A Ruthless Need - Catherine Cookson

Even in the heat of battle, Geoff Fulton would always carry with him the memory of the night he was on leave, when his timely intervention rescued fourteen-year-old Lizzie Gillespie from the oldest of perils for a young girl. The year was 1937 and the place a rural enclave of County Durham.

Seeing in Lizzie a girl of spirit, Geoff concluded that she might, with care and training, solve his problem and benefit herself. So, despite a token resistance from Lizzie’s slatternly stepmother, it was agreed that the girl should become a companion/helper to his increasingly handicapped mother.

But, in 1943, when Geoff returned wounded from the desert war, it was to find a Lizzie he hardly recognised mature and highly attractive. For her part, she could see that he was embittered by his experiences at war, for he now displayed a ruthless streak far removed from the caring person she had previously known.