‘Please ask her,’ he said quietly. Then, as the doctor turned away, he stopped him. ‘Doctor-beg her if you have to.’

The doctor nodded in understanding and disappeared. Alone, Vincente turned away to look out of the window. He cared nothing for the view but he didn’t want anyone to see his face, lest it reflect the feelings that were tearing him apart.

For once a situation was completely beyond his control. Something ancient and fundamental in him had leapt at the discovery that he was to be a father. Not for a moment did he doubt that Elise’s child was his. Now he had to face the fact that she could refuse to see him, could lose their baby without his being there, could even deny his paternity, if her hatred of him was great enough.

And why shouldn’t she hate him? He’d tricked her, always holding part of himself aloof behind the barrier of his deception. She’d captivated and confused him, so that his whole relationship with her had been coloured by that confusion, and there had been in him a dishonesty that had justified the contempt he’d seen in her eyes.

Now she might view him with even more contempt if his behaviour had damaged her enough to destroy their child.

For once in his life he was helpless, and he wanted to howl his despair and frustration.

He turned quickly as the doctor reappeared.

‘Will she see me?’ he asked sharply.

‘She did not refuse,’ the doctor said cautiously. ‘In fact she said nothing.’ His eyes were suddenly kinder. ‘I think I’m justified in taking silence as consent.’

Vincente followed him along two corridors, shocked to discover that he was frightened. He had no idea how to face her, what to say to her.

In the event his fears were wasted. When the doctor finally led him into a corner room a nurse rose, saying, ‘She fell asleep again as soon as you left, Doctor.’

‘What are those things she’s attached to?’ Vincente demanded.

‘This one is a blood transfusion,’ the doctor explained, ‘and the other is a saline drip. They’ll help to keep her strength up.’

‘And the baby?’

He checked the machines. ‘The signs are good.’

‘Let me stay with her,’ Vincente said. ‘I’ll call if anything happens.’

‘All right, but let her sleep while she needs to.’

When they had gone Vincente sat down beside the bed, his eyes fixed on Elise. Had she really fallen asleep, or was she merely pretending, in order to avoid him?

Gently he touch her hand with the back of his fingers. She didn’t flinch away as he’d dreaded, and that told him that she really was unconscious.

He wondered at himself. She had said things to him, torturing him for her own satisfaction in a way that should make him hate her, except that he knew she’d been acting out of self-defence. That was how she saw him now-as a threat to be faced down. And it was all his own fault.

She stirred and muttered, twisting her head on the pillow so that he gained a clearer view of her face. He thought she would open her eyes, but she didn’t. Moving very gently, he ventured to take her hand, carefully avoiding all the tubes to which she was attached.

‘Elise,’ he murmured, ‘I’m here.’

A terrible stillness fell over her, as though this was the worst thing that he could have said. She wanted nothing to do with him. She’d made that very plain.

‘Can you hear me?’ he asked gently.

‘Yes.’ Her whisper seemed to come from a great distance.

‘I came as soon as I heard what happened to you.’

Silence. He couldn’t tell if she was still with him.

‘I wanted to say I was sorry,’ he said, leaning closer to her. ‘I said terrible things that I didn’t mean. Elise-please believe that I’m sorry.’

Then she opened her eyes, but his heart sank as he saw no yielding in them.

‘Sorry,’ she echoed. ‘I said I was sorry…to Angelo…the day after I arrived here. I went to the Trevi Fountain…we were there together once. I threw in a coin and made a wish that I’d come back to Rome…and I did, didn’t I?’

He dropped his head into his hands.

‘I wanted to be with him for ever…but then he died. I didn’t know he’d died like that, and it was my fault…’

‘It wasn’t,’ he groaned.

‘It was. I wrote to him when I got back to England, telling him what had happened, that I still loved him and always would. I could never forget how he stood under the window, screaming as he saw me in Ben’s arms. I thought if he knew the truth-that I hadn’t really betrayed him-he could endure it better.’

‘I don’t think it ever arrived,’ Vincente said.

‘Of course not. I found it among Ben’s things after he died. I don’t know how he stole it, but he managed somehow. But if Angelo died that same night…’

‘He wouldn’t have got it.’

‘So he never knew that I was sorry, that I always loved him and didn’t betray him in my heart. He’ll never know that.’

Elise fell silent, as though speaking had exhausted her.

‘The doctor tells me that we’re going to have a child,’ he said at last.

She looked at him. ‘We?’

‘You’re pregnant. He says he told you.’

‘Yes-but I thought it was just a bad dream.’

He shook his head, unable to speak.

If only, Vincente thought, she would say something else. Surely she understood that this made a difference.

‘I’m glad about it,’ he said at last, ‘if you are.’

She made no reply.

‘I think we should marry as soon as possible,’ he persisted.

She stared at him as though he was insane.

‘Us? Marry?’ She began to shake with feeble laughter.

‘For pity’s sake, don’t do that,’ he said harshly.

‘Oh, heavens! And I thought you didn’t have a sense of humour. Marry.’

‘We could put the past behind us-’

‘You can never put the past behind you. I know that now, and so should you. The only way we’ll ever know peace is apart. And peace is all I care about. It feels like the most important thing in the world.’

‘More important than love?’

Then he wished he hadn’t said that, because she gave him a look of such bitter scorn that his heart nearly shrivelled inside him.

‘You know nothing of love,’ she said huskily. ‘You only know about acquiring things and making people dance to your tune. Whatever you want, you must have, including revenge. Someone should have stood up to you long ago.’

‘But you did,’ he reminded her. ‘You’re the only person who didn’t do what I wanted.’

‘And I never will. Go away. Leave now and don’t come back.’

‘I can’t leave you and our child.’

‘I don’t ever want to see you again. It’s nothing to you whether I have a child or not.’

‘Don’t do this.’

She was going to reply but suddenly everything became foggy. His face came and went in her consciousness, leaving only his horrified expression and the appalled note in his voice as he called for help.

Then the room was full of people, connecting her to new apparatus, checking, taking readings, talking to each other in urgent voices. Fear seized her as she thought of her baby. Whatever she’d told him, she couldn’t bear to lose it.

She could just make him out, several feet away by the window. He should be here with her, giving her strength to save their child. But it was she who’d set him at a distance, and now he could only stand there and watch as she lost the baby and the last link between them was cut.

When Elise opened her eyes it was night and Vincente was in the same position by the window, as though held frozen by a curse.

‘Is it over?’ she asked hoarsely.

At last he came closer and sat by the bed, straining to hear her.

‘The baby-it’s gone?’

‘No,’ he said at once. ‘They gave you another blood transfusion and things started to get better. Our baby’s alive, and it’s going to stay that way. From now on I’m going to look after you and make sure you’re both all right. Don’t argue with me. We’re going to be married, and that’s final.’

‘All right.’ The words were little more than a breath, so soft that he wasn’t sure that he’d heard her.

‘Our child will be born in wedlock,’ he said gently.

‘Yes-of course.’

Had any man ever received such joyless consent? It was as though she accepted him in despair-with no hope, only resignation.

He wasn’t an imaginative man, but for a moment he was granted a glimpse of the future-a bleak road stretching far into the distance, with the two of them trudging endlessly together towards nothing. And he was appalled.

The thing that shocked him most was her agreement with whatever he suggested. She, who had always stood up to him, teased and fenced with him, who had only a few hours ago told him to go to hell, now agreed without argument to whatever he said.

He had always been a dominant man, demanding exactly this kind of acquiescence as of right. But from her he hated it.

Even so, he seized the chance to make his other demand while she was in this mood. It was too important for him to take risks.

‘The doctor says you can leave soon,’ he said, ‘and I want to take you home with me.’

‘Home?’

‘The Palazzo Marini. You mustn’t live alone. It’s too dangerous for you.’

‘You expect me to live-there?’

He knew what she meant. There, where she had discovered his deception and the world had exploded around her.

‘No,’ she said angrily. ‘I just want to go home and be alone.’

‘That I won’t allow,’ he said flatly, and caught himself up at once. ‘I mean-it would be better to do it my way.’

‘No, no, you got it right the first time,’ she said with weary irony. ‘Stick to giving orders. It’s what you do best, and at least then we all know how things really stand, which is very useful. I like knowing the truth.’

Her soft bitterness shocked him and made him clench his hands out of sight.

‘Elise-’ he whispered.

‘I can’t live with your mother. How would she bear looking at me every day, knowing that I was the woman who destroyed Angelo?’

‘She knows nothing. We didn’t quarrel in front of her that night, and I never spoke a word about it afterwards.’

She gave a hard, mirthless laugh that tore at his heart. ‘Of course, how much easier to deceive her! Why didn’t I think of that?’

‘She’s had a lot of pain in her life. Angelo’s death hit her hard, and I don’t tell her anything that might upset her.’

She gave a faint, derisive smile. ‘And you’re going to take the risk of leaving me alone with her? Suppose I tell her?’

‘You won’t do that. It would be cruel and spiteful, and you’re not either of those things.’

‘I thought we’d established that I was.’

‘You told me what Ben did-’

‘How do you know I was telling the truth-such a deceiver as I am?’

‘Stop it,’ he growled.

‘But we must be realistic, mustn’t we?’ she challenged with a touch a grim humour that came strangely from her weakened frame. ‘Think how good I must be at thinking up the right lies.’

‘I forbid you to talk like that,’ he said fiercely.

At once she closed her eyes, seeming to sag wearily as though she could only fight just so much.

‘All right,’ she whispered. ‘Believe what you like.’

‘You forget, I got to know Ben. It’s easy to believe he’d behave like that.’

She opened her eyes again. ‘Yes, you knew Ben. At one time I thought you knew me-’

This time she turned her head right away from him, and he could say no more.

Would it always be there between them? Vincente wondered. He’d learned to think the best of her, but would she ever forget or forgive the fact that it had needed to be learned?

As soon as Elise was stronger Vincente brought his mother to see her. Signora Farnese was almost weeping with joy at the thought of the coming wedding and her first grandchild.

Elise could see how frail this woman was. Vincente had been born late in her life and she was in her seventies. She had known little happiness, and was eager to grasp what was left.

‘I knew this was going to happen,’ she said cheerily. ‘When I first saw the two of you together, I knew everything. There was a special “something” between you that only happens between people in love.’

Vincente and Elise could not meet each other’s eyes. Luckily his mother was oblivious.

A few days later she was installed in the Palazzo Marini, in the grand bedroom that was exclusive to the mistress of the house. The huge bed was hung with brocade curtains that swept up to a point over the pillows, where they were topped by something that looked suspiciously like a coronet.

The bedroom was only for Elise. Vincente’s room was even more grandiose. They were connected by a short, narrow corridor, little more than a cupboard, which also contained the entrance to their bathroom.