‘Anything you say,’ he vowed, giving her a delightful smile.

It was so obvious that this came from the manual of ‘how to deal with awkward customers’ that she nearly did thump him.

‘Look,’ she said in a low voice, ‘I don’t like this any more than you do, but we’re stuck with each other. I joined to go up the Alps, and that’s what I’m going to do.’ She glowered in what she hoped was a threatening manner, not easy as he was ten inches taller. ‘Do you understand?’

‘Signorina,’ he said solemnly, ‘I vow to you that if I was an Alp I’d be shaking in my shoes.’

‘Perhaps you should be,’ she warned him.

Then he murmured something in Italian, clearly not expecting her to understand. But she did. He’d said, ‘Why does this kind of thing always happen to me?’

She answered him in Italian. ‘Some people act like a magnet for trouble.’

She had the reward of seeing him embarrassed.

‘I shall have to beware of you, shan’t I?’ he said wryly.

‘Definitely. You have been warned.’

‘If you’ll excuse me, I must speak to the others.’

Renzo moved away hastily.

‘Cheeky devil,’ she murmured. ‘So certain that he’s got everything sussed. And I bet they all fall for it. Well, not me.’

Mandy had to admit that the charge of ‘delicate’ had some truth. She was daintily built and graceful of movement, which fooled many people into thinking her fragile. They were wrong.

Joan returned to her side, saying, ‘They say he’s in great demand.’

‘Because of his mountaineering skills, you mean?’ Mandy asked ironically.

‘I think it has more to with the Wow! factor,’ Joan mused, studying Renzo’s tall, athletic figure.

‘I can’t say I noticed it.’

Joan chuckled. ‘You would have done if you weren’t miffed with him.’

Mandy laughed and conceded the point. While she might not have taken to Renzo, honesty forced her to admit that he had the Wow! factor in spades.