I felt about you,’ he’d said with all the force of his love. ‘Even when I was playing the fool, my heart was all yours.’
Then he’d gone down on one knee, in the sight of them all, and begged her to be his wife.
Even when she’d looked at him in dismay he hadn’t understood, so deeply submerged was he in his own illusion.
He’d thought she was just embarrassed at receiving a proposal in public, and when they were alone a few minutes later he’d been sure that all would be well. Driven by his overwhelming feelings, he’d told her passionately that she was the one.
‘The only one, different from every other woman I’ve fooled around with and loved for five minutes. It’s not five minutes this time, but all my life and beyond—’
She’d stopped him there, telling him kindly but plainly that she did not love him. Still he couldn’t, wouldn’t believe it, because it was too monstrous to be true. So he’d left, telling himself that he would be back later, and make her understand.
Fool! Fool!
He awoke with a start, sitting up in bed, shaking.
It was dark, and from down below he could hear the murmur of voices. He got out of bed and went to the window, where the turn of the house showed him the lit window of the kitchen, and moving shadows beyond.
The others must have returned, but he couldn’t go down and meet them now. He knew, from experience, that what was happening inside his head couldn’t be stopped. Once he’d started down this bitter path it must be walked to the end. But he would have avoided the next stage if he could.
He’d fled the party, staying away into the early hours, then returning home. There he would seek out Rinaldo, the brother who’d been like a second father to him. Rinaldo, the man he trusted above all others, would know how to advise him.
Dawn was breaking when he went to Rinaldo’s room and walked in without knocking.
What he saw stopped him like a blow. Alex was in the bed, lying on her back, her eyes closed, breathing evenly. And there with her was Rinaldo, sleeping against her chest, wrapped in the protective curve of her arms. The sheet was thrown right back, revealing that they were both completely naked.
He had dreamed of seeing her naked body, but not like this, embracing his brother in the peace that follows passion.
She had awoken first, her face full of horror as she saw him there in the faint light of dawn. Her lips framed his name, she reached out a hand to him, but he backed away as though her touch would kill him.
From the scene that had followed he recalled only the cruel discovery that these two had escaped into another world, one from which he was excluded. Rinaldo had said sadly but firmly, ‘I didn’t take her from you. The choice was hers.’
It was true. Alex hadn’t deceived him. He’d deceived himself. She was not to blame. He kept telling himself that because he needed to keep her on her pedestal. However painful it was, it hurt less than blaming her.
He knew they didn’t understand how the world had shattered around him. Because he had laughed his way through life they’d thought he would laugh this off too. He’d had so many girls. What did it matter if he lost one?
Only he knew that she had been ‘the one’, and always would be, as long as he lived. Her loss was a catastrophe that shook him to the soul, driving him away so that he would not have to see them together.
In losing Alex he had also lost his home. For six months he had travelled, anywhere, as long as it was away from Belluna. As part owner he was entitled to draw an income from the farm, but he drew as little as possible, conscious that he was not there to help with the work.
He took any job he could get, preferably hard manual labour so that he could tire himself out. In this way he earned just enough to get by, until he could decide what he wanted to do. But he could not settle, and he travelled on, always trying to avoid her face, always seeing it dance before him. In the end he had come to England, Alex’s country, where he was always bound to finish.
Now he seemed to have reached a place that was largely featureless. Despite what Laura had told him he had no real idea where the town was in relation to the rest of England and the rest of the world. And in an odd way that suited him.
He had come to nowhere, and he had nothing. When he’d been to the bank he would possess a little money, but he would still, in all important senses, have nothing.
He was cut adrift from his family and everything he knew, and he had no way of going home, because home no longer existed.
Gino opened his eyes to darkness. He must have slept again after all, so deeply that evening had passed into night. His watch told him it was nearly midnight.
He rose, feeling strangely well rested after his turbulent sleep. Looking into the corridor he saw that the rest of the house was dark and quiet.
The other guests must have returned, eaten and gone to bed, shutting their doors. He could see some of those doors in the gloom, all alike.
Which one was the bathroom? How did a stranger find out? Try each one? Hell!
To his relief he heard the front door open and looked over the stair rail to see Laura coming in.
‘Psst!’ he said urgently. ‘Aiuto!’
‘Pardon?’
‘Help. T’imploro!’
‘Why, what’s the matter?’
‘I need—’ in his panic his English deserted him. ‘Un gabinetto,’ he said. ‘Ti prego—ti prego, un gabinetto.’
Laura knew no Italian but she guessed the frantic note in his voice was the same in every language.
‘Here,’ she said, opening a door under the stairs.
‘Grazie, grazie!’
He leapt down the stairs three at a time, shot into the tiny bathroom, and she heard the lock. Grinning in sympathy she slipped upstairs to check Nikki, who was asleep. As she returned to the kitchen and put on the kettle, Gino emerged looking a lot happier.
‘Thank you,’ he said fervently. ‘I’m sorry I shouted at you in Italian. Gabinetto means—’
‘I think I have a pretty good idea of what it means by now,’ she said, and they both laughed.
The kettle boiled, but when she turned to it he stopped her.
‘You sit down,’ he said. ‘I make the tea. You must be very tired.’
‘Thanks.’ She flopped gratefully into a chair. ‘Do you know how to make English tea?’
‘I watched you this afternoon. There, did I do it right?’
The tea was delicious.
‘How many evenings do you work behind a bar?’ he wanted to know.
‘Three, usually.’
‘On
