The Elban Adventure

THE ELBAN ADVENTURE Isobel Chace

Eve and the attractive Roberto Millini were good friends in a lighthearted, not too serious way, and when Eve’s employer asked her to go out to the island of Elba to do some research for her, and Roberto said, “My family have a holiday villa on the isle of Elba. I will give you the key and you can go there,” Eve was only too pleased to go-alone. But it was not long before Roberto’s disturbing brother, Vittorio, came upon the scene, thinking the worst of her and Roberto! There was, it seemed, a suitable Italian girl already lined up for Roberto-with a sister who was clearly intending to make a match of it with Vittorio. But why should Eve care about any of them?

"From the flowering of the bud — To the falling of the leaf — In the enchantment of Elba ..." OLD SAYING

For Frances, Lucien and Rupert

CHAPTER ONE EVE Alliston hadn't given it a thought when the Post Office had informed her parents that in future their telephone line would be shared by the Italian widow who lived just; up the road. If anything, she had thought it a good idea. It was cheaper for one thing and, really, it made very little difference, for the only person whom it made more difficult to telephone was Mrs. Rawlinson who, despite some twenty years in England, spoke English with such a marked Italian accent that it was impossible to understand what she was saying over the phone in any case. One simply did not ring her up. If one had anything to say to her, one called, and drank a glass of fierce red wine in her company, and then walked home again. Eve had liked Mrs. Rawlinson from the first. She had met her first at her evening classes in Italian when Mrs. Rawlinson had taken over from their first teacher and had been quite appalled at how little of her language the class had grasped. With the same resolution with which she did everything else, she had forced the reticent housewives and typists in her class to speak Italian and, finally, even to enjoy it. Eve had discovered that she wrote books, mostly biographies, and had somehow ended up typing them for her, as if she hadn't got enough to do without making herself a general dogsbody for anyone who cared to make a claim on her good: nature. At the moment, Mrs. Rawlinson was writing about Napoleon's stay on the Isle of Elba, which happened to be a place where her family had owned property

for many hundreds of years. Eve couldn't share the little Italian woman's passion for the Corsican General, but she had become interested in the island where he had been exiled for a few years before making his startling comeback that had ended at Waterloo. But, at the moment, Eve had another interest. Two other interests to be exact. She was producing and directing the next play the local amateur dramatic group was doing—not, as she would have been the first to admit, because she had any great talent for the job, but because the men in the group were so outnumbered by the women that they were all needed on stage and couldn't be spared for the task. The idea that anyone could sit out in front and tell the actors what to do had been one that she had shared for a brief, a very brief, interval. Now she felt that the whole responsibility for the play was on her shoulders alone and she seldom had time to think about anything else. Her other interest was connected with the first. She was hoping that her production of the play would be such a dazzling success that she would win the opportunity to attend a summer school at a Schloss in Austria, which the Americans were putting on for young leaders in Western Europe to introduce them to American art and literature and give them a taste of the American Way of Life. Eve hoped quite desperately that she would be one of the fortunate few to be chosen. She had already written the required essay and Roberto Millini, Mrs. Rawlinson's nephew who was at

present in England learning to speak English, had promised to deliver it in person the next time he went up to London. So it was the play that was uppermost in her mind when the telephone bell rang. She went to the phone with an abstracted air and was astonished to be greeted by a male voice saying: "Darling, what eke can I do to prove to you that I love you?" Goodness! she thought. Was that what the whole play sounded like? She could only hope not! Her uncertainty made her giggle. "Do? You have done enough!" she breathed into the receiver. "Why did you have to love me at all— "Why indeed?" said a quite different voice. "If you can think of nothing better to say, Miss Alliston, may I suggest you clear the line and leave it to others who may have urgent calls to make ?" Eve did not often lose her temper, but the attitude of the unknown interrupter jarred on her. Goodness knows, she had as much right to use the telephone as he had! If only it had been an important call she would have felt more sure of her ground. As it was, it was only Blake showing her that he had—at last!— managed to learn his lines. "This happens to be important to me!" she said aloud. "Miss Alliston, I am expecting a call from Italy any moment now. Will you please clear the line?"

"No, I won't!" Eve declared. If he had asked her nicely— His voice became more coaxing, but remained as masculine and as arrogant as ever. "You may have the whole telephone system to yourself this afternoon, Miss Alliston. Won't you please get off the line now?" "I'll ring off," Blake offered. "Don't you dare I" Eve snapped into the telephone. But she was already too late and he had put his receiver down, leaving nothing but the irritating dialling burr in her ear. "Thank you, Miss Alliston!" She dropped the receiver into its cradle with a gesture of distaste, cutting off the mockery in the faintly accented voice. She supposed he was some connection of Mrs. Rawlinson's, and she was welcome to him. More than welcome to him! It was the start of a thoroughly unsettling day as far as Eve was concerned. Nothing went right for her. She thought her worst moment had been reached when Roberto Millini came to the back door and ran into her mother. "Mrs. Alliston, I have done a dreadful thing!" he burst out, not seeing Eve who was peeling the potatoes at the sink and was hidden by the door. "Come in, Roberto," Mrs. Alliston said kindly.

"No! No! She will be furious with me! I've lost her essay!" "Is that all?" said Mrs. Alliston with a laugh. "I expect she has a copy." She glanced at Eve over her shoulder. "Come and relieve this young man's mind, dear," she bade her daughter. Eve came only reluctantly to the door. It had taken her hours to write the essay and, because she had had to submit it in her own handwriting, she hadn't bothered to write out a copy of it. "Sorry, Roberto," she said. "I'm not—as long as you don't lose yourself, Eve," he observed. The twinkle at the back of his eyes made him look older and more knowing than any English boy of the same age would have done and betrayed that he was not as upset as he was pretending to be. "I haven't time to write it again," she burst out. "Not with the rehearsals and everything else!" Roberto smiled easily. "But, Eve, it may be better for you that I have lost it. My aunt, she thinks so too. Much better than a Schloss in Austria, you can go to our family villa in Elba. My aunt, she will explain it all to you what you must do for her while you are there. She will wish you to visit all the Napoleonic places and take notes. But," he went on, catching the light of battle in her eyes, "it won't only be that.

Elba is so beautiful, so calm, so much the right place for you to spend your holiday." "Thank you very much!" "Eve darling, aren't you going to ask Roberto in ?" her mother's voice interrupted her. "Oh yes, of course," she murmured. "Are you coming in, Roberto?" He shook his head. "But you will visit with my aunt, won't you, Eve? Please say you will! I am very sorry that I have upset you—" Her heart melted as he had intended that it should. "It doesn't matter," she said stiffly. "How—how did you come to lose it?" Roberto's smile became as jaunty as it usually was. "My brother, he is staying, you understand. When he is here, it is nothing but work, work, work! I took it to the English school with me, thinking it was an essay I myself had written. My essay, it was very bad, so I put it in the fire that heats the water. Pouff! It was gone!" It must have been his brother on the telephone, Eve thought, her hackles rising. "What has your working got to do with your brother?" she demanded frostily. Roberto shrugged. "He is the eldest," he answered. "When will you visit with my aunt?"

"Tomorrow," said Eve. Tomorrow was Sunday and there would be no rehearsal, and no work, and she would have had time to come to terms with the loss of her essay. She didn't want Mrs. Rawlinson to know how much it had meant to her. It was all the more unfair, therefore, when the evening's rehearsal went badly too. Blake might have learned his lines, but was as wooden as he could be, and the other young man in the play, John Dwyer, might never even have looked at the book, so little did he know about the play. "John, you'll have to do better than that!" she stormed at him, exasperated. "But I do know it," he protested. "Truly I do, Eve. I'm just no good this evening!" Eve sighed. "I'll give you a ring in the morning and we can run through it then," she said. "We've only got a few days left." Blake grimaced at her. "Is that wise? What about the raspberry you got this morning?" "What about it?" Eve countered coolly. "I have as much right to use the telephone as he has!" "Good for you !" said Blake. "I'm not afraid of him!" claimed Eve.

"Aren't you?" said Blake. "I was!" Eve refused to admit it to herself, but it was largely because of Roberto's unknown brother that she rang John immediately after breakfast the following day. No one, she reasoned to herself, could reasonably object to her using the phone for as long as she pleased at that hour in the morning. "Now, John, let's start from the top. Okay?" "Okay, boss. I'll start when I come on stage and find Jill in the arms of another man, shall I ?" "Mmm. Blake doesn't help much," Eve worried out loud. "He doesn't look as though he wants to kiss Jill at all." "He doesn't!" John told her. "They've broken up. Didn't you know?" "Nobody tells me anything!" Eve replied in exasperation. "John, are you sure?" "Sure as I'm standing here. Right now, I'm going to begin." He cleared his throat and began slowly to recite his lines. "How could you, Elaine? Kissing another man as soon as my back's turned! Or did he force you into it?" Eve made a face at the wall in front of her. "Why not? You don't own me!" she quoted, thinking at the same time that there must be better plays in the world, so why on earth had they chosen this one?

"Miss Alliston!"" "John?" "No, it is not John. This is Vittorio Millini speaking. This John you are speaking to may not own you, but neither do you have exclusive rights to the telephone. I understand that your personal life is too busy for you to spare the time to actually meet all your young men face to face, but will you please clear the line now!" "But, signore, you don't understand—" "It is very easy to understand, Miss Alliston. My aunt seldom uses the telephone, so you have fallen into the way of conducting your romances over the line you share with her—" "But I don't! Ask Roberto, if you don't believe me!" "I have, Miss Alliston," the beastly voice came back at her. "I have discussed you very thoroughly with Roberto." "Then you had no right to!" "You are overlooking the fact that I am Roberto's brother—" "But not his keeper, signore !" "Shall I ring off?" John asked, more or less echoing Blake's reaction of the day before. "Please do," Signor Millini said abruptly.

But John was made of sterner stuff than Blake. "Eve, shall I ring off?" "Oh, anything you like!" Eve retorted. There was a sharp click as John put his phone down. "No doubt he will ring again, Miss Alliston," Vittorio Millini observed, as though talking to a child. "When you have so many strings to your bow, it's not surprising that they get confused every now and then." "I was doing all right before you butted in!" Eve replied warmly. "How dare you move in on your aunt and tell me when I may and may not use the telephone?" "Normally I should not," he said easily, "but neither of your conversations seemed to be of world- shattering importance, Miss Alliston, and it is of some urgency that I should receive my calls from Italy. I shall soon be gone, however, and then you will have the line all to yourself again." "It can't be soon enough for me!" Eve answered quickly, a little dismayed even as the words came out that temper should have betrayed her into being actually rude to the man. Still, he hadn't been polite exactly in his remarks to her, so perhaps it didn't matter all that much. "Perhaps you will be kind enough to tell Mrs. Rawlinson that I shall be calling in at about eleven o'clock this morning?" she went on with an effort. "Roberto says she wants to see me— alone!"

A condescending laugh came over the line. "So I am not the only one to hand out the marching orders! A pity, Miss Eve Alliston, I think I should have liked to have met you after all!" Eve answered very quickly, "You should have thought of that before!" He laughed again. "But I don't enjoy being one of a large field, so I should have had second thoughts and passed you by, signorina. I am not as young as Roberto." "I would never have guessed," Eve drawled. "But then nor are you, are you, signorina ? He is not good material for you to cut your teeth on. You should try an older man and leave him to his studies—" "He is two months older than I!" Eve exclaimed. She swallowed and then said in a quite different voice, "Are you offering to stand in for him, signore ?" "Unfortunately I am returning to Italy." He was no longer laughing. "Are you truly only twenty years old ? I thought you older—" "But then my age has nothing to do with you, has it ?" Eve said with a smoothness that surprised herself. "Goodbye, signore." She still felt more than a little ruffled by her exchange with Vittorio Millini as she walked down the road towards his

aunt's house some two hours later. She let herself in by the back door as she always did and hurried through the hall into the drawing-room. There was no sign of Mrs. Rawlinson, only a totally strange man who was standing with his back to her, looking out of the window, his hands in his pockets. He was taller than Roberto, and much darker, his skin heavily tanned by the sun, and his eyes dark and inscrutable. "Where is Mrs. Rawlinson?" she asked him. He turned slowly, making no attempt to answer her, his eyes making a slow investigation of every inch of her. "You see, we meet after all!" he mocked her. "My aunt has been detained and has asked me to entertain you until she comes." "Oh," said Eve. "Ah, now I can almost believe that you are twenty!" he went on. He gestured towards a chair, indicating that she should sit down in it. "You are not so confident as you at first appear. Roberto had told me this, but he will believe only good things about you—like my aunt!" "I suppose you've been discussing me with her too?" He smiled, revealing white, even teeth. "But of course! You -have fascinated them both! According to my aunt, you have a kind heart, will work yourself to death on demand, but can neither spell nor type very well. According to Roberto, you kiss like a young- girl, but then Roberto is a boy himself and

not the best judge of your sex. You may be of a similar age— in some ways you seem younger—but great experience in a woman is not suitable to one of your age, and I think you are much more experienced than you appear. Even so, it would not be suitable for you to provide Roberto with the experience that he, as a man, should have. You will oblige me by leaving him alone. He is far too fond of you already." Eve licked her lips, astonished. Roberto was great fun to be with, but she scarcely regarded him as a man yet, more as a charming boy who might well have been her own brother. "Really?" she almost drawled. Vittorio's face resumed its former stern lines. "My aunt is too fond of you to speak to you herself, though it would have been more fitting coming from her, so it has fallen to me to make it clear to you that there is no future in any relationship between you and my brother—on any terms!" Eve's temper rose. "Did Mrs. Rawlinson ask you to speak to me about this?" she asked. "I have told you. My aunt is fond of you and has no wish for you to be hurt—" "That wasn't what I asked, signore!"" Vittorio spread his hands in front of him. "No," he said, "she did not ask me to speak to you."

"I see," Eve said quietly. "In other words, without troubling to find out anything about me—" "No, that is not true," he interrupted her. "You forget I have heard you speaking to two of your—boyfriends. I am not anxious that Roberto should make a third!" Eve's jaw dropped. The idea of either Blake or John being more to her than two annoying would-be amateur actors struck her as rather funny. A small giggle escaped her before she could suppress it. "I am glad you find me so amusing, signorina." Eve's fancy was tickled by the idea that anyone should think her a femme fatale. She batted her eyelashes at him with deliberate gusto. "Do you really have to go back to Italy?" she asked him, making her voice low and throaty and somehow stifling the giggles that threatened to spoil her whole effect. "Miss Alliston," he threatened with a silkiness that stopped her laughter as easily as if he had slapped her, "be very careful! I am not a young boy for you to play your games on!" "No, you're the most conceited man it has ever been my illfortune to meet!" she flared up. "I despise and dislike you— and all your family!—but especially you !" "Of course you don't."

"Well, perhaps not your aunt," she admitted, "but I dislike and despise you, and I think you're perfectly horrid!" "And Roberto?" he inquired. She coloured. "Roberto? Oh, Roberto doesn't count." His eyebrows rose. "See that it stays that way!" What she might have said to that was fortunately cut off by the entrance of Mrs. Rawlinson. Vittorio Millini jumped to his feet, still looking at Eve. "Arrivederci, signorina," he murmured, every inch the correct gentleman. "Goodbye, Mr. Millini," she answered flatly. Mrs. Rawlinson clucked gently beside her. "My dear Eve, what is the use of us studying Italian all these months if that is the best you can do when you meet a real Italian?" Eve glared up at the dark Italian. "Ciao," she murmured, and then, catching sight of Mrs. Rawlinson's surprised glance, "Arrivederci, signore." "That is better," Mrs. Rawlinson congratulated her. "But you should have been speaking Italian all the time! If you do not practise, how can you hope to speak my language well?" "I prefer to practise with Roberto," Eve began.

"Oh, Roberto!" The older woman laughed. "That is because he practises his English at the same time! You are both lazy children!" "I should not have described Eve as a child," Signor Millini remarked. His aunt was unimpressed. "A silly child!" she repeated firmly. "She has been a great help to Roberto with his English and it has done her Italian no good at all!" She plumped up one of the cushions on the sofa and sat back against it with a small sigh. "You may leave us now, Vittorio caro. You are making my dear Eve nervous, and as I wish to ask her a great favour, it is better that you should go." He went with a meekness that left Eve looking after him, wide-eyed with admiration for his pocket-sized aunt who could control him so easily. When Mrs. Rawlinson chuckled beside her, however, Eve turned hastily to her and managed a rather wan smile. "I thought Roberto had been working all right, but his brother doesn't, does he?" "It is the exams," Mrs. Rawlinson said comfortably. "Vittorio believes that Roberto is a little bit in love with you, which is not very astonishing to me, but it may be that it interferes a little with his English. He concentrates very badly, or he would not have burned your essay. No, no, it seems to me that Vittorio is not often wrong and that it would be better if Roberto should work harder, no?"

"But it isn't my fault—" "Of course not! What interest would you have in a silly young man like Roberto? But I cannot be sorry that you are going to be away on holiday when he is taking his exams." The Italian woman looked suddenly anxious. "You will go to Elba, yes? There is some work there you can do for me, for my book on Napoleon and Elba. I shall pay you well and you will enjoy it very much, and when you come home, Roberto will have passed his exams and we can all be comfortable again!" Eve opened her mouth to refuse, but the look on Mrs. Rawlinson's face prevented her. It was all Vittorio's fault, she thought crossly. He had no right to go round upsetting people and making them unhappy. "But the expense! And I've never researched anything in my life!" she said uncomfortably. Mrs. Rawlinson waved away all such worries with an imperious movement of one pudgy hand. "Roberto is arranging with the family where you shall stay and I shall write you a list of the things I want you to find out for me. It is agreed?" "I still don't see why you should give me a holiday, signora," Eve felt bound to protest. "It will give me pleasure, my dear, a small return for all the help you have given me, and your kindness to me in coming

and talking to me in my own language out of the goodness of your heart." Afterwards, Eve never knew why she had agreed to it so easily, nor why she looked forward to it far more than she had to any other holiday she had ever had. She never even hesitated when Roberto handed her the key to the family villa and told her to make herself comfortable there. Wasn't it what she had always wanted? A holiday in the sun, a house to herself, and just enough to do to keep her interested and give a purpose to the long, lazy days. It was going to be wonderful!

CHAPTER TWO AT six o'clock sharp the ferry moved slowly out of the industrial port of Piombino. The sun was shining, bathing the sea in a gentle light. Eve went as far forward as she could, straining to see her first sight of Elba. It was only a little more than six miles away from the mainland of Tuscany and yet she felt as if it were another world. The impression was born out as the outlines grew clearer, but the increasing chilliness of the sunset at sea drove her down and inside to where she could buy a coffee. It was still too early in the year for all but the most determined tourists, so the majority of her fellow travellers were Italians, either going home to Elba, or going there on business. She wondered what they found to do there and remembered reading somewhere that the Elban iron mines were still active and highly productive. A little apart from the other passengers sat a couple of carabinieri. It seemed strange to English eyes to see policemen carrying firearms. As they were seated around a table, the holsters gave them an uncomfortable look, but they smiled readily enough at her and made room for her on a nearby chair. Eve remembered then that she had noticed a small prison cell on the ferry and she concluded that these men were the guards escorting some unfortunate over to the long-term prison on Elba. She shivered slightly, partly with cold and partly because she didn't wish to think of anyone being deprived of his freedom.

The ferry slipped into a port almost without her noticing. She rose eagerly, but the carabinieri shook their heads at her. "Rio Marina," they told her. She gave them a bewildered look. "Porto Azzuro?" she asked. One of them bared his wrist to show an expensive- looking watch. He pointed to the minute hand and moved his finger on half an hour, saying at the same time that Porto Azzuro was another thirty minutes away. Eve, a few words of Italian suddenly coming back to her, thanked him and they exchanged smiles. This last part of her journey had tired her more than all the rest put together. It had been a long, long day since she had reported to the air terminal that morning for her flight to Pisa. She had enjoyed the trip, but she was tired now, and she longed to arrive and stand on solid land once again. It was quite dark when they reached Porto Azzuro. They had to go down into the bowels of the ship in order to find the gangway out on to the quay and the hot smell of the engines hit the back of her throat, making her cough. She was beginning to feel uneasy at the thought of finding the Villa Millini, although Roberto's direction had been more than explicit. For some reason she had been uneasy right from the start at staying at his family's summer house, perhaps because he had looked slightly guilty from the moment that he had suggested it. But Mrs. Rawlinson had made no

objection to the plan, if indeed she had bothered to listen to Roberto's plans for her. She had been far too busy coaching Eve in the things she was to go and see, and the questions she was to find answers to while she was there. Eve suspected that most of the hard research had already been completed, but it would be nice to have an excuse to explore the island with its erstwhile ruler in mind. One might dislike Napoleon, but one could hardly ignore him, and certainly not here! It was wonderful to come out again into the fresh air. Eve hurried the last few steps of the gangway and on to the solid concrete of the quay. It was only then that she realised what a very pretty harbour it was. The lights from the streets and the cafes were reflected in the still waters of the sea. The street was edged with plane trees that were just coming into leaf. Each time a car went by the wind lifted a small cloud of dust which fell slowly back to the street and on to the bright new leaves of the trees. The only other thing Eve noticed were a number of small restaurants that reached out into the water, shaped to look like boats. They looked extremely busy in the dusk. Eve walked slowly away from the ferry, looking for a taxirank. When she found a taxi, it was more like a mini-bus than the taxi of her imagination. The driver was a dark, thick-set man who grinned amiably at her and shrugged his shoulders. "Can you take me to Naregno?" she asked him in her slow, careful Italian. "I want to go to the Villa Millini."

The driver nodded. "Villa Millini, Naregno," he repeated cheerfully. He reached a hand through the window and wrenched open the door behind him for her to get in. Then, seeing her suitcase, he got slowly out and stowed it away in the luggage space right at the back. He banged all the doors shut with gusto, causing the vehicle to shudder under the strain. "Naregno," he sighed to himself, getting back into the driving seat. He let in the clutch and they moved slowly out into the road and up the hill out of Porto Azzuro. It was too dark to see what the scenery was like, so Eve sat back and indulged in a pleasant reverie of all that she was going to do while she was here in Elba. There would be nothing and no one to worry about and she could come and go as she pleased, a luxury to anyone who worked for a living and still lived at home with her parents, much as she loved them both. The driver blew his horn violently as they went round a blind corner, climbing steeply. Eve glimpsed a new, large hotel at the top of the hill, but they turned left again, steadied themselves as they navigated a large rut in the road and then crept down a precipice to a sandy beach below. Here there were a number of small inns and hotels, all of which they passed, climbing steeply again up a rutted, unmade road to the villa at the top. "Is this it?" Eve asked, impressed. "This is the Villa Millini," the driver agreed, as proudly as if he owned it. "But it is shut up now. There is no one here."

"Oh, I have the key," Eve explained. The driver looked doubtful. "There is a woman who comes in and cleans for the Signor Vittorio. Perhaps I should find her and explain to her that you are here?" Eve bit her hp. It was one thing to make use of the Millini house on Roberto's say-so, but it seemed a bit impertinent to make use of the family's servants when she could quite well fend for herself. "Perhaps it would be a good idea," she said at last. She didn't want the woman bursting in on her, thinking she was a burglar. Besides, it would be nice to have someone to show her around the villa for, for the first time, she was beginning to wonder if she weren't going to be rather lonely living completely on her own. It took only a few moments for the driver to find the woman and to bring her back to the villa. The woman was plainly suspicious. The Signor Millini had said nothing to her about any visitor! Eve showed her the key Roberto had given her and was as relieved as the maid when she finally managed to open the door with it after several false starts. "She will prepare a room for you," the driver informed Eve with a lordly air. He looked round the lit hall with interested pleasure, noting the expensive quality of the tiles on the floor and the balcony beyond that was full of plants in tubs and some brightly coloured deck chairs.

Eve paid him the price he asked and added a good bit more for the kindness he had shown her. "If you should need a car, you can always find me in Porto Azzuro," he told her. "The hotel will get a message through to me. They are accustomed to English visitors there." So much for her Italian, Eve thought with amusement. She thanked him gravely. "I should like to see the island some time," she assented, "and visit the palaces of Napoleon!" "I will arrange it all for you, signora, whenever you wish to go! Good night, madame. Grazie, grazie!" When he was gone, Eve felt lonelier and more exhausted than ever. She watched the red tail lights of the taxi disappear into the darkness and wished she hadn't come. How much better off she would have been in Austria! Damn Roberto, and damn his carelessness ! Not that she believed for a moment that he fancied himself in love with her, but he might have been more careful of somebody else's property. The maid was busy making up the bed when Eve went back into the villa. She was middle-aged and healthily plump, her skin glowing in the rather inadequate electric light. Eve noticed that her flesh bounced in time to her movements about the room, giving her a jolly look that, now she was satisfied that Eve had some right to be there, was more than reflected on her face.

Eve smiled at her as she smoothed the blankets and sheets over the mattress, looking longingly at the bed. She went over to the dressing-table and stared at her own image in the glass. She looked as tired as she felt, she thought with some dissatisfaction. Her long black hair, dressed in a chignon in the nape of her neck, was beginning to fall down, and her face was utterly devoid of make-up. Normally, she thought, she was pretty enough to look at, but at the moment her face was grey with fatigue and dirt, and she looked about as scared as she felt. She became aware of a gabble of Italian behind her and looked round, trying to concentrate on what the woman was saying to her. If, said the maid, Eve would bath and hurry into bed, she herself would cook her a meal and bring it to her there. The idea was an attractive one, but Eve hesitated because she didn't know on what basis the woman came to the house and how much she would be expected to pay her. The Italian woman had no doubt as to what was best for her, however, and pushed Eve firmly into the bathroom, turning on the taps for her to have a bath. Eve capitulated only too readily, finding it pleasant to be fussed over for once. She could hear the maid singing to herself in the kitchen and recognised it as the Italian entry in the Eurovision Song Contest, sung very slowly and slightly off key. It made her feel that the country couldn't be very strange and unfamiliar after all when they all sang the same songs as the ones that were being sung back home.

The bath refreshed her considerably. She knotted her hair into the nape of her neck and held it there with a rubber band. "La disturbo?" the maid asked cheerfully from the door of the bedroom. She held out a laden tray to Eve, gesturing to her to get into bed. The smell of the food was quite delicious, and made Eve aware of how very hungry she was. "You're very kind," she said. The woman plumped up the pillows and stood waiting while Eve got into bed and drew the covers up around her. Eve accepted the tray and placed it across her knees, curious to know what it was that had such a fine, spicy smell. It was a pasta dish of some kind, mixed with minced meat, spinach, and with, Eve thought, a cheese sauce over the whole. The Italian woman nattered on, not minding at all that Eve found her accent and dialect difficult to understand and was in any case far too busy eating, to frame any sensible answers to her in either Italian or English. The maid's bouncy smile never altered and she laughed in a kindly way when Eve yawned, suddenly so sleepy that she couldn't stay awake a moment longer. "Desidera qualcosa da bere?" Eve shook her head. She had eaten and drunk enough and all she wanted to do was sleep. The tray was taken from her and hurried away into the kitchen. Eve could hear the splash of

water in the sink and the clash of steel on glass. A second later and the woman was back, her black eyes with suppressed laughter. "Si accomodi! A domani!" Eve smiled lazily. "A domani!" she repeated. "Grazie, signora." The woman laughed out loud, nodded her head, and was gone. Eve heard her bang the back door as she went out, and then she was alone. It was strange to lie still in the little pool of light from the lamp beside her bed. The room smelt different from an English room, she decided. Perhaps it was the polish on the tiled floor, or the composite material from which the blinds were made. She didn't know, but she liked the difference. She was going to like Elba too—more than she had liked the glimpse she had had of Tuscany in the coach that had brought her from Pisa to Piombino. She had loved Pisa. She had climbed the Leaning Tower, looked at all the ornate and beautiful doors of the cathedral and baptistry, and had pushed her way through the crowds that had gathered round the many souvenir stalls that lined the street that went down one side of the famous Square of the Miracles. But Elba, she thought, would be homelier and less crowded. She yawned again and turned out the light. The moonlight coming through the blind made a striped pattern on the wall opposite her. She allowed her eyes to dwell on it and yawned yet again. A few seconds later she was asleep.

What woke her she didn't know. The pattern on the wall had moved several feet round the room, so she judged she had been asleep some time. She glanced down at the luminous dial of her watch and saw that it was close on two o'clock. It was ridiculous to be wide awake at such an hour. She tried to settle back into sleep, but for a moment she thought she heard footsteps walking about outside and then, no matter how much she told herself it was nothing but her imagination, she heard the scuff of a shoe against gravel, and sat up very straight, her back rigid with fright, listening to the ensuing silence. But the scraping sound of a key entering the lock was certainly not her imagination! Eve flung herself out of bed and into the cotton dressing-gown she had brought with her, tying the cord tightly round her waist to give herself courage. Evidently the intruder wasn't having much success, for she could still hear him trying to put the key into the lock and swearing under his breath as it failed to turn. "Who is it?" she demanded, annoyed by the tremor in her voice that betrayed her fright. Whoever it was outside produced yet another key and this time managed to force the front door open. His silhouette showed him to be a big, powerful man. "Who are you?' Eve said again, her breath catching in the back of her throat.

The man switched on a powerful torch, shining it full in her face. At the same moment he grasped her tightly by the arm, giving her no chance to escape the searching beam. "Well, well, Miss Alliston, by all that's wonderful!" said Vittorio Millini. "Well met, proud Eve!" And he swept her into his arms and kissed her hard on the mouth.

"How dare you?" "Isn't that what you came for?" Eve glared at him. "No, it is not! I came at Mrs. Rawlinson's invitation, as I suspect you already know, as it was you who put it into her mind that Roberto would do better in his exams if I weren't there! And, as I couldn't go to Austria, I came here!" She didn't care for his silence and went on with a touch of desperation, "I'm going to do some research for Mrs. Rawlinson too. You know, for her book on Napoleon." Vittorio smiled without humour. "And since when has my aunt invited people to stay in my villa?" "Don't be silly!" Eve advised him. "It was Roberto who did that." "I had already reached that conclusion," he said drily. Eve turned her back on him rather than face the way he was looking at her. His hand went out, pulling her back close

beside him. "I think it is you who is being silly! What do you suppose I am doing here?" She thought about it. "I don't know. Making yourself unpleasant as usual?" "For that, Miss Alliston, I've a good mind to administer some more of the same treatment." Eve released herself hastily. "Please don't!" Vittorio shut the front door with a snap behind him. "I find it difficult to believe that Roberto's kisses are preferable to mine. Suppose you tell me what you are doing in my house instead of putting up at a hotel, as my aunt doubtless intended?" He turned back to her, looking at her more closely, not even attempting to hide his dislike for the washed- out garment that was her dressing-gown. Eve returned his stare, inwardly amused at his reaction to her lack of glamour. Did all the girls he knew dress up to go to bed ? She thought it only too likely. "Mrs. Rawlinson knows I'm here!" she declared, determined to put him in his place once and for all. "Why shouldn't I be? The villa belongs to the whole family, I believe?" "No, Miss Alliston, it does not!" "Oh," she said, a trifle put out. "Not that it matters. Roberta suggested I should stay here. In fact, gave me the key."

"And that makes it all right?" "To me it does! It was he who burned my essay, or I should have been doing my own thing in Austria. Besides," she added, her sense of grievance getting the better of her, "you had your way, Mr. Millini, and got me out of the way while Roberto takes his exams —though why you should have to interfere, I really can't imagine!—and now you're as grumpy as ever because you find me safely out of the way in the place where you no doubt suggested I should go!" "No, Miss Alliston, I can assure you that you are not where I suggested you should go!" Her eyes opened wide. "Oh, I see!" she said, shocked. "Well, I daresay I should find you there too, making it as unpleasant as possible for me—" "Are your sins so many that I should be given the opportunity?" She looked at him thoughtfully, wrinkling her nose while she considered the point. "No, I don't think they are," she said at last. "You need time, money and opportunity to commit the really scarlet sins, don't you think?" She smiled. "I don't think I need worry after all! You'd be far deeper in than I, and so, with any luck, we wouldn't meet at all!" "Because I have money, time and opportunity?" He sounded amused. "I don't think you've done too badly yourself! It's an interesting list of assets, but I think to be a really successful

sinner all one needs is charm. I'm sure you agree with me, Miss Alliston?" His smile challenged her to make what she would of that! Well, she was no coward, so she lifted her head and looked him straight in the eye. "I'm afraid that rather lets you out," she retorted regretfully. "Never mind, I'm sure when you put your mind to it, you find a substitute that serves you equally well!" He laughed. "You tempt me to try a small experiment," he drawled. "You forget that I know that innocent front of yours to be a fraud—" "What—what do you mean?" He put his hand beneath her chin, forcing her head upwards. "You know very well what I mean. I have already kissed you once, and I don't think you'd object too strenuously if I were to kiss you again!" She swallowed convulsively. "You haven't yet said what you are doing here?" she reminded him hastily. There was a long moment when she thought he really was going to kiss her and she clenched her fists to meet the embrace, only too aware of the way her heart was hammering against her ribs. But then he changed his mind and pushed her away from him with a ruthlessness that made her stumble and almost fall. "A tempting fraud, I admit." He half-turned away from her. "Where is Roberto, Miss Alliston?"

She was astonished. "Roberto?" "Didn't he come with you? I was sure he would have done so when I heard he had left England. Is he in hiding in the bedroom while you cope with me? I had thought better of him, but since you cast your spell on him, no one can tell what he will do next." "I think you're mad!" Eve gasped. "Am I? Well, we'll soon see!" He strode past her, knocking her against the wall, opening one door after another. "I see only one bedroom is in use!" he commented as he went past her again. She nodded. "I find it difficult to sleep in two beds at the same time." "But not to share one with a mere boy!" Eve waited her moment and dealt him a stinging slap on the side of his face. "I never share my bed—" she began, now as enraged as he. But she never finished the sentence, for he whirled round, catching her two hands in one of his behind her back, and forcibly propelling hey ahead of him into the bedroom. "Now, Miss Alliston, you'll tell me exactly where Roberto is and when you are expecting him, or you will have me to deal with, and I am not a boy of twenty years of age !" "I won't! I will not!"

"You have one minute, Miss Alliston!" "I can't tell you what I don't know!" she burst out. "Let me go!" "When you've told me what I want to know." She pulled away from him, but he only held her tighter. "You can't make me!" she declared. "You may bully Roberto, but you're not going to bully me!" His coolness, when contrasted with her own helpless fury, irritated her still further, but she was frightened too, especially when he said, "I hardly think you're in a position to prevent me from doing as I like with you. There's no one here to hear your cries, or don't you mean to cry out ? I warn you, Eve, I mean to get an answer from you, one way or another!" She was now truly scared. "What are you going to do?" she asked, vainly trying to keep the tremulous note of fear out of her voice. "Seeing you're so free with your favours as far as my brother is concerned—" "I'm not!" she protested. "—You may as well spread a little happiness in my direction," he finished grimly, his grip on her wrists tightening into a dull ache. "You are already occupying my bed—"

"All right, I'll tell you," Eve capitulated. He let her go immediately and she turned on him, arms flailing, her eyes blazing with temper and fright. "I wouldn't tell you if I did know! You'd be the last person I'd tell anything! I think you're despicable and horrid! I'm not surprised Roberto doesn't confide in you—I expect he hates you as much as I do! And why should you get all uptight about what he's doing anyway? You're not his father, that you have to wet-nurse him all the time!" She rubbed her bruised wrists, wishing she were bigger and stronger and could hurt him and his pride as much as he had hurt her and hers. "Oh, how I hate you!" she exclaimed. "You're nothing but a big bully!" He sat on the edge of the bed, watching her. "You have only to tell me what I want to know," he pointed out. "Well, I'm not going to!" "Not?" The silkiness of his tone should have warned her, but she was too busy examining the bruises that were already appearing on her wrists. "Look what you've done to me!" she commanded. He held out his hand and she put her own in his, pointing indignantly at the marks his manhandling had left on her skin. Instead of obeying her, however, he pulled her down on to his knee, holding her there by force.

"You'd better hurry up, Eve, or you will have a great deal more to complain about!" "I'm not going to tell you anything!" He turned her face to his and, very slowly, savouring her rigid anger, he took her lips with his own, kissing her with a thoroughness that left her breathless and disturbingly weak against the strength of his arm. "Well?" he prompted her. The humiliation of her position seared her. She had never been kissed in such a manner in her entire life. She dropped her head to hide her tears, refusing to meet the mocking amusement in his eyes. How dared he find anything funny in her predicament? For an instant she considered defying him further, but she was in no mind to have him kiss her again. It might not stop here, and she couldn't be sure that her pleadings would change his mind one jot if he really intended to bend her to his will. "I don't know where Roberto is," she said at last. "I haven't seen him for days. I didn't even know he was missing." His eyes burned into hers. "Is that the truth?" "Of course it is!" She sighed wearily. "I like Roberto, but he doesn't mean anything more to me than any other friend. Please believe me!"

"But then your friends mean such a lot to you!" he drawled. She coloured. "At least they don't kiss me against my will!" The fight went out of her as suddenly as it had flared up. "Besides, Roberto knows how important it is for him to pass his English examinations. He would hardly be likely to come running after me in the circumstances." "I wish I could think so. I think he may come yet!" He stood up, tipping her back on to her feet. "Don't look so distressed, Eve, I didn't really hurt you—only frighten you a little!" Eve drew herself up, drawing the tattered remnants of her pride about her. "I'm not in the least afraid of you!" she denied hotly. "I despise and dislike you—" His laughter cut her off. "If you weren't afraid," he mocked her, resting his hand on her still hammering heart, "what were you ?" "You're despicable!" He bent his head and kissed her cheek. "I almost wish I were," he whispered in her ear. "To have the schooling of you would be—shall we say interesting?" "You really are the most conceited man it's ever been my misfortune to meet!" she stormed at him. "Nothing would induce me to to—to leave any of my education to you!" "One can't always choose in these matters," he observed. "Someone ought to stop you from playing the field, or

whatever it is you call it these days. Roberto, for instance, is not the master for you, whatever you may think." "Roberto? Oh, really, that's too much! Can you imagine Roberto—" She broke off hastily. "Yes, well, I don't want a master of any kind now or in the future, thank you very much. What I do want is some sleep, so now that you've discovered that Roberto is not here, will you please go!" Vittorio raised his eyebrows, looking more arrogant than ever. "I? I go? I'm not going anywhere." "But you can't stay here!" she exclaimed. "As a concession I will allow you to have my bed," he went on coolly. "I'll make do with one of the others for tonight. Come along and help me make it up." "I'll do nothing of the sort! You'll have to go to a hotel!" "My dear girl," he said slowly and very clearly, "if I went to a hotel at this time of night the whole island would be reverberating with the news by tomorrow morning. There wouldn't be a soul who wouldn't believe that I had brought you here and then quarrelled with you!" His eyes were mocking. "They'll undoubtedly think I invited you here anyway!" "But you didn't!"

"You and I know that, but women like Signora Fellici work on an altogether earthier plane. Why do you suppose she put you in the only double bed in the villa?" Eve looked at him accusingly. "I suppose you've brought other—lots of girls here?" "Of course," he said easily. "You can try telling her that you are really here because of Roberto, but she won't believe you. Roberto is far too young to have a girl-friend like you tucked away in my villa!" "I might have known you'd find something beastly to say!" Eve retorted. There was a flicker of a smile on Vittorio's face. "Even allowing for Roberto's Italian blood, he wouldn't be any good for you—" "You don't know your brother at all!" she interrupted him. "So please don't make any more of your suggestive remarks. I find them in very bad taste." "Do you know him better?" Eve ignored the implication in his words. "Roberto has more respect for women in his little finger, despite his Italian blood, than you have in your whole body!" "How disappointing for you !" he observed blandly.

She shook with rage, but one glance at him was enough too tell her that it would be unwise to lose her temper with him. "Are you really going to stay here ?" she demanded. "Why not? I'm both tired and hungry, and this is my villa when all is said and done." "Then I shall find some other accommodation!" "Don't be silly, Eve, There's only one way to put an end to Roberto's nonsense, and that's for him to find me here before him. He's hardly likely to compete for your favours with me!" "Thanks very much!" Eve cried out, stung. "You must be mad if you think Roberto is coming here!" "Isn't he?" His eyes held hers for a long moment. "You still don't believe me, do you?" she snapped. "I'm prepared to believe that you don't know for certain whether he's coming or not, and that you're not at all sure that you can manage me as easily as you manage him!" "I don't manage people!" she said. His arrogant stare brought the colour rushing into her cheeks. "Very wise of you," he murmured, "because you haven't a hope of managing me!" He smiled suddenly. "The boot is on the other foot, for I intend to manage you very

closely, my dear. Perhaps we'll both find we like the arrangement—you never know!" "I know! I'm going straight back to England tomorrow—" He didn't deign to answer. Instead he walked out of the bedroom and into the bathroom, pulling the bedding he was going to need out of the airing- cupboard into a pile On the floor. "I'll make my bed myself," he called out to her. "You can get me something to eat, Signora Fellici keeps the refrigerator well stocked with eggs and ham and that sort of thing. An omelette, or something like that, will do for now. Okay ?" "Get it yourself!" Eve rebelled. There was silence from the bathroom and curiosity led her to the doorway. "You could at least say please!" she added. He picked up the bedding and came towards her, touching her lightly on the cheek with one finger. "You're right," he agreed unexpectedly. "I'll get it myself. Go back to sleep, Eve, and don't worry. It won't seem half as bad in the morning as you think it is now. Buona notte!" She didn't think she would sleep a wink with him in the house, but she never even heard him moving about in the kitchen as he got his meal. She was fast asleep as soon as her head touched the pillow.

CHAPTER THREE WHEN Eve awoke, she was immediately conscious of someone looking at her. She started upright into a sitting position and looked about her. Vittorio Millini was standing at the foot of her bed, looking down at her with a forbidding expression on his face. "What are you doing in here?" she demanded, wishing that she was not full of sleep and muzzy from her sudden awakening. "The postman has been," he said. He held out an envelope to her. "You have a letter—from Roberto!" He laughed shortly. "You must forgive my reading your correspondence, but it happened to get caught up in an envelope addressed to me and I opened it before I realised that it was certainly not intended for me." Eve thought she must be muzzier than she knew. "I don't know what you're talking about," she complained. Despite the deep sleep she supposed she had just had, she felt far from refreshed and not at all ready to face Vittorio Millini. "Naturally not!" he observed. Eve shrugged and put the letter, unread, down on the bedside table. "I want to get up," she said abruptly. "Would you mind—?" She looked up and met his disapproving gaze. "Aren't you going to read your letter?" he asked her.

"In a minute," she said. "When you are alone?" he drawled, an insult implicit in his voice. "Perhaps," she agreed. "I don't see that it has anything to do with you." "Be careful, Eve, you already know better than that! Your country may have made you a so-called adult at eighteen, but Roberto is not yet of age, you know." "Neither are you his guardian !" she snapped back. He turned without a word and walked out of the bedroom, shutting the door with a sharp click behind him. Eve lay back against the pillows, now wide awake, the warm cocoon of sleep rudely shattered by Vittorio Millini's disapproval. Why should his disapproval matter to her ? He was nothing to her! She reached out and picked up the letter he had given her, wondering what Roberto had written to her that had made his brother so angry. She simply couldn't imagine why Roberto should take it into his head to write to her—he had nothing to say to her, surely ? Eve glanced down at the signature, mildly amused by the audacious flourish that was apparently the way in which Roberto signed his letters. Then she was frozen into immobility by the words that came immediately before the signature: Completely yours as I hope you will be

completely mine!' She uttered an ejaculation, feeling quite faint inside when she thought of Vittorio reading those words before her. The whole Millini family must have gone mad! Stark, staring mad! Swallowing down her chagrin, she turned to the beginning of the letter. It began as flamboyantly as it had ended. My sweet love! I am coming to Elba myself, which I could not previously promise you. It has been very difficult to get away, though you must have known that I would after getting your letter, and Vittorio's visit made things a great deal worse. My English is well enough, as you can see, so no worries on that score, and you will have no difficulty in reading this and there is less danger of it falling into anyone else's hands. When I come, we will sort out something between us, despite Vittorio and my wretched family. Completely yours as I hope you will be completely mine, Roberto. Eve's hands trembled as she re-folded the single page and put it back into the envelope. She got out of bed, averting her eyes from the note until she had almost finished dressing. For a moment she was strongly tempted to tear it into tiny pieces and dispose of the resulting confetti down

the lavatory. She picked up the envelope intending to do just that, but then she saw that it was not addressed to her at all, but to a Signorina Francesca Cagnolo, whoever she might be! She was in two minds as to whether to present Vittorio with this evidence as to how wrong he was about her, but something stayed her hand. Why should she excuse her behaviour to him, like a little girl over-anxious to win his approval? It was only later that she thought that it might be amusing also to watch anyone as arrogant and conceited as Vittorio undoubtedly was make a thoroughgoing fool of himself ! Oh, what a magnificent apology she would wring out of him when this was all over! She went over to the window and looked out, picturing to herself the scene of her triumph. It was the first time she had seen the island in daylight and she was immediately attracted by some wisteria that clung to the balcony in front of her window. Beyond lay the sea, so clear that she could see dark patches of seaweed that grew well below the surface and some of the rocks that made little eddies of current in the deep, still water. Pine trees, shaped by the wind and the steepness of the land, made patches of dark green shade where wild garlic flourished in large clumps of white, bell-shaped flowers. She finished dressing automatically, making wild, unrealistic plans as to how she would creep out of the villa and go back to England without Vittorio knowing that she had gone. But, she concluded, unless she were to jump off her bedroom's

balcony, probably breaking her neck into the bargain, the only way out of the villa was through the hall, and she knew that he would be there, waiting for her, as soon as he heard her open her door. However, there came a time when she could put off the moment no longer. She opened the door with cold, stiff fingers, her head held high, determined to face him without flinching. It wasn't her fault that Roberto should have written such a stupid letter! And it certainly wasn't her fault that he was coming to Elba, no matter what Vittorio thought. She had no reason to be afraid of him! He was waiting for her at the kitchen door. To her surprise, Eve saw he had made some coffee and had poured out a cup for her, which he was holding out to her. She took it from him, giving him a faint smile of thanks. "What are you and Roberto playing at?" he whipped out. "You may as well tell me the truth now—" "I haven't told you anything else!" His eyes mocked her. "Are all the other men you know so unappreciative of your charms that you have to make do with a boy ?" "I don't 'make do' with anyone!" she snapped. "Not that it's any business of yours!" she added. Vittorio chose to ignore her words. "Do you think that a man couldn't cut Roberto, and all the others, out of your scheme

of things if he set his mind to> it?" he asked. "I've a good mind to show you exactly how easy it would be!" "Roberto isn't in my scheme of things!" He gave an impatient shrug to his shoulders. "Why can't you be honest with me ? I'm prepared to believe you don't feel much for him, but Roberto is a different matter. He knows better than to lend my property without my permission. He must have thought you were easy game to think it worth getting on the wrong side of me—" "That would be a pleasure to anyone with an ounce of spirit!" Eve retorted. "As you will discover!" he said in a voice of steel. He sketched her some kind of salute and brushed past her out into the hall. She heard him go outside and speak to the gardener who was working there. Her coffee had grown cold in her cup and she threw it away, pouring herself another cup. In all her twenty years, no one had accused her of being a cross between a femme fatale and a cradle-snatcher before. She finished her coffee and washed up her cup and Vittorio's as well. "Why can't you go away?" she demanded, when Vittorio came back into the kitchen. "Or at any rate leave me alone!" He smiled. "Because I have plans which include you—" "Wh-what plans?"

"Largely that you should be seen about in my company so that there is no doubt in anyone's mind as to whom you belong by the time Roberto arrives." "I don't, and won't, belong to either of you—I belong to myself! I know you're deliberately trying to be offensive, Mr. Millini, but I'm going back to England and so you needn't bother about me any more!" "Oh no, Eve Alliston. You're staying right here where I can keep an eye on you! You chose to play this little comedy and play it you will, right through to the bitter end! I'm sorry you don't approve of the change in the male lead, but I think I can persuade you that it is a change for the better. I promise you, you won't find me a dull or laggardly lover." Eve sank on to the nearest chair. "Mr. Millini, I know you won't believe me, but I didn't know Roberto was coming to Elba. I'd much prefer you both to go away and leave me to get on with my holiday, instead of doing your best to ruin it for me!" She flushed despite herself. "I don't know why you should think so badly of me, but I'm not like that, and— please won't you wait and see Roberto before you do anything that—that you'll regret?" His eyes ran over her, apparently appreciative of what he saw. "Afraid, Eve? Afraid that I won't be content with a few stolen kisses, or come to heel when you blow the whistle? But then you were made for stronger stuff than that! I don't think I shall regret anything about you. On the contrary, I

find you a most beguiling piece. Roberto has better taste than I thought!" "You can't make me stay!" He put a hand under her hair on the nape of her neck and drew her towards him. "Of course I can, foolish Eve. Don't try your luck too far, my dear!" His lips barely touched hers, but she knew that he had made his point. "I hate you!" she whispered through clenched teeth. He kissed her again, half smiling. "You hate me just as much as you love Roberto, and that's not very much!" "I hate you both! and I have no intention of wasting the whole morning, staying here and being insulted by you!" "Certainly not!" he agreed, touching his mouth to hers one last time. "We'll go across to Porto Azzuro together. There is someone there I want you to meet." She looked at him uncertainly. "I don't want to go with you," she began. She twisted her lips trying to rid them of the lingering sensation of his kiss. "It's my holiday, so why shouldn't I do as I like?" "Eve, try not to argue with everything I say. You're coming with me and that's that! I'm not going to let you out of my sight for the next few days, and it will be a great deal more pleasant for both of us if you accept that."

She swallowed. "And if I don't?" "I think you will," he drawled, making the colour fly to her cheeks. "The person I want you to meet will see to that." "Oh? Who is he?" "Not he, she. I'm taking you to see Francesca Cagnolo, the girl Roberto will one day marry." He ran his finger along the line of her jaw and down the side of her neck. "She's a nice girl," he went on smoothly. "I think you'll like her."

"Perhaps I ought to change my dress," Eve said. If she were indeed going to meet Francesca Cagnolo, she ought to deliver Roberto's letter to her, and she had left it beside her bed in the bedroom. "You look all right to me," Vittorio drawled. "My bag!" she exclaimed in desperation. "I'll just fetch my bag!" Vittorio caught her by the wrist. "You have it on your arm. What's the matter with you ? You're coming with me, and you won't be able to escape that by hiding away in your room." "I'm not hiding!" she protested. "I'll be back in a minute." She wrenched her arm away from him and made a blind dash into the bedroom, retrieving the letter from where she

had left it. Her hands were trembling and she fumbled the catch on her bag as she tried to open it to put the note inside, but in the end she managed it and took a deep breath of relief. When she turned round, Vittorio was standing in the doorway, watching her. "Are you ready?" he asked her. She nodded, wondering at the puzzled look in his eyes as he regarded her. Had he seen her put the letter in her bag? She thought not, but she couldn't be quite sure. He said nothing about it, however, and she allowed herself to be hurried out of the villa into the sunshine. "How do we get to Porto Azzuro?" she asked him, not liking the silence between them. "I have a boat moored up at the bottom of the cliff.: Porto Azzuro is only a few minutes away on the other side of the bay." "It seemed further last night," she confided, remembering her ride in the taxi. "The road has to go right round the bay," he told her. "It is only a few hundred metres by sea. Look, you can see it now over there." She looked where he was pointing. "What's that large building on the hill? It looks terribly romantic, dominating the whole town like that."

"That's the prison," he said. "It looks even more romantic when it's lit up at night. There's a shop there where you can buy your souvenirs if you like." She thought it an odd place to do one's shopping. "I'm not sure I want to have anything to remind me of Elba," she said provocatively. "The prisoners make the things themselves." His eyes glinted at her. "I'll buy you a fisherman's jersey to wear on the boat in the evenings—if you're good !" "Thank you, but I buy my own clothes!" "With Roberto, I expect you do!" he said drily. She made a face at him, but her annoyance with him was immediately forgotten as she followed him down the steep track to the sea. The beauty of her surroundings caught at her heart-strings. The golden earth was edged with pink and blue and yellow of the wild flowers and the black-green of the pine trees. Below, the sea was a vivid blue, stained with dark green pools of seaweed and submerged rocks, and the pale green of large patches of sand that showed clearly through several feet of water. Beside her, falling away to the hotel and the beach, were a series of vineyards, their first foliage just breaking into leaf. Here and there, they were already wired for the time when their leaves would flourish and the heavy weight of the grapes would tend to drag in the dust, but mostly the vines stood free, like very small, gnarled

trees of a rich brown colour, making weird and wonderful shapes against the neatly raked earth. Vittorio led her past a squat, square lighthouse and down some steps to the sea. The wild garlic added a fragrance to the air and she picked some, crushing the leaves between her fingers and smelling the sharp tang of onion that resulted. The boat was bigger than she had expected. It had two cabins, separated by a central cockpit. Vittorio helped her over the side and she sat down on the narrow seat that ran round the cockpit, well away from the wheel and the engine. "Do you want to take her out ?" he asked. Eve shook her head. She didn't like to confess that she had never been in such a boat before and hadn't the faintest idea how too make it go. "I prefer it if you steer," she said. He looked amused, but said nothing. The engine started at a touch. He left it idling for a minute while he cast off the ropes from the shore and jumped aboard again. He pushed the gear-lever into the forward position with his knee and slid the accelerator downwards. The boat leaped forward as smooth as cream and headed straight out to sea. With a careless touch of one hand he pulled her round and set course for Porto Azzuro, which Eve could just glimpse coming into view behind the point.

Five minutes later they had arrived. Vittorio brought the boat in beside the quay as smoothly as they had left the landing stage on the other side of the bay. He stepped ashore and gathered up the ropes, fastening them to the bollards provided for the purpose. Then he reached down for Eve's hands and swung her ashore beside him. She felt suddenly breathless and pulled away from him as quickly as possible, very aware of his dark eyes and the steely strength of his fingers. "Oh, look, you can see the prison from here too!" she exclaimed. His sardonic smile made her blush. "The Cagnolos live up the same road," he told her. Eve made a play of looking at the series of solid- looking buildings that stood behind the tall and ancient walls. Almost all the buildings were coloured yellow ochre in the town, and the prison was no exception to this. Here and there the paint was peeling away from the walls and the dust of past years had whipped against the walls, leaving long dirty marks that stretched outwards from the corners. Yet, if anything, the other houses that clung to the hills that sloped upwards from the little port were in even worse repair. So it must have been the knowledge that this particular building was a prison, where men were incarcerated for life, that made her think it had a peculiarly sombre, brooding presence.

"Can't I wait for you here?" she suggested. "The cafes look so much more cheerful—" "Where I go, you go, my dear Eve!" He began to walk along the quay towards the square around which were grouped the cafes and a few tourist shops full of souvenirs and miniature statues of Napoleon. "And don't argue. You'll need all your breath to get up and down these hills!" The road up to the prison was certainly steep and narrow. Whenever a car went by they had to flatten themselves against the wall and once, when two cars tried to pass each other, they had to go right inside one of the small shops that stood on either side of the street. But soon they came out of the town and were practically underneath the prison itself. One or two cars, carrying policemen or warders, blared their horns as they sped through the tunnel that led to the outer walls. Eve felt hot and sticky by the time they had reached the top and paused to catch her breath at one of the look-out niches that had been placed in the walls. "Come on!" Vittorio commanded her. "We'll go to the prison first and pick out your sweater—" "Never!" Eve declared. She turned her back on him, shrugged her shoulders, and stared out at the view across the town towards Naregno, the place they had just come from. He stood behind her, a hand on either side of her, imprisoning her where she stood. "You'll do as you're told," he said in her ear. "Exactly as you're told!"

Eve turned her head a little. "If you touch me, I'll scream !" she warned him. "I mean it, signore ! We're not alone at your villa now!" "Will you?" he said so softly that she barely heard him. "I think not." He turned her round to face him. "Please, Vittorio!" she begged. "You'll accept the sweater and wear it when I tell you to?" Her lips closed mutinously. She would not! "You can't make me," she dared him. "We'll see," he murmured. He scooped her into his arms and lowered his face to hers, running his mouth across her eyes, down the side of her nose, and finally finding her mouth. She thought her ribs would break beneath the pressure of his arms and the warmth of his lips brought forth a response from her that she had not thought she had been capable of making. She was trembling when he released her and, if he had not held her close against him, soothing her with his hands as he might have done some wild animal he was trying to reassure, her knees would have given way under her completely. "Little cheat," he said. "This isn't a path you've ever trodden before, is it ? You're nothing but a tease, Eve Alliston!" She shook her head, trying vainly to restore order to her upside-down emotions. "I'm not!" she denied.

"Not with Roberto? Not with those other young men you have in tow ? The only mystery is how you escaped being cornered before. Whatever induced you to start playing the fool with Roberto? Didn't you ever stop to consider that you might get hurt?" Eve managed a laugh. "Roberto is too much of a gentleman—" "He wouldn't have had quite the same effect, but it wouldn't have been from lack of trying! And as for you—didn't it occur to you what you were laying yourself open to by staying alone at my villa?" "No," she admitted. "How was I to know that you'd be coming? I'd never have set foot in Elba if I'd known you were anywhere around!" "You're telling me!" he laughed, putting a possessive hand on the small of her back. "You're far too good for Roberto, Eva mia. You're a charming little beauty, with your cheeks all flushed and your eyes stormy, but you don't deceive me, my love. Shout at me as much as you like, but you're mine for the having, and we both know it!" He touched her hair, fingering the pins that held it in place. "Come on, my sweet, and we'll buy your sweater. I'm looking forward to seeing you in it. I'm sure you'll fill it very nicely!" The gleam in his eye held her silent. He might buy it, but nothing would induce her to wear it. "I'm not, you know!" she blurted out.

"Not what?" "I'm not yours for the having! And I'm not a tease. I'm not anything!" "That, cara mia, is the silliest thing you've said yet. You're the most provocative little wretch I've ever come across, though not, perhaps, as sophisticated as you had led me to believe !" "There you are!" she claimed. "I didn't lead you to believe anything! It was you who jumped to the first conclusion—" "If you're trying to tell me that you've never been out of your depth before, I already know it! But don't expect me to haul you back to the shallows." His face softened into a smile. "You present me with enough problems without that!" "But, Vittorio—" "No more now, love. Come on, the Cagnolos are expecting us." But if she thought he had forgotten about the sweater, she was mistaken. She followed him reluctantly past a small orchard and on to the bridge that led across the prison moat, now planted with vines and vegetables. The guards stood idly by, leaning against the walls on either side of the massive door they were guarding. They recognised Vittorio immediately.

"Buon giorno, signore." They turned to her. "Buon giorno, signorina," they added more shyly. Vittorio leaned his back against the wall beside the door of the prison shop and lit himself a cigarette. He drawled some remark to the guards that Eve couldn't quite hear, and suspected she wouldn't have understood if she had. The guards laughed and shrugged their shoulders. One of them turned on a light inside the shop and obligingly unlocked the door, motioning them to go inside. Eve was astonished by the extent and variety of the goods on sale. There were model boats, painted pictures, crochetwork, everything that the prisoners could make in their free time, thus earning for themselves a little pocket money. Vittorio went straight to the sweaters, sorting through them for one that he thought would be about the right size. He pulled Eve into the centre of the floor and held a couple of sweaters up against her, intent on the serious business of getting as good a fit as possible. "I shan't wear it!" she told him. He smoothed the sweater against her, looking at it critically. "Of course you'll wear it! You wouldn't wish to displease me again, would you?" His smile deliberately challenged her. "We'll take this one, shall we?" She was forced to agree that he had chosen the pick of the bunch. The sweater was warm and chunky, knitted in an offwhite wool that she knew would suit her. If only it hadn't

been Vittorio who was buying it for her, she would have loved to have possessed such a garment, but how could she allow him, or any man, to buy her. clothes for her? He paid over what seemed like a vast sum of money to the guard and put the package under his arm, taking her arm in his free hand and smiling at her. "You can thank me later," he said drily. She started indignantly, her eyes smouldering. "Thank you ! I'll—" "Hush, the guard is watching you. I think he's expecting a more feminine reaction from you than a violent show of illtemper." He strode out of the prison without a backward look. "Come on, Eve, we'll be late!" She had to run to keep up with him, but he didn't slacken his pace at all. When she came level with him, he handed her the sweater with a suddenness that nearly made her drop it. "Seeing that you're feeling so independent, you can carry your own parcels!" She hugged the sweater to her. "I'm sorry," she said. "Of course I want to thank you, but you shouldn't have bought it. I love the sweater, but I'm not that sort of a girl. You don't have to buy me things—" "Not even if I want to?"

"You don't understand!" she exclaimed. "It isn't that I don't want you to give it to me, but it isn't comme it faut for me to accept it from you. I can't take it from you!" He swore under his breath, putting a hand under her elbow and hurrying her along the uneven street. "That is for other people!" he said. "This is a stage prop, no more than that. I shall buy you anything I please and we shall have no more argument about it!" He frowned down at her. "None! You will accept it and wear it, because it pleases me that you should do so. Is that understood?" Eve held the sweater more tightly to her. "I suppose so," she reluctantly agreed.

CHAPTER FOUR THE Cagnolo house was very near the prison, sharing the same view from the headland above the small town of Porto Azzuro. The house had once been beautiful, but many years of neglect had given it a decrepit look. The shutters banged in the light wind, their catches long since lost, and ugly green stains showed where the roof leaked and where odd bits of plaster had fallen away and had never been replaced. A young girl stood at the end of the driveway, waiting for them. Eve thought she was about seventeen years of age, lean and awkward, with a mane of glossy mousy-coloured hair and a complexion that bore witness to the hot Italian sun. She ran forward and hugged Vittorio with all the affection of an old friend, ignoring Eve completely. "When is Roberto coming home?" she asked him. "You'll be the first to know, Francesca, I'm sure of that," he said, holding out a peremptory hand towards Eve. "I want you to meet a young friend of Zia Gemma's—and mine. Eve, this is Francesca Cagnolo, a very special friend of Roberto's." Francesca favoured Eve with an antagonistic stare. "Does she know Roberto too?" she demanded. To Eve's consternation, she found herself enclosed in the circle of Vittorio's arms, with a naturalness that was very Italian, and which she should have been able to take in her

stride. "She knows me better," Vittorio smiled. "Zia Gemma invited her to stay at my villa. I found her there last night." Francesca's eyes flew to Eve's face. "Did Roberto tell you to come to the villa?" she asked, a look of suspicion crossing her face. "He knew I was coming to Elba," Eve replied. Vittorio kissed her forehead with deliberation. "Eve is with me," he said. "Roberto is far too young for her!" Francesca's eyes flew to Eve's face. "Did Roberto she—" nodding towards Eve—"she is not very old herself!" She faced up to Vittorio, looking cross. "What will Maria Lena say to her being here?" she asked him. Vittorio was quite impassive. "What should she say? Maria Lena is a friend of the family, no more than that." Francesca frowned. "Is that all that Roberto thinks of me?" Vittorio shrugged. "You will have to ask him that," he said in Italian. "Is your father at home? I will have my coffee with him, while you two girls get to know each other." Francesca took them into the house. She knocked on her father's study door. "Papa, Papa, Vittorio has come to see you."

The door was flung open with an Italian exclamation of approval and Signor Cagnolo embraced Vittorio with all the fervour of an old friend. Then he turned to Eve, saying something to Vittorio that she didn't understand. Eve's response was to hurry after Francesca down the hall and into the rather formal sitting-room at the other end of the house. Francesca pulled a chair forward for her to sit on. The Italian girl was plainly hostile. She stood in front of Eve, her arm hugging herself round the waist so that she looked all elbows and wrists and bony shoulders. "How well do you know Roberto?" she demanded in staccato tones. "Not very well," Eve assured her. "I do some typing sometimes for Mrs. Rawlinson and Roberto has been staying with her while he studied for his English exams—" "Why does he need to learn English? He will be working here in Italy!" "Will he?" Eve was surprised. "I thought he wanted to go to America eventually. I know Vittorio wants him to be a lawyer like himself—Vittorio is a lawyer, isn't he ?—but Roberto has other ideas." "If you know that, you must know him better than you say!" Francesca exclaimed. Eve shook her head. "We've talked, that's all."

Francesca looked her straight in the eye, for all the world like a tigress defending her only cub. "Did Vittorio invite you to stay at his villa?" "Not exactly," Eve admitted. "Mrs. Rawlinson said I could stay there. I didn't know it belonged to Vittorio—" "Zia Gemma did that? But Vittorio said you belonged to him? Is it that you are not his girl after all?" Eve wondered how she could escape this inquisition without being rude. "Vittorio is—Vittorio," she said. "Why do you not go back to England?" The harsh question was almost spat at her. Eve blinked. "I want to," she said, "but Vittorio—" She broke off. She opened her handbag and pulled out the note Roberto had written. "This came to the villa this morning. Vittorio thought it was addressed to me, but as you can see it was meant for you. I brought it—" "Roberto wrote to you? You are Roberto's girlfriend ! You make me very unhappy, let me tell you. Vittorio would not make a silly mistake like that. You have come here for Roberto, no ? But when he comes, you will see! Roberto and I have always done everything together. Not even you will be able to take him away from me! You will see how much he loves me!" "I don't want either of them!" Eve said patiently. "I only want to go back to England."

"Then why don't you go?" Eve went on looking at her. "I've told you, I want to go—" "Then go! Go now! No one will stop you." "Vittorio—-" "I will keep Vittorio with us until after lunch. Maria Lena will wish to see him, and she will help me!" Francesca snatched Roberto's letter out of Eve's fingers. "Have you read this also ?" Eve nodded. "I didn't see the envelope until afterwards. I thought Roberto was as mad as Vittorio is at first. The letter got caught up in one of Vittorio's, you see, and he—and he—" "Is Vittorio in love with you?" "No." Eve managed to sound uninterested. "But he won't let me go—he said so. Will you really keep him here while I arrange for my ticket and—and everything?" Francesca shrugged her shoulders. "Why not? The door is open. You have only to walk out and go where you will. No one here will stop you." She smiled a small, secretive smile, looking more at her ease than she had all the time they had been talking. "Thank you for bringing Roberto's letter. I was not very nice to you about it, but you see, I am a very jealous person. It is my nature to be so. I miss him so much that it hurts! And now I need him very badly too. He must come to

me soon!" The marked Italian accent with which she spoke added a special poignancy to her words and Eve felt a rush of sympathy for her. "Judging by his letter, he seems to be missing you too," she commented. Francesca gave her a dignified look and inclined her head. "Of course," she murmured. "Will you see yourself out?" Eve shook hands with the Italian girl, feeling rather selfconscious as she did so, but it would be rather too casual, she thought, just to get up and go without another word. The front door was, as Francesca had pointed out, standing open. Eve crept past the study door and hurried out into the bright sunshine. In a matter of moments she was back on the steep sloping street that led down to the town and was rushing down it as fast as her legs would carry her. The walk downhill seemed much shorter than going the other way. She had reached the shops almost before she knew it and she ran the last few yards into the main square, her spirits lifting dramatically as she realised she was free. The plane trees that lined the square were just coming into leaf. The bright spring green caught the sun and danced in the gentle breeze. Little eddies of dust sprang up from nowhere and cavorted up and down the narrow streets that radiated off the square. On the other side the boats tugged at their moorings, half hidden by a row of cars parked facing the water. A couple of old fisherman sat on one of the wooden seats exchanging gossip and a few black-garbed

woman walked up and down the streets, peering in at the shop windows. Otherwise the whole town looked deserted. Eve caught her breath, wondering what to do. She thought she would have a coffee while she decided. She wanted to sit in the sun on the pavement, as she had been told people always did on the continent, but she had to wait a long time before anyone came for her order and she began to worry how soon it would be before Vittorio found she was gone. She was about to stand up again when the boy finally came for her order. "Caffe con latte," she ordered. It came almost immediately. It was thick and strong and she didn't like it much. It was very bitter. She began to wish she had asked for something else. She wondered what Vittorio would have ordered for her had he been there. She finished her coffee with an involuntary shudder. The dregs in the bottom of the cup told her how strong the brew had been. She had probably asked for the wrong kind of coffee to suit the English taste. Perhaps a caffe capuccino would have suited her better. She pushed the cup away from her and stood up, still hugging her precious sweater. A shadow fell across the table and she looked up sharply, just as Vittorio took a bruising hold on her arm. She turned like a flash, but there was no escaping his restraining hand. "Let me go!" she commanded him.

He pushed her back into the chair she had just vacated and sat down opposite her, slowly lighting himself a cigarette. The tobacco smelt stronger than the English brands she was accustomed to, but she did not dislike it. "I'm not going back to the villa," she said defiantly. He raised his eyebrows. "Oh? And I'll show you the Fellici house on the way home. I'm afraid you'll have to put up with the villa and me-—and Roberto when he gets here, of course. Did you think I would let you go?" "You can't keep me here against my will!" "You must be hungry," he said, taking no notice. "We'll go home and you can cook us both a fine meal. You'll feel better when you've had something to eat." "I'm not going anywhere with you!" "I think you must. I can't leave you alone on the side of the street. It is not the way of an Italian man to leave a woman unprotected." Eve rummaged in her handbag for a handkerchief and blew her nose violently. "I intend to be here when the ferry gets in tonight," she informed him with what she hoped was decision. "I have a great deal to say to that brother of yours! And I shall find myself a hotel—" He took a sweater from her, unhooking her fingers from the chunky wool. "It is too late to worry your head about the

conventions, but I shan't allow any harm to come to you, I promise you. No one will question your being at the villa when it is seen that you are there at my invitation. Besides— " his smile was decidedly mocking—"it is more convenient to me to have you there !" "I don't see why!" "Don't you?" He sounded amused. "I need someone to cook the lunch, what else ?" He took her arm in his and walked her firmly towards the place where they had left the boat. Eve stepped on board and sat down quickly, arranging her skirt neatly round her knees with a demureness she was far from feeling. "And to think I thought Italy was such a romantic place," she said, just loud enough for him to hear. "I might have known it would turn out to be the romance of the kitchen stove !"

She found some steaks that Signora Fellici had brought and left in the fridge, and a vast variety of vegetables and fruit in the larder beside the back door. The cooker, she discovered, was fuelled by butane gas. She couldn't make it work at first, but she soon found that by turning the valve in the direction that she would have

thought would turn it off, the gas came flooding through to the cooker and she was able to light it quite easily. As soon as the potatoes were cooked, she grilled the steaks, heavily garnished with garlic, and heated the plates at the same time. She served the meal on the kitchen table, making it look as pleasant as possible, then went outside to call Vittorio in for the meal. His eyes went straight to her carefully draped sweater, but he said nothing. He sat down at the head of the table and waited for her to put his laden plate in front of him. "Another feminine accomplishment you have in full measure," he suggested as he cut into his steak. "I can cook this sort of thing, but I've never tried pastas and Italian cookery. I expect I could learn though if I had a decent cookery book—" She trailed off. "It can't be very difficult!" He gave a sudden smile. "You don't really want to go back to England at all! You're having the time of your life here with me—or you would if you allowed yourself to!" She brooded on this in silence, wondering why she didn't contradict him. It wouldn't do at all if he imagined that she wanted to stay because of him— and he was conceited enough to think just that! "Mrs. Rawlinson gave me a list of things to find out for her book," she said defensively. "I don't want to disappoint her."

He laughed. "It's as good an excuse as any other!" He pointed at her sweater. "Are you sure that didn't have anything to do with your change of heart? I hope you mean to confess to Roberto exactly how you came by it?" "Is that why—?" she began. "I mean—" "No, it was not why," he answered abruptly. "The why is because I wanted to give it to you. I'll give you anything I like and you'll accept it—" "I haven't .said I'll wear it!" "—accept it with a proper gratitude! And you'll do anything else I tell you to with a good grace," he added. "Like staying here at the villa this afternoon and not running off as soon as my back is turned." "Where are you going?" "I have a client in Portoferraio whom I've arranged to see while I am in Elba. I would take you with me, but it may be a long interview and you would be bored. Besides, I intend to show you Portoferraio myself." "Oh?" she drawled. He raised his eyebrows. "So do I have your promise that you will not run away?" "How do you know you can rely on me to keep it ?" she countered.

He looked amused. "You would hardly ask me that if I couldn't. Well?" "I suppose so," she muttered. "I wouldn't get far on my feet anyway, would I? And the ferry doesn't go again until tomorrow morning." "True. Are you telling me I have no need to extract a promise from you? You know I shall be very angry if I have to go looking for you again?" "That goes without saying," she said. "But I have your word? Good. Then to show how much I trust you, I shall take the boat to Porto Azzuro and take a taxi from there. If you have a driving licence you may use my car to amuse yourself. You'll find it in the garage out the back. It isn't locked and the keys are inside." She was surprised that he should allow her to drive his car. Not that she would have dared to make use of his offer, knowing that it would be a left-hand drive car and that the local roads were narrow and twisted up and down the hills and valleys, doubling back on themselves in the most alarming way. She washed up the dishes, and when she had done, she found the notebook that Mrs. Rawlinson had given her and the book she was reading and went outside, intending to find herself a place with a view of the sea. But it was too hot on the patio outside the villa and, remembering the lighthouse

she had seen that morning, she followed the path down to the beach and settled herself down in the shade of the trees. It was pleasant, lying back and looking up into the pine trees. A fishing boat of classic lines came into the bay and she watched it skim across the navy blue water, into a patch of green and out again. A small group of people came out of the hotel below her and sat under the brightly coloured umbrellas that were placed in groups on the would-be sandy, unwashed beach, typical of those which surround the Mediterranean and suffer both the advantages and disadvantages of edging a tideless sea. For an hour she pretended to read, determined not to think about Vittorio. Her eyes skimmed over the pages, but she had no more idea of what the story was about than when she had started. She put the book down beside her and leaned back against the garlic- covered bank. She was tired after her disturbed night and what had proved to be an even more disturbing day, and after a few minutes she drifted off into sleep, to dream inevitably of Vittorio trying to make her do something she didn't want to, though quite what it was she never discovered. She must have slept for an hour or more when the sound of approaching footsteps disturbed her and she awoke, sitting up quickly, unwilling to be caught at a disadvantage by the approaching stranger. A young woman came lightly up the path towards her. She walked with a springing step, as though she were enjoying

the physical action of propelling herself along. Her hair was short, very black and curly, and her face tanned nut brown by the sun and devoid of any make-up. As she came up to Eve, she paused and smiled. "Mi scusi, signorina," she murmured. Eve smiled back. "Prego," she responded politely. The Italian girl hesitated. "I am Francesca's sister," she announced herself. "I hope you don't mind my seeking you out? I wanted to welcome you to Elba, and I wanted to speak with you too." She sat down quickly, drawing her legs neatly up beneath her. "It's very kind of you," said Eve. "It's the least I can do! My name is Maria Lena. I hope we shall be very good friends." She clenched her fists as though friends was the last thing she wanted to be. "Francesca says you are staying at the Villa Millini alone with Vittorio. Was it he who invited you?" Eve began to feel weary of both the Cagnolo girls and their obvious jealousy where the Millini brothers were concerned. "No, he didn't. He didn't know I was here. His aunt told me I could stay there." "The Contessa?" The Italian girl's surprise was easy to see. Eve shook her head. "Mrs. Rawlinson. We live quite close to her in England and I occasionally do some typing for her.

She suggested that I came here." She produced her notebook. "She wants me to find the answers to these questions for her latest book—" "Ah, so that was why Vittorio didn't know you would be here ! And you, how could you have known that he was coming? No one knew. It is all the fault of Roberto and Francesca. They are very much in love with one another, and although they are far too young to have thoughts of marriage, how do you tell them that?" Eve thought she liked the older sister better than the younger. "I have no doubt that Vittorio is capable of finding a way," she said drily. "So he may! But when two young people are determined, they find a way to make it impossible for them not to marry. That is why Roberto is coming now." Eve wondered if she had understood her aright. "Are you sure?" she asked. "Francesca says it is so. Roberto was here earlier in the year, staying in Vittorio's villa. Francesca says he took her out for a picnic and that it happened then. You can imagine the disgrace if he does not marry her!" But Roberto was too young for such responsibilities ! Eve wondered if Vittorio knew. If he didn't, the Cagnolos would lose no time in telling him, she thought.

"Your two families have been friends for a long time, haven't they?" she asked. Maria Lena laughed. "Since before any of us were born!" She gave the impression that she laughed easily and was kind by nature. "We were brought up together, Vittorio and I, Roberto and Francesca. It was Vittorio and I who first fell in love. We were very young and, of course, swore undying fidelity to one another. Francesca is very suggestible, and naturally she wanted an undying friendship with Roberto too!" She laughed casually, as if it were all of very little moment. "But that is not why I came. I saw Vittorio in his boat and I thought it a good opportunity to ask you if you would not prefer to come to Porto Azzuro and stay with us." Eve was taken aback. "I don't think Vittorio—" Maria Lena laughed again. "He is always the same, thinking only of himself! That would be all right if you were one of his usual girls, but you are respectable, no? And a little afraid to be with Vittorio on your own? With Roberto not here yet, I think it better you should stay with us." "It's very kind of you," said Eve, trying to square it with her conscience to be considering leaving the villa yet again. "But Vittorio told me not to—" "I know, it is hard to go against Vittorio when up his mind to anything. Normally, me, I do with what he does—and who has a better right this time he goes too far. I will not stand by

he has made not interfere than I?—but and see you

hurt! I know better than to keep him on leading reins, unlike Francesca with Roberto, but this I cannot allow!" "I don't think I shall be very welcome as far as Francesca is concerned," Eve warned her. "Could you explain to her, do you think, that I don't have any designs on Roberto?" Maria Lena looked amused. "If you like. I'll tell her that neither of the Millini brothers mean a thing to you, is that right?" Eve contented herself with a brief nod. Maria Lena surveyed her gravely. "I am afraid we Cagnolos have made a bad impression. It is not really that we are jealous people, but Francesca is unbalanced at the moment, and it has all been understood for so long that our futures are all tied up with one another. You will find Francesca quite different when she sees that you are not a threat to her marriage." "I see," Eve said slowly. "So it's all settled. She and Roberto, and you and Vittorio?" Maria Lena cast her eyes down in a modest gesture. "It is understood," she agreed carefully, "but there is nothing official." Eve turned quickly away. "I hope you'll be very happy!" she murmured. "Thank you," said Maria Lena. "I thought it best to tell you."

Eve only wished she could agree with her. It was the last thing she wanted to know. She wanted someone much better for Vittorio than Maria Lena, and she couldn't help being disappointed by his choice, though of course it was no possible business of hers! She got to her feet in a single easy movement, followed by the Italian girl. "I think I will come and stay with you," she said. "Shall I come with you now?"

CHAPTER FIVE MARIA LENA sat on the bed and watched Eve pack her few possessions in her suitcase. "I told my father I would bring you back for the evening meal. It will be better if you are quite settled in with us before Vittorio finds you gone. He will be glad to know you are comfortably arranged and that he has his villa back to himself. If you are already with us, he will know that he need not worry any further about you." The Italian girl looked at Eve, her eyes inscrutable. "It will not be so bad," she comforted her. "I shall enjoy showing you how we live in Elba. It will be pleasant to have another girl to talk to, and I will show you round the island, and help you with Zia Gemma's queries, no ? You must see both Napoleon's palaces! I am visiting them often by myself. Everyone likes to visit them and I have often listened to the tourists talking as they go round the rooms where he lived, and they all say what a fool he was to leave Elba for Waterloo!" Eve thought they were only too right, but she felt obliged to make some protest on the Emperor's behalf. "Didn't the French fail to pay his allowance?" "Naturally." Maria Lena favoured her with a half- smile. "He was a great French hero!" Eve smiled. "Was his sister Pauline here too?"

Maria Lena made a disapproving face. "She was here—and she was very badly behaved!" Eve wondered what Pauline, who by all accounts had been little better than a courtesan, had found to do to pass the time. Perhaps she, and her brother of whom she had been so fond, had appreciated the strong family ties of the Italian people, even while their own chaotic love lives have reverberated round Europe and beyond. "Napoleon was not allowed to have his wife or son here," Maria Lena broke in on her thoughts. "I think that is why he would not stay. His son was important to him." "As his women were not?" Maria Lena shrugged. "His son's inheritance was all Europe. His women were past history—most of them!" Eve tried, not very successfully, to feel sorry for the little French Emperor. Undoubtedly he should have been allowed the comfort of having his wife and son with him, but perhaps the Empress had refused to go into exile with him? Mrs. Rawlinson would know the answer to that, but as Napoleon was very much a hero of hers, she was apt to gloss over anything that didn't redound to his credit, and Eve couldn't help thinking his attitude to his wives and mistresses had been far from admirable. "When he was taken to St Helena, he knew he had been in paradise on Elba," Maria Lena went on, her native pride

making her sure that she knew exactly how he had felt. "But it was too late for him to come back here, which was good for us, I think. We are too small to be ruled by such an energetic man." "Poor Napoleon!" Eve submitted. Maria Lena's eyes flashed. "How can you say so? Think of the men who were forced to follow him— all the dead who were obliged to lose their lives so that one man could realise his ambition to rule all Europe! He was a tragedy for France, and for very many others too." "But rather a magnificent tragedy. He's not the only man who has wanted to unite Europe." Maria Lena pursed up her lips. "I cannot admire him!" she exclaimed. "I thought the Elbans liked him?" Eve put in. Maria Lena shrugged her shoulders crossly. "Some did. It was a long time ago. It made Elba a little important and naturally the people liked that. But since then we have had other ambitious men to contend with, and always it leads to war and fighting. I prefer to be left in peace." Eve could only agree. "He's no hero of mine," she agreed. "Though I do feel a little sorry for him. Mrs. Rawlinson positively dotes on him, however—hence the book in his honour."

"Then you will like to see his palaces?" Maria Lena confirmed. Eve smiled. "I'm looking forward to it!" she declared. She was in the bathroom, collecting her sponge-bag, when Signora Fellici let herself in the back door and came pounding into the bedroom. Her face fell when she saw the evidence of Eve's pending departure. "But, signorina, what will the Signor Vittorio say to your going—?" Eve tried to head her off by introducing her to Maria Lena. "I expect you already know one another," she said in her careful, rather slow Italian. "Signora Fellici, Signorina Cagnolo." "Buon giorno, signorina," the older woman muttered darkly. "Signorina Alliston is coming to stay with us," Maria Lena began to say. "It isn't proper for her to be here—" "But it is. different with the English!" Signora Fellici insisted. "It is known that young women" there do as they like. Signor Vittorio will be very angry to find her gone." She turned on Eve. "I am surprised that you should agree to this, signorina. Always it is he who must work, work, while his brothers get into trouble and enjoy themselves! And now, when he has you and a little time to himself, you run away to the Cagnolos! And they no better than they should be!"

Maria Lena's face flooded with colour. "Signora, that is nothing to do with the English girl!" she said angrily. Signora Fellici sniffed. "I grant it is your sister, not you, who should be more careful. Is that why the Signor Vittorio is here ?" Maria Lena shook her head. "Roberto is coming." "Ah!" said the Signora. "It won't be for the first time!" "No," Maria Lena agreed, while Eve wondered what they were talking about. "But the English signorina is not here for Signor Roberto. It was Signor Vittorio who brought her here." Eve gave a quick glance at Maria Lena. "It wasn't like that at all!" she exclaimed in English. "Oh, what does it matter how it was!" the Italian girl retorted. "The important thing is that Vittorio can be brought to see that Roberto must marry Francesca at once. I don't want you diverting his attention from that!" Eve stared at her. "But what about you and Vittorio?" Maria Lena shrugged her shoulders. "What he does before marriage is his affair. But not just now—" "But don't you care ?" Eve demanded.

"One learns not to care too much," the other girl replied, almost as if she had recalled herself to some part she was playing, or so it seemed to Eve. The Italian girl picked up Eve's suitcase, determined to bring the conversation to an end. "Are you coming?" she said to Eve. Signora Fellici came to the door of the kitchen to watch them go. Eve noticed that her hands were trembling and she held back to reassure her that Vittorio would not blame her for the departure. "You see, I can't stay here alone with Vittorio," she explained. Signora Fellici's face crumpled. She whispered something in her heavily accented Italian that Eve couldn't begin to understand. She caught Francesca's name, however, and Roberto's and something about an angel that meant nothing to her. "Non capisco," she whispered back. "Are you coming?" Maria Lena called out again. Signora Fellici gave Eve a push towards the door. "Non si preoccupi," she murmured, patting Eve's arm as if she were a child. "Tell Vittorio!" Eve bade her urgently.

But the Italian woman shook her head. He would not believe her. He would think she had been gossiping about the Millinis, and she had never done such a thing! No, no, it would be better if Eve were to tell him. He would believe her. "Oh, come on!" urged Maria Lena. Eve glanced at Signora Fellici, frustrated. "I may not see him again," she said. "But do tell him yourself, signora. Please do!" Maria Lena's car was a tiny Fiat. By the time they were both inside it, together with the suitcase, it felt uncomfortably crowded. "Shall I put the suitcase in the back?" Eve suggested. Maria Lena switched on the ignition and roared the engine, forcing the gear-lever forward into the first gear. "It isn't far," she said. "What did Signora Fellici have to say?" "I didn't understand her," Eve confessed. Maria Lena looked relieved. "It was probably nothing. She doesn't like Francesca. She doesn't think she's good enough for Roberto. She is right, too, but I am her sister and must do my best for her, mustn't I ? You do see that, don't you ?" Eve nodded, clutching her suitcase against her stomach. She hoped that Maria Lena was a better driver than she looked. She was. The small car leaped forward, screeching round the

hairbend corners with panache. Blowing the horn at every corner in a way that must have scared off any oncoming traffic, Maria Lena chose that moment to tell Eve that the brakes were very bad and that she always had to leave the car in gear whenever she parked it in case it ran away. "I am always telling my father about them, but he pays no attention to me when I speak to him." She smiled without bitterness. "He prefers Francesca," she confided. "In his eyes, she can do no wrong!" They started with a rush up the hill that led to the prison and to the Cagnolo house, nearly knocking over a stand of pots and pans as they went. At the top, they came face to face with a large black car coming the other way. "It's my father!" Maria Lena exclaimed. "You must meet him at once!" She slammed the car into gear and turned off the engine, leaping out of the car and dancing across the road to her father's car. "Papa! Papa!" she began excitedly. Then she saw her father was not alone. "Vittorio!" she gasped, looking as appalled as she no doubt felt. Vittorio got languidly out of the black limousine. "Your father gave me a lift back from Portoferraio," he explained his presence. "I was in a hurry to get home." His eyes flickered over Eve's guilty face and then back again to Maria Lena. "Why is Eve with you ?" he asked, pleasantly enough. It seemed as though Maria Lena's courage failed her. "She is coming to tea with us."

To tea? Eve jumped and looked away, unwilling to meet the mocking look in Vittorio's eyes. "Oh?" he drawled. "Am I invited also?" He didn't wait for an answer, but stuck his head through the window of the limousine, saying something to Maria Lena's father. The limousine slid forward, creeping round Maria Lena's Fiat, and came to a stop. "Maria Lena!" Signor Cagnolo called out of the window. "Si, Papa." Eve tried not to listen to the ensuing conversation, even if she could have brought herself to concentrate on what they were saying. She was too busy thinking about Vittorio. In a moment, he came round to her side of the car, opened the door, and hauled her bodily out on to the street beside him. "You can walk up with me," he said. He took her suitcase from her with a tightening of the muscles of his neck. "Do you always take your wardrobe with you when you go out to tea?" he asked in a conversational tone of voice. "Don't be silly!" She nodded her head towards the Cagnolos. "I'm going to stay with them," she said. "Maria Lena asked me—" The Italian girl spun round from her conversation with her father. "It isn't right that she should stay at your villa, Vittorio. Everyone will think that Roberto invited her—"

"Eve is my responsibility," Vittorio returned, at his most arrogant. "Then you must see why she must come to us!" Maria Lena shot at him. "Must?" Vittorio questioned with a steely hauteur. "On the contrary. Eve will stay where I decide, as she promised to do!" "I didn't!" Eve protested breathlessly. "And I choose that she shall stay at the villa," Vittorio went on mercilessly. "You would do better to mind your own business, Maria Lena." "But," Eve rushed into speech, "you can't possibly want me to stay! People will talk! I thought you'd want me to leave." Vittorio gave her a mocking smile. "Still afraid for your reputation? It's too late to start worrying about that now. You should have thought about it before!" "People will talk about you!" Eve tried to achieve a nonchalance that could equal his, but he brushed her easily aside. "We'll leave things as they are, I think, and you can come back to the villa with me, and there you'll stay, as my guest, until you go back to England."

Maria Lena's normally pleasant face darkened with anger. "There will be more talk about you as well as about Roberto!" she spat at Vittorio, emphasising every word. He gave her a quick look. "And what is that to you?" Her eyes dropped. "You must know what it is to me!" "Precisely," he observed. Maria Lena reddened. "You are unkind! You know how Francesca has always felt about Roberto!" "Do I? Do you? Roberto is too young to know his own mind and I will not have him pushed into something he may regret. For all I know, he may not be responsible, have you thought of that? In any case, Eve is not to be involved. She has no interest in Roberto." His eyes filled with sudden amusement. "She has her hands more than full with me, as she is beginning to find out—" Eve turned her back on him and walked up the hill as fast as she could go, the colour like two scarlet banners in her cheeks. But no matter how fast she went, Vittorio had no difficulty in keeping pace with her. "Maria Lena is right," she burst out. "You are unkind!" . "To her, or to you?" "To—to her!"

"Then I can't see that it has anything to do with you, or why you should lose your temper with me. I know what I am doing, Eve." "But it is to do with me! You're using me as a tool to hurt her and—and I won't be used—" Vittorio took her hand in his, threading his fingers through hers. "Maria Lena is angry, not hurt. You don't have to worry about her feelings, my dear." "Why then is she angry?" But he only shook his head at her. "Cheer up. Think how disappointed Roberto would have been if you had disappeared before he got here !" She would have struck out at him if her hand had not been otherwise engaged, firmly held by his. "He wouldn't care!" "That's your story! We'll see what he has to say for himself when he arrives tonight." "I can't wait!" she responded. "You'll see how wrong you've been about me then!" Vittorio shrugged. "Won't Signora Cagnolo be surprised that I'm not going to stay with her after all?" she said, but he only smiled at her.

"There is no Signora. She died when Francesca was born. Maria Lena runs the house for her father. She's done it ever since she was a young girl." "How brave of her!" "I think she enjoys running her father's and her sister's lives for them. She has little else." "Whose fault is that? It can't have been easy to bring up Francesca when there's only a few years between their ages. I shouldn't have liked the task." "Maria Lena can give you a few years, and she's always had to cope—" "I expect that's what she thinks! It can't be very comfortable to have to wait around for your sister to grow up, before anyone notices you are ready to marry yourself!" "Roberto is far too young to tie himself down—" "I wasn't talking about Roberto. Roberto has never been particularly friendly with Maria Lena. He hasn't led her to expect—" She broke off, afraid that she had gone too far. "But you think I have? Not guilty, my Eve. You'll have to look elsewhere for your villain on Maria Lena's behalf! What a pity, when you- would so like to prove me someone wicked and dangerous to account for the flutter you get yourself into every time I come near you!"

"Vittorio!" "But you are right to be anxious!" he assured her, giving her an amused glance. "As soon as I have you to myself, I may very well kiss you again as I did this morning, and what will you do then?" "There isn't much I can do if you choose to amuse yourself at my expense. I already despise and dislike you—" He threw back his head and laughed. "My dear girl—how can you still pretend to that! But you are right, this is neither the time nor the place to dally with you. I'll need all my wits about me to cope with the united front the Cagnolos are putting up, if Roberto is not to be sunk without trace." But Eve was not so easily mollified. "Perhaps he deserves to be!" she muttered darkly. "I think not," Vittorio answered. "It may be so, but I think not." Then he frowned at her. "You speak of something you know nothing about! Or did he confide his troubles to you as well as everything else ?" She shook her head. "He wouldn't tell me a thing like that!" "Then you know nothing?" '"How can I, when you keep everything from me ? All you think I'm good for is cooking meals and—"

"And attracting men like flies!" he finished for her. "Only now you have me to reckon with and you will have to learn to be more circumspect in the future than you have been in the past, no? My little minx, you do not entirely dislike the idea, isn't that so?"

The tea party was surprisingly enjoyable. Maria Lena served the tea herself out in the garden, if garden one could call it. Compared to the English equivalent it was a barren, dusty affair, with a few flowers fighting for life under an olive tree. Francesca, anxious to be seen doing her bit, dropped a tea-bag into four glasses and added hot water, long since gone off the boil. Eve watched, wide-eyed, as the other girl stirred the resulting brown fluid with a flick of her wrist. Could this really be the way the Italians served tea ? The cake, too, came as a surprise. The icing was creamy rather than sugary, and the centre of the sponge mixture had been well doused with some kind of liqueur. It was, Eve decided, an acquired taste, and not one she particularly wished to acquire. She was quite content though to sit in the sun and watch Vittorio charm the two Cagnolo girls with a deft touch she could only admire. More often than not, they spoke too rapidly for her to follow more than the gist of the conversation, aware that they had forgotten all about her being there as they laughed and joked about various incidents they had shared when they had all been children together. Eve might have felt left out, but she found the family atmosphere soothing.

Then Francesca opened her mouth and spoiled the whole illusion for her. "Why does she have to be at the ferry to meet Roberto?" she demanded, tossing her head at Eve. Eve answered directly. "If for no other reason, because I have a bone to pick with Roberto!" "What is this expression 'bone to pick'?" Francesca asked, her whole attitude one of open accusation. "It means that, like most women when she is caught at a disadvantage, she plans to take her revenge by quarrelling with him about something he cannot help," Vittorio observed. Francesca twisted her fingers together. "Why can't you go away?" she shot at Eve. "Roberto has always been my friend, and I need him more than ever now !" "Why's that?" Vittorio asked, sounding faintly bored. But it was Maria Lena who answered him. "We have been very dull lately," she said hurriedly, her words tripping over one another in her anxiety to silence her sister. "Francesca has no friends on the island and it's only natural she should look forward to seeing Roberto. They were always together when he was here before. Though it's silly to think Roberto favours Eve more than you, 'Cesca. If I had my way, you'd go to our aunts in Florence, but Papa won't allow you to go

on your own and I—" She coloured unexpectedly—"I don't want to leave Elba just now." Vittorio smiled at Francesca. "You're too young to have only one boy-friend," he observed. "Who else do you have vying for your favours?" For an instant Francesca looked very young and eager, but then her face fell. "I'm not too young at all," she said. "It has always been Roberto for me, just as Maria Lena has always relied on you to take her about. And Roberto feels the same way about me !" "Roberto would do better to concentrate on his work," his elder brother determined. "And I mean to see that he does!" Maria Lena had not yet retired from the lists. "It may be too late for that," she began. "Did you know Roberto was here earlier in the year?" Vittorio raised his eyebrows. "I have heard." He sounded bored. If it had been she, Eve thought, she would have changed the subject there and then, but Maria Lena was made of sterner stuff. "He stayed at your villa, though he told us you knew nothing about it. He was with Francesca every day. I should have been a better chaperon than I was, but I always have so much to do. Papa, who is very strict with us both, was very angry when he heard and forbade either of us to go over to

Naregno again—that is why he was so angry with me today. But now he too wishes to see Roberto when he comes." "Does he indeed?" Even Maria Lena blenched at Vittorio's icy tones. "He is not so very young," she muttered. "Too young to be taken for that sort of a ride! I suppose it was one of you who sent for him to come here in the middle of his English exams? Well? To which one of you was this morning's effusion addressed ?" "To neither of us!" Maria Lena denied without blinking. "It was lunchtime before I even knew you had a girl staying at your villa. It was a matter of speculation as to whether you or Roberto had invited her." She looked up, shrugging her shoulders. "I didn't know then that you were there too." "I see," said Vittorio. "Then you didn't know Roberto was coming ?" Francesca cast Eve a hostile look. "No," she said defiantly, "but I shall be very pleased to see him!" "I'm sure you will!" Vittorio agreed in the silky tones that Eve had learned meant that he was at his most dangerous. He glanced at his watch in the silence that followed and rose slowly to his feet. "It is time for Eve and me to be going. I should not like to be late for the ferry." "I want to see Roberto too," said Francesca.

But Vittorio was barely listening to her. "You can see him some other time. Tonight, I have a great deal to say to him myself!" As she walked with Vittorio away from the house, Vittorio carrying her suitcase, he took her hand in his own strong, brown fingers. She waited until they were out of sight of the house, then made a feeble attempt to reclaim her hand. "But I like to hold hands with you!" Vittorio told her. "Don't be ridiculous!" she scoffed. "It was different when Maria Lena could see us—" Amusement tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Why? Do you require an audience before you hold hands with anyone?" She backed away from him, putting both her hands behind her back. "Of course not! I thought—I mean, I understood it was for Maria Lena's benefit. It's none of my business if you want to show her—I mean, you probably have good reason—" He put her suitcase down on the road and pulled her irresistibly towards him. Eve put out a hand to prevent herself being drawn too close, but she had no chance against his superior strength. "Oh!" she gasped. He caressed her face and neck with his free hand. "Oh what?"

She swallowed. "I don't think—" she began. "You think too much! It's what you feel that matters—what you feel in here." He touched her lightly on the breast, his eyes amused at her expression. "Think about that!" "I don't think I'd find it a reliable guide!" she asserted faintly. "One has to be sensible about these things." The touch of his fingers on her neck was very disturbing to her and she began to worry lest he should bring her hair down about her ears. "Do you always try to be sensible?" he asked. She nodded, backing away from him again. "Please don't, Vittorio!" "But why is it more sensible to hold my hand when Maria Lena is there to see than when we are alone? It doesn't sound very sensible to me!" Put like that, it didn't sound very sensible to her either. "I thought you had a reason to want to disentangle yourself from your friendship with Maria Lena," she said on a note of desperation. "And you thought I would use you as a tool for that?" There was a glint in his eyes. "You may well blush, my girl! I thought you objected to being used as a pawn in my relationship with her?"

"So I do!" He released her with a mocking pat on her cheek. "That's for your lack of faith in me! And that—" as he patted her cheek again—"is to remind you to behave yourself with Roberto!" "Oh, I'm not afraid of him!" He gave her a curious look, but said nothing, and after a moment, he picked up her suitcase again and set off briskly down the hill. The evening light added a burnished enchantment to the peeling, ochre houses as they walked past them. In the square, the shops were still open, and there were still some of the hardier tourists sitting outside the cafes, putting off the moment when they would have to return to their hotels. The local people were wiser about the cold that came with the setting sun and had gone inside to gather at the bars for a quick drink on their way home. Their laughter came in gusts every time the doors, opened and shut, their fast and furious Italian sounding quarrelsome to Eve's English ears. Even the church bell, clanging out its summons, sounded different from its English equivalent, with its flat, metallic note that brought an army of black-clad women hurrying through the streets to their prayers. Yet Eve felt very much a part of the place as they paused outside one of the shops, looking for postcards for her to send to her parents and to Mrs. Rawlinson. She selected a couple of brightly coloured views of the island and scribbled

much the same message on the back of both of them. When she had finished, Vittorio took them from her and disappeared into the nearest tobacconist's shop to have them stamped ready for posting. While he was gone, the ferry came slowly into sight before her eyes, lit up with a line of little lights from prow to stern. "It's come!" she called out to Vittorio. "Good," he answered her. "We can post these as we go." She hurried after him, stumbling on the rough patches in the street. In the last few minutes the last of the light had gone and it was suddenly, completely dark. The lights of the boatlike restaurants had been switched on, completing the pretty, fairyland scene. She would have liked to have paused and looked about her, but Vittorio was pressing on ahead of her and she was afraid of losing him in the crowd that had gathered to meet the ferry. "Supposing he hasn't come?" she said, clutching at his sleeve. "Just supposing!" he mocked her. "Will you like to spend another night alone with me at the villa?" "I shall go back to the Cagnolos." He shook his head. "You will stay with me, whether Roberto comes or not."

What she would have answered him, she never knew, for at that instant she caught sight of Roberto's face and waved to him to catch his attention. "Eve!" he shouted down to her, surprised to see her. "How did you know I was coming?" He pushed his way through the other passengers, jumped the last few feet of the gangway, and somehow managed to land within a few feet of where she was standing. "Are you pleased to see me?" he asked her audaciously. He had not seen Vittorio. "No, I am not!" She was very conscious of Vittorio's watching presence. "What about your exams?" Roberto shrugged. "I had business here in Elba that wouldn't wait!" His arms enveloped her and he delivered a great, smacking kiss on her lips. Eve's eyes kindled with anger. "Why didn't you tell me the villa belonged to Vittorio?" she demanded. He made to kiss her again, but Vittorio took a firm grasp of his brother's shoulder, pushing him away from Eve. "You!" said Roberto. Vittorio bowed. "In person, so take care how you treat my possessions, Roberto. Both of them," he added, with a meaning glance at Eve.

CHAPTER SIX "BE my guest," said Roberto. "I have troubles of my own!" "You have indeed," his brother agreed. He turned Roberto round to face Eve, his face stern. "I think you owe Eve an apology!" Roberto attempted a smile. "I do? Oh, come on, Vittorio! What's a kiss between friends ?" "Much in an island this size. You will treat Eve as you would any other respectable young girl while you're here. Is it understood?" Vittorio's face relaxed into a smile. "But Eve is an English girl!" Roberto retorted with a forlorn cockiness. He winked cheekily at Eve. "She didn't mind!" His brother's hand tightened on the back of his collar and he gave in quickly. "All right, all right, you can let me go, Vittorio. I wasn't doing very well with her before you came on the scene, if you want to know. Eve thinks I am still a boy." "Whereas Francesca doesn't?" Vittorio said drily. Roberto rubbed the back of his neck thoughtfully. "What about Francesca?" he asked warily. "Isn't that why you are here?" "What makes you think that?" Roberto did not seem to be put off his stroke.

"Francesca is—upset," Eve said carefully. Roberto laughed harshly. "She's upset! I'm upset! I'm sorry if she's being talked about, but it isn't my fault." He gave his brother a conciliatory look. "I know I shouldn't have stayed in your villa without asking you, but that's all I did. I never guessed she'd think of saying she had been there with me—" "That's enough!" Vittorio commanded. His tone was icy. "But—" Roberto went on, as argumentative as ever. "We shall discuss it later! Your peccadilloes have nothing to do with Eve!" Robert looked from Vittorio to Eve and back to his brother again, his eyes widening. "Oh, I see—you mean we'll talk about it later. That suits me. In fact I'm glad you're here, because I don't know what to do!" He stared intently at his brother. "You two seem very friendly. I thought you'd be furious to find Eve in your villa—if you ever did find out?" "I'm taking Eve out to dinner," Vittorio announced. "Are you coming too?" "Of course I'm coming." Roberto cast another interested look at Eve. "How did the play go, by the way? Would you have got to Austria if I hadn't burned your essay?"

"It went fairly well," Eve told him. "As a matter of fact, I don't think I would have got there. It was a hammy piece, only I didn't realise it until I heard some of the lines over the phone—" She broke off, putting a hand up to her mouth. "I'll tell you about it some other time !" she said hastily. "On the phone?" Vittorio repeated. "What is all this about a play ?" "I was producing it for the local dramatic society," she said in a small voice. "On the telephone ?" "N-no, only some of them didn't know their lines very well— It's got nothing to do with you!" But Vittorio thought it had. "Is that what I overheard? Why didn't you say so before?" "It had nothing to do with you!" she repeated. "Of course it had to do with me! Do you think I would have made you stay at the villa if I hadn't thought you'd done that sort of thing before? Am I now to believe that you had no other interest in these two men but to make sure they had learned their parts in some silly play?" "I told you—" "You told me nothing!" He glared at her angrily. "You allowed me to think the worst of you! You would not even

have told me that none had kissed you—quite like that—if I had not discovered it for myself. I should still be thinking that Roberto had written that letter to you if I had not seen you putting it in your handbag—I could only suppose to deliver it to Francesca? Well, let me tell you that you are a great deal too free in your dealings with the opposite sex, so it is not at all surprising that I should think all these things of you! Little fool, didn't you think of what might have happened to you? Come on, Roberto and I are hungry, if you are not!" At the restaurant, Roberto waited until Vittorio left them for a moment to look at the display of wines, and then he whispered across the table to her, "He didn't waste much time, did he? I thought you didn't like him?" Eve looked quickly down at her spotless white napkin. "I didn't—I don't like him ! It's because of Maria Lena—" "Is she making a nuisance of herself too?" Roberto demanded. "I hope not. Francesca is bad enough!" "If you think that, you shouldn't have written her such a letter!" Eve said severely. "It was bound to cause trouble. It came to the villa and got muddled up with one of Vittorio's. He—he thought you'd written it to me." Roberto laughed. "And you let him believe it?" "I was angry with him!" Eve remembered. "Besides, he already thought—yes, well, anyway, I thought it better that

he should think that than he should know you and Francesca were writing to one another in such terms." "We're not! Only the little fool wrote—" "Hush," said Eve, "Vittorio is coming back."

Vittorio sat down with an air of satisfaction. "Now," he said, "we have only to enjoy ourselves! It is time, Eve, you sampled the delights of Italy as well as its dangers." Eve certainly enjoyed every part of the evening. There was something romantic about the sound of water stirring against the supports beneath the restaurant, and she loved the lights reflected across the sea, rippling with the breeze into multicoloured pools dancing on the black surface. Inside the restaurant itself, the lights were muted, which was nice because she found she could study Vittorio's face without him being aware of her doing so. His nose was very nearly Roman, adding to the arrogant cast of his features. His heavy brows, above enigmatic dark eyes, made it difficult to tell what he was thinking. He had none of the young, rather absurd, ebullience of his brother. Comparatively, Eve thought, Roberto was a far easier person to like, but it was Vittorio who claimed her allegiance, carrying all before him like a triumphant hero of old. It was hard to know how she had come to such a pass, but he had only to lift his little finger to overwhelm her with the strength of her own emotions.

"I think ice-cream to follow," Vittorio was saying, when she brought her mind back to the conversation between the two brothers. She noticed wryly that she was allowed no choice in the matter. Ice-cream he had said, and ice-cream they would have! When it came, however, she found she liked it very much. It was the most exotic, spicily flavoured icecream she had ever eaten. Eve didn't know when she first became aware of two other diners who were sitting just behind Vittorio's back. She didn't like the way they looked at her, or the way they covered their mouths with their hands and whispered together. "Do you know those men?" she asked Roberto, when she could bear it no longer. Roberto cast a swift glance at his brother. "One of them is a friend of Francesca's, or so I heard when I was here before." "Nonsense!" said Vittorio. "Turn round and look at him!" Roberto suggested. "That will give him a fright! It always does when you look—so!" "But I have no wish to give him a fright." Vittorio sounded bored. "But I'm telling you—"

"See that you don't tell the whole restaurant!" Vittorio drawled. Roberto's chagrin made Eve want to laugh. "It doesn't hurt to look!" he protested. "I'll see him when we leave. What makes you think Francesca knows him?" "He is like the man who was described to me. He has golden hair, and it curls, doesn't it, Eve?" Eve nodded. "The man with him has a ring in his ear," she added. She thought privately that that was the most interesting fact about them. "Most fishermen do," Vittorio told her. "Do they? I didn't know. Why?" "It's a charm against drowning. Even English fishermen have their ears pierced for that reason," he mocked her. She was fascinated by this gem of knowledge. "He's better looking than his golden friend," she opined, "and he doesn't look like a fisherman. His clothes are too smart." "His best suit," Vittorio decided. "They are clearly fishermen, and Signor Cagnolo would never allow his daughters to consort with such men. You must be wrong about that, Robert."

But the younger man only shrugged. "He may not be a fisherman. He looks more the kind to chat up the birds than net any fish!" Vittorio felt in his pocket for his wallet. He counted out some notes and placed them on the plate with the bill. Then he turned in his seat and gave the two men a long, level stare, getting slowly to his feet to walk out of the restaurant. "Who is the pretty girl?" one of the men said loudly. "But I see you have come to keep an eye on your little brother this time, signore. The poor little Cagnolo will be sorry not to have him to herself!" Vittorio was impeccably polite. "Do you know the Signorina Cagnolo?" The man turned away. "Not personally, signore. But I have heard—" Vittorio brushed down his sleeve. "I have no time to listen to gossip! Nor do I care to hear my friends discussed in such terms. I believe I need not repeat myself?" "No, signore. Of course not, signore." "Bene, because if I hear one word more about the signorina I will know where to come. Good night, signore, buona notte!"

Roberto flung his gear into the cockpit of Vittorio's boat and climbed in after it. He held out a hand to Eve, steadying her as she stepped nimbly on to the seat and into the well of the cockpit. "You should have made it plain to him which signorina you were talking about!" he said furiously to his brother. Vittorio, last into the boat, busied himself with starting the engine. "Why?" "Because he'll think you meant Francesca. I told you who he was, and if she won't admit it, I can't let her down. You know what Papa would have to say about that!" "Quite," Vittorio returned imperturbably, "but I owe Eve something too. Don't worry, Roberto, you may remember I'm a lawyer and I'll get the truth out of them one way or another long before Papa hears that you're here. If you hurry back to England and take your exams straight away, I daresay you won't even hear from him." "I can manage my own affairs!" snapped Roberto. "Normally, yes, but in this case I'll help. Sit down, Roberto," Vittorio added, as the boat began to rock, "Eve will probably forgive you if you tip her into the water, but I certainly won't!" Away from the lights of Porto Azzuro the darkness enclosed them. Eve wondered how Vittorio was able to steer the boat with such a sure touch, knowing exactly where he was

going, when she could see nothing but darkness, for there was no moon at all. If she looked behind the boat, she could see the white foam of the wake they left behind them as they cut through the deep, black waters. They were cut off from the rest of the world, lost in one of their own, consisting of silence and darkness, and this curious, breathless excitement that smote her whenever she thought about Vittorio. She would do far better to remember Maria Lena more often, she told herself severely, than to forget all about her! The boat came in beside the landing stage and the engines were cut. Roberto jumped ashore and tied the painters securely to an iron ring. He reached down and grasped his bag and Eve's suitcase and, thus laden, hurried up the hill before them, whooping a noisy greeting to Signora Fellici as he went. Eve would not admit to herself that she was glad he had gone on ahead. She made her way along the landing stage and on to the path, listening for Vittorio's footsteps. But she could hear nothing, for their feet made no sound on the fallen needles from the trees that littered the path. The smell of garlic came clearly to her as she trod on one of the plants by accident. But when Vittorio's voice eventually came to her through the darkness, it was to speed her on her way. She stood there for a long time, staring out into the blackness of the night, and watching the moon as it belatedly rose and moved across the sky. If she were wise, she

thought, she would take to her heels and run back to England as fast as she could go. But as she went into the house, she knew that she was not going to be wise.

It was late when Eve awoke. She yawned sleepily and became slowly aware that Signora Fellici had come into her room and was adjusting the blinds to let in the rich sunlight. "Buon giorno!" the Signora greeted her, bouncing across the room, a broad smile on her face. "Come sta lei?" Eve shook her head free of sleep. "Buon giorno," she responded. The Signora shook up her pillows with vim and gave her to understand that she was to have her breakfast in bed on Vittorio's own orders. "You are not to worry about anything," the maid went on quickly. "Signor Vittorio has explained it all to me and I shall be staying in the house myself. An English girl! I don't know what his parents will say." "No," said Eve faintly, quite sure that his parents were the very last people Vittorio would tell about her having been at the villa. "Or my parents either!" That was far more of a worry to her, for they would have to be told something, even if that something were not quite the truth. The Signora came back with a large tray which she balanced across Eve's knees with well-practised hands. She stood over

the bed, her arms akimbo, watching Eve as she broke open the delicious, crusty rolls and buttered them with the knife provided. "Signorina Cagnolo—" she began. Eve dropped the roll she was holding. "Is she here? Now?" The Signora nodded her head. She reduced her voice to a piercing whisper in which she informed Eve that the Signorina had arrived at the same moment as she herself, before anyone in the Millini household had been awake. It was not, in her opinion, a proper hour of the day for any young lady to go calling on a man! Eve hurriedly finished her breakfast, drinking down the scalding coffee with scarcely a blink. When the maid had relieved her of her tray, she shot out of bed and into the bathroom, turning on the shower full pelt to wake herself up properly before she dressed and went outside to see which of the Cagnolo girls had come calling. When she opened the door, it was Maria Lena's voice she heard pleading with Vittorio. "Why shouldn't Roberto marry Francesca? It was he who got her talked about!" "He is too young to marry!" "I might say the same for Francesca. Papa will insist—"

"Was it Roberto who was with Francesca all that week? I think not, Maria Lena, and I think I shall soon be able to produce the young man who was with her!" "But Francesca is in love with Roberto!" Maria Lena exclaimed. She sounded badly frightened to Eve, who hurried out to join them, only to find the Italian girl clinging to Vittorio's arm, the traces of her tears still fresh on her face. "Hullo," Eve said with a gaiety she was far from feeling. "I am sorry to come so early," Maria Lena began. "I had to see Vittorio—•" "Maria Lena was raking over old coals to see if she could coax a little warmth out of them, but we are not children any longer. Only Roberto still has something of his childhood still with him!" "Eve knows we have always been friends," Maria Lena said quickly. "Just friends!" Vittorio observed. Eve felt Maria Lena's hurt as if it were her own. Men, especially Vittorio, could be terribly cruel, she thought. "Why don't you come out on the patio?" she suggested to Maria Lena. "Signora Fellici will bring us all some coffee— "

"But you've only just had your breakfast," Vittorio reminded her sharply. "The coffee was cold," Eve lied without turning a hair. "I should like to have some more. Will you arrange it? Three cups, I think." She opened the french window on to the patio and walked out into the garden, leaving Maria Lena very little option but to follow her.. "You're very much at home here!" the Italian girl remarked. "Where is Roberto?" Eve shrugged. "Still asleep, I expect. He was late to bed last night. He and Vittorio had a great deal to say to one another." Maria Lena started. "Oh? I wish Vittorio hadn't come ! Roberto is much easier to deal with. He has to marry Francesca!" Eve took a deep breath. "Because he's the father of her child?" Maria Lena was deeply shocked. "No, no, you haven't understood—it is not as bad as that! But Francesca, she is not innocent any more, and if it was not Roberto—then who was it ?" "I should ask Francesca," Eve advised. "You don't know how it is with us," Maria Lena said sadly. "Boys may do these things, but in Elba we girls know better

than to make friends outside the circle our parents choose for us, and me, I was responsible for Francesca. It is I who says she must marry Roberto." Eve felt a mixture of relief and impatience with the other girl. "Were you and Francesca very restricted?" she asked her. "Oh, very! Here, on Elba, where we have lived the greater part of our lives, we know hardly anyone. You don't know how I envy you! I can't even imagine doing anything so unconventional as staying in a house that belonged to anyone but my father—or husband! But it is not the same with English girls. Italian girls are allowed to do nothing but wait for a suitable husband. We have no freedom to live our own lives." "Except the freedoms you take behind your father's back," Vittorio murmured, bringing out the coffee just in time to catch Maria Lena's last remark. "Papa never turns his back !" the Italian girl sighed. Vittorio looked down at his immaculate finger-nails. "By the way," he said, "Roberto will be over to see Francesca later on. Will you tell her to expect him?" Maria Lena smiled uncertainly. "She will be pleased." The quizzical look in Vittorio's eyes showed that he was far from being convinced of that. "I hope she may be!" he said.

Eve went with Maria Lena to the door. When she came back, she was frowning. "You're looking very disapproving," Vittorio observed. "I am," she said. "You weren't at all kind to Maria Lena." "No?" "No. Can't you see that she's as worried about Francesca as you are about Roberto?" "I think not," he replied quietly. "I think Maria Lena has something else on her mind, something that has nothing to do with her sister!" "I still think you were unkind!" He laughed. "One can't be kind to everyone. As Maria Lena will have to discover unless she decides to tell the truth about her sister—and about herself. I wonder what the results of Roberto's visit will be ?" "I don't know," said Eve. "But I hope he's kinder to Francesca than you were to Maria Lena!" "He may be," Vittorio mocked her. "But I shouldn't bank on it, cara mia !"

CHAPTER SEVEN THERE was no doubt when Roberto was leaving the house. Doors slammed and his cheerful whistle filled the hall. "Ciao!" he yelled to anyone who was listening. Eve heard Vittorio's voice answer—"What time will you be back ?" "As soon as possible!" "Not too soon!" his brother warned him. "Eve and I are going out." It was the first Eve had heard of it. She sat on the patio, summoning up her determination to tell Vittorio that she wasn't going anywhere with him, and that it was time she set about the task Mrs. Rawlinson had given her and try to find the answers to the questions she had written down in the notebook for Eve's use. "Are you coming?" he asked her, appearing suddenly in the french windows, and, despite her resolutions, she found herself following him down the path to the garage. Predictably, his car was not one of the tiny Fiats that flood the roads of Italy. His car was a moderately sized Mercedes, with some of the best fittings she had ever seen. He opened the door for her, picking a map of the island out of the pocket in front of her and handing it to her.

"You can follow the route on the map and then you will see where we are going." She accepted the map from him and opened it out on her knee. "And where are we going?" she asked. He walked round the car and got in beside her, taking a grim grasp of one end of the map and pointing to the route with his finger. "We'll start along this road in the Portoferraio direction, branching off here, and going along there. All right with you?" He backed the car out of the garage on to the dirt track that dropped down to the beach past the hotels. They slowed almost to a stop as they drew level to the first hotel and a party of tourists came out to sit on the sand under the gaily coloured umbrellas, making the most of the Mediterranean sunshine. Vittorio turned sharply up the hill, the car taking it easily. Eve was inclined to be apprehensive as they hurtled down the narrow, twisting road, although she knew that Vittorio must have negotiated it safely a thousand times before. She looked down at the map again, preferring it to the overhanging cliffs, and saw that they were going to pass San Martino and the Villa Napoleon, which had been the little Emperor's country home during his brief exile on the island. "Oh, please may we go there?" Eve asked him.

Vittorio looked at her quickly. "You're a conscientious person, aren't you? Zia Gemma won't eat you if you don't get the answers to her questions, you know." "But I want to see it for myself too!" He smiled. "All right, so be it. We'll go there first. We have to go along a short road the villa has all to itself. Do you see it?" Eve nodded. "How exclusive !" she exclaimed. "Oh, very! The Emperor's mother and sister were equally well catered for when they came to share his exile—he wouldn't hear of them sharing the same house as himself, needless to say! Letizia Bonaparte lived in the Vadis' house in Marciana Alta—" "Where your father had a house?" He looked at her curiously. "Now how did you know that?" he wondered. "I don't know," she admitted. "Mrs. Rawlinson, or Roberto, must have told me some time." "One day I shall take you there," he promised. "The mountain villages of Elba have their own charm. In the old days, whenever the pirates came into the ports, the people would rush up into the mountains seeking shelter. Poggio and Marciana Alta made their living from taking in refugees from the seaside. But now there are no more pirates and the

villages of the mountains are dying. Perhaps the tourists, who have been the salvation of the resorts, will save them also when they begin to come here in greater numbers." Once they had turned inland from the coast, Eve could see the well-tended farmlands. The vineyards made a lattice pattern across the brown earth. In contrast were the small market gardens and the yellow ochre houses, shrouded in wisteria and the occasional clematis. Vittorio turned off the main road and they headed towards the Villa Napoleon. It was heralded by a couple of souvenir stalls, selling statues of Napoleon himself and elaborate bottles of wine and brandy, a car park, and a cafe. Just beyond this huddle of tourist accessories were the main gates of the villa and a yew- tree lined avenue that led up to the small palace. "Feeling better now that you've found an excuse for indulging yourself by coming with me?" he said in his old mocking tone, as they strolled up the avenue. "It's no indulgence!" she denied. "I came because I want to see as much of the island as I can while I'm here." Vittorio took out his cigarette case, offered her one as a matter of form, knowing that she would refuse, and lit one for himself. "Even so, if Napoleon were alive today, I don't think he'd have your whole attention, do you?"

"On the contrary," she murmured, "Napoleon was well able to deal with any competition—even from someone as conceited as yourself!" He laughed. "What a good thing for you that you're my guest, my dear, or I might be tempted to put you in your place!" Eve fought against the rising tide of excitement that gripped her, half hoping that he might put his threat into effect. It came as something of a relief when they reached the villa and the perilous moment retreated into the background. She was tempted to remind him that this was only her second day on Elba and that she hadn't yet found a place for herself, not one that she could agree to, and the one that he seemed determined to fit her into, her upbringing and her own innate good sense made it impossible for her to accept. Visitors were not allowed on the ground floor of the villa, but had to go round the back to enter on the first floor. Eve mounted the steps with limbs of cotton-wool, schooling herself to appear interested in everything around her. "Don't expect too much," Vittorio warned her. "Before Napoleon came here, this was the house of an ordinary, though prosperous, farmer." "But the Emperor must have made many changes!" Eve exclaimed.

"True," he said, "but not even he could turn the villa into a real palace." They trooped through a small antechamber and into the room which Marshal Bertrand had occupied. Beyond that was the Council Room, still decorated in the way Napoleon had ordered, with the original chairs standing round the walls and the celebrated ceiling of the love-knot, held in the beaks of two doves, which tightens as the birds recede, a rather charming allusion to Maria Louise of Austria, the Emperor's consort. But nothing that Eve saw equalled the magnificence of the terrace. It was an enormous tiled expanse that looked across the park in which there were some magnificent examples of cedars of Lebanon, cypresses, and other trees. Beyond was a great green valley, broken by the occasional vineyard, leading one's eye right to the distant port of Portoferraio, the capital of the island. When they came out on to it the terrace was deserted, and they walked to the far edge to examine the crest that decorated the balcony. Eve traced out the three bees that stood out diagonally across the shield, and then she turned and smiled at Vittorio, her doubts for the moment forgotten. "It's beautiful here, isn't it?" she said, her pleasure in the visit bringing a glow to her face. His reply was to put out a hand and trace the line of her cheek. "Beautiful!" he agreed.

He let her go and, in a turmoil, she ran away from him, across the terrace and down the narrow steps to the museum below. She was in no state to look at the pictures, however, and what she did see of them confirmed her impression that it was an indifferent collection, not worth wasting her time on, and so she hurried through the gallery and out into the sunshine beyond. Vittorio followed at a more leisurely pace. He exchanged a joke with the man who took the tickets, but Eve was too far away from them to share the joke, though not to know that it had been about herself, for she could see the swift, appraising look the man gave her just before he broke into laughter. "What did you say to him?" she demanded when he caught up with her. He looked down at the fingers she was nervously threading together in her efforts to rid herself of the panic that had assailed her on the terrace. "I said the harder a woman runs, the harder she pursues," he observed. Eve bent her head. "Oh, how I hate you!" Amusement tugged at his lips. He put his head on one side and studied her face. "Well?" he asked her at last, when they had walked most of the way back to the main gate. "Well what?" she countered.

"Have you stopped sulking?" "I think you're perfectly horrid!" she told him roundly. "So you have still not made up your mind about me?" She did not reply, and his eyes flashed. "Shall I help you find out?" "No!" She shook her head quickly. "I mean, no, thank you. I have to find out for myself!" The colour stained her cheeks as his eyes flicked over her. He unlocked the car and held the door for her while she got in. "All right," he said slowly. "If it's time you want, time you shall have, at least until Roberto goes back to England." "And then?" His face was like granite, without any softness in it. "And then," he said, "it will be my turn to pay the piper, and yours to dance to my tune." "But—" she began. "It's the way of the world," he told her. "You may find you like the tune more than you think." "If I'm still here!"

"You'll still be here. Nice, ordinary girls are by definition also easily frightened by their own emotions, but I think you'll surprise yourself—" "Maria Lena—" "My dear girl, don't drag anyone else into this! You've made your strategy perfectly clear. First, you mean to have everything your own way while you make up your mind how best to cope with me, and then, just in case I refuse to act as a puppet to your string-pulling and take it into my head to give you the beating you deserve, you're reserving the right to run back to England in a maidenly huff!" "That isn't fair! I only said I might not be here. I have to go back to my job and—and—" He laughed. "Oh, come now, you can't go into a flurried retreat at the first note of battle!" "Why do you think I want to do battle with you ?" "Well, the only alternative I'm offering you is for you to surrender to me here and now. I'm quite willing." He threw her an ironic look that she tried to ignore. Drymouthed, Eve made an effort to rally her defences against him. "Why can't you surrender to me?" she burst out. "Do you really want me to?"

She was silent, and he put his hand over hers, apparently knowing exactly what she was thinking. "I thought not," he said. "It looks as though you'll have to play it my way." "M-maybe," she stammered. She turned away from him and stared out of the window, relieved when he started up the car and she had an opportunity for changing the subject. "Are we going to Portoferraio now?" she asked him. He nodded, "There's an old woman I want to see there. She's been a friend of mine since I was a small boy and she also happens to be the grandmother of one of the men in the restaurant last night. I want to find out from her if anyone else besides Roberto has been dating Francesca. I think she'll tell me the truth —if she knows it!" "Roberto means a lot to you, doesn't he?" said Eve. "He and Luigi. My sisters too, though I'm glad you're not one of them." The old mocking note was again in his voice. Portoferraio stands on an embattled promontory. Some time in the past, the Medici family had built the solid-looking fortifications that stand high above the port. Somewhere up there too was, Eve knew, Napoleon's town house, the Villa dei Mulini, which was converted for his use from what had been the Palace of Justice, complete with cells. But she could only catch glimpses of this part of the town as they followed the road round by the sea. Some frigates of the

French Navy had come into port on a goodwill mission, but otherwise the various ships and boats were of the working or pleasure varieties. In particular, Eve noticed a very fine fishing vessel from Crete, magnificently carved and coloured. Vittorio parked the car on the edge of the quay, overlooking the dancing water, and got out. "I shall be a few minutes only," he told her. "Will you be all right here?" She looked up at him. "Mayn't I come too?" "It is a very poor household. Not what you are accustomed to—" "I'm a great deal more experienced than you think!" she said. He laughed. "You are well named. The first Eve too pretended to a sophistication she didn't possess!" "I don't think what happened was her fault at all!" Eve asserted. "Of course not," he agreed. "That's the worst of the unsophisticated. They're never to blame for not being able to see beyond the end of their noses what the consequences of their actions might be. It is always someone else's fault!" "How nice it must be to be wise, and always right!" Eve said drily. "May I come ?" "You may. At least I'll know where you are !"

He locked the car and led her away from the quayside, up a mean little street that led sharply uphill. The houses were closely shuttered and most of them had washing hanging out of the windows. All of them had their own displays of flowers, in window-boxes or pots, carefully tended by the teeming families who lived inside. Vittorio stopped at a door half-way up the hill and spoke to the cat which was sunning itself on the doorstep. A window was flung open upstairs and the grey head of a woman appeared. She shrieked down some words of welcome to Vittorio, who yelled happily back at her. To both of them this appeared to be a perfectly normal way of carrying on a conversation : only Eve thought that a lower note might have achieved more. Amused, she reflected that Italian tolerance to noise was much greater than that of the English. They shouted where an Englishman would speak in an undertone, and they laughed with a boisterous relish till the sound of it echoed round their narrow streets, while an Englishman would smile politely and go on his way unmoved. The sound of the old lady's speech, incomprehensible to Eve's unaccustomed ear, reached a sudden climax. Vittorio pushed open the door in front of him and walked into the house. Eve followed more timidly into the plain interior. A much scrubbed table stood beside a primitive kind of cooking arrangement. The rest of the furniture consisted of a few chairs and a shabby television set, which was covered by a richly embroidered cloth, on top of which was a cracked tea-cup full of flowers.

"Do you want some coffee?" Vittorio asked Eve. "Shouldn't we wait?" she demurred. "For what?" His brow cleared. "For the old woman ? She never comes downstairs now. She's practically bed-ridden." "Why don't they bring her downstairs? They're not so poor that they can't afford a few comforts for her. They have a television set—and a car!" "The television belongs to Angelo. But the car? What makes you think there's a car?" "I saw it last night," she told him. "Those men came to the restaurant in it yesterday evening. I saw it drive up outside. I remember thinking the golden- haired man was driving, but he was in the passenger seat. He would have been driving in England," she added. "He was on that side of the car. If it had been his car, he would have been driving it, so it must have been the other man's, mustn't it?" He smiled at her. "How come you managed to see all that?" he asked her. "Believe it or not, I was trying not to look at you," she said drily. He laughed. "I see," he said. "Was it such a temptation?" It had been, but nothing would induce her to admit it.

He found two large cups and filled them to the brim with boiling, dark coffee. "Do you mind having it black? There doesn't seem to be any milk." Eve accepted the cup he offered her, refusing the sugar that he heaped so liberally into his own cup. The coffee was very thick and bitter and she didn't like it at all, but she drank it, tossing the dregs into the sink as soon as she decently could. "Have you been here often?" she asked him, noticing how easily he found his way around. "The old lady and I have been friends for a good many years." The glint in his eyes was pronounced. "Jealous?" "No," Eve replied. He laughed. "Are you always so serious? I shall have to teach you how to flirt. It adds a spice to love, like salt to a good meal!" "I suppose you have had plenty of practice!" she observed. "Of course!" "And you admit it? Just like that?" "I said flirting, my love, which is not the same thing as having an affair. I am not as bold and bad as you have painted me, not that you could object if I were. A woman should know better than to inquire into that aspect of a man's past life."

"It didn't stop you inquiring into mine!" she retorted. "But then you are not a man, and Roberto is my brother!" "That doesn't give you the right to jump to conclusions—" "Of course it does! If a woman means anything to him, a man will always hope to find her chaste and yielding only to him." "Oh!" she gasped. "I think you're the horridest person I've ever met! And the very last person I should choose to flirt with!" "So I've noticed!" he whispered in her ear. "I'll just pop up and see the old lady." Left on her own, Eve washed and dried the two cups, putting them away where Vittorio had found them. He was a long time coming downstairs, and when he came he was not very communicative. "Yes, Francesca was here with Angelo," he said. "The old lady was very caustic about the morals of young people today. She seems to think that both the Cagnolo sisters—" He caught himself up abruptly. "Come on, we ought to be going if we're going to have lunch in Marina di Campo. It takes a good hour to get there." Eve refrained from pointing out that she had been waiting for him, not the other way round. She stepped out into the street in front of him and started to walk back to the car,

scarcely listening as the old woman cackled her goodbyes out of the window. Vittorio answered her more tersely, but he waved his hand when they reached the bottom, of the street and the old woman waved back, still enjoying some private joke of her own. Vittorio glanced at his watch as they got back in the car, and Eve was relieved to see the glint of mockery was well and truly back in his eyes. "The old lady wanted to know if you were in love with me," he said. "I assured her that, under your prim and proper English appearance, that I thought you were—" "After two days?" He sighed. "I didn't think you'd admit it," he said.

CHAPTER EIGHT THEY took the road back to Bivio Boni, turning left, where before they had taken the right-hand fork to the Villa. It was, Eve belatedly recognised, the same road they had come along from Porto Azzuro that morning. But, about halfway along, they turned right to Lacona and, once there, started up the steep incline that heralded the beginning of a new road that was still in the process of being made up. It was being carved out of the cliff, a line of pegs marking the outer edge. So far, although it was more or less level, no attempt had been made to smooth out the surface which was full of halfbroken-up stones and deep ruts, especially on the corners. The road was totally deserted. Eve felt the loneliness of the place in the pit of her stomach. She felt far more isolated here than she had alone with Vittorio at his villa. Was that why he had brought her here ? Panic rose within her, but she refused to give way to it. She was being ridiculous. She made a determined effort to appreciate the scenery— anything to get her thoughts away from Vittorio Millini. And indeed, in parts the road was beautiful. As they climbed higher, they could look over a forest of trees, down into the valley below, empty of even a path to show that anyone had ever passed that way. The silence between them was becoming oppressive and Eve was glad when the road began to descend again and came to a rather sudden end near to an airstrip. From there it was no distance at all to Marina di Gampo and other people. They

drove past a camping site and along a road that came out beside some white sands. Eve sighed with such obvious relief that he smiled and she was further discomfited to know that he had been a silent witness to her struggle with herself and knew exactly how vulnerable she was. "Well," he said, "here we are. Are you hungry?" She nodded, and added, "Have you brought Maria Lena here ?" His eyebrows shot up. "What made you think of her?" "I just did." "Then don't!" he advised her. "I want my lunch!" He tucked her hand into his arm, giving her no choice but to follow him where he led. It was symbolic of their whole relationship, she thought. Marina di Campo was bigger than she had supposed. Apart from the front and the clean white sands, there was a lengthy street, full of shops of every kind, which was joined to the front by means of a square, where there were lots of boats waiting to be launched and the cars of their owners parked neatly to one side. It was a very pretty place, the streets lined with plane trees, and the sea a vivid blue against the white sand. Most of the fishing boats had been dragged up the beach during the heat of the day, the fishermen busy repairing their nets and gossiping with one another as they

leaned against their boats, as if they couldn't bear not to be in contact with their craft even when they were ashore. Vittorio led her to a small restaurant that he told her was famous for seafood. He chose her lunch for her with elaborate care from the menu outside, and found a table in the dappled shade of a sycamore tree. The waiter was a long time coming, but Eve had already learned that time meant very little on the island. It was one of its charms. "I'll go in and get us some drinks," he said. "Perhaps they don't realise we're here." Eve nodded. The warmth of her surroundings was beginning to seep nicely into her bones and she felt at peace with the world. She shut her eyes, very close to sleep, her head nodding in the sun, when she became aware that someone was watching her. She started upright, her eyes wide, and caught a glimpse of gold in the man's ear. "You!" she exclaimed. His suit was made of a tartan material and fitted him so closely that Eve wondered if he would be able to sit down. It seemed he could for, with a smile that repelled her as much as it was meant to attract, he sat down in Vittorio's chair and whistled his appreciation of her angry response. "Bella!" he murmured. "Molta bella!"

"Please go away," said Eve, feeling more British by the minute. She wished she could forget her restrained upbringing long enough to shout and storm at friend Angelo as any Italian girl would do. "Please go!" "But no," he answered in quite passable English, evidently anxious to make a good impression. "How can I leave you— when you are so pretty, and alone !" "I am not alone!" He shrugged his padded shoulders. "There was no one with you just now. It is sad to see a pretty girl on her own. Why isn't the good Vittorio with you? Is it the turn of the Signorina Maria Lena to be escorted by her fiancé?" "Vittorio is not her fiancé!" "Perhaps not. Perhaps he is the big fish who has got away, but Roberto is not to be so lucky. He is the sacrifice to comfort the old man. He and Francesca both!" "What do you know about Francesca?" He held up his fingers. "A little, like so!" He patted her hand, to her intense indignation, and looked admiringly into her face with soulful eyes. "But she is not pretty like you. You are very pretty." "Oh, go away!" snapped Eve.

Whether he would have gone or not, she doubted, but the tray of drinks was plonked down in front of her with an ominous rattle of glasses, and Angelo swiftly evaporated from the scene. "What do you think you're doing, talking to that man?" Vittorio demanded in a more angry tone than she had ever heard him use. "Talking!" Eve retorted rashly, her own temper flaring. "You should know better than to encourage such a man to sit with you !" "You were telling me only this morning that I should learn to flirt," she reminded him. He eyed her with smouldering rage. "You have no sense at all!" he almost shouted at her. "Do you think you can behave here with as little decorum as you do at home ? Well, do you ?" "Why not?" she countered. So he still didn't believe that she hadn't a whole posse of boy-friends in England, waiting to do her bidding! Well, let him think what he liked! "It is necessary to protect your reputation—" he began, his accent becoming more and more Italian as his anger grew. "Then I shouldn't be here at all, lunching with you! Not that you've left me with any reputation to protect—"

"Eve!" "He was only passing the time of day," she said crossly. "What did he say to you?" "That I was prettier than Francesca." "Your looking-glass could tell you that! What else?" "N-nothing else." His hand pounded on the table, rattling the glasses. "You will tell me—" Eve blinked back her tears. "Please don't shout! I don't like quarrelling in public!" "And you think I do?" "You'll only be angry if I do tell you!" she blurted out. "He—he asked if you were with Maria Lena. He implied that you might not marry her, but that Roberto wouldn't escape having to marry Francesca, because he's some sort of sacrifice to comfort the old man. Their father, I suppose—I don't know!" "He told this to you?" The naked disbelief in his voice hurt her even more than his anger. "What is Maria Lena to him? Does he suppose that because Francesca is sillier than I would have believed possible, her sister is as foolish as she?"

"He referred to you as Maria Lena's fiancé." "Did he indeed! Well, she is not my fiancée—yet! But she would have more sense than to be seen talking to Angelo, or any other man like that, in a public place. Her father would not permit it. And nor do I permit you to get yourself talked about while you are in my care ! You will obey me in this. Is it understood, Eve?" "Don't you think they are talking now?" "Because you are with me? But they already know why you are with me. You cannot believe I would allow it to be otherwise? But this other foolishness is not to be repeated or I shall send you straight back to England! Now, which is it to be ?"

Vittorio hardly spoke to her the whole way home in the car. She had accepted his strictures throughout lunch in a suffocated silence. Now, however, her patience was exhausted, as also was her hope that most of his fury with her was because he had been jealous of her receiving another man's compliments. On the way back to the car after lunch, she had suddenly found her voice and had told him in no uncertain terms how insular and narrow-minded she found him, besides being conceited and as horrid as ever. "And you are a fool!" he had retorted.

The tears had started into her eyes. "Perhaps I am, but at least I don't order you about all the time!" "Do you resent my telling you what to do ?" "Of course I do! You take too much on yourself!" "It seems natural to me. I can't allow you to flaunt your charms in front of other men when it's my responsibility to see that you come to no harm. Eve, think what I am saying to you ! You understand very well why I am angry with you! You may be still young enough to enjoy finding out the power you have over me, but what sort of man would I be if I allowed you to play games so you can score off me? You will behave yourself, according to my ideas, and what is considered right here, or you will take the consequences." "But I didn't ask him to speak to me!" He held out his hands in a prayer for patience. "Think of your position here! Is it nothing to you what other people may think of you ? For any woman to be seen talking to such a man, when she has no husband, father, or brother to protect her, is to invite the assumption that she welcomes his attentions. Perhaps you did! Did you like his compliments ? Like when he told you you are prettier than Francesca ?" "Then people must be making some pretty funny assumptions about the Cagnolos—" "Eve! I am not talking about the Cagnolos—I am talking about you! It was you who was allowing this man to hold

your hand and pay you compliments. Didn't you think that if you'd called out, I'd have come at once? Are you so English that you cannot raise your voice?" "Yes, I think I am," she had said. "Then I will teach you to be more Italian!" he had exclaimed. "Come, Eve, I have your promise that this will not happen again, no?" Eve had drawn herself up to her full height, and had held her head high. "No! I won't promise you anything! I'll talk—and flirt—with anyone I choose!" "Will you indeed?" His tone had grated on her overstretched nerves and, when he had turned her round to face him, her eyes had fallen before the impatience in his. "I think not!" he had added. But still she had been unable to resist provoking him further. "I'll take myself home!" She had started away from him, but far too late to escape the steely menace in his hands as they grasped her by the arms. "Vittorio, I won't be coerced into anything—" His lips descended on hers, hard and demanding, and her defences had come tumbling down before the onslaught. What had begun in anger had changed to gentle persuasion and she had clung to him, pushing closer into his arms, no longer pretending that she wanted anything else but this, to

love and be loved by him. In the end it had been he who had pushed her away from him, and he who had hurried her across the last short distance to the car, almost throwing her into the passenger seat and slamming the door after her. "Vittorio—" she had begun. "Do I have your promise?" She hadn't dared defy him further. "Yes, but why should you care, Vittorio? You—you've only known me a few days!" "A day, an hour, a minute, my foolish Eve, what has that got to do with it? Is that what you think about when I kiss you? But don't make me angry again, or I may forget all my good intentions and coerce you into something you are not yet ready for." "Vittorio, you wouldn't?" "Then have a care, madonna, as to how you behave!" It was not perhaps surprising they had made the rest of the journey in silence. It was one of the longest journeys Eve had ever made: from adolescence into a new maturity. She felt years older and wiser by the time she stepped out of the car and waited for Vittorio to put it away in the garage.

CHAPTER NINE EVE lay down on her bed for a few minutes, intending to make some kind of a decision as to how she was going to come to terms with Vittorio. But she must have been more tired than she knew, for when she awoke the half-light of evening told her it would soon be dark. She changed her dress quickly and went into the kitchen. Signora Fellici was already there, preparing the evening meal. "Le posse offrire qualcosa?" the Signora asked her immediately, bouncing across the kitchen to point out first the coffee percolator and then the kettle, her faith in Eve's Italian being strictly limited when it came to the essentials of life. "No, grazie," Eve answered. She went out on to the patio, but Roberto had gone and there was no sign of Vittorio being at home either. She took the path to the lighthouse, and sat under a pine tree, clasping her hands about her knees. The sea was no longer blue as it had been all day, but had taken on the colour of wine, just as Homer had seen it and described it thousands of years before. In another half-hour it would be completely dark. It was warm enough, despite it being a rather chilly spring, for the midges to be out in force. Eve did her best to ignore them, but after a while their persistence got the better of her

and she jumped to her feet, taking the path down to the sea to escape them. It was pleasant walking across the loose sand and she was at the other side of the bay before she knew it. There were some caves in the rocks over there and she decided to explore them. She stumbled on the rough ground in the darkness and decided that the caves led nowhere after all. They had obviously been used as gun emplacements during the war and had never been sealed off again. She retraced her steps to the entrance, coming out into the glowing aftermath of the sunset. She wanted to find a way to the top of the cliff without going round by the road, but it proved to be a hard struggle. She found the path easily enough, but it was steep and the loose stones kept giving way beneath her feet, but when she got to the top she was rewarded by the expected fairyland view of Porto Azzuro, with the romantic, apricot-coloured prison spotlit above it. The midges were less troublesome on the side of the bay. Eve found herself a comfortable spot to sit, leaning her back against a rock, and watched the lights coming on in the small port opposite, until the whole quay, the shops and the restaurants, were reduced to a mass of lights, of all colours, that shone again, reflected in the water, in shimmering, bright pools. Then, to crown the moment, even as she watched, the Italian naval training ship, with full sails billowing in the light breeze, moved at a stately pace across the port and dropped anchor some way out from the land. Her sails fell to the decks and were made fast in a matter of seconds, and a few minutes later her lights came on too,

accentuating her glorious silhouette against the very last of the scarlet splendour of the setting sun. It was a poignant moment. Eve sat on in the darkness, very aware of her own loneliness. She took a last look at the lights of Porto Azzuro, watching the fishing boats as they went slowly out to sea. Most of them were very small, with a light mounted high on the prow, ready to be lowered into the water to attract the sardines, or squid, or whatever it was they were hoping to catch. Her attention was caught by the last of the boats, that came round the point all on its own, not from Porto Azzuro, but from the other side of the promontory on the top of which the ancient fortified prison brooded. But it was not that that had arrested her attention, but the man who sat at the tiller of the boat, still too far away to see clearly, but who she was quite sure was the man with the gold ring in his ear, the man Angelo. The boat came in close beneath her, drifting round into the bay and towards the lighthouse. Eve peered down into the boat, wishing that she could see better. It was very nearly dark and there was no moon yet to light the scene. She was curious enough to want to know who the second person in the boat was, but she could not, and then, just as she was going to give up and go back to the villa, Maria Lena's voice came clearly up to her. "Angelo, non si preoccupi! Papa—"

The reply was more difficult to hear. She smiled wryly. How furious Vittorio would be with Maria Lena if he knew! This was no light encounter at the lunch table while he was fetching a few drinks. This meeting was prearranged and had the familiarity of custom about it. A sudden instinct sent her slithering down the cliff to run the full length of the sands. There was a concrete path that ran along the bottom of the cliff below the lighthouse, and she sprinted along it, hoping to catch a closer view of the boat as it went past. Maria Lena saw her first and ducked her head out of sight, as well she might, Eve thought grimly. "Maria Lena!" she called out urgently. Angelo turned, his lips parting in a smile. He brought the boat close in beside her. "Why, it is the pretty one! Do you come to join us?" His voice had all the resonance of an Italian tenor. "I—I'd like to," smiled Eve. Maria Lena's head came up with a jerk. "No, Eve, don't! And don't say you've seen me either!" "But surely, aren't you going fishing?" Eve asked innocently. "It should be the greatest fun !" "J am going to take her with us!" Angelo decided, flexing his muscles. "She will be company for me on the way home. Besides, I like her better than the little one. She will say nothing to anyone. Why do you worry about her?"

Maria Lena's voice caught on a sob. "You know why! She will tell Vittorio—and he will go straight to Papa, to tell him I am with Giuseppe!" The boat nosed against the concrete beneath Eve's feet. Angelo came forward and held out a damp hand to her, pulling her on board. "The pretty one will say nothing—I shall see to that!" His eyes were bright with confidence in himself as he kissed Eve's hand with a mock gallantry that she disliked. Maria Lena clutched at Eve's arm. "Go back, Eve ! Must you interfere?" "Yes, I must. Vittorio would hate it if he found you had been alone in a boat with Angelo!" "He must not!" Maria Lena gasped hoarsely. "Giuseppe will be quite angry enough !" "Anyway," said Eve, "he wouldn't believe me if I did tell him." "How can you be sure of that?" Maria Lena demanded. Eve shrugged. "He's known your family for years. Why should he believe anything I may say about you?" There was a silence in the boat. Angelo shoved off from the shore with an oar and then came to the back of the boat to start the two-stroke outboard motor. He laughed down at Eve. "I was right at lunchtime, no? You were very happy

when I came over to you, just as you are happy to be with me now!" Eve cleared her throat, remembering with anger what that brief encounter had cost her in terms of Vittorio's respect. "I thought we were going fishing?" she reminded him. "What—what is the light for?" "The light?" Angelo sounded disappointed. "You will see. We let it down slowly into the water. Nowhere else is the water as clear as it is in this bay. Then we see the octopus and zoop! we have it!" He made a violent movement with his free arm and Eve cowered back from him. He found her reaction very funny and tried to repeat the joke for Maria Lena's benefit. "But we do not go fishing tonight," he added meaningly. "We go to find Giuseppe at Montecristo, and on the way back, would you not enjoy to kiss and have some fun?" "I told you not to come!" Maria Lena said again. "I had to go with him—it's the only way I can go to Giuseppe. This one is nothing! Even Francesca dislikes him now!" It was cold on the water. Eve tried to stop herself shivering by imagining she was clad in Vittorio's sweater, but the mere thought of him made her feel more icy than ever. She could only too well imagine his feelings when he heard about this escapade. "It's the truth!" Maria Lena insisted. "As God's my witness, it's the truth!"

Eve began to wonder if the motion was not going to be too much for her. She cast a harassed look round, seeking the shortest route to the side of the boat, feeling more and more queasy by the moment. If she were to be sick, she thought, it would be the final humiliation of an inglorious day. "You could never understand," Maria Lena continued. "You don't understand the way we live here. Papa must content himself with Francesca's marriage to Roberto. It's the only way! He must forget all about me!" Eve fingered her stomach, feeling increasingly distressed. She made a rush for the gunwale and was sick over the side of the boat. "I've never been seasick before!" she groaned. "You're cold," said Maria Lena. "You have only a thin blouse. It's not thick enough after dark at this time of year." Eve thought longingly of her new sweater. "How was I to know that I'd be stuck on this boat? And who is Giuseppe?" "I asked you not to come!" Maria Lena retorted sharply. "And leave you alone with Angelo? Don't you care anything about Vittorio at all? How could you disillusion—" Eve broke off hastily, feeling as though she were going to die. Maria Lena was silent for a long moment. "How well do you know Vittorio?" she asked at last. "Well enough to know he wouldn't countenance his fiancée going out with any other man—especially with Angelo!"

"But I am not Vittorio's fiancée," Maria Lena said. Eve made another desperate effort to stop shivering. "But you're going to marry him, so what's the difference ?" "Why should it matter to you?" "It matters to Vittorio! He likes and trusts you. I don't know how you can go behind his back, you can't like Angelo." "Not Angelo, no, but Giuseppe is my friend." "I am your friend," Angelo broke in, smiling at Eve. "I like pretty girls very much!" "You!" said Maria Lena scornfully. "You should be more respectful—" Angelo laughed at her, beating his chest as though he were Tarzan. "No woman is safe with me! Nor do they wish to be!" Eve began to feel sick again. This was like a nightmare. She propped her cold, wet forehead against her forearm. "We should take her back," Maria Lena said to Angelo. "She is sick and cold. You shouldn't have allowed her to come!" "Give her something of your own to wear," Angelo commanded. "She will soon feel better. Seasickness is all in the mind!"

Maria Lena stripped off her own woollen jersey and began to put it over Eve's head, dressing her as though she were a doll with no will of her own. "Give her some cognac too," Angelo advised. "It will help to settle her stomach. Why must she choose to be sick in my boat?" "She can't help it!" Maria Lena defended Eve. Angelo muttered something under his breath. "I thought she wanted to come with me! What good is a woman who can do nothing but be sick?" Maria Lena laughed with good-natured but earthy humour, sounding very much more like her usual self. "I expect she prefers it to having to suffer your attentions!" "Your little sister didn't complain!" "My little sister is a fool. If Papa knew, he would kill you! And probably me too for not looking after her better!" Angelo hunched up his shoulders. "And what will he do to Giuseppe ? But he does not know, so we need not worry ourselves." There was silence in the boat. Eve sipped at the bottle of brandy that Maria Lena had dug out of one of the lockers. The borrowed warmth from the alcohol was welcome. She drank a bit more, enjoying the warm trail it produced as it eased its way down to her stomach. It was good. It was very

good. She took another mouthful, marvelling at how much warmer and better she felt. "What's happened to the engine?" she asked, taking a new interest in her surroundings. "We are waiting," Maria Lena soothed her. "At nine o'clock the people from the hotel will start fishing for octopus. I told my father I was going with them— with a number of friends, you understand, so he would give his consent. We wait for them to begin, to make sure Giuseppe is not with them but at Montecristo, fishing on his own. Giuseppe often goes fishing there, staying on the island. I shall be safe with him there. The ships no longer call and Papa will not think of looking for me there." Eve was finding it increasingly hard to concentrate on anything. "But what about Vittorio?" she cried out, her voice carrying across the water. "Hush! I am nothing to Vittorio, and me, I prefer Giuseppe. Papa will be a little sad, but he will have Francesca, and when she marries Roberto—" "Vittorio won't allow it!" Maria Lena shrugged. She leaned forward, looking closely into Eve's face. "Do you feel better?" She pushed the brandy bottle towards her lips. "You had better have a little more cognac. It will do you no harm and it will be a long, cold night for you."

Obediently, Eve took another sip from the bottle. "I don't like the taste much," she said. Angelo took the bottle from her, putting it to his own lips with a swagger. "I did not bring it for you! You are nothing but trouble to me! Shall I leave you behind on Montecristo too, my pretty one?" Eve started up. "Vittorio—" "The good Vittorio will think you came with me willingly enough. He will have nothing more to do with you!" "He will come looking for me!" Eve tried to convince herself. Maria Lena's head jerked upwards. "Leave her alone!" she interposed. "I want to get started!" Eve looked out across the water towards the shore. The whole beach in front of the hotel had come to life in the last few minutes. She could hear the distant shrieks of the children and the more sedate laughter of their parents. She thought, too, she heard her own name on the wind, but of course about that she had to be mistaken. If Vittorio and Roberto had noticed her disappearance, they wouldn't be seeking her in earnest for a long time yet. They would naturally presume that she was able to look after herself. She watched the people on the shore as they made their way towards the hotel landing-stage. A bigger boat than any of the others she had seen in the bay had been hired for the

occasion. The only other boat of a comparable size was, she realised, Angelo's. From a distance they would look very much the same to the casual observer. Was that what Maria Lena had intended? So that there would be no gossip attached to her departure, for any inquisitive, watchful eyes would suppose they were looking at the hotel boat and not give it another thought. Was that why they had waited round in the darkness all this time ? Their own lights went out. The green of starboard and the red of port blinked and died. Nobody paid them any heed, even supposing they had noticed their presence. They were too intent on the excitement at the start of their own expedition. Angelo allowed the boat to drift across the bay. The currents rocked them wildly and Eve began to feel sick again. "Give her some more brandy," Maria Lena whispered. "I don't want any more!" Eve gasped. "Vittorio!" she yelled. "Be quiet!" Maria Lena's hand came over her mouth. "Sounds carry far over the water." "I don't care!" "But I do. If Vittorio finds us, he will take me home to Papa, and I shall never forgive him. Never!"

Angelo abandoned the wheel and took a threatening step towards Eve. "You will care if we put something over your mouth to keep you quiet!" he threatened. Eve edged away from him. She helped herself to some more brandy, allowing the liquid to run down the back of her throat, making her choke. "After this," she said, "Vittorio will never speak to me again. He won't believe in this Giuseppe of yours, any more than I do! Nobody could suggest that you should trust yourself to Angelo—in a boat or out of it! When we do get to Montecristo he won't be there, I know he won't! And Vittorio will never believe either of us ever again!" "Giuseppe will be there!" declared the other girl. "Francesca said she would come with me and Angelo, but she was afraid Papa would find out, and I can't bear to be without Giuseppe any longer !" She paused. "I love him," she said simply. "He is worth ten of Vittorio. He will arrange everything for us when we get to Montecristo. You'll see!" On this note of confidence, she turned away and left Eve to her own devices. The hotel boat's engine was clearly audible in the silence. The great light on the prow was lit, lighting up the white superstructure and the faces of the passengers. Eve watched them through a blur of tears. Another engine came throbbing across the water and she wondered who it could be. Maria Lena and Angelo exchanged glances.

"If Francesca—" Maria Lena started. "Francesca will have told no one. She is afraid of what I would do to her," Angelo smiled. Maria Lena jumped. "What would you do to her ? Angelo, you are not to touch Francesca! She is young and silly, but she is not for you. Why should she be afraid of you? She has only seen you when she was with Giuseppe and me too." Angelo struck an attitude, flexing his shoulder muscles and grinning at Maria Lena. "Do you think she doesn't escape from your watchful eye whenever she has a mind to ? Of course she has been alone with me!" "Oh, Angelo, no!" Eve stared out across the water. The fishing expedition was making a great deal of noise, but she could distinctly hear the engines of the other boat and it was coming closer all the time. "It's coming nearer!" she said aloud. She forced herself to her knees, pulling herself forward with her fingers on the edge of the cockpit. Somehow she had to attract the attention of this passing boat. No matter what happened, she was determined to escape from Angelo and, whether she would or no, to take Maria Lena with her. "Be still!" Angelo shouted at her. He kicked out at her, his bad temper overcoming any scruples he might have had. He swore viciously in Italian, forgetting all about the need to be silent.

Eve forced herself to stand upright and rushed forward, butting him with her head. The boat swayed dangerously and for one moment she thought he would fall overboard, but he regained his balance and came back at her. He grabbed her arm and shook her, dropping her back into the bottom of the boat as if she were no more than a rag doll that had unaccountably got in his way. Bruised and shaken, Eve opened her mouth and took the only course open to her. She yelled and yelled Vittorio's name until she was hoarse and breathless. "You fool!" Maria Lena cried out. "Oh, why wouldn't Giuseppe take me away himself, then none of this would have happened!" Eve listened for the engines of the strange boat, but she could no longer hear them. It seemed incredible to her that no one should have heard her cry out before, but the hotel boat was making a great deal of noise and the attention of the tourists was fixed on what they were doing. She watched as they cruised round the point, coming to a halt just above some rocks where the octopuses were known to take shelter. The light on the prow was lowered deep into the water, giving a glow of light that reached out in all directions, shimmering green and gold on the surface of the water. Eve wiped her face, wondering how, despite her bruises and the waves of dizziness that came and went whenever she moved, she could attract their attention.

Then suddenly the other boat she had heard came round from somewhere behind them, travelling fast towards Eve as if it were homing in on her. Angelo hurried towards the engine and tried to start it. The first attempt failed with a cough and a splutter, but at the second try it flared into life and Angelo turned his boat towards the oncoming vessel, the lights of which were now plainly visible and no longer confused with those of the hotel boat. When the crash came, Eve took the brunt of the shuddering shock that ran through the frail decks. For a moment she thought they had holed the front of the other boat, but it was Angelo's timbers that splintered and parted, and the water came gushing in through the gaping hole in their side. "Maria Lena! Maria Lena!" a totally strange voice cried into the night. "Giuseppe!" Maria Lena answered him. "Oh, Giuseppe ! What do you do here?" The water crept up over Eve's feet. She stared down into the black depths, trying to focus her eyes. They were sinking! She had never been much of a swimmer and the water went up her nose and dragged at her clothing, carrying her downwards. She could hear the engines of the strange boat as it circled round and she wondered if Angelo and Maria Lena had been picked up, and whether she would be left to drown. Then strange hands grasped her and hauled her on board the strange boat and strange voices spoke to her, only for some reason that wasn't clear to her she couldn't

understand a word they said to her. They seemed very far away and peculiar. Then quite distinctly she heard Vittorio's voice saying, "That settles it! Tomorrow she goes to our aunt before anything else happens to her!" Even in her present, dizzy, uncomprehending state, Eve found herself answering back, "Maria Lena came to chaperon me!" Vittorio put his hand under her chin. "Is that so?" he said in dangerous tones. "And what were you doing?" Eve made one last effort and sat up. "Maria Lena —did you find her ?" "Giuseppe's got her." "Oh no!" Eve protested. "Please go to her, Vittorio!" "Really?" The amusement in his voice humiliated her. "Are you giving me orders now?" She tried closing her eyes, but her head spun all the harder. "It was all my fault!" She opened her eyes again. "I don't feel at all well!" "My dear girl, I don't suppose you do. You're as drunk as a lord!"

"Vittorio!" She grasped his hand very tightly in hers. "You don't know how I hate you !" "But I do!" he countered, pushing her hair back out of her eyes. "I heard you, crying my name all over the bay—" "I did not!" "When you are more yourself," he said, "you'll know just how ridiculous you are being. Maria Lena doesn't need me, so don't argue any more. You're going to feel quite ill enough, without setting yourself up against me." The rest was confusion. When she tried to speak, she found she couldn't think straight, and her eyes grew heavy, but when she shut them, the world skidded away from her, and she clung to Vittorio's hand more tightly than ever. "It was all my fault!" she said again and again. "You won't be angry with Maria Lena, will you?" "Not if you don't want me to be." His voice was still amused. "Giuseppe is more than angry enough for both of us! Now, will you do what you're told ? Can you walk up the hill by yourself, or shall I carry you?" It was a beautiful feeling to be on land again. Someone went on ahead, carrying a lamp to light their way up the steep path. Eve felt very strange indeed. Her knees gave way beneath her, but for some reason she didn't fall, and from then on she floated up the hill without any noticeable effort on her part at all.

"Think you can undress yourself?" Vittorio asked her as he carried her into the house. "Let me know if I can be of any help." She blushed, her lips trembling. Then the old familiar mocking tone came back in his voice, as he added, "No, my dear, as we're in Elba, perhaps it's better I send Signora Fellici."

CHAPTER TEN EVE awoke to a throbbing head and to the sound of her bedroom door opening. "Go away!" she mumbled, without any pretence of trying to be polite. "I don't think you'd really like that," a familiar voice answered, and in a moment she felt a hand push her hair out of her face. "It serves you right for drinking brandy on an empty stomach," said Vittorio, "and for interfering in something that was none of your concern !" She shut her eyes, blotting out his amused face. "Where is Maria Lena?" she asked him. "At home. Giuseppe made sure of that!" "You should have taken her home," she said. "And missed carrying you up the hill? You ask too much!" He leaned down, his face very close to hers. "Would you rather I had left you to somebody else ?" She pretended to hesitate. "That, of course, depends—" His eyes glinted. "My, but you tempt me, Eve Alliston, to make you beg for mercy! And if you're not very careful, in terms of Elba I'll make sure of you once and for all!"

She cowered under the bedclothes. "Roberto will be going back to England tomorrow morning," he went on. "You'd better start thinking of your answer, Eve. You haven't much time left." "But I'm not going back to England," she said decidedly. "I haven't yet done my job for Mrs. Rawlinson." "That's why I'm sending you to my aunt." "But Mrs. Rawlinson—" "There will be no argument, my girl," he said. "You're going to Marciana Alta because "I wish it. Understand ?" "But I don't want to go!" His tone was again mocking. "My aunt's house is not a prison! I expect she will allow you to spend some of your time with Roberto if you ask her nicely." He laughed. "You know," he said, "I think my aunt will find you completely charming. She has a very soft spot for me, and if you look like that every time my name is mentioned, she'll be delighted with you." How did she look? Eve wondered. "What are you going to tell her about me?" "What do you want me to tell her? That you like me to kiss you?"

"I thought that was Roberto's prerogative?" His eyebrows shot upwards. "Is that so? Shall I convince you ?" "No ! Anyway, your aunt wouldn't believe you. She must know that we've only known each other for three days—not quite that, unless you count it in the Roman way!" "Three nights!" he drawled. "What a peculiar obsession you have with the calendar." Eve clutched at the bedclothes. "Vittorio—" She refused to acknowledge that his standing over with that confident look on his face was having any effect on her whatsoever. He bent his head and put his arms right round her, holding her so closely that she didn't know if it was his heart or hers that was pounding against her ribs. There was no escaping him or his kisses, despite the sledge-hammer in her head. She buried her fingers in his hair and hugged him closer still, aware only of a burning urgency to submit to the ecstasy of his caresses. Then, with an unexpected suddenness, he had stepped away from her. "Roberto will be ready as soon as you are," he bit out, going towards the door. "You'll go to my aunt and you'll wait there till I come for you!" She waited until he had closed the door behind him and then slipped out of bed, nursing her head as best she could

through the ordeal of dressing and putting her things together in her suitcase. When she went outside, Roberto was alone. "You look terrible!" he told her. "No wonder Vittorio thinks you need a breathing space in the mountain air!" Eve ignored that. "Where is Vittorio?" she asked. "He's explaining to the police how Angelo's boat sank last night. He has witnesses that Angelo had no lights and that it was he who tried to ram us." "What's your aunt like ?" she asked. "She's a widow. She lives very quietly these days. She's our paternal aunt and is rather grand." He hesitated, and she wondered if he had been warned off the subject by his brother. "Are you packed?" he asked her. "My suitcase is in my room. I wish Vittorio were here, though. I'm sure your aunt won't want me—" But Roberto only laughed. "Don't you realise—" he began. "No, I suppose you don't! But you can't stay on here when I've gone back to England and you'll be much better off at Marciana Alta. It won't be for long, if Vittorio has any say in the matter!"

Indeed, Roberto became quite enthusiastic at the prospect of seeing his aunt once he had stowed Eve's suitcase in the boot of Vittorio's car and had installed himself in the driving seat beside her. Eve found his driving terrifying. He had little or no respect for the power of his brother's car, screaming round the corners on the wrong side of the road, enjoying himself thoroughly. They took the now familiar road to Bivio Boni, keeping straight on along the road round the northern coast of the island. Eve was entranced by the beauty of the scenery wherever she looked. Mostly, they were perched high above the deep blue sea, catching fascinating glimpses of coves and beaches below. Chestnut trees grew on either side of the road and at Marciana Marina itself, when they reached it, were dozens of terraced vineyards that reached high up into the hills towards the twin villages of Poggio and Marciana Alta. As they came into the ancient port of Marciana Marina, Roberto slowed to a more normal pace. "I think we'll take Zia a few bottles of wine," he said. "She'll be all the more pleased to see us, for she takes her cellar seriously. Her husband was interested in all that sort of thing, and she's interested in everything he was." Eve said nothing. She looked about her at the small town they had entered. She thought she had never seen a prettier place than the port of Marciana. The whole length of the front was paved with pink granite and shaded by tamarisk trees. At the far end, where the great arm of the harbour reached out into the sea, a Saracen tower, built by the Pisans

as a defence against the constant Saracen raids of the era, guarded the small dock where the sea-going fishing boats came and went. Roberto drove very slowly along the front, coming to a stop at the far end beside a shop that was hung about with decorated bottles. Inside was a counter, built from a couple of wine-smelling barrels. The walls were stacked with bottles of wine, all of them locally produced. "Do you want to taste them for yourself?" Roberto asked Eve as they entered the cool sanctuary. "No!" said Eve. "Not a hair of the dog that bit you?" "It was very cold on the water. And it was brandy, not wine!" "Then a little wine won't do you any harm. They mix very well," he assured her. "Come on, Eve, you'll enjoy it, I promise you!" He went over to the counter and greeted the old man with the rheumy eyes who stood behind it. They spent a few moments in earnest conversation while the old man dunked two small glasses into a bowl of water and stood them, still wet, on the counter in front of him. He nodded his head when Roberto spoke again and poured a small quantity of liquid into each of the glasses.

"Go ahead!" Roberto said to Eve. "See what you think of this one." Eve took a sip. "Too sweet!" she said. The old man shrugged his shoulders. He took her glass and swilled it out, filling it with a drier red wine that he thought she might like better. She did. Roberto winked cheerfully at them both. "We'll take a few bottles of that," he said. "We may as well take something you like, for my aunt will expect you to drink your share of it. She has great faith in wine and onions keeping away all the ills the body is prey to." He grinned at Eve's dubious face. "You don't believe her? Shame on you! My aunt is always right—my mother says so!" Eve laughed, grateful for his nonsense. And who was to say that his aunt was not right, for she was feeling very much better than she had first thing. Her headache had almost gone and her zest for living was almost back to normal. They came out of the shop and Roberto put the wine he had bought on the back seat, carefully laying the bottles on their side and covering them with a rug. "Right," he said. "We'll be off!" Eve got back into the car, throwing him an apprehensive glance. "May we go a little slower? I know you're a very good driver, but I like to see the scenery and I can't when I've got my eyes shut, praying!"

"You're in luck," he said. "As a matter of fact we can't go fast from now on. The road twists back and forth the whole way there." This, Eve discovered, was an understatement. Climbing some twelve hundred feet in a few miles meant many hectic hairpin bends and seldom, if ever, getting out of a low, climbing gear. Then suddenly Poggio was before them, remote and shabby. The houses climbed in tiers up the mountainside, secretive behind their peeling shutters. There was a cafe at the entrance of the town, with a roof-top verandah on the opposite side of the road and a glorious view across the terraced valley and down to Marciana Alta. "In the old days, they used to watch from here for the raiders to leave the coast. When they were sure they were gone, the fishing folk could go home. Giuseppe's people were still living in the same house where they do now. They can tell some fine stories as to how they were fleeced by the mountain villagers whenever they took refuge up here." It seemed hard to believe that such a peaceful place could have been the scene of such violence. Eve turned to Roberto in some excitement. "I didn't know that you knew Giuseppe? Did you know him too, when you were all children here?" He shook his head. "He went into the Merchant Navy as soon as he was old enough, and he's quite a bit older than I am. He only came home again last year."

But he sounded a great deal more suitable as a husband for Maria Lena than Eve had feared. That put a shine in her eyes that not even her worries over her reception at Marciana Alta could dim. Roberto drove straight through Poggio. The road dropped away from the summit that the small town crowned into a high valley wooded with chestnuts. They passed the spring of clear water, the only truly potable water on the island, which was called the Fount of Napoleon. A family was busily engaged in filling up various receptacles with their week's supply of drinking water, and a lorry was being loaded with the bottled water that was sold in all the island's resorts. It wasn't far from there to the foot of the funicular that takes tourists up to the top of Mount Capanne in summer. A small stream ran under the road, announcing its presence by the splashing sound of water as it dropped a few feet to pass under the bridge. From there the road began to climb again and Marciana stood high above them. The yellow ochre houses rose in shabby splendour high up the hill. The walls were peeling and stained rusty brown where great blisters of paint had come away. The ancient pantiles made patterns against the sombre walls of yet more houses rising skywards. Marciana, conscious of its dignity as the oldest community on the island, looked sad, as though it had long been stranded in the sun, forced to watch the life which had once been its own pass it by for the more promising future of the coastal resorts.

"The people up here look down with disdain on jumped-up Portoferraio and the like," Roberto told her. "This town was the most important in Elba when the Princes of Piombino were here, and that was long before that upstart, Cosimo de Medici, began to build the fortifications at Portoferraio." "Marciana looks sad," Eve remarked. "It looks like a shabby dower house." "That's its tragedy. There's nothing to do here but to die." "What does your aunt do?" Roberto shrugged. "She's a widow now. It's not like England, you know. Here, widows are proud of their symbols of mourning. They wear a lot of black and retire from much in life. You must try to understand our customs if you are not to be homesick for your own. They're as much a part of Vittorio as the sticks and stones of Marciana!" Eve didn't think she'd find it difficult to adapt to the ways of a foreign land. "If you have doubts, you might care to know that Zia Gemma married an Englishman," Roberto went on, "and the family survived the event!" "But I'm not going to marry—an Italian." "Have you told him that?" he asked her dryly.

He drove into the town and parked the car in a small piazza under some trees. He reached over into the back of the car for the wine and got her suitcase out of the boot. "I'm afraid we shall have to walk from here," he said. "The only traffic that can come and go in most of these streets is a donkey." It was lucky that he knew the way, for Eve was lost after the first moment they left the piazza. They climbed steps, shot down narrow passageways, their feet clattering against the granite paving stones and the cobbles of the old streets. Shops appeared in the most unlikely places and so did the cats, sitting and sunning themselves in every available space, pretending they owned the whole island and not just the house in front of whose door they crouched. At last Roberto came to a stop outside a solid wooden front door of beautiful proportions that was completely at odds with the grimy exterior of the rather poor-looking house. "Si! Avanti, prego!" a woman's voice called out from somewhere inside in answer to Roberto's knock. He pushed open the door and ushered Eve inside. She was astonished to find that what had appeared from the outside to be a quite small house was in fact enormous. Stairs reached both upstairs and down, and a veritable rabbits' warren of passages led to still more rooms and yet more staircases. The floors were made of solid marble, with the occasional rug flung down here and there. Most of the furniture was very old and beautiful, but here and there, a modern piece, strictly

functional in its design, stood hugger-mugger amongst the antiques, without any apparent regard for value or taste. "Goodness !" said Eve in an awed voice. "Vittorio said you'd be impressed!" Roberto observed. "I expect we'll find my aunt out on the terrace." He jumped down the steps into the picture gallery and hurried out on to the terrace beyond. Eve followed more slowly, her heart pounding, now that the moment of meeting Vittorio's aunt was upon her. She had never known anyone who had their own picture gallery before and she could see at a glance that they were all family pictures, for there was a strong likeness in the faces, given the differences in costume and sex. She stepped out into the sunshine, momentarily blinded by the glare, and blinked to see the arrogant, blackclad figure who came slowly across the terrace to greet her. She was not as old as Eve had expected— far too young to be a widow!—but her hair was as white as the lace of her collar, the only break in the unrelieved black that she allowed herself. "Zia!" Roberto kissed her warmly. "Did Vittorio tell you we were coming?" His aunt smiled. Her eyes were so dark as to be black, but her expression was friendly. "He telephoned me last night." She took a step forward to shake hands with Eve. "I believe you were in a boating accident and got rather wet," she added.

"Yes, I did," Eve admitted. "I expect Vittorio enjoyed rescuing you." Roberto's aunt smiled, looking unexpectedly like her nephew. "I can quite see why he should! You see, child, living as I do alone, people are apt to come and tell me what my family is doing when they are on the island. I heard, for instance, when Roberto was last here and did not come to see me!" Roberto smiled. "Once a Millini, always a Millini! How they all gossip !" "You forget I am the Contessa Pandotti," his aunt reminded him. "What have you done about Francesca Cagnolo ? Is she in trouble ?" Roberto was not abashed. "No, she is not! She talks a lot about marriage—" "Then don't listen!" the Contessa advised him dryly. "Vittorio will talk to her father and all will be well." She looked directly at Eve. "Very well," she said.

CHAPTER ELEVEN ROBERTO stayed to lunch, but shortly afterwards he took his leave of Eve and his aunt and went racing off down the narrow, steep passages to where he had left the car. "And now you shall tell me all about Vittorio," the Contessa said to Eve. "It will be much better than keeping it all bottled up inside you. I'm afraid young men have no imagination when it comes to the women they are fond of and we have to put up with it because we are fond of them. But whatever made Vittorio think that you would rather be safe with me than having a perfectly splendid time with him?" "He doesn't trust me not to get into trouble," Eve confessed. "And I think he was angry too." "Very likely," the Contessa agreed. "Young men in love are often angry!" "Yes, but I don't think he's in love with me!" Eve said. "It isn't like that between us. I'm just—" "Is that what he told you? It must be that you didn't understand him very well, though your Italian is quite good. I suppose Gemma saw to that?" Eve nodded. "I went to her evening classes." But the Contessa was no longer interested in her young guest's linguistic abilities. "But you are wrong about Vittorio's regard for you," she said. "I knew the moment he

told me he was sending you to me that it was because of some attachment to you. Why else should he care if you stay alone with him at his villa ? Are you very much in love with him?" Eve would have dissembled if she could, but the look on the Contessa's face was so very like Vittorio's that she found she couldn't "I—I know I've only known him for three days, but—" "So long?" the Contessa said politely. Eve's eyes flew to her face, suspecting the older woman of mockery, but the Contessa's expression was one of bland interest. "Three minutes was long enough!" Eve caught herself up. The Contessa did not seem to hear. "It is how I hoped it would be for Vittorio," she said. "Being the eldest in a family is not always easy. He has always had to look after his brothers and sisters, and this has cost him much. He is a fine lawyer, I am told, and it is time he founded his own family. Of all my nephews, he is the one who needs to be loved without reservation, to know that he is loved. Will you do this?" Eve plucked up her courage and asked her own question. "What did Vittorio say to you about me?" The Contessa looked amused. "I think it would embarrass you if I told you that! You are younger and, I think, a great

deal more inexperienced than I thought. He was, as you said, very cross that events were not going exactly as he had planned them, and crosser still that he couldn't make everything as lovely for you as he wanted—-Haven't you found him particularly kind?" The Contessa smiled a quiet smile. "My husband was not kind to me when we first met either, but I would not have had it any other way. I had no other interest but him—he saw to that!—but now I am widowed, and life is very much changed. The social life I led with my husband is dull without him. And so," she added with a little laugh, "I have retired from society and am learning to say my prayers and prepare myself to join him in the next life. But I have not forgotten—I have not forgotten anything!" The Contessa spoke with decision. "But I was absolutely intrigued to meet you! If Vittorio hadn't suggested that you came to me, I should have stirred myself and come to see you at Neregno." "Would you?" said Eve. "But why?" "Because I think you would have been glad to see another woman in the house, and because Signora Fellici likes you. And because I'd like to have seen you with Vittorio."

Eve spent the afternoon exploring Marciana. There was more to see than she had imagined, most of it evidence of the small town's famous past. She found the old mint that,

five centuries ago, produced the Appiana coinage for the princes of Piombino. She also followed the signs along a narrow track to the Casa degli Appiani, perched above a dilapidated though charming little chapel, which was now being used as a garden shed. By the time she had walked right round the town, climbing up and down the narrow streets, Eve was hot and tired. She walked right down to the bottom again and bought herself an ice-cream in the piazza, sitting at one of the tables to eat it. The only other occupants were the old men who sat and talked the day away, making the most of the spring sunshine. It was such a peaceful scene that Eve felt herself beginning to relax and she felt more at home with herself than she had at any moment since coming to Elba. The sun was just leaving the narrow lanes when she walked back to the Contessa's house. The darkness stalked her footsteps as she made her way up the steps and ran along the covered passageway to the cobbled street where the front door was situated. She let herself in with the key her hostess had given her, shutting the door with inordinate care behind her. "Is that you, my dear?" the Contessa's voice came to her up the stairs. "Yes," Eve called back. "Come on down," the Contessa bade her. "I'm in the small sitting-room through the gallery. Can you find it?"

Eve ran lightly down the stairs, crossing the gallery more slowly, for she was still unaccustomed to the idea of having a private picture gallery in one's home. In the subdued light she caught a glimpse of one of the grander pictures that hung there. The strong likeness to Vittorio in the female face that looked steadily back at her from the canvas caught Eve on a raw spot. The mocking amusement in the eyes, so like his, was just as though this ancestress, too, found something funny in Eve's devastation at the hands of her descendant. "Oh, there you are !" the Contessa's voice said from the doorway. "That was my mother, Vittorio's grandmother. He favours her, don't you think?" Eve nodded, rendered speechless by the knowing look in his grandmother's eye. She turned quickly away and pointed to another painting that hung on the other side of the gallery. "That one is more like Roberto," she suggested. "That's my brother," the Contessa nodded. Eve looked at him more closely. "V-Vittorio's father?" "Yes. This is really his house, but he allows me to live here now that I am widowed. You don't have to worry about him, my dear. Naturally his children would never say as much, for they are very fond of him, but he is as gentle as a butterfly, and not very effective. He has all the kindness that Vittorio and I lack."

Supper was hardly what Eve expected. The small table was set with solid silver and the glass was from the famous Venetian factory, coloured the famed wine-red that is known all over the world. A maid stood behind the Contessa's chair, quick to supply her every need, while another came and went with the many dishes that made up the meal. Eve had never encountered such delicious Italian cooking before. The pasta dish was piquant and as light as a feather. It was followed by a steak, accompanied by an onion and tomato salad. And that, in turn, was followed by an ice-cream edged about with meringue and chocolate, that was as rich as it was exotic. As Roberto had foretold, the Contessa took her cellar seriously. She served a different wine with each course, insisting that Eve should learn the subtleties of winedrinking, which the older woman considered a major part of any serious enjoyment of continental cuisine. They had just come to the end of the meal, and the maids were busy clearing the table, when there was a loud knock at the door upstairs. "At this time ?" the Contessa exclaimed, annoyed at being disturbed. "Why could they not telephone?" The maid whispered something to her, but the Contessa shook her head. "I shall go to the door myself. I wish to see who it is that comes here at this hour unannounced. If it is Roberto back again, I shall have something to say to him!"

She went rapidly up the stairs, her black stole streaming out behind her. Eve heard her unlock the great wooden door and then her cool voice as she demanded to know who it was who stood without. "Signora la Contessa, ha visto Maria Lena?" Eve had heard the voice before. She tried to remember when and where, but it escaped her. Whoever he was, he came slowly down the stairs behind the Contessa and Eve rose from her chair, standing uncertainly in the middle of the room while she waited for him to be introduced to her. "Posso presentar il Signor Rossi," the Contessa said quietly, firmly re-seating Eve with a heavy hand on her shoulder. The young man beside her smiled. It was strange, but although his voice was familiar, Eve could not remember ever having seen him before. "I am Giuseppe," the young man told her. "O-oh!" Eve exclaimed. "Of course !" Giuseppe Rossi turned back to the Contessa, still smiling as though he were enjoying some private joke of his own. Eve tried hard to remember more about him to give her some inkling as to why he might be here, but nothing that she knew about him was of any help to her.

"I am afraid I'm intruding," Giuseppe said to the Contessa. "They told me down in Marciana Marina that the Signor Millini's fiancée was here with you." The Contessa said nothing, but the slow inclination of her head could only have been an assent. "But Maria Lena is not here?" the young man added. "No. But my nephew is not and has never been affianced to the Signorina Cagnolo, so why should she be here?" Giuseppe held her chair for her as the Contessa sat down. "There was a rumour to that effect—" "There have been many rumours," the Contessa said with derision, "but rumours often have little to do with the truth. Do you suppose I should not know who is my nephew's fiancée ?" Giuseppe seemed amused. "Certainly not! I am sure you would be the first to know!" he retorted. The Contessa's eyes glinted, noting his impertinence, but she was not displeased by it. "So why do you come here disturbing our evening, young man?" "Because I am the man whom Maria Lena is going to marry!" Eve pulled herself together with difficulty. "Does she know? Are you absolutely sure?"

"Yes, signorina, I am sure. I can't help knowing that her family would prefer that she should marry into the Millini family, but that would be no good for Maria Lena. She has been lonely enough in the past and, when she is with me, she is not lonely at all. There will be no more foolishness such as the incident of last night, not once she is my care—that I can promise you!" "Was she really running away to be with you?" Eve couldn't resist asking. Giuseppe frowned. "Maria Lena will marry me in church at the proper time! I was angry with her last night. And now she is out again somewhere, chasing Francesca, who is old enough to know better than to traipse about the island with this one and that one because she gets a thrill out of it. So what must Maria Lena think up for her but that the little one should marry Roberto—another stupidity! But I was afraid I might find Francesca with Roberto and that would never do. I can assure you, signora la Contessa, signorina, that when I find Maria Lena I shall return her sister to her father, and Maria Lena shall come with me! If she is to be my wife, I wish to know where she is. I am taking her to my mother this very night!" The Contessa sat very straight in her chair. Her dark eyes were completely enigmatic, but Eve sensed rather than knew that she liked Giuseppe Rossi. "Maria Lena is not here," the Contessa repeated.

"Then you will forgive me if I go in immediate search of her. It is known that Francesca has been visiting Angelo at his grandmother's house and elsewhere, and he is not a man I wish my future wife to have any further dealings with. If she is not here, it is possible that she is at Naregno, thinking her sister is there, but it is not right that she should be seen constantly in Vittorio's company either. There has been enough talk about them both!" The Contessa started. "I should not like to think of Roberto seeing Francesca alone either," she said firmly. "No," said Eve. She took a deep breath. "Signore, may I come with you?" Giuseppe flashed a look in her direction. "You, too, have heard about Francesca and Angelo ? Is it Vittorio or Roberto you wish to protect?" "Both of them. The Cagnolos talk of nothing else but a possible marriage between Francesca and Roberto, but he is too young, and his family—" "Are not completely stupid!" the Contessa cut her off. "Roberto must go back to England. It is for Signor Cagnolo to deal with Francesca—no one else! I'm sure Vittorio will make this plain to him. As for Maria Lena, I agree with Giuseppe. He must find Maria Lena at once and take her to his mother. You, child, shall go with him, to make sure Roberto is not left alone with Francesca so that he can be pushed further into a marriage that he may regret. Besides,

you can't be expected to stay here with me when such excitement is afoot! Vittorio will bring you back to me tomorrow, yes?" She rose to her feet, pulling her black stole more closely about her shoulders. "Signorina Alliston is my nephew's fiancée, signore, so you will answer to Vittorio if anything should happen to her !" Eve gasped. "But—" she began. "But nothing!" the Contessa retorted. "If you don't know he intends to marry you, then you are the only one who doesn't! Why otherwise should he have sent you to me? I am a member of his family, my dear. Are you telling me that he has so little respect for me?" Eve swallowed. "But Vittorio never said a word about marrying me!" "I told you you would have much to teach him!" the Contessa went on. "Doubtless he thinks it too soon, that you would be afraid of his forcing—" "Vittorio? Vittorio wouldn't care a rap about that! If he wants to marry me, he'll find some way of making me whether I want to or not!" The Contessa, looking so very like Vittorio, laughed mockingly at Eve's confusion. "Perhaps he is more scrupulous than you suppose. And if he thinks you don't want to marry him, he's a fool!"

"I'll go and get my coat," said Eve, returning a minute later to catch the Contessa's amused look at her. "I may really go, mayn't I ?" she said impulsively. The Contessa kissed her affectionately. "Of course. Vittorio shall bring you back tomorrow. Tell him I shall expect you both for a late lunch. You will remember to tell him?" Eve nodded her head. "I won't forget," she promised. Giuseppe glanced at his watch. "I don't want to hurry you, signorina, but I'm anxious to find Maria Lena as soon as possible." Eve nodded again. She felt Giuseppe's hand on her elbow and went with him up the stairs and out through the magnificent front door. The streets were not very well lit. Eve stumbled down the narrow, stepped cobbles, glad of Giuseppe's guiding hand. He seemed to have no trouble in finding his way, but rushed her, as fast as they could go, down towards the piazza. "I borrowed my brother's car to get here," he told her. "It's not very comfortable, but it came up the hill, so it's better than it looks. He was expecting me to return straight away with Maria Lena, so we must go to my house first to tell him that I have not yet found her. It is permitted ?" He opened the door for her to get into the passenger seat, muttering a quick 'Prego' under his breath as he shut the door on her. The car smelt strongly of fish and the back seat

had been pulled right out to leave room for the mass of ropes, boxes and rusty iron that the Rossi family used when they were out fishing, mending their nets, or repainting their boats. "How long have you known Maria Lena?" Eve asked as Giuseppe got in beside her. "Since I came home from the sea." "How long is that?" She watched him as he handled the car, coaxing it into reverse and then into a forward gear to take them down the hill. "A few months." He gave her a sidelong smile. "I am not welcome in her house, but we meet here and there, whenever we can. It may have been that that gave Francesca the idea that she could skip out whenever she wanted to." "With Angelo ?" Eve said wryly. "A bad choice. Maria Lena blames herself because it was she who had the care of her sister, but Francesca listens to nobody! My mother would have tried to do something with her, but the Signor Cagnolo would not hear of such a thing." "But did anyone tell him that Francesca was seeing Angelo?" He shrugged expressively. "Not Maria Lena! She was always thinking that if Francesca was to make a fine marriage, her father would mind less if she were to marry

me—but now her father will have to listen to me! I shall tell him tonight. Maria Lena has had too much to worry her these last years, but now she has me to look after her and she will be happy to have things that way!" Eve was silent. She found it difficult to believe that Maria Lena, or anyone else, could really prefer someone else to Vittorio—not even the strong young man at her side, much as she liked him. Giuseppe drove very fast down the hill. He knew the road extremely well and he knew when to slow to take the bends and when to put his foot down hard on the accelerator. Marciana Marina was full of fishing boats. Their lights bobbed up and down and were reflected in the waters of the harbour in shimmering patches of colour. The feathery leaves of the tamarisk trees were silhouetted against the street lights that lit up the whole length of the long front. Giuseppe drove halfway along the front towards the shop where Eve and Roberto had bought the wine that morning. "This is my house," Giuseppe told her. "Will you come in?" Eve hesitated. "I may delay you. I'd like to get to the Villa Millini as quickly as possible." "I shall not be long. I must tell my brother that I still need his car, and I must telephone Signor Cagnolo to find out if Maria Lena and Francesca have returned home, and also to

make an appointment to speak to him about Maria Lena being my wife. You may as well wait inside." Eve was glad to get out of the car. The smell of fish clung to her clothes and the front seat was not particularly comfortable. "Please, come in !" Giuseppe bade her. He stood in the open doorway, catching one of what seemed like hundreds of children that came hurtling out to greet him. The whole house was brimming with people, all of them talking at once, a good half of them children, busy about their own interests and goodnaturedly shrugging off the frequent and extremely loud strictures of their elders. "I shall telephone!" Giuseppe announced above the din. Eve nodded, stunned by the noise inside the house. She glanced about her, trying to imagine Maria Lena pressed into this busy scene, but she could not. The lonely, rather aloof girl that she knew came from a wholly different background from this rough, good- humoured hive of activity. The quiet, well-bred atmosphere of her father's house was a far cry indeed from this fishing family. A small girl, seeing Eve alone, came running over to her, addressing her in a flood of excited Italian. She had a green parrot on her wrist and she tried to make the bird display the few words she claimed she had taught it. Eve tried hard to make some sense of the parrot's squawks, but 'prego' was the only sound she could really distinguish.

Then suddenly, from the kitchen, came Giuseppe's mother. She had the heavy look of the middle-aged Italian peasant, uncorserted and sure of herself in the affection of her family. She barely had to whisper and there was complete silence in the room. The children scampered out into the street and the men quietly resumed their wine-drinking and reading the paper. "Signorina! Bona sera! Si mette a sedere. Prego, prego!" Eve subsided on to the only available chair and accepted the glass of wine that Giuseppe's father brought to her. She hadn't long to wait, however, before Giuseppe came back into the room, his face clouded with misery. "Maria Lena is not at home," he said stiffly. "And Francesca?" Eve insisted. "Where is she?" Giuseppe waved his hands in the air. "Nobody would tell me anything!" "Then let's go straight to the Villa Millini," Eve pleaded. "Vittorio will know what to do, and I have to make sure that Roberto is there. You know the Contessa only let me come because she was worried about Roberto." Giuseppe looked less and less happy. "It's Maria Lena who must be found!" he exclaimed. "She is a good girl—" "So she may be!" Eve shot at him, her temper decidedly frayed. "But you have to admit that she is extremely silly!

Going off with Angelo—without even finding out if you really were at Montecristo! And trying to make out that Francesca is a fit wife for Roberto, when anyone with half an eye can see she's still a child, and an impossible one at that! Well, Maria Lena can do as she likes, but Francesca can't. Not with Roberto! Vittorio won't have it!" Then, she lapsed into silence, mollified by Signora Rossi's voluble approval of Eve's faith in Vittorio's judgement. Giuseppe's grin was less to her liking, as she knew very well what he was thinking, that Vittorio was more than capable of managing his own brother without any help from her. "Very well," he capitulated at once. "We shall go to Naregno." He spoke hurriedly to his family, tossing his mother a kiss and embracing his father and his brother. Eve found that she, too, was caught up in a round of leavetaking, shaking hands with everyone in sight before she was allowed to rush out of the house and get into the car. "Will it please you if I drive fast?" he asked her. "Yes," she said. And drive fast he did. They roared along, creaking up the hills and pausing only to navigate the particularly deep rut in the road at the top of the hill overlooking Naregno, just before the steep descent to the beach. It must have been later than she thought, for the beach-side restaurant of the main

hotel lay in darkness, the last of the diners having long since left. There was only the last steep rise to the villa and they would be there. As Giuseppe drew up outside the house, Eve wrested open the door and jumped out. Without stopping to think what she was doing, she ran straight into the hall and landed, full tilt, in Vittorio's open arms. "This is an unexpected pleasure!" he mocked her. She held on to her self-control with everything she had, longing to be swept up in the joy that fountained within her at being with him again. "The Contessa said I could come, but I have to go back tomorrow! She was afraid that Francesca would inveigle Roberto into taking her out somewhere—" His eyebrows rose. "Francesca is at home in bed!" She put her hands flat against the front of his shirt and looked up at him anxiously. "Are you sure? Only Roberto feels sorry for her and—" "I am quite sure, as sure as one can ever be about Francesca's whereabouts, or yours either for that matter! Come closer, my Eve, and let me make sure it is really you! Dio mio, if you only knew how much I have wanted you all evening, and now you are here!" He put up a hand to the back of her head and loosened her hair, watching it fall about her shoulders.

"You can't!" she whispered. "You can't, not now!" "Oh, can't I? Stand still, sweetheart, and let me show you. Like this! And this!" His lips took hers with an urgency there was no denying, while his hands slid down her back to her hips, holding her tightly against him. "Vittorio," she pleaded with him. "Vittorio, Giuseppe is here with me!" He swore in exasperation, half pushing her behind him to shield him from the other man's eyes. She tried to pull her hand away from the light clasp he retained on her wrist, but he refused to let go. "Well, Giuseppe, what are you doing here?" Giuseppe was unperturbed. "I brought your fiancée to you, isn't that enough?" Vittorio eyed Eve thoughtfully. "Are you my fiancée?" "The Contessa introduced her to me as such," Giuseppe said, smiling at Eve. "It made me very happy, because I intend that it shall be I who will marry Maria Lena Cagnolo. I am looking for her now, to take her to my mother." "Maria Lena is here," said Vittorio. "I was on the point of taking her home to her father." Giuseppe clenched his fists and relaxed again. "She is not going to her father. Tonight, if you agree, she may stay with

your fiancée, but tomorrow she comes to my mother until I make her my wife. Francesca is no longer her affair, and so I shall tell her!" Vittorio nodded approvingly, giving Eve a little slap on her fingers as she tried to wriggle her hand out of his. "Francesca is of no further concern to any of us! Her father has been persuaded to send her to visit her maternal aunt in Florence for an indefinite period, perhaps until she is old enough for Roberto, who knows?" He gave Giuseppe a friendly smile. "Come in, and talk to Maria Lena," he invited him.

CHAPTER TWELVE EVE gave up her half-hearted efforts to reclaim her hand. Vittorio looked straight into her eyes and smiled a faintly mocking smile. Her colour rose. She stepped away from him so quickly that she almost trod on Giuseppe's feet. "I suppose you did tell Zia that you would not be with her for the night?" he said, pulling her closer against him. "Of course! I had her consent—truly, I did! She knew—that I wanted to be here with you—and you're to take me back to her tomorrow. She's invited us both to lunch." "And so you came running?" "A late lunch!" Eve added carefully. She pulled at her hand again. "Vittorio, please! Giuseppe is waiting to see Maria Lena!" Vittorio re-threaded his fingers through hers, lightly kissing the back of her hand in an almost formal gesture. "So he is! I suppose we'd better take him into the salotto, or we'll never get rid of him! Maria Lena is waiting there for me to take her home." Giuseppe sucked in his cheeks, looking annoyed. "You have not explained why Maria Lena felt it necessary to come to you?" It was plain that he was not at all pleased by his fiancée's defection.

"She came to tell Roberto that Francesca is being sent to Florence," Vittorio replied. "Why? Why come here?" Vittorio shrugged. "In spite of everything, Roberto has an affection for the little Cagnolo— "There is the telephone for that!" Giuseppe exclaimed. "With Signor Cagnolo listening to every word?" Vittorio reminded him drily. "But come in, and you can ask her for yourself." "I intend to," Giuseppe said in such a hard tone of voice that Eve felt quite sorry for the Italian girl. "We had enough folly from her yesterday!" Vittorio put a friendly arm about Giuseppe's shoulders as he ushered him into the sitting-room. Maria Lena started to her feet as they came into the room. If she was surprised to see Eve, she was completely astonished to see Giuseppe. "Oh, Giuseppe!" she sobbed, her face crumpling at the sight of him. He stood in front of her, not saying a word, shifting from one foot to the other. "Why aren't you at home ?" he asked at last. The rebuke in his voice was too much for her and she burst into tears. "Oh, Giuseppe, I wish you'd been here earlier!" she sobbed. "I had the most terrible row with Papa! He says

I can't marry you!" She broke off, and started again, much of what she had to say wholly unintelligible to Eve, but the pathetic relief of the Italian girl at seeing Giuseppe softened her impatience with her. Then something Maria Lena said made Giuseppe truly angry. His knuckles gleamed white against the brown of his tanned hands. "Your father believes this of you?" he demanded. Maria Lena nodded. "He says you're no better than Angelo—and that I'm as bad as Francesca!" She sniffed miserably. "Papa says we must both go to Florence. Oh, Giuseppe, I know I should have looked after her better, but I can't go away from you now!" Giuseppe made a little dash for her, catching her up in his arms. "I will take you to my mother tomorrow, and you are not to worry about anything any more ! You have only to be a good wife to me and all will be well, you'll see! Francesca can go to Florence on her own." Relieved tears shone on Maria Lena's face. "Papa will never speak to me again!" she sighed. "Yes, he will speak to you," Giuseppe said with authority. "Not tomorrow, but the day after, he will speak again." He looked at her, his love for her in his eyes. "When he hears that he has a grandchild, he will want to see him, and all this will be forgotten then. But can you be happy as a fisherman's wife, my little love? Marciana Marina is not Florence. You may find it hard to live as we do?"

Maria Lena shook her head, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand. "I don't want anything else! Oh, Giuseppe, I thought you might not want me, but you do, don't you?" She was too shy to allow him to kiss her when other people were there and she shook herself free of his restraining hands, putting one of them up to her lips and kissing it quickly before she moved away from him. "I am sorry, Eve, if I spoilt things for you, but I didn't want Papa to know about Giuseppe. I thought he wouldn't mind if he thought Francesca and I were seeing the Millinis." "Rather than Angelo?" said Eve. "He is a bad man!" Maria Lena agreed. "He frightened Francesca very badly. She had only known men like Roberto before." She cast a swift look at Vittorio. "My father would like them to marry— eventually." "Why not?" Vittorio shrugged. "The Millini name is a respected one, both here and in Tuscany, and there have always been rumours that one day there might be a marriage uniting the two families—" "Yes, you and Maria Lena!" Eve said drily. He chuckled. "But, as you can see, Maria Lena is going to marry Giuseppe. She can hardly marry me too!" "But you never denied that you would marry her—"

"You never asked me and I am too much of a gentleman to list all the girls that I am not going to marry!" "But Maria Lena said—" "And you believed her?" His look mocked her. "Shame on you! You, of all people, had reason to know I had no interest in Maria Lena!". Eve chose to ignore that. How could she have known ? Of course she had believed Maria Lena when she had said that it was she whom Vittorio would eventually marry! And when she thought of the jealousy she had suffered because she had believed her, she thought the last thing she deserved was to be taken to task for her lack of faith! Roberto came into the sitting-room, carrying a pile of clothing, and looked at the assembled gathering with surprise. His gaze settled on Eve. "That was a long visit!" he observed. Giuseppe frowned at Maria Lena. "You owe Roberto an apology too," he prompted her. Maria Lena blenched. "I know I do. Don't blame Francesca too much, Roberto. It was my idea that she should marry you—" The look of dismay on Roberto's face made them all laugh. "I like her well enough," he admitted. "But it will be a long time before I marry anyone. Girls need far too much looking

after. Look how Vittorio carries on about Eve and she isn't even grateful!" "Touché," Vittorio smiled. "But then Eve hasn't the first idea of how to look after herself! I send her to Marciana Alta, safely out of temptation's way, and she manages to persuade my upright aunt to allow her to come back here for the night—" Roberto grinned. "I don't see that it matters, seeing that you're going to marry her!" Vittorio's eyes never left Eve's face. "Am I going to marry her?" Eve answered deadpan with an effort which took something to achieve. "You must be going to because your aunt says you are, and Roberto says that, according to your mother, the Contessa is never wrong!" Vittorio's eyes glinted as he replied, "It's as well for you, my girl, that Maria Lena is going to be here. You look as though you could do with a good night's sleep. You'd better go to bed before I change my mind!" *** When Eve awoke, it was to a sense of well-being and the knowledge that the day was a very special day. The time of waiting—of knowing, and not knowing, what the future held for her—had seemed so long, and then, in a flash, she had been caught up in Vittorio's train. She wondered how she

would manage as an Italian wife. There would be many adjustments to be made, and she was in no doubt that it would be she who would have to make them, that Vittorio wouldn't change his way of life for her. But to be Vittorio's wife—! Maria Lena stirred in the double bed beside her. Eve smiled at her. "The sun's shining!" she announced. "It's going to be a lovely day, I know it!" "Is it?" Maria turned over sleepily. As she never wore any make-up, she looked exactly the same first thing in the morning as she did at any other time of day. "It usually is good weather at this time of the year." "Maybe here, but not in England!" Eve retorted. She looked curiously at Maria Lena, wondering about the other girl. She thought of her as she had first seen her, tanned by the sun, with short, curly hair, and a light, springing step. The only difference now, a few days later, was that she looked older despite her night's sleep, her face drawn with the tell-tale lines of fatigue. "Will you be happy with Giuseppe?" Eve asked, trying to stifle her own doubts. Maria Lena's face lit. "I have never wanted anything more for myself! I shall be more than happy to live my whole life with him in Marciana Marina."

Eve sat on the edge of her side of the bed. "Giuseppe took me inside his house while he was telephoning your father," she began awkwardly. "His family is a very large one, isn't it?" Maria Lena nodded happily. "All my life I have been lonely," she said. "Now I shall never be lonely again!" So, in a strange way, they had both come home, Eve thought. She to a foreign land, and Maria Lena to a totally new way of life. She caught up her washing things and disappeared into the bathroom. She was a long time in the shower. She luxuriated in the warm water, allowing the shower to play on her body with a force that stung. She wished she had something fresh to wear, but she had left her suitcase at Marciana Alta and had only what she had been wearing the day before, including the petticoat she had slept in. When she had finished dressing, however, she was reasonably content with her appearance and, with a fluttery feeling in her inside, she went through the bedroom and into the kitchen to find herself something to eat. Signora Fellici looked up from what she was doing, delighted to see her. She drew out a chair for her and bade her sit down, producing hot rolls, freshly baked from the oven, and a single portion of butter from the refrigerator. "Marmellata? Frutta?"

Eve shook her head, rather shy in the face of the Signora's trenchant approval at her being back at Vittorio's villa, and not with his aunt as she had expected. Giuseppe came almost immediately. This time he was not in his brother's car, but in a small all-purpose van, built on to the frame of a two-stroke motor-cycle, the Mediterranean's modern donkey of all work. Eve could hear the engine puttering noisily as it came up the hill. He did not come in, but called Maria Lena out to him, and a few minutes later Eve heard the engine start up again and the van descended down the hill and, after a long moment, went out of earshot, leaving a deafening silence behind it. Eve finished her breakfast and washed up her cup and plate, exchanging smiles with the bouncy Signora Fellici as she did so. The Signora was plainly curious and Eve affected not to understand her eager questions until, exasperated, the maid told her to leave the washing-up alone, that Vittorio would not wait all morning while Eve dallied in the kitchen. Eve took refuge by going out on to the patio, only to find Vittorio already sitting there waiting for her. He looked up quickly, and for one enchanted moment, he looked straight into her eyes. Then she said the first thing that came into her head. "Did Maria Lena go with Giuseppe?" she asked, because it seemed essential to say something. Her voice caught at the back of her throat and she coughed.

"She did. At least his mother will look after her in future. She is a formidable woman and more than a match for any Cagnolo!" Eve managed a laugh. "I met her last night," she told him shyly. "I liked her. She is solid, just like Giuseppe. I like Giuseppe too." Vittorio put down the paper he had been reading and stood up. "And how do you feel about me?" he asked her. Eve stared at him in a tongue-tied silence. "I—" She uttered a little gasp and turned away. "Roberto has gone," Vittorio reminded her. "He never said goodbye !" "And you said we were not expected at Marciana Alta until lunchtime, so I intend to spend the morning introducing you to the island of my heart." "But I've seen quite a lot of it!" "Have you? What's the matter, Eve? Are you afraid to be alone with me?" "N-no, of course not! I know I'm quite safe with you ! I'd like to see the western side of the island," she said, anxious to change the subject. "Roberto says it's spectacular and— and I do like grand scenery!" She swallowed, turned her head away from his gaze, and rushed into speech, saying the

first thing that came into her head. "The western part of the island is made of granite. It says so in the guide book. Granite is an eruptive rock. D-do you think it could have been thrown up when the Mediterranean was formed? Because it doesn't really belong to the eastern part, where all the minerals are—" His hands grasped her upper arms and he forced her face upwards to meet his. "I can read the guide book myself!" "Yes, but—" "You've run out of time, Eve Alliston! It's my turn to command and yours to follow!" He kissed her hard on the mouth, while with one hand he loosened her hair, running his fingers through it as it swung down below her shoulders. "Vittorio, what will your aunt think—" "Nothing she hasn't thought already. Besides, you have plenty of time to put it up again, and I like to feel it about us when I hold you close!" He kissed her again. "I said we'd do things your way—" "My way! Oh, Vittorio, how can you ? You've never let me have my way about anything!" "Haven't I? Think again. No matter how you've tempted me, I've let you get away with it. Don't think it has been easy for me! When you half-drown yourself because you think it will please me, and curl yourself into my arms as if you knew you belonged there! Or come running into the villa with

your eyes alight for me when I thought you were safely in my aunt's care! Why, I've hardly dared speak to you—" "But that was because you were angry with me!" she objected. "Angry with you? My dear love, if you only knew!" "Weren't you?" She spread her fingers against the front of his shirt. "Maria Lena said you were going to marry her. I couldn't bear for the dream to fade for you—I wouldn't have gone in the boat otherwise!" "When you were the dream?" "A temporary dream, or so I thought. Maria Lena was reality and more important than any dream!" "So you had to risk your foolish neck to protect the girl you saw as your rival?" She nodded, not daring to say anything. "Eve, have you no common sense?" he demanded, exasperated. "I thought it was noble!" she confessed. "I've never been more miserable in my life!" "Serves you right! If I had been going to marry Maria Lena, what do you suppose I was doing trying to court you? Didn't it ever occur to you that it was you I wanted?"

"Oh yes," she said. "But I thought I was a pleasant diversion, an amusing interlude, before you settled down to the serious business of taking a wife. I thought you thought I was that sort of person!" He stared at her. "Dio mio!" "I thought it was obvious! Look what you thought about me and Roberto—-and—and the others on the telephone! Besides, I've read all about Italians who—" "Have you?" he interrupted her grimly. "I have read all about English girls too! Always thinking they know best, and not listening to a word that's said to them! What on earth did you think I was talking about when I told you you could depend on Italian family life? Did you think I was talking about Maria Lena then?" "I didn't know what you were talking about. I only knew what I wanted to think! And then you said you were relying on my generosity to—" "And you thought I wanted a brief affair?" She nodded. "I thought I'd given you the impression I wanted that too." He shook his head and touched her cheek and kissed her gently on the lips. "Darling, do you think I don't know that I'm the first to master that foolish heart of yours? Of course I know it! Just as you know that you have no choice but to be mine for the rest of your life!"

She hid her face in his shoulder, holding him tightly to her. "Yes," she whispered. "Oh, Vittorio!"

The western side of the island was dramatic enough even for Eve. The road ran high above the sea, affording frequent, breathtaking vistas of outcrops of rock and sea. Little villages nestled in the few coves, separated by the main body of the great cupola of granite that found its summit at Monte Capanne and had its feet well below the sea. "I could stay here for ever!" Eve remarked. Vittorio smiled at her. "Is that a hint?" The colour rose in her cheeks, "You usually live in Florence, don't you? Will I like it there too?" "I think you will." He parked the car on the edge of the cliff, walking round the car to let her out. "Shall we walk a little ?" he suggested, a glint in his eye. "It's for you to say," she said mischievously. Taking her hand, Vittorio led her inland, and she thought they were going away from the sea, but they came out on the other side of a narrow neck of rock, hidden from the road, where they could be alone with only the sound of the sea for company, breaking against the rocks far below them in a maze of blue, gold and green.

"If your Italian were a little better," Vittorio began, "I would make the day catch fire for you, but I don't want you to misunderstand me." Eve glanced at him and smiled. "The fire was lit a long time ago! And it wasn't because Italian isn't my native language that I was afraid of getting my fingers burned!" He kissed her hands. "And now?" She hesitated. "I wish I could tell you. I think I was always fashioned for the fire, but only you could light it and make it blaze into glory for me." She turned towards him, lifting her face in invitation for his kiss. "One day I'll speak Italian well enough to tell you how it is with me. When I've known you a long, long time." He kissed her gently at first, but then his arms went right round her and he kissed her not gently at all, but with a burning desire that drew from her an equally deep response. She clung to him for support, glorying in the strong, hard feel of his body against hers. When he let her go, she sank down quickly on a flat-looking stone, afraid that her knees were going to give way beneath her. "When are you going to marry me?" he asked, his voice deep and mellow. "Whenever you say," she answered, not looking at him. "It had better be soon then," he said drily. "Bind up your hair, and we'll talk about it on the way to my aunt's. I don't

dare be alone with you until I've got my ring well and truly on your finger." He gave her a last look, watching the colour as it flooded into her cheeks. "I'll wait for you in the car!" Eve did the best she could with her hair, but without a looking-glass, she found it hard to tell if she had gathered it all up as she attempted to pin it securely at the back of her head. Her hands trembled, ruining her first attempt, and she was forced to begin again. When she had done, she almost ran back to the car and Vittorio. "My parents will want to come," she said, afraid that he wouldn't like the delay their presence would mean. "And Mrs. Rawlinson." "We'll send them a telegram, telling them the time and the place." "They'll think I'm mad!" Eve went on, her mind busy with her parents' reaction to their daughter's news. "They'll never understand how it happened! My parents knew each other six years before they decided to marry!" Vittorio laughed. "I wondered how soon it would be before you would be telling me that you've only known me for four days! Don't try to explain it to them, my darling. They'll probably think you met me at Zia Gemma's and have been seeing me for some time."

Eve gave him a relieved look. With that anxiety settled, she felt light-hearted and a new feeling of contented enchantment fountained up within her as she thought of Vittorio disposing of all her problems in the same easy way. "Do you think your aunt would allow us to be married from her house ?" she murmured. "Eve, you snob! I really believe you think your parents will mind less when they know I have a real live Contessa in the family!" "Well, yes," she admitted. "She's very impressive !" He shook his head at her. "I suppose she is. Very well, it will be exactly as you wish, as long as there are no delays! No running round finding the answers to Zia Gemma's questions—" He raised his eyebrows at her guilty expression. "Now what's the matter?" "Oh, Vittorio, I haven't even opened her notebook! I haven't had time!" His laughter made her feel guiltier than ever. "Haven't had time!" he mocked. "I should think not indeed! Finding yourself a husband in all of three days!" "Four," she corrected him, knowing that he knew that perfectly well, "and it feels much longer than that. Sometimes I feel as though I've always known you!"

"Perhaps you have, in your heart. I recognised you as mine the moment I saw you standing in the hall of the villa, still half asleep, and looking quite adorable!" Eve put his hand against her cheek. "I recognised you too. You kissed me and I knew. Even when you were being beastly—" "I had my humble moments, carina mia, you must grant me that!" She reached up and kissed his cheek. "You don't know what the word means!" she teased him gently. "You'd never be content to be anything lass than lord and king!" "And you dislike that?" He pulled her closer and began to kiss her in earnest, bringing her hair cascading once more around her shoulders and ignoring her protests that they should be starting for Marciana Alta. "You don't dislike it, do you ?" She looked at him through her eyelashes and struggled to maintain what was left of her dignity. "No," she said, "I don't dislike it." He watched her as she swept her hair up into its knot again. "I love you, Eve Alliston!" "I love you too," she said.