When Moira Dingle (Natalie J Robb) went under the knife to have brain surgery in Emmerdale, Cain (Jeff Hordley) made arguably one of the biggest mistakes of his life and slept with Ruby Fox-Miligan (Beth Cordingly), the wife of his brother Caleb (William Ash).
Ruby spiralled after the arrival of her dad Anthony (Nicholas Day).
At the time, she was struggling with facing her dad again after so many years, but we then found out communication between them stopped as a result of Anthony sexually abusing Ruby when she was a child.
Because of Moira’s diagnosis and the impact it would have on Caleb, Cain and Ruby both agreed to keep their fling a secret – but that has been put at risk a number of times due to Anthony’s suspicions.
Calling the secret a ‘ticking time bomb’, star Beth Cordingly recently reflected on the prospect of Cain and Ruby’s betrayal being exposed: ‘I think it’s good when stuff doesn’t come out too quickly, because then it’s just sitting there waiting and you know as soon as something’s going okay, it could just come out. Then you’ve got all this potential destruction’, she said.
‘I think it’s good that it hasn’t come out yet but I’m sure it will.’
Beth explained: ‘It’s probably the worst person from Caleb’s point of view, because family means so much to him, and it’s taken him so long to feel a part of the Dingles. Cain means so much to Caleb. It’s quite hard for Ruby to break his heart, but this would be the way to do it, not that that was her intention.
‘She was trying to hurt herself. She and Moira were becoming friends too, and had this really kind of wonderful relationship of spikiness and difficultness and then opening up to each other. So there’s that to damage too. I hope it’s really clear that there isn’t any kind of romance going on between Cain and Ruby at all. They both regretted it from the second it was over.’
‘It’s interesting, because Ruby is so protective of her soft side, and only really Caleb sees that, and I guess Chas is beginning to see now’, Beth added, pondering over the change in Ruby’s character.
‘She opened up a bit with Moira, but she doesn’t show that side of herself to many people. And there are some really lovely scenes where Cain confronts her about her dad, they’re really well written. And he sort of says, Ruby, look at me. And she almost crumbles.
‘There’s a really lovely side to Cain, similarly, he is, like this super tough character, maybe if they hadn’t slept together, I think there would have been a potential that they could have been friends.
‘I do think it is really lovely to see two characters who are tough and protective of their own feelings and don’t let people in, open up to each other, that’s always really nice to watch.’
