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pastry shop and we went inside, buying chocolate iced slabs of cake and sugared cream eclairs and a bottle of Viano Verde to wash it down with. Then, sharing a packet of sugared almonds, we browsed contentedly through the steep and narrow streets, turning unexpectedly into a mini courtyard ablaze with flowers, or listening to the strange sing-song of an elderly priest as he walked slowly across the cobbles, his cloak hardly moving in the still warmth, his head bent, his stick tapping out his way till he reached the door he wanted and stopped his hypnotic singing to knock gently.
    Hand in hand we strolled towards the giant stone ramparts that circled the town. There were two encircling walls, and between them lay the undulating lush grass that grew in what had been a wide moat. Certainly the ancient inhabitants of Valenca had gone to extraordinary lengths to see that no raiding Spaniards from across the river invaded them. The sun was hot on our backs as we scrambled over the edge of the road that led from the outer entrance to the inner, gasping for breath as we plunged down the uneven ground to the grassy basin where only the bees hummed and an occasional dragonfly darted past on azure wings. I undid the neat paper package that held our pastries and Jonathan uncorked the wine and we passed the bottle one to the other as we hadn’t had the forethought to bring paper cups and I was glad that we hadn’t. With the last of the cakes eaten we leaned back against the comfort of the grassy bank, Jonathan’s arm around my shoulders, and it seemed impossible that two days ago we hadn’t even met.
    â€˜Happy?’ Jonathan asked.
    â€˜Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m happy.’
    He smiled but I couldn’t see his eyes from where I lay, my head crooked into his shoulder. More than anything I wanted to make Jonathan happy too. If there had come a moment for revealing my past, then those couple of hours spent in the idyll of Valenca’s medieval walls, was the moment when I should have spoken. But to do so would have spoilt a perfect day. And I was too much of a coward. Not willing to risk my happiness in one fateful throw of the dice. Perhaps he would have been compassionate as others had been. But if not … It was as if I couldn’t face it. I would do what Doctor McClure had instructed. Leave the past where it belonged and think only of the present. I plucked idly at the grass, saying almost shyly:-
    â€˜Are you happy now, Jonathan?’
    He didn’t answer me and I twisted away from his shoulder, looking at him, momentarily disturbed. His eyes did not see me. They were looking at something I could not see and in that brief, unguarded moment, were filled with inexpressible grief. Then, conscious of my stare he smiled, his expression changing, pulling me closer to him.
    â€˜I’m happier, Jenny Wren. Definitely happier.’ And his hand slid round my body, pulling me closely to him, so that I could feel his heart beating beneath the thinness of his shirt, smell not only his after-shave, but the sweat brought on by our clamber down the bank, smell the maleness of him, so that when he bent his head to mine and kissed me it was no ordinary flirtatious kiss, but a letting loose of suppressed misery. An acknowledgement that in each other we had found the solace we had been seeking. My arms tightened around his neck, my fingers burrowing in his hair, my tongue flickering in answer to his, passion that I never knew existed, rising in me like a tide. Eternities later we parted. For a fleeting second disbelief chased the desire from his eyes to be replaced by what I had been praying to see there.
    â€˜Jenny Wren,’ he said, his finger-tip tracing the curve of my cheek, resting gently under my chin, tilting it upwards. ‘ Jenny Wren, you certainly are something.’
    â€˜The feeling,’ I said shakily, ‘is mutual.’
    Gently he raised me to my feet, and with his arm around