‘Ah, you’re a nurse?’

‘I’m a doctor,’ Angie said, slightly nettled at his assumption.

‘Forgive me,’ he said hastily. ‘Sicily is still a little old-fashioned in some respects.’

‘Evidently.’

They walked side by side for a few minutes. ‘Are you annoyed with me?’ he asked at last.

‘No,’ she said too quickly.

‘I think you are. Try not to be. I spend my life in the mountains where people still hark back to an earlier age. To you, perhaps, we would appear rough and uncivilised.’

He didn’t smile, but there was a gentleness in his manner that won her over. Her curiosity about him was growing.

‘I’m not annoyed,’ she said. ‘It was silly of me to make a fuss about nothing. I was telling you about Heather. We got to know and like each other, and eventually moved in together. We’ve shared a home for several years now.’

‘Can you tell me something about her? She’s so different from-that is, Lorenzo-’ He stopped in some confusion.

It was odd, she thought, that this man from a wealthy background should seem so shy and ill at ease. Whatever else he might be, he wasn’t a smooth-tongued charmer, and she liked him better for it.

‘Lorenzo has played the field with ladies of easy virtue and you’re wondering what Heather is like,’ she supplied cheerfully.

Bernardo coloured and pulled himself together. ‘Since Renato approves of her I know she’s not a lady of easy virtue,’ he said hastily. ‘He speaks of her in the highest terms.’

‘She doesn’t speak of him in the highest terms,’ Angie said darkly. ‘She says he behaved outrageously.’

‘Yes, I’ve heard the story about that evening. I think those two will always be at odds, with Lorenzo in the middle, being pulled each way.’

‘I’m interested to meet Renato. What’s he like?’

‘He’s the head of the family,’ Bernardo said with a hint of austerity in his tone.