‘Did you see Franco there at all?’ Della asked.

‘No, he was the only person who didn’t accept.’

Later that night, in the privacy of their room, Toni read again the letter his brother had written.

I know you will understand why I cannot be there. I rejoice with you, but I’m still learning to cope with my own loss. I’m going away for a while, to Switzerland, where Lisa and I went on our honeymoon. I shall revisit the places of our first happiness, and I like to think she will be there with me, as she will always be in my heart.

Toni looked up, smiling, as his wife came and rested an arm about his shoulder.

‘Do you remember how we planned our honeymoon?’ she asked, glancing at the letter which, like Toni, she had read many times before.

‘Yes, and we never took that trip,’ he remembered. ‘Luke got the flu, and then Francesco caught it from him-’

‘And then I caught it, and you nursed me so tenderly,’ she recalled with a smile.

She put her other arm about him and kissed him.

‘I think it’s time we took that trip, carissimo,’ she said. ‘We’ve waited far too long.’

Lucy Gordon

Lucy Gordon cut her writing teeth on magazine journalism, interviewing many of the world’s most interesting men, including Warren Beatty, Richard Chamberlain, Sir Roger Moore, Sir Alec Guinness, and Sir John Gielgud. She also camped out with lions in Africa and had many other unusual experiences which have often provided the background for her books. She is married to a Venetian, whom she met while on holiday in Venice. They got engaged within two days.