This gave Denise the chance to spend more time with her husband and she accepted her sister’s assistance gratefully.
There was a large gap between their ages, Denise being seven years older than Pepita, who was only just nineteen.
She had come to live with them in Cornwall just after her seventeenth birthday and in the isolated village where they lived there were no eligible men to court her.
However, Pepita was happy to spend her days riding her brother-in-law’s half-trained horses and playing with the children in the fields or, when they could make the effort, on the beach.
Sometimes Denise would worry about her and say,
“We cannot expect another accident on our doorstep that will provide you with a handsome stranger like Alistair! So how, dearest, will you ever find a husband?”
“I
