Emmerdale fans were utterly shocked by Cain Dingle (Jeff Hordley)’s behaviour in a recent episode. While his beloved wife Moira (Natalie J Robb) was undergoing brain surgery, Cain had a moment of madness and ended up sleeping with his sister in law, Ruby Fox-Miligan (Beth Cordingly).

‘He’s feeling terribly guilty about what he did and the way he did it,’ Jeff Hordley told us. ‘The day that she was in the hospital, having an operation he went and slept with his sister in law, which is just the worst. He knows  if that comes out nobody’s going to have sympathy with it, nobody.’

The betrayal came as Cain struggled to cope with his worry over what might happen to Moira and how he would cope if the worst happened.

Meanwhile Ruby was grappling with the emotional turmoil of her daughter Steph (Georgia Jay) and her father Anthony (Nicholas Day) coming back into her life in quick succession.

Once the deed was done, both parties felt enormous guilt at what had happened.  

‘It’s a bit like one of those moments in a in a sitcom or a film, where two people wake up the morning after, in bed and they go, “oh sh*t, what the hell have we done?” ‘ Jeff explained.  

’It’s actually pretty instantaneous for them, as soon as they’ve had sex, they agree it was a mistake and that they can’t ever say anything about this to anyone. It happened because they were both in such a bad place, but they know that’s nowhere near a good enough excuse.’  

In coming episodes Cain spirals. While Moira is at the hospital preparing to receive the pathology results that will tell her if she needs any more treatment, her husband goes missing. 

Jeff told us what happens as Cain once again fails his wife. 

‘He’s at the garage and Dr Liam (Jonny McPherson) comes round who knows that Moira’s got this appointment at the hospital. He reminds him it’s an important appointment and he’s questioning why he hasn’t gone with his wife?

‘So he talks Cain round, and he knows he needs to get to the hospital as soon as he can. Jai (Chris Bisson)’s car is blocking the forecourt of the garage, so he just nudges the car out of the way to get to the hospital. Jai obviously reports this to PC  Swirling (Andy Moore), and Swirling intercepts him on the way to the hospital.

‘Cain is like, “I need to get to the hospital now,” and tries to explain. Swirling knows the situation but he has no sympathy, he’s got to bring him to the station, so he does, and he stays in the cell for the night, which means he misses the appointment with Moira.’ 

Moira and Cain’s marriage has already withstood a lot of pressure over the years – including her affair with Cain’s son Nate Robinson (Jurell Carter).

But this betrayal, coming as it does at the most vulnerable moment of Moira’s life, is going to be very hard to recover from if the truth comes out. Added to this, Cain also risks losing his brother Caleb Miligan (William Ash) when he finds out that Cain slept with his wife.  

Jeff is worried that this could spell the end of Cain and Moira.

‘The jeopardy of this situation is humongous,’ he warned. 

‘His wife is not the forgiving type. She often reacts in the same way to Cain in these situations. She is volatile. And likewise, he doesn’t want to jeopardise anything with his brother, because they’re kind of back on an even keel.

‘I think he really likes his brother deep down and they are starting to have a good relationship. So it’s instant guilt and shame and thinking “Oh, good lord, what have we done?”’ 

Despite the enormous risk, there’s part of Cain that wants to be honest and come clean to Moira about what happened. Jeff told us that Cain braces himself to tell the truth. 

‘There is this moment after Liam has taken him home from the allotment and he’s drunk that he’s about to confess – but can he go through with it?’ 

And if he does, how will Moira react?