His gaze flicked back to her, trying to read her expression in the dim light. But he could not see it. And nor could he bring himself to tell her how struck he’d been by the house he wanted her to yield to him—how it had called to him immediately, arousing in him for the first time in his life an urge to cease his wandering, rootless lifestyle.

Instead he focussed on what he so wanted her to realise for herself. ‘Do you not think,’ he ventured carefully, weighing the impact of each word upon her, ‘that your father’s death is also a turning point for you? Allowing you to...