Renato advanced and took his arm. ‘You were just leaving.’
‘Was I?’
‘No,’ Heather said, furious at this high-handedness. ‘I’d just invited Lorenzo to lunch, and he’d accepted.’
Lorenzo caught Renato’s eye and what he saw there seemed to decide him. ‘Perhaps another time,’ he said.
Even knowing it was futile, Heather made an attempt to assert herself as mistress of her own home. ‘Not another time,’ she said firmly. ‘Now. Gino will have prepared food for two-’
‘Don’t worry, I’m hungry,’ Renato said. He regarded Lorenzo with surprise. ‘Are you still here?’
‘Just going,’ Lorenzo said. But he deposited a cheeky kiss on Heather’s cheek before vanishing.
When they were alone she turned on Renato, who was looking at her coldly. She even thought she detected a hint of scorn in his eyes, and her temper rose to meet it.
‘You’ve got an unspeakable nerve!’ she told him.
‘My apologies,’ he said, not sounding at all apologetic. ‘But I wanted to be rid of him and that was the quickest way.’
‘And what about what
‘It’s fairly obvious what you wanted.
‘How dare you?’
‘Oh, please! You were being pretty obvious. No doubt the first step to luring him upstairs to bed.’
She gasped, and would have struck out if he hadn’t caught her wrist. ‘No, don’t attack me just because I speak plainly. If your aim was to get Lorenzo back to the altar, you won’t do it that way.’
She was angry enough to speak without thinking. ‘If I’d wanted to trap Lorenzo by taking him to bed I’d have done it before now.’
His grip tightened, and there was a strange light in his eyes. ‘Are you saying you never did?’
She drew a sharp breath. ‘Let go of me at once.’
‘I wondered if you’d slept with him-you denied it the day we met, or I thought you did-but I could be wrong-tell me-’ There was a flash of anger in his eyes.
‘I’ll tell you nothing. It’s none of your business.’
‘The best thing Lorenzo did was running off that day. He’d have disappointed you. You know that, don’t you?’
She did know. The beating of her heart told her, but she wouldn’t admit it to him. ‘If you thought that, it’s a pity you pushed me into his arms,’ she said.
‘I didn’t know then. Neither of us knew. But we know now. He’d have let you down, and then-’
‘And then-?’
He didn’t need to answer, but it was there between them. And then she would have turned to him.
‘Never,’ she whispered. ‘Never. If I was Lorenzo’s wife, I’d have been faithful to the very end.’
‘To the bitter end,’ he corrected.
‘If necessary.’
‘No matter how bitter the end would have been for all of us?’ His voice became cruel. ‘We could all have burned in a self-made hell for all you cared.’
‘You needn’t have. You have other diversions.’
‘Sometimes they’re not-’ He became aware of what he was saying and stopped abruptly. ‘Shall I tell you what hell is?’ he asked after a moment.
‘I’m sure you know many kinds.’
‘It’s to love without desire, and desire without love.’
She drew a shuddering breath. ‘Let me go, Renato. Let me go now. You have no right to do this.’
She wrenched her wrist free and backed away. But she kept her eyes on him as she would have done a wild animal that might spring either way. This was Renato, a man it was always safest to treat as an enemy. He was still in a state of suppressed anger, his face paler than she had ever seen it, and she knew his control could slip at any moment.
And then Jocasta’s step outside the door brought them both out of the fevered dream and they turned forced smiles on her. Somehow the jagged air settled back to normal, leaving only unbelievable memories behind.
Renato greeted Jocasta like an old friend and Heather could see how delighted the housekeeper was to see him. As they exchanged some backchat in Sicilian she mentally stood back, trying not to be aware that she was tingling and newly alive after their brief exchange. Once again they were fighting within a few minutes of meeting, but with Renato fighting held an excitement all its own.
Like Lorenzo, Renato was dressed informally in a short-sleeved shirt, open at the throat, but on him the effect was different. Lorenzo blended into his surroundings. Renato stood out from them. His vital masculinity made him always more noticeable than anything else. Heather found her anger slipping away. He’d been gone so long, and the little ache that had been in her breast for days was explained now, hard though she found it to admit to herself.
‘Your favorite wine,
‘Good. And I’ve had a pressing invitation to lunch,’ he said shamelessly.
‘Then I’ll tell Gino to prepare some meatballs in tomato soup,’ Jocasta said.
‘Not for lunch, because they’ll take time to prepare and we’d like to eat quickly before we go out,’ Renato said. ‘But I’ll have them for supper tonight.’
‘I never invited you for lunch or supper,’ Heather pointed out when they were alone.
‘But you were just about to. I could tell.’
To think she’d actually been glad to see him! He seemed to ruffle her feathers for the devilment of it. Why couldn’t it have been him in the car this afternoon, as it should have been? But no, he had to arrive at the wrong moment, teasing and tormenting her, putting her on the defensive, ruining what might have been a delightful visit. And doing all this while looking so vividly alive that something sang inside her and she wondered how she had endured so long without the sight of him. She could gladly have wrung his neck.
‘And as for telling her when to serve lunch-’
‘We’re going out straight after and there’s no time to waste.’
As they sat down to lunch they had each managed to slide the polite masks into place, and Renato had done more. He managed to look as though the whole scene hadn’t taken place. Heather only hoped her own efforts were as successful.
‘Tell me, how have you been while I’ve been away?’ he asked.
‘I’ve enjoyed your absence considerably. Can I hope to have it repeated again soon?’
‘Not for a while, I’m afraid. This estate has always been one of our most productive, and it has to stay that way. That means you must know what to do. Luigi will take responsibility, of course, but if you don’t know what he’s doing he won’t respect you.’
‘But-’ Heather meant to explain yet again that she was going to return the estate to its rightful owner, but gave up. Nobody had listened to her so far, and plainly Renato wasn’t listening now.
In fact he seemed to regard her chiefly as an audience. He talked at her rather than to her, and once remarked that she wasn’t listening properly. He was totally businesslike and the electricity that had flashed between them earlier might never have been.
‘The rains are due,’ he told her. ‘But with any luck we’ll have a few days first. That’s why I’m here now. Let’s go.’
A small crowd had gathered to watch them get into his open-topped car at the front of the villa. ‘Your tenants,’ Renato told her.
‘You mean some of them live in houses that belong to the estate?’
‘All of them live in Ellona, which is yours.’
‘But I thought-just one or two houses-’
‘Every house in the village. That’s why they’re watching you. What you do affects them.’
That was only the start. As they drove out that afternoon he showed her vineyards, orchards and olive groves that were all hers. Everything was well kept and flourishing, the tenants celebrating bumper harvests, eager to talk about loans for next year’s fertiliser. This was Renato’s territory, and Heather had expected him to use his expert
