Speaking almost in a daze she said, ‘You could grow anything in this.’

His answer came without words. Plunging his own hand into the ground he raised it to show her. She touched it, and at once he gripped her hand, pressing it into the rich earth that he was holding.

It felt good, and the sense of power in his hands beneath the living soil made her strangely giddy.

‘You see?’ he said intently. ‘You see?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered. ‘I see.’

Something seemed to have taken possession of her. She didn’t want to open her fingers. She had the impression that the sun had darkened, but instead of blotting out her surroundings it made them more vivid.

There was a big scar on the back of his hand. She couldn’t take her eyes away from it.

Then he moved, prising her fingers open and drawing her hand gently down into the cleansing water.

‘It’s time we were going,’ he said quietly.

She nodded, rubbing the earth away, past speech.

When she was sitting beside him in the car he turned it and began the journey back down the track to where the road forked. There was a signpost, showing the way to Florence, but he swung away.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked.

‘I’m taking you home.’

‘Home?’

‘My home.’

She didn’t let him see how much this pleased her. She was more curious to see Rinaldo’s home than she would admit.

She had pictured a shabby, weather-beaten farmhouse, but the building that finally came into view had a touch of grandeur. It was three stories high, with a double staircase that formed two curves up the front.

But what really amazed her was that it was made of a stone that appeared pink in the red-gold of the setting sun. At that moment the sun shone directly into her eyes, making her blink, and giving the building the appearance of a frosted cake.