‘Will you just listen?’

‘-and when I find my own sister matchmaking for me- Stars above! You’ve got a nerve, Olympia.’

‘I wasn’t matchmaking,’ Olympia said placatingly. ‘I just thought you might find Marco useful.’

Harriet made a sound that would have been a snort if she hadn’t been a lady.

‘No man is ever useful,’ she said firmly. ‘The breed isn’t made that way.’

‘All right, I won’t argue.’

They were half-sisters, one English, one Italian. Only their rich auburn hair linked them to their common parent, and each other. But in Olympia, the younger, the glorious tresses were teased into a glamorous creation. In Harriet, the same colour hung, straight and austere on either side of an earnest face.

Their clothes too revealed their opposing characters. Olympia was dressed in the height of Italian fashion. Harriet looked as though she’d put on whatever was comfortable and handy. Olympia’s figure was slender and seductive. Harriet was certainly slender. It was hard to be sure about anything else.

Olympia looked around her at the exquisite shop in the heart of London’s West End. It was filled with fine art and antiques, several of which caught her interest.

‘He’s splendid,’ she exclaimed, noticing a bronze bust of a young man.

‘First-century Roman,’ Harriet said, glancing up. ‘Emperor Caesar Augustus.’

‘Really dishy,’ Olympia purred, studying the face close up. ‘That fine nose, that aristocratic head on the long, muscular neck, and that mouth-all stern discipline masking incredible sensuality. I’ll bet he was a tiger with the women.’

‘You spend too much time thinking about sex,’ Harriet said severely.

‘And you don’t spend enough time thinking about it. It’s disgraceful.’

Harriet shrugged. ‘There are more interesting things in life.’

‘Nonsense, of course there aren’t,’ Olympia said with conviction. ‘I just wish you were as interested in living men as dead ones.’