‘I learned all this in the last few days before she left me. She told me-boasted of it-that she’d gone on sleeping with her lover until the night before our wedding. That’s why Liza was born so quickly.’

‘You mean-?’

‘Yes. My little girl isn’t mine at all. She’d been another man’s child all the time.’

Holly drew a long breath, calling herself all kinds of a fool. This had been staring her in the face if she’d had the wit to see it.

‘He went away after we married,’ Matteo continued, ‘and stayed away for a few years, making some money of his own, I gather. So when he came back she decided to leave me for him. I said I couldn’t stop her leaving, but she wasn’t taking my daughter. That’s when she told me that Liza wasn’t mine, but Martin’s.

‘A few hours after they left I got a call from the hospital. The train had crashed, Carol was dead and Liza was seriously injured. I learned later that Martin had been killed too, but nobody else knew that he had any connection with us. The world only knows that my wife and child were taking a journey and their train crashed. All the rest-’ he paused for a moment before resuming with difficulty ‘-is known only to me.’

‘And Liza,’ she said, horrified, ‘all those years-it’s incredible-but perhaps it isn’t true. Maybe Carol only said that to hurt you-’

She stopped because he’d held up a hand, shaking his head.

‘I thought of that,’ he said. ‘When she was in the hospital I had a test done anonymously. What my wife told me was true. Liza is not my daughter. I have to accept that.’

He was silent for a while, and Holly could think of nothing to say that wouldn’t have sounded inadequate. The silence hung heavy between them.

‘When her condition improved,’ he resumed after a while, ‘I brought her home. I didn’t know what else to do.’

‘Does Liza have any idea?’

‘None. I was afraid that Carol might have told her, but it’s obvious that she still thinks I’m her father.’

‘As you are in every sense that matters,’ Holly said urgently. ‘Hate your wife if you must but that little girl has done nothing wrong.’

‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ he asked tiredly. ‘None of it’s her fault but-’

‘There are no buts,’ Holly insisted. ‘She’s the same person that she always was, a child who loves you, and who’s done nothing to forfeit your love.’

He regarded her with despair.

‘You’re saying all the things I’ve said to myself a thousand times over. My head knows they’re true, but that doesn’t help. Logic doesn’t work. Don’t think I’m proud of myself, because I’m not. I do everything in my power to prevent her suspecting any difference, but I can’t help it if the feeling isn’t there.’

‘Oh, goodness,’ she murmured.

Matteo looked up at the sky, where the oblivious stars wheeled coldly overhead.

‘She was my child,’ he said. ‘And then she wasn’t. When I look into her face I see the face of the woman I hate, and I can’t bear it.’

‘Can’t you try to forgive Carol?’ Holly asked, realising how useless the words were even as she spoke them. It was no surprise when Matteo turned on her with real fury.

‘Forgive her? Are you mad? For years she mocked me, accepting my love, luring me on to love her more, taking and taking-and all the time it was nothing but a cruel deceit while she dreamed of another man. She took and took and took, and gave nothing in return. Even my child isn’t mine.

‘If she’d ever been a true wife to me in her heart I might have forgiven a moment of madness-but years of cynical, cold-blooded, calculated-’

He broke off, shuddering.

‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured, reaching out to him.

But he flinched away from her.

‘Don’t touch me,’ he raged. ‘You, with your stupid English reasonableness-’

‘It’s got nothing to do with-’

‘You’re all the same. Let’s tie up the loose ends and be sensible. We don’t want to make a fuss, do we? She used to say that. It was her gift-diffusing a fuss, calming everyone down. I used to admire her for it, until now, when I realise it was a clever tactic to fool me.

‘The only time she dropped it was when we made love. Then she was shrewd enough to abandon reason and drive me so wild that I couldn’t think straight. That way I never became suspicious, by night or by day. Oh, she covered every angle, leaving me not one single pure and honest memory. And now you want me to forgive. Never! I thought you’d learned enough to understand about vendetta, but you don’t know anything.’

‘So you’re going to teach me, are you?’ she demanded, angry in her turn. ‘You’re going to pass on to me all the lessons you’ve learned about cruelty and bitterness, about being self-centred and brooding on nothing but your own wrongs to the exclusion of all else. And when I’ve learned that, who will look after that innocent child?’

He was silent. Her fury had taken him by surprise, shocking him into silence. Before he could recover, she jumped to her feet and walked away to the house. She had never been so enraged in her life.

Most of all she was upset with herself. She should have seen it coming. There had been brief glimpses into the depths of hell where he lived, but none of them had prepared her for the moment when rage and anguish boiled over, pitilessly exposing to her gaze everything he would have wanted to hide.

She even knew a moment of protectiveness, wanting to shield him from disclosing his vulnerability to a woman who would judge him harshly.

Then she remembered that the woman was herself.

CHAPTER NINE

WHEN Holly reached the house some instinct prevented her from going straight upstairs. She knew he would follow her, that tonight wasn’t over. There were still things to be said.

She went into the library, switched on a small lamp and after a moment she heard the door open. He took a few steps into the room, then paused, standing back in the shadows, so that she could see only his outline, not his face. Even so, she could sense the uncertainty that tormented him.

‘Come in,’ she said, reaching for him.

She could see he was on the point of collapse and he needed comfort. He almost fell into a chair by the window.

‘Forgive me,’ he said quietly.

‘No, forgive me. I shouldn’t have gone for you like that.’

‘I had no right to tell you. I promised myself that nobody else would ever find out-I don’t know why I suddenly gave in-’

‘Because you had to tell someone or go mad,’ she said sympathetically.

He nodded, defeated.

‘What about the person at the hospital who did the test?’

‘He thought it was for a case. There were no names. Maybe he guessed, but he can’t know.’

She thought of the terrible strain of enduring his secret alone, letting the world think he was grieving only for his wife’s death, when in truth it was the death of all hope and trust that was devouring him. How could she have missed it? Even in this light it was there, in his face the fact that he was dying inside.

‘I trust you,’ he said, and there was a pleading note in his voice.

‘I’ll never tell,’ she promised at once. ‘For Liza’s sake-and for yours.’

‘Maybe one day Liza will have to know,’ he said. ‘But not until she’s old enough to understand, and cope. That’s why I keep my distance, I’m afraid she’ll detect in my manner that I feel nothing.’

‘I don’t believe you’ve stopped loving her,’ Holly said fiercely. ‘You can’t have. It isn’t possible, not if the love ever meant anything.’

‘And suppose it didn’t?’ he asked bleakly. ‘Suppose it was only my vanity, clinging to the belief that she came from our love, mine and Carol’s? That’s the truth about me, a weak, shallow man, who can only love a child who’s an extension of himself.’

‘But that isn’t the truth about you.’

‘Do you think you know me better than I know myself?’ he asked bitterly.

‘I know you wouldn’t be suffering so much unless there were depths of feelings in you that you’re afraid to admit. You say you feel nothing, I say you feel more than you can bear.’

‘You don’t pull any punches, do you?’ he asked in a ragged voice. ‘All right, tell me what to do. I’m in your hands.’

‘Spend more time with Liza, just doing nothing very much. Let things happen as they will.’

He rubbed his eyes and growled, ‘I suppose you’re talking about-what’s that fashionable phrase? Quality time-’

‘No, forget quality time. What you need now is quantity time. Lots of it.’

‘But-doing what?’

‘Give me patience, somebody!’ she begged. ‘What about that swimming pool in the grounds, the one you’re letting go to rack and ruin? Exercise would be good for her leg. Have the pool cleaned out and refilled, then spend the day there with Liza. Help her swim the length and back. Do it as often as she wants. But above all, be there every time she looks up. It doesn’t matter whether or not you happen to be looking at her. You might even be dozing. But be there.’

‘If you knew how busy I am-’

‘I do know. And so does Liza. That’s why it’ll mean the world to her if you give her a whole day, not just half an hour snatched between other things, but the whole day.’

He gave a wry smile. ‘You argue your case well, avvocato. The judge is convinced, and will obey your orders.’

‘I’m not giving orders.’

He gave her a speaking look.

‘I’m not,’ she said defensively. ‘I’m just telling you what I think will help.’

He gave a faint smile.

‘The difference is hard to tell. But you’re right, I’ll have the pool cleaned and filled. My only condition is that you have to be there to keep a protective eye on us. I’m going to need your help, Holly. I don’t know where this will lead, but I know I can’t get there without you.’