It was just fancy, she tried to reassure herself. I’m a severely practical person. This sort of thing just doesn’t happen to me, because I don’t let it. I wonder if he’ll be at the airport?

He was. He and Toni stood there, waiting as they came out of Customs, Hope carrying the child, and Polly saw Toni’s face light up with joy. Then he was running forward, arms outstretched, to embrace his wife and grandson together.

Ruggiero’s face remained blank. Nor did he move as Toni and Polly greeted each other pleasantly.

‘All this has thrown him for six,’ Toni muttered in her ear. ‘Since my wife called he hasn’t known what to do with himself.’

That could be taken both ways, she thought. It didn’t tell her about Ruggiero’s true feelings. But then she saw him smiling at her with a hint of relief, as though he’d just been hanging on until she came back. And, despite her efforts to stop it, a spring of pleasure welled up inside her.

They had come in two cars, to ensure enough room for everyone on the return journey.

‘You and the baby go with Poppa,’ Ruggiero told his mother. ‘I’ll take Polly.’

The little surge of happiness was there again, irrational and reprehensible, but too strong to be fought. He opened the door for her and made sure she was comfortable before going around to the driver’s side. She looked at him, smiling. She couldn’t help herself. Something told her that his next words would be momentous.

As Toni’s car pulled away Ruggiero turned to her.

‘Let them go for the moment,’ he said. ‘There is something I must say to you first.’

‘Yes?’

‘You did bring them, didn’t you?’

‘What?’

‘The pictures. You promised faithfully to bring me pictures of Sapphire. Please, Polly, don’t tell me you forgot. You don’t know how important it is.’

So this was all he wanted-why he’d lit up at the sight of her. The depth of her bitterness warned her how far she’d strayed into danger.

‘Please, Polly,’ he repeated.

‘It’s all right. I’ve brought the pictures.’

With sudden resolution, as though he’d been given a reviving draught of life, he started the car and swung out of the airport.

Well, what did you think was going to happen? Polly thought scathingly. That he was going to forget her and see you? Get real!

On the way home she said, ‘Have you been sensible while I was away?’

‘No riding. I swear it.’

‘Short of that.’

‘I dropped in at work for an hour, but I behaved very feebly, and came home early. You’d have been proud of me.’

‘How about the pills?’

‘Just a couple at night. I’m on the mend.’

When they reached the villa Primo and Olympia were there. Apart from Carlo and Della, away on their honeymoon, they were the only Rinuccis who lived in Naples, so their arrival represented the rest of the family.

At first Polly stayed where Matthew could always see her, lest he grow alarmed. But he was easy in company-a natural charmer, who relished the attention.

Everyone was delighted when Ruggiero dropped down on one knee to look his son in the eye, and received a steady stare in return.

‘Buongiorno,’ Ruggiero said politely.

‘Bon-bon-’ he tried to repeat.

Ruggiero repeated the word and the tot responded by yelling, ‘Bon, bon, bon!’ in tones of delight.

Everyone laughed and clapped.

‘His first Italian word,’ Hope cried. ‘Why don’t you sit down and hold him?’

He sat on the sofa, and she helped little Matthew to get up beside him. He peered closely at this new giant, and finally became curious enough to try to climb onto his lap.

‘Better not,’ Ruggiero said quickly. ‘I’m still a bit sore, and I’d be afraid of dropping him.’

It was an entirely reasonable excuse. Surely Polly only imagined that he’d seized the first chance to back off?

He behaved impeccably, regarding the child with apparent interest, smiling in the right places, watching as he was bathed and dressed in the sleepsuit that Polly had brought with her, then put to bed. It was agreed, for the moment, that he should sleep in Polly’s room, in a crib that one of the maids had rescued from the attic.

‘I suppose you’re going to say that was mine?’ Ruggiero asked with resigned good humour.

‘No, this was Carlo’s,’ Hope declared triumphantly. ‘You managed to set fire to yours.’

Everyone laughed, including Ruggiero, but it seemed to Polly that he was doing everything from a distance, trying not to reveal that this first meeting with his son meant nothing to him.

When Matthew had fallen asleep, Ruggiero said unexpectedly, ‘Could you all give us a moment, please?’

Everyone smiled at this sign of fatherly interest, but when the door had closed behind them he said urgently to Polly, ‘The photos? Can I have them now?’

‘Of course. I unpacked them ready for you.’

She took the two albums from a drawer and handed them to him.

‘Thanks,’ he said briefly, and departed without a look at the sleeping child.

That night Polly stayed up late in her room, telling herself that she was watching over the little boy, but secretly knowing that she was watching over his father. Opening her window and looking out, she could see the glow from his window next door. There was to be no rest for him tonight.

She imagined him turning the pages, seeing ‘Sapphire’s’ face over and over, feeling fresh pain with every new vision.

Why had she let herself be taken by surprise? Deny it how he would, Sapphire had been the woman he’d loved so passionately that a few days ago the briefest imagined glimpse of her had driven him to madness, almost claiming his life. Perhaps he would have preferred that, now she was dead. He was, in effect, a widower, but denied a widower’s freedom to mourn openly-denied even the memories of a shared love that might have made his loss bearable.

Suddenly she remembered that Freda’s wedding pictures were in the second album. In the hurry and agitation it had slipped her mind, but now she wished she’d remembered and removed them. It was too late, but she might have spared him that.

A quick glance showed that Matthew was still sleeping. She went out into the corridor and knocked softly at Ruggiero’s door.

‘Come in.’ The words came softly.

He was sitting on the bed, his hands clasped between his knees, the wedding pictures open beside him.

‘I just came to see if you were all right.’

‘I’m fine-fine.’

She sat on the bed beside him.

‘No, you’re not,’ she said gently. ‘I’ve been watching you all evening, and you’re like a man stretched on a wheel. Your nerves are at breaking point-even your voice sounds different.’

‘Different how?’

‘Tense. Hard. Every five minutes you ask yourself if you can survive the next five minutes, and then the next. You smile at people and try to say the right things, but it’s taking everything out of you.’

‘Am I really as transparent as that?’ he asked, with a brief wry smile.

‘No, I don’t think anyone else has noticed.’

‘Just Nurse Bossy-Boots, keeping an eagle eye on the patient?’

Or a woman with a man whose every word and gesture means something, she thought, and longed to be able to say it aloud.

He sighed and squeezed her hand. ‘No, it’s not just your being a nurse. You see things that nobody else does. Where do you get it from?’

She resisted the impulse to squeeze back, and said, ‘In a way it is part of being a nurse. You watch people so much that you starting noticing odd details. I don’t just mean medical things, but about their lives.’ She gave a little chuckle.

‘What? Tell me.’

‘I got so that when a man brought his wife into the ward I could tell at once how things were between them. I knew which husbands were going to be faithful while their wives were in hospital, and which ones were going to live it up.’

‘How?’

‘Something in the voice. If he called her “darling” every second word I knew he’d be on the phone to a girlfriend before he left the building. The ones who were going to go home and worry didn’t say very much, just looked.’

‘You’ve got us all ticketed, then?’

‘Absolutely,’ she said, trying to ease the mood by making a joke of it. ‘No man can spring a surprise on me. You’re all boringly predictable.’

There was one man she hadn’t told Ruggiero about-a soldier, who’d brought his wife to the ward and had seemed to think he was on parade, talking at the top of his voice and bullying everyone. But afterwards she’d found him sitting in the corridor, staring into space.

‘Boringly predictable’ had been a joke, and far from her real thoughts. It was that desperate soldier who’d given her the clue to Ruggiero.

He interrupted her thoughts by saying suddenly, ‘Does Brian know how you think?’

‘Well, I don’t talk to him that way. A woman should keep her secrets.’

‘From the man she loves?’

‘Especially from the man she loves,’ she said firmly.

‘And he doesn’t suspect?’

‘Not if I can help it.’

‘Keep the poor fool in blissful ignorance, eh? I guess that runs in the family.’

He said the last words so quietly that she didn’t need to respond to them, but their bitterness wasn’t lost on her.

‘What kind of man is Brian?’ he asked suddenly. ‘Does he tend to be faithful, or go the other way?’

‘I’ve hardly had time to judge.’

‘But with you being so preoccupied this last year-you weren’t afraid that he’d stray?’

‘I haven’t been putting his fidelity to the test,’ she said, with perfect truth.

‘Is that because you’re afraid to try, or because he doesn’t have enough spirit to be unfaithful?’

‘You make infidelity sound like a virtue?’ she said, half laughing.

‘Not exactly. But to be as sure of him as you are-he sounds like a suet pudding.’

‘I promise you he’s not a suet pudding. Brian’s lively enough, but he spends long, exhausting days looking after people who need him.’

‘And when you get together you talk about test tubes. That must be thrilling.’

She hadn’t wanted this discussion, but it was useful. Being close to Ruggiero like this affected her so strongly that she was terrified he would sense it, and Brian was a useful shield. So she played along.

‘Anything can be thrilling if you share the same interests,’ she mused.

‘And that’s what you talked about when you saw him yesterday?’

She chuckled. ‘I don’t think we talked much.’

‘But didn’t he try to persuade you to stay with him-in between doing whatever you were doing?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘Of course not? Does he love you or not?’

‘He does, but he knew I had to come back for as long as I’m needed here. He understands about putting duty first.’

‘Another thing you share?’

‘Another thing we share.’

‘You told him that you’re crazy about him but you had to return to this grumpy so-and-so who’ll collapse without you? That and test tubes? How did you tear yourself away from such passion?’

‘Nurse Bossy-Boots never lets down a patient,’ she said primly. ‘And passion can be found in the oddest places.’

She found she was enjoying this conversation too much for safety, and hurried to say, ‘But I don’t think I ought to discuss him any more. He wouldn’t like it.’

Ruggiero threw her a grim look. His nerves were stretched from the two tense days he’d spent waiting for her, wondering if he would ever see her again.

He was a man with no gift for self-analysis. He could dismantle an engine both actually and in his head. He even had some faint understanding of others. But to himself he was an almost total mystery.

In the last two days he’d been miserable, thinking of the pictures that Polly might or might not remember to bring back. He’d focused on that because he understood it, but somewhere along the line it had blurred with the fear that she might not return at all.

Arguments had raged in his head. His strong, reliable Nurse Bossy-Boots was a woman of her word. She wouldn’t let him down because that wasn’t her way. But the ties holding her back were immense-including the man she loved, who might be fed up with waiting and demand to come first in her life.

Perhaps she’d give the pictures to Hope and leave, confident that she’d done her duty?

But she wouldn’t have done it, he told himself firmly. She was the one person he could talk to, and she had no right to desert him.

Hope had called him that morning to say they were returning together. He’d breathed again, but even so he’d been shocked by the explosion of relief that had attacked him when she’d appeared at Naples Airport. It had the perverse effect of making him abrupt, even angry with her. And this, too, he did not understand.