wouldn’t allow it to happen.
She knew she had been lucky as few women were ever lucky. Dante was a gentle and considerate man. If she was tired, he would urge her to bed, kiss her gently and either hold her until she slept or creep away, leaving her in peace.
When they talked, he listened to her with every appearance of real interest. His own conversation was fascinating. Beneath the sometimes clownish exterior was a thoughtful, educated man who might well have been a professor in some serious subject.
In bed he was a skilled and tender lover, giving her a physical pleasure she had never dreamed possible, and treating her like a queen. On the surface no woman could have asked for more.
But in her heart she had the melancholy feeling that it was all a sham, an illusion, because he was hiding the most important part of himself from her. And while that was true it would protect her from falling deeply in love with him.
She reassured herself about that many times.
Their apartment was high up on the fifth floor of a block overlooking the Bay of Naples. From their bedroom window they could see the great volcano Vesuvius in the distance. Several times she woke to find him on the window seat, contentedly watching the full moon across the bay casting its glow on the volcano.
One night he stayed up late, leaving her to come to bed alone. She’d waited for him, then fallen into a half- sleep. Somewhere in that doze she’d thought she felt a gentle kiss on her cheek, but when she opened her eyes she was alone.
She’d slept again, and had finally woken to find him sitting by the window. This was different from last time, when he’d sat with his head in his hands, clearly in pain. Now he seemed content, gazing out, still in the same thoughtful mood as before. When he saw that she was awake, he didn’t speak but held out an arm for her to come and join him.
‘Do you remember when we looked at this before?’ he murmured.
‘Yes, and you told me you’d once heard it rumble and longed to hear it again,’ she said. ‘There’s nowhere to get away from it, is there? Wherever you are in Naples, it’s always there.’
‘You think you’re used to it,’ he murmured. ‘You know it in all its phases, but you can still be taken by surprise.’
She watched him, wondering what he would say next. He’d been in a strange mood for the last couple of days, with less to say than usual. He didn’t seem sad or unwell, merely thoughtful. Occasionally she would look up to find him watching her with eyes that were almost puzzled, as though something had disconcerted him. If he caught her glance, he would smile and turn quickly away.
‘What have you been taking for granted?’ she asked him now.
‘Everything, perhaps. You think you know how things are, but suddenly it’s all different. You’re not the same man you were-whoever that was.’
He gave a brief, nervous laugh, sounding mysteriously as though he had no self-confidence. ‘I’m talking nonsense, aren’t I?’ he said.
‘Mmm, but go on. It sounds good.’
‘Yes, nonsense can sound very impressive. I learned that long ago. You can even impress yourself with it for a while. But-then the volcano rumbles and reminds you of things you’ve always known, and maybe wish you didn’t.’
Ferne held her breath. Was Dante finally going to tell her the truth about himself, thus letting her come really close to him at last?
‘Are you afraid of the volcano?’ she whispered. ‘I mean, the one inside?’
‘Yes, although I wouldn’t admit that to anyone but you. I’ve never even admitted it to myself before, but I feel I could tell you anything and it would be all right. I need never be afraid again.’ He added wistfully, ‘Could that ever really be true?’
‘I suppose it would depend how much you wanted it to be true,’ she ventured. ‘If you trusted me…’
‘I trust you as I’ve never trusted anyone in my life. If not you, then who?’
He took her hands in his, bending his head to kiss the palms.
‘You have such tiny, delicate hands,’ he whispered. ‘Yet they’re so strong, so welcoming. When they reach out, they seem to contain all the world.’
‘I would give you the world if I could,’ she said. It was a dangerous thing to say, but the words seemed to come out of their own accord. ‘If it were mine to give.’
‘Perhaps it is and you don’t know it.’ He stroked her face with tender fingers. ‘Sometimes I think I know more about you than you know about yourself. I know how loving and honest you are, how brave, how open- hearted.’
‘It’s an illusion,’ she said. ‘That’s a fantasy figure you’ve created.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Because nobody could be the way you see me.’
‘Why? Because I think you’re perfect?’
‘That proves it’s an illusion.’
‘No, it proves I’m a man of insight and good sense. Now, don’t argue with me. If I say you’re perfect, you’re perfect-and I do say it. I know you could never perform a deceitful or underhand action.’
His words, spoken so warmly and with such emotion, gave her a bad moment. The knowledge of her deception, however well-meaning, seemed to hang over them, poisoning the moment.
‘Dante-’
His finger lightly touched her mouth. ‘Don’t spoil it.’
But it wasn’t her fault, she thought wildly. She was protecting him, but that innocent desire had led her up this path, fraught with danger.
‘Let me say what I want to before I lose my nerve,’ he murmured.
‘I can’t see you ever losing your nerve.’
‘That’s an act. Inside I’m a coward. If you only knew how much of a coward, you’d run away. And that’s what you ought to do.’
‘Isn’t that for me to decide?’
‘How can you, when you don’t know the worst of me?’
‘Then tell me the worst. I’m braced for anything.’
‘You make a joke of it, but there are things…’
‘Yes?’ she said eagerly.
‘Ferne…’ She felt a tremor go through him. ‘Have I imagined what’s been happening to us?’
Now her heart was beating so hard that she couldn’t speak, only shake her head.
‘I know I said “just friendly”,’ he whispered. ‘But I say a lot of things that are nonsense. I guess you know that by now. When we talk-and I’ve never talked to anyone the way I talk to you-I always feel that you understand everything I’m not saying. With you, I don’t have to worry. I can be at peace.’
He made a wry face, aimed at himself. ‘I never thought the day would come when I saw peace as a virtue. I was always one for racketing around. Yes, you knew that, didn’t you?’ His soft laughter joined hers. ‘I don’t suppose there’s much about me you haven’t worked out: clown, idiot, self-deceiver, overgrown schoolboy.’
‘I could add a few others,’ she teased.
‘I’ll bet you could.’
‘Then how can you say I don’t know the worst of you? I probably think you’re worse than you are. Why don’t you put me right?’
‘Tell you what a hero I am? What a strong, solid, upright character who never cut corners or skirted around the truth in his life?’
‘No, I don’t think I could quite believe that.’ She was teasing him along the road, inviting him into the place where he would feel safe enough to tell her everything. When there was total honesty between them, the way would be clear for whatever lay in the future.
She wanted there to be a future. She could admit that now. She’d hidden her feelings, even from herself, behind a barrier of caution and sensible reasoning. But now Dante himself was demolishing that barrier. If she was only a
