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light coral lustre to her mouth.
    She tried to comfort herself with the reflection that the Signora might loathe her, but she couldn’t truthfully complain about her appearance. Still it seemed small consolation.
    The car didn’t really need air conditioning, she thought ruefully.
    Paolo’s mother could have lowered the temperature to arctic proportions with one look. And the cost of her brother’s school trip was rising by the minute. He’d better enjoy it, that’s all, she muttered under her breath.
    But as they drove into Umbria she found herself succumbing to the sheer beauty of the scenery around her, all other considerations taking second place. Everywhere she looked seemed to be
    composed of endless shades of green, and every hilltop seemed crowned with its own little town, clinging precariously to its rocky crag.
    Half an hour later they reached Besavoro, which seemed to be hardly more than a large village on the bank of a river, which Paolo told her was a tributary of the Tiber. The central point was the square, where houses and shops huddled round a tall, ornate church. There was a market taking place, and the cramped space had to be negotiated with care.
    Once free of the village, they began to climb quite steeply, taking a narrow road up the side of the valley. They passed the occasional house, but generally it was rugged terrain with a steep rocky incline leading up to heavy woodland on one side, and, on the other, protected only by a low wall, a stomach-churning drop down to the clustering roofs, and the river, now reduced to a silver thread, below them.
    She remembered Paolo’s comment about a death trap, and
    suppressed a shiver, thankful that Giacomo was such a good driver.
    ‘We are nearly there, signorina.’ To her surprise, Laura found herself being addressed by the Signora. The older woman was even smiling faintly. ‘No doubt you are eager to see where you will be spending your little vacation. I hope it lives up to your expectations.’
    Any overture, however slight, was welcome, and Laura responded.
    ‘Has the house been in the family long?’ she enquired politely.
    ‘For generations, although it has been altered and extended over the years. At one time, it is said to have been a hermitage, a solitary place where monks who had sinned were sent to do penance.’
    ‘I know how they feel,’ Paolo commented over his shoulder. ‘I am astonished that Alessio should waste even an hour in such a place.
    He has certainly never repented of anything in his life.’
    His mother shrugged. ‘He spent much of his childhood here.
    Perhaps it has happy memories for him.’
    ‘He was never a child,’ said Paolo. ‘And his past is what happened yesterday—no more.’ He leaned forward. ‘Look, Laura mia. You can see the house now, if you look down a little through the trees.’
    She caught a glimpse of pale rose stonework, and faded terracotta tiles, and caught her breath in sudden magic.
    It was like an enchanted place, sleeping among the trees, she thought, and she was coming to break the spell. And she smiled to herself, knowing she was being utterly absurd.

    Impossible to miss the sound of an approaching car in the clear air, Alessio thought. His unwanted guests were arriving.
    Sighing irritably, he swung himself off the sun lounger, and reached for the elderly pair of white tennis shorts lying on the marble tiles beside him, reluctantly dragging them on. For the past few days, he’d revelled in freedom and isolation. Basked in his ability to swim in the pool and sunbathe beside it naked, knowing that Guillermo and Emilia who ran the villa for him would never intrude on his privacy.
    Now his solitude had ended.
    He thrust his feet into battered espadrilles, and began walking up through the terraced gardens to the house.
    Up to the last minute, he’d prayed that this nightmare would never happen. That Paolo and his ragazza would quarrel, or that Zia Lucrezia would love her as a daughter on