His eyes softened as he released her. ‘And do you like her husband?’

‘Yes, very much. Now, I’ve got to go—’

‘Not until you tell me where you live.’

Oh well. He had to know sometime. ‘I rent a flat right here in the Bay.’

‘You live alone there?’

She nodded curtly, and hurried off through the crowd.

It seemed like hours before the meal and the speeches were finally over. At last Alicia collected her raincoat and went down to the foyer, where most of the management and their wives and partners were waiting for taxis. And, with them, Francesco da Luca.

‘Well done, Alicia. A triumph for Wales and for the party tonight,’ said John Griffiths with satisfaction. ‘Can we drop you on our way?’

‘I have a taxi waiting,’ said Francesco swiftly.

‘Ah. We leave her in good hands, then.’

Goodnights were exchanged, and before Alicia could argue that she lived near enough to walk home she was giving a taxi driver her address, which Francesco noted down in something he took from his wallet. He needed the information anyway, thought Alicia, resigned. Ever since Bron’s surprise marriage and her move to her husband’s home in Cowbridge, there had been no way for Francesco to demand news of his missing bride. And presumably he wanted to marry again and provide an heir for Montedaluca. In which case he could just send her the necessary papers to sign and that would be that. Mission accomplished.

The ridiculously short journey was accomplished in fraught silence, which lasted after Francesco paid the driver and continued as he followed Alicia into the lift in the foyer of her waterside building. By the time the doors opened at her floor, every nerve in her body was tied in knots.

When she ushered him into her sitting room, Francesco made straight for the glass doors which opened onto a minuscule balcony overlooking the Bay. He turned to her with a smile. ‘You also have a room with a view, Alicia.’

‘It’s why I couldn’t resist the flat,’ she admitted, ignoring the memory his words brought to life. ‘Though the basement swimming-pool and parking facilities make it worth the steep rent.’ She gave him a bright smile. ‘Would you like some coffee, or a drink? I can give you some passable wine.’

‘Grazie, nothing.’ He looked round the room, at the small sofa and the one chair that could be remotely described as comfortable. ‘Let us sit down.’

Alicia took off her raincoat, and conscious, now that she was alone with Francesco, that her caramel silk shift stopped short of her knees and left one shoulder bare, excused herself to put her raincoat away. Feeling defenceless without it, she snatched up an elderly black cardigan and wrapped herself in it to rejoin her uninvited guest.

She took the chair and waved him to the sofa. ‘All right, Francesco. But I warn you, I’m tired. So I hope this won’t take long.’

He sat down, eyeing the cardigan in amusement. ‘If that garment is meant to hide you from me, Alicia, it does not succeed.’ His eyes moved over her in slow, nerve-jangling scrutiny. ‘You have changed much from the shy young girl I first met.’

He had changed too. His face was harder, older, but no less striking than the first time she’d seen it, caught on camera in grinning triumph. ‘I grew up, Francesco. It took me longer than most girls, but the treatment you and the contessa dished out fast-forwarded me into adulthood pretty rapidly in the end.’

Francesco’s jaw clenched. ‘My mother is dead,’ he reminded her.

‘And, as I said in my letter, I’m truly sorry for your loss.’

‘Are you?’

‘Of course. She was the most important person in your life. You must miss her very much.’

‘I do. But I do not pretend that, now she is dead, she was a saint.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I regret that she did not welcome you to our home with warmth.’

That was an understatement for the permafrost which had chilled Alicia to the bone. She shrugged. ‘But she was right when she told me I was an unsuitable bride for her son.’

His eyebrows shot up. ‘Mamma said this to you?’

‘I’m sure she said it to you, too.’

‘Davverro, but I made it plain to her that you were the only bride I wanted.’

She raised a sceptical eyebrow. ‘A pity you didn’t make it plainer to me. Once I arrived in Montedaluca, I began to doubt it more with every passing day. Most people in the castello took their cue from the contessa and made me feel like an outsider. Which I was, of course. Apart from your great-aunt Luisa, and the lady you hired to teach me Italian, hardly anyone spoke to me for the six weeks I lived there—including you. You were so busy during the run-up to the wedding you had no time for me. You turned into a stranger.’ Alicia smiled coldly. ‘Which you were, of course. Until then, I didn’t even know you had a title.’

He shrugged dismissively. ‘Such things mean little now.’

‘It meant a great deal to your mother. The only time she deigned to spend with me was filled with instructions on how a future Contessa da Luca must behave.’ Alicia smiled sardonically. ‘She must have been utterly delighted when I bolted.’

He shook his head. ‘You are wrong. She was ravaged with worry.’

‘You surprise me. I thought she would have been over the moon because you were free again.’

‘But I am not free.’ His mouth twisted. ‘Having married you in the cattedrale in Montedaluca, I am bound to you for life.’

Alicia’s eyes flashed. ‘Cut the drama, Francesco. You can get a divorce easily enough. Or easier still you could just get the marriage annulled after what happened—or didn’t happen—between us.’

‘No one knows this,’ he said, his tone so harsh it startled her. ‘Unless you told your mother, or Megan?’

Alicia shivered and drew the cardigan closer. ‘How could I bear to talk about—about that to anyone?’

‘So what reason did you give your mother for leaving me?’

‘I said I’d made a huge mistake; that it was better to make a clean break right away.’ She smiled. ‘Bron, not surprisingly, wished I’d decided before the ceremony rather than after, but she sympathised totally with my refusal to return to Montedaluca. The contessa was no warmer to her than she was to me, even though Bron did her the courtesy of agreeing to hold the wedding in Montedaluca instead of Cardiff.’

‘But Signora Cross soon had her revenge,’ he said grimly.

Alicia frowned. ‘How, exactly?’

‘When my mother accompanied me to Cardiff to see her—’

‘She did what?’

Francesco’s eyes narrowed. ‘You did not know this?’

‘I most certainly did not!’

‘It was very soon after you left me, Alicia.’

She stared at him in blank astonishment.

‘You do not believe me?’ He shrugged. ‘It is the truth. Your mother swore to me that you had gone away.’

Alicia regrouped hurriedly. ‘I had. When I got back from Paris I was so—so miserable I was sent off with Megan to stay with her grandmother in Hay-on-Wye for a while to recover. Or try to.’

Francesco’s jaw tightened. ‘I was told nothing of this during the visit. Megan’s parents were there to support your mother. Also the large brother.’ He smiled grimly. ‘They were unmoved by my anguish. Your mother insisted that you never wanted to see me again.’

Alicia stared at him, shaken, feeling the warmth drain from her face.

‘You are very pale. Do you have brandy, Alicia?’ asked Francesco gently. He got up to take her by the hand and led her to the sofa.

‘No.’ She tried to smile, but her lips were stiff. ‘I’ll make some tea in a minute.’

‘Tell me what to do and I will make it,’ he commanded.

‘No. First I just need to sit and get my head round this.’

Francesco sat beside her, keeping tight hold of her hand. ‘I swear it is the truth, Alicia.’

‘I’m sure it is. It would be easy enough to disprove. But it’s a shock, just the same,’ she said huskily, her throat thickening. ‘I just wish I’d known.’