and within a few minutes they’d reached Badolato.
‘Turn left just there,’ Carlo said in a grim voice. ‘Then right.’
She did so, and drew up outside a modest but comfortable-looking hotel.
Carlo threw her a sulphurous look, but said nothing until she had switched off the engine. Then he exploded.
‘You stupid woman!’
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘What on earth came over you? Do you think driving up a steep, winding road in a thunderstorm is—is—?’ He became speechless.
‘I honestly don’t know what came over me. It’s so unlike me to go mad like that. I’m usually so sensible.’
‘Sensible! Hah! More like five years old. Did I say something funny?’ he added sharply, because Della’s lips had twisted into a smile.
‘Well, I’m a lot more than five years old,’ she said wryly. ‘Carlo, I’m truly sorry for going crazy like that, but nothing happened. There isn’t a scratch on your car.’
‘Be damned to the car!’ he roared. ‘Do you think that’s what—?’
‘And I didn’t hurt anyone else.’
‘We’re lucky we didn’t meet anything coming down the hill.’
‘Hey, I’m a good driver.’
‘You’re a blithering idiot,’ he snapped, not mincing matters. ‘I’ve seen children with more sense. You—you—’
He jerked her roughly into his arms and held her close in a grip of iron. She could hardly breathe, but she could feel, with relief, that what drove him was no longer rage but a kind of hair-tearing distraction.
‘You could have been killed,’ he said in a muffled voice against her neck. ‘And don’t give me that nonsense about being a good driver. You’re not as good as that—d’you hear?’
He drew back, holding her face between his hands so that she could see his eyes, dark with something that was almost desperation.
‘Don’t you ever dare give me a fright like that again,’ he said fiercely. ‘Mio dio!’
She was still partly in the grip of the wild mood that had seized her, and it was being driven higher by the lightning that flashed through the window, the thunder that almost seemed to be in the car with them. But most potent of all was the way he was trembling, as conflicting feelings raged within him.
‘If you ever dare do that again—’ he said hoarsely.
‘Yes—what—?’
‘Come here.’
‘Tell me what’ll happen if I do it again,’ she whispered provocatively.
‘I said come here.’
So she did. She did everything he wanted, laughing and singing within herself, so that her spirit soared and everywhere the world was full of joy.
‘I’m in love with you. You know that, don’t you?’
‘Hush!’
‘Why? Aren’t I allowed to say it?’
‘Carlo, be sensible—’
‘Not in a million years.’
‘But three days—’
‘Three days, three hours, three minutes. What does it matter? It was always there, wasn’t it? As soon as I saw you there at Pompeii, when I heard you laughing—’
‘When I saw you clowning around for those kids—’
‘Is that why you love me? Because I can make you laugh?’
‘Hey, cheeky! I didn’t say I loved you.’
‘But you do, don’t you? Let me hear you say it—please, Della.’
‘Hmm!’
‘Say it, please. Don’t tease me.’
‘Be patient. Three days is too soon.’
‘Say it.’
‘Too soon …’
They spent the day in Badolato, with Della making notes and buying up all the local books she could find. When evening came they ate in their room, preferring to hide from the rest of the world. But tonight only half her attention was for Carlo. What she had seen today had fired her imagination.
‘It’s promising,’ she said, flicking through her notes. ‘If I can only find a few more like this.’
‘Come and have a shower,’ he urged. ‘It’s time we were thinking of bed.’
‘Yes, but don’t you see—?’
‘We can talk in the shower,’ he said, beginning to undress her.
But in the shower there were other distractions, and by the time they had lathered and rinsed each other the conversation was no further advanced.
‘This is supposed to be a working trip,’ she murmured when they were lying naked in bed.
‘We’ve spent all day working,’ he complained, brushing one finger over the swell of her breast.
‘But I haven’t got enough for the series,’ she said, trying not to let her voice shake from the tremors going through her.
‘What are you looking for?’ he asked. ‘Do you just want tragic places, like Pompeii and the sunken liner, or dramatic, mysterious places like this?’
His own voice shook on the final words, because her hand had found him, the fingers caressing him softly in a way that made it hard for him to concentrate.
‘But what else is there?’ she asked.
‘Cheerful places.’
‘Are there any?’
‘Don’t you know your own country’s history? What about The Field of the Cloth of Gold?’
She frowned. ‘Wasn’t that—?’
‘If you wanted to be pompous you could call it the first great summit conference, but actually it was just a jumbo jolly.’
‘A jumbo jolly?’ She chuckled. ‘I like that.’
‘Four hundred years ago King Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France, plus their courts, met in a field outside Calais. They put up huge tents made of silk, satin and gold, and had a party that was so extravagant that the locals celebrate it to this day.’
He
