Читать книгу Italian Attraction: The Italian Tycoon's Bride / An Italian Engagement / One Summer in Italy... - CATHERINE GEORGE, Catherine George - Страница 13

MAISIE knew Positano was an exceptionally pretty Italian town with brightly coloured villas cascading down the cliffs to the sea, sleepy lanes and endless steep alleyways and wonderful cafés and beach restaurants serving freshly caught fish. She had asked Liliana all about the area where Blaine lived that afternoon. Apparently the centre of the town was pedestrianised and the very fashionable resort was popular with Italians, which would have meant almost for sure that Blaine would have had to talk to friends if they had gone to eat in any of the restaurants there. For that reason she was immensely glad they were having dinner at his home. If this was going to be the only evening she would ever share exclusively with him, she wanted to make the most of every minute.

As the Ferrari climbed up into the hills through lush vegetation Maisie could hear the chirping of crickets in the warm balmy air and, despite their unsettling conversation and the prospect of what she was going to hear later, she was fascinated by what she saw. The legendary coastline, the scent of the lemon and orange groves in the hillsides, the dappled evening sunshine and the sheer beauty all around her was breathtaking.

By unspoken mutual consent they had remained silent since their earlier conversation, and it was Blaine who broke the silence to say quietly, ‘My home welcomes you,’ as he drove the car off the road and through open gates set in a shoulder-high whitewashed wall into a small paved area.

Maisie looked about her. Blaine’s house was built at the top of and virtually into the cliffs. She imagined the view inside was wonderful. Ornate balconies bursting with brightly coloured pots of flowers faced her, and there was a curving staircase leading to the front door, which was a storey high from where they were standing.

‘The house is on several levels,’ Blaine said as they walked up the stairs. ‘It is what you English would call quirky, I think.’

He had his suit jacket slung over one shoulder and his tie was hanging loose on either side of his shirt collar, the first few buttons undone. Maisie was overcome with such a rush of lust she almost missed her footing.

When they stepped into the house the first thing she noticed was how the sunlight lit up every corner. They were standing in a huge sprawling sitting room decorated and furnished in shades of coffee, biscuit and cream, the floor light wood and the main colour in the room coming from one long wall which was covered in decorative plates, glazed thickly like Arab pottery. A huge balcony looked over an awe-inspiring view of Positano, beyond which the azure waters of the ocean lay, and the balcony held a big table with six cushioned seats besides an array of lemon-scented verbenas, pink begonias, salvias and other flowers in terracotta pots which heavily perfumed the warm air.

‘Oh, wow.’ Maisie didn’t even try to be blasé. ‘This is the most incredible house.’

‘You haven’t seen it all yet,’ Blaine said mildly, but she could tell he was pleased by her reaction.

All of it consisted of a beautifully fitted white oak and black marble kitchen and separate dining room on the floor below the sitting room. Through this a door led into a wide courtyard-style garden with tropical trees and shrubs and masses of tubs of flowers, an iron table and chairs again looking out over the wonderful view. The courtyard was built on the left side of the house and was totally private. The floor above the sitting room held two large bedrooms with a bathroom between them, both of which had balconies to take advantage of the view again, but it was the top floor which took Maisie’s breath away. The master bedroom with its magnificent en suite bathroom in white and black marble was stunning. The wall which overlooked the ocean was made entirely of glass so that the occupants of the massive bed could see for miles and the balcony which stretched the length of the room also had panels of glass between its supports of stone so as not to impede the view from inside the room.

It wasn’t only the view that was making Maisie breathless though. The huge bed with its black silk sheets and voluptuous pillows was unlike any bed Maisie had seen before and must have been built inside the room. It was a masterpiece of decadence. Along one wall was a full-length walk-in wardrobe and on the other were shelves set into the wall holding books, tapes, papers and various other objects Maisie’s feverish gaze couldn’t pick out. But it was when she glanced at the ceiling she nearly died. The area over the bed was captured by a huge circular mirror, blatant and unashamed and bold.

Blaine was standing by the door and had remained there while she looked around, his arms folded across his chest and his big body relaxed as he leant against the wood. When her gaze shot down from the ceiling and she coloured violently, she knew he had noticed. Had noticed and enjoyed her reaction. Forcing herself to look straight at him, Maisie said, ‘This is very nice,’ and even to her own ears her voice sounded prim.

‘Nice? Is that the best you can do?’ he reproved her gently. ‘I spent a great deal of time planning this room.’

He was laughing at her. She knew he was laughing at her even though the dark handsome face betrayed no amusement. ‘It’s … unusual,’ she said tightly. ‘Very.’

‘Very unusual.’ He considered with his head slightly on one side. ‘Thank you. I like to think so.’

‘And … and very masculine. You know, being all black and white. Ascetic but luxurious at the same time. Was that the look you were trying to achieve?’ she asked, her face hot.

‘I don’t think I was exactly interested in a look,’ he murmured softly. ‘I just wanted somewhere where I could relax and enjoy … the view.’

She knew what view he was talking about all right. The view of some gorgeous nude beauty in that mirror, a woman who would be more than happy to take what he could offer and not ask for more commitment than he wanted to give. Workaholic, her foot! He might not bring any women home to meet Mother but he sure didn’t sit in this bed reading paperwork or dictating letters or whatever it was he did. Maisie didn’t know if she felt angry or sad. She thought actually it was a mixture of both with a big dollop of jealousy and envy thrown in for good measure.

But she’d only got herself to blame for this, she admitted silently. He hadn’t wanted to even see her tonight, let alone bring her to his house and certainly not his bedroom. Knowing that didn’t help at all.

He was out of her league in every way, she told herself, pretendingto look out of the glass doors leading to the balcony one last time. What on earth had she been doing in thinking there was a chance with him? Suddenly the loss of the few pounds in weight which had so cheered her earlier seemed utterly pathetic. Laughable. Not that she felt like laughing.

‘Come downstairs and I’ll fix you a drink while I change.’ His voice was gentle, all amusement gone.

Maisie heard it with something like horror. Was he feeling sorry for her now? Pride brought her head up and injected a bright note into her voice. ‘Lovely.’ She turned from the view and sailed across the room, quite forgetting about the vertiginous sandals and almost doing the splits because of her mistake.

‘Careful.’ Blaine caught her in his arms as she catapulted forward, saving something of her dignity in the process but causing her a bigger problem when she found herself held against a hard male chest, his shirt smelling deliciously of some nice washing liquid.

‘It’s my sandals …’ She glanced up at him when he didn’t seem in any hurry to let her go. His eyes were piercing, their light trained on hers, and his face was very still. ‘I … I’m not used to heels.’

‘Your hair smells of apple blossom.’ His voice was husky, preoccupied. ‘And it’s so silky and soft.’ His fingertips were against her lower ribs, his palms cupping her sides, and the warmth of his flesh had robbed Maisie of the ability to speak. She simply continued to gaze up at him and then shut her eyes as he nuzzled his chin into her hair, drawing her closer.

When he put his mouth to hers it was a light stroking of her lips at first, his hands moving to trace the contours of her body through the thin dress. His mouth began an exploration of her cheeks, her nose, her eyes, his kisses burningly quick and sensuous. His breath was warm against her skin and her flesh tingled where the heat of his lips and hands touched, her legs becoming fluid as she turned her face to capture his mouth again.

Like before, a multitude of new feelings were coursing through her and she was enchanted and bewitched by the power of his caresses, her body fitting into his like a natural jigsaw when he urged her even harder against the hard length of him. A slowly growing ache was seeping through every cell of her body as she gave herself up to the magic he was creating, coherent thought long since gone, her eyes closing again.

‘Maisie, Maisie.’ He breathed her name, his voice throaty and shaky, each kiss and caress hungrier and more intimate.

Somehow she found herself on the huge billowing bed, although she hadn’t been aware of being led there. The rich black silk smelt ever so faintly of his aftershave and it touched her skin like warm cream as she opened her eyes in bemused surprise. ‘Blaine?’ she said dazedly.

He had been about to peel the bodice of the dress away from the swollen fullness of her breasts, their engorged tips hard from the contact of his body. Now he froze, his heavily lashed glittering eyes opening wider. ‘Hell,’ he said.

He was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling under the thin shirt as he fought for control for long seconds. Then he slowly rose, walking across to the glass doors, which led on to the balcony and keeping his back to her as he said roughly, ‘You see? You see how it is with you? I cannot keep my hands off you.’

But she didn’t want him to, so what was the problem? Maisie sat up, trembling from head to toe and fumbling with her dress, which was round her thighs, as she said, ‘Why does that matter?’

She watched as he shook his head and now his voice was colder. ‘It matters because you are not the sort of woman a man takes to bed for one night and then forgets about, neither would you be content to be a number in a little black book. You are Jackie’s friend, for crying out loud, a family friend; you are living with my parents, working for them.’ He stopped abruptly, straightening his shoulders, but still not turning to look at her as he added, ‘It was madness to bring you here tonight.’

The thrill that he wanted her, that he was actually finding it hard to keep his hands off her, was completely negated by the way he was talking. However attracted he was to her, his autonomy mattered more. That was what he was saying. Maisie slid off the bed, smoothing down her dress and running her fingers through her tousled hair to tidy it. She wanted to burst into tears but she knew that would just make a bad situation a hundred times worse. She had to salvage something out of this awful mess, a mess she had brought about by forcing his hand. They were going to come into contact with each other over the next weeks while she was staying at his parents’ house; she didn’t want him to stay away once his father was home because of her or anything like that.

She took a deep breath. ‘OK,’ she said steadily. ‘I see where you’re coming from. We’ll put this down to experience, shall we, but I don’t see any reason why we can’t be friends. Just friends. And if you’re ready, I’d like that drink now.’ She would like a whole bottle actually; she’d need that much to get through the rest of the evening.

He turned, surveying her with a narrowed stare. She could see the intelligent mind whirring away, computing what she had just said. She waited, looking back at him without giving anything away.

‘You think that is possible?’ he said grimly. ‘After what we have just shared? With all that is between us?’

It had to be. If she had thought some of the things she had gone through in the past were difficult, they were nothing compared to what she was having to do now. She forced herself to shrug nonchalantly. ‘A few kisses, a little lovemaking,’ she said evenly. ‘That’s all we shared and we are both mature adults after all.’ Pride was coming to the rescue now—a little belatedly, admittedly, she thought bitterly, but better late than never. She was not going to grovel or beg for what he refused to give. Never in a million years. ‘Perhaps we needed to do that to get it out of our system. Anyway, we’ve tried it and that’s that. Friendship from now on. Agreed?’

He rubbed his hand across his mouth, clearly at a loss.

‘And, like I said, I’m ready for that drink now. And dinner. Preferably before midnight.’ She smiled and he would never know how much it cost. She turned from him, from the look in his eyes, and left the room, walking carefully down the winding staircase right down to the dining room and then out of the door into the fragrant courtyard. She sat down at the table, staring at the crystalline blue water in the distance and deliberately emptying her mind of all thought.

A few moments later he joined her, two glasses of deep red wine in his hands. She looked up, holding out her hand for a glass as she said, ‘Thanks. What are we having for dinner?’

He grimaced. ‘It will not be as exciting as if I had had time to plan for the occasion, but I thought perhaps ginger and chilli tiger prawns followed by tortelloni filled with ricotta and parsley, served with fresh lobster?’

‘Wow.’ She tried not to notice how the blue of the sky was reflected in his eyes. It wouldn’t help. If he could do this, so could she. ‘The mind boggles at what you would do if you did have time to plan.’ She took a sip of the wine. It was smooth and soft, bursting with blackcurrant, cherry and violet aromas. ‘Do you want me to do anything in the kitchen while you shower and change?’ she asked, matching her voice to a tone she’d use if she was asking Jackie the same question.

He had swallowed half of his glass of wine. Now he set it down on the table. ‘The only thing I want you to do is to refill your glass when you’re ready,’ he said, walking back into the dining room as he spoke and then exiting again with the bottle in his hand.

‘Suits me.’ She kicked off her sandals and wriggled her toes. If they were going to do this friendship thing then she might as well be comfortable. The extra couple of inches the sandals had given her didn’t matter now, nor the way they’d made her ankles look tiny. She was done with trying to seduce him. And she was utterly, utterly fed up with men in general. The urge to cry was there again and she hoped he was going to clear off for his shower before she spoilt everything she’d achieved in the last few minutes.

Once he had disappeared, however, a feeling of recklessness took over and, draining her glass, she poured herself another. The evening had mellowed to one of satisfying warmth after the heat of the day, a thousand summers in the light breeze perfumed with sun-warmed vegetation and flowers. She didn’t want to think any more, she found. She just wanted to be. Thinking was too painful, too unsettling.

When Blaine joined her a little while later she absolutely refused to dwell on the fact that he looked doubly sexy with his hair still damp from the shower. He had shaved and there was the tiniest of nicks on his chin. Why that should make her quiver inside she didn’t know, but it did. Right down to her toes.

He had brought another bottle of the heavenly wine out with him and after refilling his own glass he raised his eyebrows as she put a hand over her own half full one. ‘No more yet,’ she said smilingly, telling herself she had to pretend he was Sue or Jackie or another of her friends and be as relaxed as she would be with them. ‘I feel a bit tiddly, to tell you the truth.’

‘After one and a half glasses?’ He grinned back at her and she felt a rush of pure resentment that he could do this friendly thing so much easier than she could. ‘Something tells me you are not a seasoned drinker.’

Unlike some of these sophisticated career women he had spoken about, no doubt. She supposed they could down a bottle without blinking. They could probably do a lot of things without blinking. Frequently. With him. ‘I don’t drink much,’ she said airily, ‘if that’s what you mean.’ On her salary she hadn’t been able to afford to. And quite often when she and Jeff had gone out to dinner or eaten a meal at his very nice flat in central London, he’d been on call, so they’d shared nothing more exciting than a bottle of fizzy water. She briefly wondered how the perfect Camellia would react to his disappearing at the drop of a hat in the middle of a date. Badly, she hoped. She was completely over him but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t like him to get a bit of grief.

‘The prawns will take about ten minutes so I’ll get cooking.’

‘Can I come and watch?’ This sitting in splendid isolation was all very well and the view was undoubtedly stupendous, but compared to observing Blaine under the guise of watching him cook it couldn’t even begin to compare. Sad. Maisie mentally nodded. She was turning into one sad female.

‘Of course.’ he nodded to her glass. ‘Bring your wine.’

Once in the kitchen, she had to admit she was more than a little impressed by how organised and efficient he was. When she cooked anything other than a casserole, where she could sling everything in together and bung it in the oven, it tended to be something of a hit and miss affair, and she knew she was a messy cook. Blaine, on the other hand, was definitely a pro. She said as much once he had finished browning the sesame seeds and put them to one side, using the same pan with new oil to start cooking the prawns, garlic, chilli and green pepper.

‘I am Italian,’ he said matter-of-factly. ‘It is in the genes, you know? Whenever Liliana visits her sister in Tuscany my father always cooks at home. My mother is not particularly domesticated.’

There you see, they would be absolutely perfect together. He could cook and she could watch him every night. Bliss. Maisie silently warned herself to stop. He didn’t want her. Well, he did want her but not enough. End of story.

After Blaine had added the ginger cordial and sesame seeds to the pan and cooked for a further minute or so, he divided the contents between two plates on which nestled a green salad. They carried their plates and wine out to the courtyard and ate under the blue Italian sky. Maisie thought she had never understood how something could be bitter-sweet until tonight.

She didn’t accompany him back to the kitchen for the second course but sat sipping her wine as she watched the sun go down. The shadow-blotched courtyard was still as warm as toast, even when the sky became streaked with tumescent crimson and enriched with bands of gold.

A violet dusk was settling when Blaine brought out the plates, and the tortelloni and lobster was every bit as delicious as the first course had been. He set out to be amusing and entertaining while they ate, the perfect host, and in spite of how Maisie was feeling inside she found herself giggling and enjoying herself. Probably the three glasses of red wine she had consumed by the time her plate was empty helped.

‘And now for dessert.’ Blaine’s teeth were very white as he smiled at her in the indigo shadows. ‘I cannot take the credit for these. There is an excellent little patisserie in Positano. You can choose from Sicilian lemon tart or pistachio cake.’

Maisie groaned. ‘I can’t eat another thing. I thought I’d lost some weight before I came here tonight but I’m sure I’ve put it all on again. I shall go back to England looking like the Michelin woman.’

‘I do not think so,’ he said softly. ‘Just beautiful.’

That was the wrong tone of voice for friends, besides which it wasn’t fair to say she was beautiful. Friends wouldn’t say that. Jackie or Sue would have agreed with her and put in their own suggestions, like one of the Roly-Polys or a jelly on a plate. Maisie frowned, her sense of being misused aided and abetted by the fact that he hadn’t the grace to even pretend to look devastated at the thought of her going back to England. ‘No dessert for me, thank you,’ she said firmly. ‘Really. Just coffee.’

Blaine ate a gargantuan piece of lemon tart along with his coffee and although Maisie’s mouth was watering she restrained herself from saying she’d changed her mind. The moon was out now, shedding a thin hollow light over the face of the ocean far below. The night was very still; even the light breeze of an hour or so ago had died away, leaving a sense of enduring timelessness in its place. They sipped their coffee without talking and then Blaine said quietly, ‘We have eaten and now it is time, sì?’

Maisie glanced at him quickly. She knew he was talking about the explanation she had asked for. She also knew he was reluctant to give it. The evidence was there in the sudden tautness to the handsome features and the stiff line of his body. ‘It’s not necessary,’ she said, equally quietly. Not now. ‘I thought it was, but it really isn’t.’

It was almost as though he hadn’t heard her. ‘Her name was Francesca,’ he said flatly. ‘She was my wife. We married when I graduated from university and took my place in the family business. We had been promised to each other from childhood.’ He shrugged. ‘It is the way things are done sometimes and I had no complaints. I had grown up loving her.’

Maisie was as still as a mouse. His wife? Stupid, but she had never expected that he had been married, somehow.

‘She was twenty-two years old when we married. Within the year she was expecting our child and this triggered the mental condition which ran in her family. Of course this was not mentioned before the wedding.’ He smiled grimly. ‘My parents later admitted they had wondered why Francesca’s parents had left Florence and settled in Sorrento, and why they never visited their respective families or had them to stay. It was the stigma, you see. Her father’s mother had had the condition and her mother before her. It was suggested that because her father was a boy this condition had not affected him.’ He shrugged. ‘I do not know if this was so, only that Francesca became a different person almost overnight.’

‘Blaine, you don’t have to go on.’ Maisie felt awful. If she had known, if she had even suspected just the slightest she wouldn’t have pressed him for an explanation.

‘At first I didn’t know what I was dealing with,’ he said painfully. ‘I thought it was a kind of normal depression, if there is such a thing. I imagined with help she would snap out of it. Then her parents told her the truth. They had always said that all their family was dead and Francesca had grown up believing this. When they told her she became convinced there was no hope for her.’

He raked back his hair, moving restlessly in his chair before going on. ‘My parents and I brought in the best doctors;they were optimistic that once the child was born and she could receive certain medication she would be a different woman. Not cured exactly, but if she stayed on the medication she would cope.’

He sat forward in his chair, his arms resting on his knees and his hands clasped in front of him. Somewhere close by a dog barked and then all was still again.

‘She lost the baby at four months. Perhaps it was for the best, I don’t know. We began the medication. Sometimes for long periods she was fine. Other times … she wasn’t.’

The pause said much more than words could have done. Maisie could not see his face clearly in the shadowed darkness but she didn’t have to. She knew it would be etched with pain. She sat stiff and still, scarcely breathing.

‘And gradually over a period of time my feelings began to change. Oh, she did not know this—at least I think she did not know—but even in the early days of our marriage, before she became ill, I knew I had made a mistake. Francesca … she did not like the physical side of marriage. She would do her duty as she saw it but that was all. Maybe I should have recognised the signs before we married; she was always happy to cuddle and kiss a little but anything else and I was gently rebuffed. But she was a good Italian girl and I had been brought up to respect this. I did not expect more. After she lost the baby we lived virtually as brother and sister.’

How could any woman not want Blaine to make love to her? Maisie stared at his profile, wondering what that must have done to him.

‘To all intents and purposes ours seemed a loving marriage to the outside world. Even, perhaps, to Francesca. She had the kudos of being married, which was important to her, having been raised by parents who believed in the old way. She had a nice home close to her parents—we lived in Sorrento—and she had me to take her out and look after her. She wanted nothing more, she made that very clear. Even in her good times any advances I made were not well received. And so life went on. Maybe if she had not been ill, things would have been different. I might have insisted she try to change. As it was, I realised I had made my bed and I had to lie on it. Alone, of course.’ He smiled bitterly.

‘You … couldn’t have asked for a divorce?’ Maisie said tentatively.

‘Francesca was a staunch Catholic, like her parents, besides which I could not abandon her and cast her aside. It would have finished her. Again, if she had not been ill it would have been different.’

‘She was lucky to have you.’

He looked up and into her eyes. ‘Do not think of me as a saint, Maisie,’ he said quietly. ‘I am not proud of it, but by the time she became ill with leukaemia I think I almost hated her. She used her illness as a weapon and we both knew it. I resented her more than words can say; I longed for my freedom. Not in the way it happened—never that—but I wanted to be rid of her. My only comfort is that she did not know. I acted the part of the loving husband to the end.’

She stared at him, chilled in spite of the warm air. ‘Was the leukaemia connected with her other illness?’

‘No, just a fluke. But with hindsight I think it saved my sanity. I had lived a lie for almost a decade and it had taken a toll I was not aware of. I stood at her graveside and looked round at the weeping women and sombre-faced men and wondered what they would think if they knew how I was really feeling.’

‘How did you feel?’ she whispered.

‘Like a bird released from a cage must feel.’ He shook his head. ‘As I said, I am not proud of it but it is the truth. I have not spoken of this before,’ he added, his eyes moving to the ocean.

‘Not to anyone?’

‘When Francesca was alive it would have seemed like a betrayal. Afterwards …’ He shrugged. ‘It was no longer important.’

No longer important? It had changed him radically by his own admission, shaped him into the man he was now. A man who wanted complete and absolute autonomy, who would fight against any emotional commitment or ties single-mindedly. Of course it was important. She sucked in a breath, wondering how she could say what she was thinking. In the end, she murmured, ‘I think it was a mistake not to at least share the truth with your parents. They could have helped you. And what about the future? What about a family one day, children? Don’t you want that?’

‘Once, but not now.’ He turned to look at her again, his eyes glittering in the shadows. ‘I never again want to be responsible for another human being.’

It was unequivocal. Maisie experienced a sensation akin to an elephant sitting on her heart and squeezing all the life out of it. She nodded in what she hoped was an understanding way. ‘I can appreciate that, with what you’ve been through.’

‘That’s why I keep my relationships pretty simple these days.’

Hmm. Well, that was one way to put it.

‘Of course Liliana would love to see me arrive with someone on my arm one day but it’s not going to happen.’

OK, she had actually already got the message. ‘So your life is a series of one-night stands?’ she asked bluntly.

He blinked. ‘Not exactly.’

Exactly what would he call it then? Maisie raised enquiring eyebrows. ‘No?’

‘I’ve told you, I date women who feel the same way as me.’

‘But only for one night.’

‘I’m not some kind of male stud, Maisie.’ He was frowning now but she found she didn’t care. ‘They’re mostly business colleagues, and of that nature, and as it happens I haven’t been out with a woman for some months. I saw the last one a few times and then she moved to Sardinia with her job.’

‘And that was too far for you to go and see her?’

‘Neither of us wanted that.’ His tone was becoming steely but considering he had laid it on the line for her she felt she had nothing to lose.

She nodded. ‘So you see the rest of your life in terms of being independent and self-sufficient and alone basically?’

He deliberately poured himself another cup of coffee from the pot on the table and drank some of it before he said, ‘Is there a point you are trying to make?’

Damn right. It was a terrible waste, for one thing. ‘Just that you are going to end up a very lonely old man when you don’t have to,’ she said bravely, ignoring his expression. ‘I can see your marriage must have been a nightmare for much of the time, but that doesn’t mean you couldn’t be happy with someone else.’ Like me, for instance. Fat chance.

‘I don’t see it that way.’

No, well she supposed he didn’t, and who was she to try and persuade him otherwise anyway? Maybe one of these gorgeous, bright, well-sorted career women he mixed with might have a chance, but her? You’d have to be pretty special to bag a man like Blaine in the first place and hanging on to him would be even harder, even without all his hang-ups.

Maisie finished the last of her now cold coffee. ‘I’m sorry it all went so wrong for you, Blaine,’ she said softly as she put the cup down. ‘I hope you’ll find happiness again one day.’ And she meant it, she did—as long as she wasn’t around to see him with someone else.

‘Thank you.’ His voice was equally low. ‘So we are still friends, sì?’

Maisie nodded.

‘And as friends maybe I could show you a little of my country over the next weeks once my mother is home? She will still need some help with the animals, of course, but there will be things she will prefer to do. I know this.’ His voice was wry. ‘She cannot, how do you say, sit around and twiddle her fingers all day.’

‘Her thumbs.’

‘Sì, her thumbs.’

It was rare that his excellent English let him down and Maisie felt a rush of something she would rather not put a name to flood her being. Dangerous, dangerous man—she had told herself this before and she ignored it at her peril. She nodded mentally to the warning.

‘So, we do some sightseeing, Maisie?’

‘If you’re sure you have the time.’ She was forewarned, wasn’t she? she told the little voice in her head which was screaming that she was mad. And forewarned is forearmed. That was what they said. She just hoped they—whoever they were—were right.