‘I was about to leave anyway,’ Alex said.

‘To be sure, signorina, I believe you.’

‘You’d better,’ she said losing her temper. ‘Signor Farnese, I dislike you at least as much as you dislike me, and I won’t stand for being called a liar. If this wasn’t a solemn occasion I would take the greatest pleasure in losing my temper in a way you wouldn’t forget.’

She stormed out without giving him the chance to answer. If she could have sold the entire farm out from under him she would have done so at that moment.

The Hotel Favello was in the Piazza della Republica, in the medieval heart of Florence. Here Alex was close to the great buildings, the Palazzo Vecchio, the Duomo, whose huge bulk dominated the Florence skyline, the fascinating Ponte Vecchio over the River Arno, and many other places she had promised herself that she would visit before she left.

On the evening of the funeral she decided to eat out, preferably in a restaurant where she could gain a floodlit view of the buildings.

She’d had a shower as soon as she left the reception, but before getting dressed she had another one under cold water. Thankfully the onset of evening was making temperatures fall, and the room had good air-conditioning, but she felt as though the heat had penetrated down to the core of her.

She started to put on a pair of tights, but discarded them almost at once, disliking the suffocating sensation of anything clinging to her flesh. She rejected a bra for the same reason.

When she finally slipped on a white silk dress she wore only a slip and brief panties beneath, because that was the only way she felt her body could breathe.

Just as she was about to leave there was a knock on her door.

She opened it to find Rinaldo Farnese standing there.

He had removed the jacket of his smart black suit, and was holding it hooked over the shoulder of his white shirt, which had been pulled open at the throat. His hair was untidy, his face weary, and he looked as though he had discarded the strait-laced persona of the funeral with as much relief as she had discarded her coat.