.

‘I feel like a train that’s been derailed,’ she tried to explain. ‘Ever since Steve left, it’s as if I’ve been stuck on my side, wheels spinning but going nowhere. I haven’t been able to do anything but go through the motions of getting through every day. But I know it’s time I got myself back on track somehow.’

Torr’s expression was as unresponsive as ever, and desperation curdled in her stomach as she saw her last support being cut out from beneath her. ‘That’s why I’ve started applying for jobs,’ she said, hating the way her voice quavered. ‘I need to work again, to start seeing my friends again. We could make a go of our marriage if we stayed here,’ she promised, but Torr was unimpressed.

‘No reason why we shouldn’t make a go of it in Scotland,’ he said.

Mallory threw pride to the winds. She couldn’t face being wrenched away from everything familiar just when she needed it most and dumped in the wilds of Scotland. ‘If you want me to beg, I will,’ she said desperately, ‘but please don’t make me go. This is my home.’

‘You’ll have a new home,’ said Torr.

‘A ruin?’ Mallory laughed wildly. ‘Oh, yes, I can see myself settling there!’

Torr only shrugged. ‘Home is what you make it.’

Mallory felt very cold. She stood right in front of the fire, clutching her arms together, but she couldn’t get warm. As her momentary hysteria faded, she raised her head and looked at her husband with stark brown eyes.