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gardener to talk. One plants for one’s children’s children, and you have Signor Marco and the Signorina Bianca. They will marry and they will have children. You could have a fountain with a baby, like the Moses fountain on the Pincine Hill in Rome. It would be the first of your grandchildren, but not the last.’
    ‘A new garden? I wonder where? There is the fern garden, we always meant to make that better. Fountains are difficult, here on the top of the rock. But a statue, that would be easy. I’ll speak to my husband about it.’
    ‘ Speak to your son.’
    The lady looked up sharply, with a strangely cunning smile. She knows, Jan decided suddenly. She’s perfectly aware that it’s Marco who is the head of the family now.
    ‘ I’ll think about it. I’d forgotten the ideas we had for the fern garden. Perhaps Marco’s wife will help me.’
    ‘ I didn’t know he was married.’ Jan felt a sudden shock of dismay. She had assumed, perhaps rashly, that the talk of Marco’s wife yesterday had been of no significance; one of those mistakes confused minds can make. But what if he really did have a wife somewhere?
    She lay back and squinted up through the orange leaves. So what? It’s of no importance to me. Except, of course, that an unmarried man is always more interesting to a girl than a married one. And he really is rather a charmer, in spite of being so touchy.
    Could I fall in love with him? He possesses terrific physical attraction, and he would know how to charm a woman if he tried. Instinctively she knew he would be more experienced, more passionate, more demanding than any of the boys she’d known. A woman could be wax in his hands. And if, added to physical passion, there should prove to be that affinity of soul and heart which alone can turn desire into deep and lasting love, he could know the sort of glorious marriage of which he dreamed. A marriage for all eternity, as his father and mother had known. Two dear lovers whom even death could not entirely divide.
    I could fall in love with him, she decided, if he wanted me t o. He could make any woman love him. But it would be a tragedy if he did not love in return, for having loved Marco Cellini, how could anyone be satisfied with another?
    The Signora had dozed lightly; upright in her chair. Softly, Jan got up and prowled round this eyrie so high above the sea. The sheer drop was carefully guarded by elegant white rails, but in the farthest corner she found a gate which opened on to the rock and a narrow staircase leading down.
    Interested, she leaned over to see where it led, but it quickly curved away and disappeared. Too dangerous, perhaps? But there was a handrail of sorts, so it must have been used once. Perhaps when Marco was a boy his feet would go flying down here, without any sense of danger? Because, unless it ended in some little ledge, with perhaps an old seat, just another viewpoint, that path must eventually come down on the shore. There might be a private beach.
    Cautiously she pushed the gate. It opened silently on oiled hinges. If she could just peer round the corner—
    It was not as difficult as she had feared. The handholds had been renewed, and the steps were in good repair. Like everything else she had seen at the Villa Tramonti, this staircase was cared for, even if no one used it now. At the corner she saw its continuation. It did, indeed, go all the way down to a narrow white beach, with the sea over the sand emerald and turquoise, and a tiny thumbnail of white foam on the edge.
    It would be easy enough to get down, if one were careful. The return not so easy, being so steep; but possible. Although there were shrubs, and clumps of magenta valerian, the steps were not overgrown. Maybe Bianca used it. Tomorrow, Jan decided, I’ll go down and swim in the sea — the real thing, turquoise and emerald and azure.
    Lunch was a featherlight pizza, with anchovies and olives. And after lunch the Villa Tramonti retired for the siesta, and