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career and starting a family immediately. But I suppose I might be prepared to discuss options … if I definitely decided to marry you, that is. And I don’t know about that. I’d need time to think it over.’
    â€˜Of course you would,’ he said, breathing more freely. ‘This is what I mean about living together – it’ll give us the time we need to be sure about each other. And it’ll save money, too. We’ll both be in a much better financial position when we do begin discussing marriage.’
    She gave him another of her devastatingly level looks. ‘ I shall be in a better financial position, yes. But then, I try to save something, even if it’s only a little, every month. My parents had to bring three of us up on a police constable’s pay, so I know all about being careful with money. You don’t, though, do you Martin? I imagine you spend every penny you earn. Dad told me – all right, I admit I’ve been asking about you – that it cost you over a thousand pounds to learn to fly. And now you actually own a share in an aeroplane –’
    â€˜Only a twentieth!’ he revealed.
    â€˜Oh. I had the impression it was more … Still, flying must be the most expensive hobby you could possibly have chosen. I know you’re getting accelerated promotion, and in a year or two you’ll outrank Dad, but if you’re not prepared to drop your standard of living I don’t see that you‘ll ever be able to afford to raise a family.’
    â€˜Your father may know a lot about me,’ Tait retorted, ‘but he doesn’t know everything. As a matter of fact, I have money coming to me. A family legacy. A large one. So I don’t anticipate that money will be any problem at all, in a few years’time.’
    Alison was taken aback. ‘Sorry … I had no idea. That does make things different for you, of course. I thought you were being irresponsible, you see, and ever since Gavin I’ve tried to keep away from irresponsible men.’
    â€˜Very wise of you.’ Tait gave her a forgiving kiss on the cheek. ‘I don’t usually talk about the legacy, but now we’re thinking in terms of eventual marriage it’s only right that you should know it’s there.’
    â€˜Well … it’s rather a shattering thought. There’s never been enough money in my family for any legacies. I don’t even know how they work. Is it a lump sum that’s waiting for you when you reach a certain age?’
    He hesitated. ‘It’s not really as definite as that. There’s no way of knowing when I shall actually get it. It’s my Aunt Con’s money, you see. My father’s elder sister. She was lucky enough to have a rich godmother who left her a packet. Aunt Con has no children and I’m lucky enough to be her only nephew. We’ve always got along very well, and she’s generously left me everything in her will.’
    Alison frowned at him. ‘Your Aunt Con? The one you’re going to stay with in Fodderstone?’
    â€˜That’s right. Mrs Constance Schultz. She sounds like a comfortably rounded middle-European, doesn’t she? In fact she’s tall and thin and unmistakably English – slightly eccentric, in a genteel sort of way. I’m very fond of her. She’s always interested me because she was the black sheep of the family.
    â€˜Her father – my grandfather Tait – was a respectable solicitor with a practice in Woodbridge. It seems that Aunt Con lived at home, leading a quiet dull life, until the 1940s. Then she suddenly discovered the opposite sex. Apparently the countryside was swarming with lonely servicemen of various nationalities, and Aunt Con befriended them with a bit too much enthusiasm. Woodbridge was scandalized, and the rest of the family didn’t know which way to look.
    â€˜Aunt Con must have got married at some stage, but her