to his compliments. At least he wasn’t pretending to be someone he wasn’t. What you saw was what you got—a red-blooded Latin male, with no nasty surprises in his temperament and a straightforward, lusty appreciation of the female sex. He made Lily feel feminine, and desirable. And because of his openness, he was totally unthreatening.
Still holding her hand to his lips, Federico said, ‘I’m so sorry…Sam is—unwell. He is lying down. Head,’ he added, touching his forehead. ‘He asks you to see him later tonight.’
‘Oh, poor Sam,’ Lily said, remembering that her brother was prone to migraines—as she herself was. ‘Tell him not to worry, Federico. I’m going off to explore, and I’m quite happy being by myself,’ she added, as he went to object. ‘Tell Sam I’ll see him in the morning.’
People were starting to mill about again in the evening sunshine as Lily wandered around. She’d only been here twice before, but it felt surprisingly familiar as she drank in the atmosphere. She stopped idly from time to time, to watch some artists at work, before buying herself a large vanilla ice-cream. She licked at it appreciatively as she sauntered along. It had to be the most delicious confection known to man, she thought, as the creamy substance coated her tongue and slid down, cooling her throat. The Italians certainly knew how to make the stuff.
Presently she came to the Trevi Fountain, and sat down on a nearby seat to watch the huge gush of water stream from its natural spring. The evening sun shone on the spectacle, lighting up the whole picture like an elaborate stage set, and Lily found herself daydreaming as she sat there, her hands clasped in her lap.
Suddenly a light tap on her arm made her turn quickly.
‘Hello, there. What are you doing here all by yourself?’
Theodore Montague was standing there, looking down at her, and Lily felt her throat constrict as she gazed up at him.
‘Oh—hello—’ she said uncertainly. Well, was it really any surprise that they should meet? she asked herself. Rome wasn’t that big a place. She moved over to make room for him to sit down.
He was wearing white trousers and a dark open-neck shirt, his bare feet thrust into strong brown sandals, and Lily felt her heart fluttering anxiously in the usual way. Yet it wasn’t exactly anxiety that she was feeling, she thought. It was something else—something she’d never actually felt before—and she wanted to push it away. But somehow she couldn’t, so she let the sensation wash over her until, hopefully, it would melt away.
They sat there for several moments without saying anything until he murmured, ‘Magical, isn’t it?’ He turned to look at her briefly. ‘Why is moving water so mesmerising?’
‘I think that everything here is just magical,’ Lily said. ‘The weather plays a part, though, of course. Why can’t we have some of this in England?’
‘It’s certainly perfect tonight,’ he agreed. ‘Though next month might be just a tad too hot.’ He paused. ‘You could presumably come here to live, if you wanted to?’ he suggested. ‘Maybe it’s the change you’re looking for. You said that your brother already lives here, so…’
‘No, I have no plans to live abroad,’ Lily said at once. ‘Perhaps one day I will change my mind, but not yet. I feel that my…fate—whatever it is—lies in England.’ She smiled as she looked up at him. ‘That doesn’t sound very enterprising or ambitious, does it?’
He hesitated for a moment before turning to her properly, holding out his hand. ‘Look—this is silly. Why don’t we introduce ourselves? I’m Theo Montague—and you know why I’m here…’
‘And I’m Lily Patterson,’ Lily said quickly, taking his hand briefly. ‘And you know why I’m here.’
He nodded. ‘That’s better. I don’t care for nameless faces,’ he said. ‘So…go on telling me about yourself, Lily. You mentioned ambitions. Are you ambitious?’
‘I think I am,’ she said slowly. ‘But, as I said before, I don’t really know where my ambitions lie. Do I want to go on in catering? Maybe secure an appointment with a wealthy family in a lovely house somewhere in the country, so that I can sit in the garden in the afternoons and paint…?’
‘So—you like to paint?’
‘Yes, though I don’t do it very well—yet. But I’m practising. And I’d love to learn to play the piano. I had some lessons once, when I was a child, but they sort of…stopped…and I never took it up again.’
They’d stopped because at the time, she had been living in one of the homes she’d run away from, she reminded herself.
‘I think most children are guilty of that,’ he said. ‘Starting things and not wanting to go on with them.’ He was thinking of Freya as he spoke, who seemed to have lost interest in most things since her mother had died.
There was quite a long silence after that, but Lily realised that she hadn’t felt so comfortable, or secure, or so plain contented for a long time. She was painfully aware of Theo’s elegant legs stretched out in front of him—the strong, masculine thighs evident beneath the fine cotton of his trousers, the well-kept, unblemished brown toes protruding from his sandals—and she checked herself hurriedly. These thoughts weren’t part of her life plan. They weren’t part of anything to do with her at all. Suddenly she wanted to go back and see how Sam was feeling.
‘I ought to go and see how my brother is,’ she said, standing up. ‘He crashed out with a migraine after we’d had lunch. He was going to take me somewhere for supper, but…’
As soon as she’d said the words Lily could have kicked herself. She’d fed him the line—and he took it.
‘Well—why don’t you let me buy you supper instead?’ he said. ‘Your first night in Rome shouldn’t be spent alone.’
‘Oh—I don’t really think—’ Lily began, but he cut in.
‘Look, why don’t you ring to find out how your brother is—whether he’s well enough to take you out? If he isn’t, I’m sure he’d be happy to think you were being taken care of. Besides,’ Theo added, ‘I don’t much like eating by myself.’
That would have been the perfect pick-up line, Lily thought, had it been said by anyone other than the man sitting next to her. But she knew it wasn’t.
Doing as he said, she rang the hotel from her mobile, to be told by Federico that Sam was still in bed and unlikely to surface before morning. She ended the call and looked at Theo.
‘Sam is still out of it, I’m afraid,’ she said. ‘But wouldn’t you rather…? I mean, wouldn’t some of your colleagues be more interesting company than me?’
‘They certainly would not,’ he said lightly. ‘We’ll have quite enough of each other during the day. The evenings are free, thank goodness, to do what we like with. So—’ he grinned down at her ‘—let me show you some of the places I’ve been to before, and you can choose which one you like the look of.’
His teeth were almost blindingly white as he smiled, and the face which on first impression had seemed serious and somewhat formidable to Lily now exhibited a heart-throbbingly purposeful expression, indicating someone strong, reliable…and utterly captivating. The sort of man she might one
