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Oliver leaned forward in his seat. ‘Why?’
Albert stood up and began to pace. ‘I didn’t want to do it, to give you away. I thought that having you, she would … she’d leave her husband. But Daphne wouldn’t do it. She was loyal to him until the end, despite the fact that he’d given her nothing.’
‘Loyal to who?’ Carys asked.
‘Her father, the late Lord Somerville. She said she couldn’t bring shame on the family. All those years we were together, I lived in hope that she’d leave her husband – or her father would die. Neither of those things happened – and then you came along.’
He stopped pacing and stood in front of Oliver. ‘She was going to send you far away, to a well-to-do family in Scotland to be brought up as one of their own. She knew a friend of a friend, apparently. She had it all planned. I wouldn’t have it. Of course I couldn’t bring you up myself. What would I do with a baby? But no son of mine was going to be sent away. But as luck would have it, the young nurse who delivered you fell in love with our baby from the off. She had a new position at the hospital, and Daphne offered her the cottage to bring up our son. We’d have access to him. Know him growing up, although he wouldn’t be aware we were his parents.’
Oliver stared at him.
Carys said, ‘So you and Daphne broke it off after that?’
‘Yes, I wanted us to be a family, bring Oliver up together. I’m sorry, Oliver, but she didn’t. So, we concocted this story that a baby was found abandoned in the storm porch and that Joyce chose to adopt him. The fact that she moved into the cottage afterwards and not before the storm went over everybody’s heads.’
Abigail sat there, listening. ‘I’m sorry, Albert, but something here doesn’t make sense.’
She wasn’t the only one confused over the fact that according to Albert’s story, it should have been Oliver who’d been brought up by Joyce, not Toby.
Abigail asked, ‘Where does Toby come into all this? I thought he was the baby supposedly left in the storm porch – your and Daphne’s son?’
Albert retreated to his chair and stared at Hugh. ‘That night, your wife was rushed to hospital in labour.’
Hugh nodded. ‘Yes – that’s true.’
‘She gave birth to a son.’
Hugh nodded, his eyes drifting to Oliver. ‘She died in childbirth.’
Albert nodded his head sadly. ‘I know.’
Hugh said, ‘I don’t understand. The results of the DNA test say that Toby was Carys’s brother, that he was my son.’
Albert took a deep breath. ‘That night when Oliver was born, he wasn’t well. Thank goodness Daphne was all right, but we had to rush him – you,’ he glanced at Oliver, ‘to the hospital as soon as the roads were clear. Joyce came with me. You were fine. It was a false alarm. So you were placed with the other babies born that night in the nursery.
He leaned forward in his seat. ‘You really can’t blame Joyce. There was a power cut. She’d been on her way to the nursery with the little name tags you put around their wrists.’
Hugh groaned.
‘There was an emergency. She’d been called, and in the poor light she … she got them mixed up.’
‘Two babies,’ said Abigail, recalling Joyce getting agitated over the mention of babies and a mistake she’d made that night.
Abigail told them what had happened when she’d visited Joyce in the care home. It all made sense now. Lord Somerville took home Daphne and Albert’s baby, and Joyce adopted Lord and Lady Somerville’s son.
Hugh glared at Albert. ‘How long have you known?’
Abigail glanced at Oliver. He was sitting there very quietly, staring at Albert.
‘If Joyce knew, why didn’t she tell someone?’ Carys asked.
‘I think she was afraid of losing her licence to practice nursing,’ commented Abigail.
Albert was already shaking his head. ‘That wasn’t it.’
Hugh glared at Albert. ‘How long have you known that I’ve been bringing up your son?’
Albert sighed heavily. ‘Perhaps Joyce suspected long before Daphne and I discovered the truth – I don’t know. All I do know is that she loved Toby. She’d brought him up from when he was a baby. She couldn’t, wouldn’t give him up.’
