upwards through thick, scrubby woods to the top of the hill. With luck, there would be a clearing at the top, a viewpoint from which she could survey the surrounding countryside.
She closed the gate and carried on, catching the occasional glimpse of a vast vineyard sloping away into the distance on her right. Then, as she neared the top of the hill, the thicket thinned out and her heart stopped.
Ahead of her, the path edged towards a tumbledown stretch of wall. Part of it had fallen away so long ago that weeds had colonised it, growing out of cracks in the stone.
Patches of dry yellow lichens spread themselves out in the sun where Lucia had sat, smiling one last time for a man who was going away. Who she must have known she’d never see again.
Only a dusty footprint suggested that anyone had been this way since.
She took a step nearer. Reached out to lay her hand on the warm stone.
Here. Lucia had sat here. And as she looked up she saw a house. The house. No longer a grey, blurry ruin in an old photograph, but restored and far larger, grander than she’d realised.
It wasn’t the front, but the side view of the house and what had been rubble in her picture was now a square tower, the stucco a soft, faded umber in the strong sunlight.
There were vines, heavy with fruit, trailing over a large pergola at the rear. A rustic table set beneath it where generations of a family could eat beneath its shade.
The garden was full of colour. And above the distant sound of a tractor, the humming of insects in the midday heat, she could hear water running.
The spring that had been their only water supply all through that harsh winter.
Her hands were shaking as she used her phone to take a photograph of the restored scene. Only the wall—Lucia’s wall—had not been rebuilt. But why would it be? There was no one up here to keep out. On the contrary, it appeared to be a shortcut into the village and she glanced back down the path, wondering who the rather beautiful young man could have been. Family? A friend. Or an illicit lover, maybe, from the smear of lipstick on his lower lip, making his escape via the back way.
She took off her hat, fanned herself with it, turned again to look at the house. Wondering who lived there. Could it be the same family who’d owned the house when it had sheltered Lex?
Unlikely.
According to the website she’d found, the Isola del Serrone vineyard had long ago become a co-operative run by the villagers.
And the glimpse of a swimming pool suggested that the house had been bought by some wealthy businessman who used it as a weekend retreat from Rome.
Whatever, there were no answers here. Only the wall was as it had been and on a sudden whim she turned, put her hat down and hitched herself up, spreading her arms wide to support herself as Lucia had done. Closing her eyes, imagining how she’d felt, the sun warm on her face, danger passed. A last moment of happiness before Lex was repatriated, sent back to his rejoicing family, and she was left alone.
‘Well, don’t you look comfortable?’
Sarah started, blinked. The man standing on the path had appeared from nowhere. His face was in shadow, his eyes masked by dark glasses so that she couldn’t read his expression but, while his tone was neutral, it was not friendly.
‘Am I trespassing?’ she asked, doing her best to remain calm despite the frisson of nerves that riffled through her. He didn’t look dangerous, but she was on her own. No one knew where she was.
‘This is private land, signora.’
‘But there’s a footpath—’
‘There is also a gate. Hint enough, I’d have thought.’
‘Yes, but …’
‘It was locked.’
‘Someone held it open for me. A young man in a hurry.’ Then, ‘Hold on.’ He was speaking in English. Sexily accented as only an Italian could do it, but English nonetheless. ‘How did you know?’
‘That you were here?’
‘That I’m English.’
‘Actually,’ he said, mocking her, ‘the young man, having made his escape, spared a moment of his precious time to warn me that I had an intruder.’
‘Warn you?’ She remembered him reaching for his mobile phone as he’d walked away, how she’d imagined him talking to some girl … ‘What on earth did he think I was going to do?’ she demanded. ‘Shin up the drainpipe and pinch the family silver?’
Torn between annoyance and amusement, she had hoped he’d realise how ridiculous he was being. Maybe laugh. She couldn’t see his eyes, but his generous mouth seemed made for laughter.
He did neither.
She’d left her bag at the foot of the wall and, without so much as a by-your-leave, he picked it up and began to go through it.
‘Hey!’ she protested as he took out her phone. The nerve of the man! ‘Didn’t your mother tell you that you must never, ever, under any circumstances look in a lady’s handbag?’
‘First we have to establish that you are a lady,’ he replied, glancing up from his perusal of her messages, regarding her for a moment as if he was considering whether to search her, too.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ she warned.
Maybe the silky scoop-necked designer T-shirt she’d teamed with cropped Maybridge market jeans convinced him that there wasn’t room to hide as much as a teaspoon about her person. Or maybe he was saving that pleasure for later.
It was a thought that should have made her feel a lot more nervous than it did.
Whatever the reason, he returned his attention to her phone, going through her messages, then her emails. Pausing at one, he looked over the top of his glasses at her with a pair of ink-dark eyes.
‘Have you found him yet, Sarah Gratton?’
For a moment she was mesmerized by the way he said her name. The vowels long and slow, like thick cream being poured from a jug. The man exuded sensuality. Every movement, every syllable seemed to stroke her …
‘Him?’ she repeated, before she began to purr. No … That wasn’t right. She was looking for Lucia …
‘The “dark-eyed Italian lover”?’ he prompted.
Oh, great. He’d found Lex’s email. But no one who taught a mixed class of teenagers could afford to betray the slightest sign of embarrassment. The first hint of a blush and you were toast.
You had to look them in the eye, stand your ground, come back with a swift riposte that would make the class laugh with you, not at you.
‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Are you interested in the job?’
It would have been spot on if it had come out sharp and snappy as intended, but something had gone seriously wrong between
