‘I told Pietro to send them up here,’ he barked. ‘What does he think he-? How soon can you get them here? Why not tonight? All right, but first thing tomorrow.’

‘Shall I guess?’ Alysa asked as he hung up. ‘My bags?’

‘Pietro took them to the villa. I thought I made myself plain, but evidently I didn’t. I’m sorry. That was my steward wanting to know what he should do. You find it funny?’

Alysa had given a little laugh. Now she said lightly, ‘It does have its funny side. You were so determined to avoid the curious eyes of your employees.’

‘I apologise for all this,’ he growled. ‘They can’t get out here tonight, not in the dark on that mountain road. Your things will be here tomorrow, but until then-’

‘I’ll cope.’

‘Alysa, I swear I didn’t plan this.’

‘It’s all right, I believe you,’ she said through laughter. ‘With another man I’d be suspicious, but you and I aren’t about that.’

‘Thank you.’

She had set her brandy glass down on a small fender before the fire. Now she reached forward to get it, and kept on sliding down until she was sitting on the floor, finding it surprisingly comfortable because of the thick rug that seemed to be made of fake fur. She leaned back against the chair, sipping contentedly.

She was enveloped by a sense of well-being. It had something to do with the fire and the fine brandy, but more to do with Drago. He’d said, ‘the one person I can be honest with’, and it was true for her too.

She thought of the journey home that she’d nearly taken: landing at the airport with nobody to meet her, queuing for a taxi, reaching her home to find it cold, dark and empty, as it had been for the past endless year. The lonely evening with only her bleak thoughts for company.

Here she was effectively a prisoner, but a well-fed prisoner, basking in the glow of a friendly fire, relaxed and almost happy. If she could have escaped she would not have done so. She sighed pleasurably, feeling her cares fade away.

Drago, happening to glance across at her, saw the brandy glass about to slip out of her hand and hastened to remove it. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing coming steadily.

He studied her, feeling guilty but unable to stop. It was unforgivable to watch her while she was unaware, but something about her face held him against his will. Now that her defences were abandoned, she’d changed in a way that made him grow still.

If asked to describe her mouth he would have said that it was too firm and precise to be attractive, but exactly right for the slightly grim female she’d been at their first meeting. No man, he thought, considering the matter impartially, would ever be tempted to kiss that mouth.

But now it was softened, her lips slightly apart, the breath whispering through them. Nature had shaped her more generously than she wanted the world to know, and sleep had revealed what she had tried to hide.

Her whole face was one that a man might contemplate with curiosity, even while he blamed himself for his impertinence.

She stirred and he backed off, rising to his feet and going to a chest of drawers where he’d deposited a canvas bag when he’d first come in. Having retrieved it he returned to his seat. For a while he remained still, until at last, with evident reluctance, he reached inside, drew out an envelope and sat turning it over between his fingers. He did this for some time, making no attempt to open it, and putting it aside quickly when Alysa stirred and yawned.

‘Have I been asleep?’ she demanded.

‘Just dozing for a minute.’

‘How rude of me. I’m sorry.’ She pulled herself up and rubbed her eyes, gazing into the fire which cast a glow over her face.

‘Well?’ she said at last, turning to look at him.

‘Well?’

‘Well, why are we here? Drago, when are you going to stop putting things off? You wanted to show me something so important that you dragooned me into coming here, but then you seemed to forget all about it.’

‘I’ve been trying not to think of it,’ he admitted. ‘It’s something that was found in their apartment and only delivered to my house yesterday.’

‘But didn’t you go through the place?’

‘Yes, and I thought I’d been pretty thorough, but it seems there was a secret place-a small cupboard in the wall that you’d never find unless you knew it was there. The people who rent the place now discovered it by accident and found a box inside, containing a cache of letters. From them they learned enough to get in touch with me.’

‘You mean…?’

‘Letters between James and Carlotta, dating from September, as soon as he went back to England after their first meeting. When he came to live here he brought her letters with him. His were sent to her work, and I suppose that’s where she kept them, because I had no idea.’

She had to force herself to ask, ‘What do they say?’

‘I haven’t read them.’

‘How could you bear not to?’

He smiled faintly. ‘Because you weren’t there. I’ve always thought of myself as a brave man, but I found I can’t do this alone.’ His smile became self-mocking. ‘I need you to hold my hand.’

‘If you haven’t read them, how can you be sure they’re real? James wasn’t a man for writing letters. He did it all by phone and email, like most people these days.’

He showed her the envelope. ‘There are some things that you can’t trust to email. Is this his handwriting?’

‘Yes,’ she said slowly, taking it from him. ‘That’s James.’

She pulled out the letter and looked at the date.

‘September,’ she murmured. ‘He must have written this as soon as he came back.’

The words seemed to leap off the page.

I’m sitting here at midnight, trying to imagine that I’m still there with you. It’s only a few hours since you kissed me goodbye at the airport, yet already it seems like a lifetime. All I can do is try to tell you what our meeting has meant to me, how you’ve transformed my life in only a few days.

She laid down the letter. ‘I can’t read any more.’

But even as she said it she began reading again. James had written these words on the night he’d returned from Florence in September. She’d met him at the airport, gone home with him, tried to make love to him and been rejected.

‘Because he’d come from her bed only a few hours before,’ she whispered. ‘He sent me away, then sat down to write to her.’

Drago was reaching into the bag, pulling out more letters, searching through them feverishly.

‘What does she say to him?’ Alysa asked.

‘She says here that her marriage is a sham,’ Drago replied in a dazed voice. ‘And she can endure it no longer. Mio dio!’

Alysa barely heard. She too was pulling out letters, seeking the ones from James. They were revealing. He wrote:

My darling, please don’t be jealous of Alysa. She means nothing to me any more. Even at its best it was only an insipid love, nothing compared to what I feel for you.

And in another letter:

I’ve promised to be with you next week, and I will. Don’t worry about my failing you, because I never will. I’ve made an excuse to Alysa and she’s accepted it. Luckily she’ll believe anything I tell her. So I’ll arrive on that plane, and, if you can be there to meet me, wonderful. If not, I’ll just go to our little home and wait for you.

‘It’s true,’ she said. ‘I believed whatever he told me, I loved him so much.’

In answer to Drago’s look she handed him the letter.

‘It’s dated just before my birthday,’ she said. ‘We had such plans. But then he said he had to go away for a few days-something to do with the prospect of a job as a photographer. When he came back he said he hadn’t got the job and it had been a wasted few days.’

‘You didn’t check up on him?’

‘I never checked up on him. I trusted him totally. I didn’t know he despised me for it.’

‘And now you can despise him,’ Drago said fiercely. ‘Let that be your revenge.’

‘Yes,’ she said in what she hoped was a strong voice. ‘You’re right, of course.’

But the words echoed bleakly through the emptiness inside her.

CHAPTER SIX

DRAGO studied the contents of the next letter with a set face that grew almost cruel as he read on.

You say your husband is a harsh man. My love, it breaks my heart to think of you trapped there with him, the victim of his bullying. But it won’t be long now before I come to rescue you.

‘It’s a lie!’ Drago said violently. ‘I never bullied her. Others maybe, but not her or Tina, I swear it.’

‘You don’t need to convince me,’ Alysa said.

‘But how could she tell such a lie?’ he demanded.

‘She was playing a part, saying what she thought would fire him up.’

She took the letter from him and scanned it quickly, finding it full of a tender possessiveness that she would have thought charming in any other man. James was writing to the woman he had passionately adored, and it was so different from the casual love he’d given her that her heart ached.

Or at least it would have ached, if she hadn’t been safely past that stage, she reassured herself.

There was more about Drago, making it clear that Carlotta had painted him in a tyrannical light. Alysa found herself disbelieving every word. Already she knew him well enough for that. It was he who was Carlotta’s victim, raging helplessly like a baited bear.

‘We were together for ten years,’ he grated. ‘Until she left me, I thought they were wonderful years. We loved and cared for each other.’

‘And you were always faithful to her, weren’t you?’ It was a statement, not a question.

‘Of course I was faithful,’ he said scornfully. ‘I was hers in every way, body and soul. There’s nothing I wouldn’t have done for her. Nothing!’