each revelation before laying his lips against it.
When they had lain naked together he’d touched her everywhere and she had been astonished, both at him and at herself. His fingers had been skilled and gentle, lingering as he’d sensed her response, waiting for her, always giving her time, so that her desire mounted slowly.
She’d been overwhelmed as much by surprise as by passion. Eight years of marriage to an insensitive boor hadn’t prepared her for a man who put her first all the time. There had been a moment of apprehension, when she’d feared that no dream could possibly live up to the weight of hope that she had loaded onto this one.
But he’d seemed to understand even that, meeting her eyes as he’d claimed her, smiling in reassurance, so that all fear had fallen away and she’d been free to yield herself to the mounting delight. She had known Vittorio as a man who knew how to hate. Now she’d discovered him as a man who knew how to love.
He was only the second naked man she had ever seen, Joe’s flabby over-indulged form not having inspired her to explore further. She hadn’t known that a man’s body could be such a combination of strength and beauty, with dark hair lightly covering his chest down to his loins. Without his clothes he’d seemed more powerful, or perhaps that was merely her memory from the night, when his vigour had left her gasping and eager for more.
They’d seemed to fall asleep at the same moment, but she’d awoken later and had seen him, in the dim light, propped on his elbow, watching her.
‘Go back to sleep,’ he’d said. ‘Everything’s all right.’
And she’d fallen asleep at once, because everything truly was all right.
When she awoke again, she found him lying with his head against her breast.
‘Are you awake?’ she whispered.
‘Yes. I’ve been lying here watching that crack of light in the shutters, wishing it wouldn’t grow any brighter.’
‘I know. I don’t want the day to start either.’ She looked at her bedside clock. ‘But it’s only just six.’
‘I’m usually up by now.’
‘Not today,’ she murmured. ‘I want a little longer, just like this.’
He gave a contented grunt that she took to indicate consent, and didn’t speak for so long that she thought he’d fallen asleep again. But then he said, ‘I didn’t mean this to happen. I told myself I must not even think of it, but somehow-’
‘I know. I tried to be strong too, but maybe I didn’t really mean it.’
‘I guess neither of us is strong.’
Angel laughed. ‘Well, we’re united about something anyway, and that’s a miracle. At one time it choked you to speak to me.’
‘I was angry at the world, and I took it out on you,’ he confessed. ‘And I was angry at myself because I brought so much of my misfortune on myself.’
‘I thought it was Joe’s fault.’
‘In the second place, but in the first place it was my fault for being so easily taken in by a man I’d thought was a friend.’
‘What happened?’
‘His name is Leo Vari, and we’d known each other from childhood. He had a business that ran into trouble. He begged me to put some money into it, just to tide him over. He swore he wouldn’t let me lose, no matter what happened. But when the business folded he vanished, and I found myself legally obliged to pay every penny he owed. There was only one way I could do it, and that was to sell up.’
‘And then Joe cheated you again,’ Angel said softly.
‘If I could have got a fair price I might have had enough to make a new start. But then, I ask myself, what would I have done? Where would I have gone? I think I might still have returned here, because the estate has always been my life. My father was a good man, and an affectionate father, but he had no gift for managing an estate. When I was twenty I took over, and he was relieved. He died five years later, but at least his last five years were happy because he wasn’t worried.’
‘But you had to worry,’ she hazarded.
‘I didn’t mind. I enjoyed everything about it-turning it around financially, making the place bloom, working with my hands. There’s no smell in the world like the earth in spring, when the rain has fallen and rebirth is happening just underground. And there’s no feeling like watching something you planted grow and flower.’
He gave a short bark of self-mocking laughter.
‘I thought my fiancee felt the same, but I guess that was foolish of me.’
‘You’re engaged?’ she asked, horrified.
‘Not any more, but I was once. It lasted two years. Then she got tired of waiting for the right moment, and I don’t blame her. We were planning a big wedding, a romantic honeymoon cruise-’
‘Just as soon as you could bear to be away for longer than five minutes,’ Angel finished, amused.
‘Yes, I guess that was it. She married a friend of mine and I’m godfather to their first child.’
‘And there’s been nobody else?’
‘Oh, yes. Too many. I didn’t want to get close again, so I decided life would be simpler with only one love.’
‘The estate.’
‘Yes. I put all my eggs in one basket. I knew that was unwise, but when you love something that much you can’t help yourself. My friend Bruno says I became obsessed and impossible to live with, and I guess he was right. I didn’t care. I had the only thing that really mattered to me. I never asked about tomorrow. I suppose I thought that one day I’d meet a woman who felt about the estate as I did.’
‘But it had to be on your terms?’ she asked, amused.
‘Those are the only terms I know how to accept. But what difference does it make now? What do I have to offer?’
‘You want me to tell you?’ she asked softly, with a smile that contained memories of the night.
Vittorio raised himself on one elbow and looked down into her face.
‘I’m talking seriously.’
‘So am I,’ she said, taking his hand and laying it on her breast.
In the luxury of his lovemaking, she cared for nothing else. It was only later that she looked back and realised that his words had contained a warning.
CHAPTER EIGHT
FOR a while Angel had no time for anyone but Sam. She’d dreamt of the time when he would come here, she would show him his new home and they would be happy together, and now she would not accept that the dream could be spoiled.
She had been prepared for him to be sometimes confused, even not to know her, but this prolonged confusion and forgetfulness was a shock. Nonetheless, she argued it away. The long journey had been a strain, and he would soon return to some kind of normality. If only, she thought, it would happen soon.
It was strange to think that they had been apart for such a short time, because he seemed far more frail than she remembered, and she realised, with a sense of terror, that he was eighty-four.
He seemed happy enough. Each morning he greeted her pleasantly and waited while Frank or Roy introduced them all over again. He’d apparently decided that he was a guest in a pleasant country house and that she was his hostess. On this basis they had some cheerful talks. He asked her about her life and told her about his own early years, which he could recall with disconcerting clarity. It was only as he drew close to the present that the fog descended on his mind.
Sometimes he would chat about his beloved granddaughter, speaking of her with a love that made a lump come to Angel’s throat.
‘I haven’t seen her for a while,’ he said once, sounding puzzled and a little hurt. ‘She used to visit me a lot but now-do you think she might be angry with me?’
‘Of course not,’ Angel said, trying to speak brightly. ‘I’m sure she loves you very much.’
