‘What about you and me getting on well?’

‘I hope we may, since we could hardly have a successful marriage otherwise. I’m sure you’ll be an excellent mother to our children, and after that you won’t find me unreasonable.’

‘Unreasonable about what?’ she asked, beginning to get glassy eyed.

‘Come, we’re not adolescents. We needn’t interfere with each other’s freedom as long as we’re discreet.’

She tried to study his face, but it was hard because his eyes were in shadow.

‘Don’t you mind doing it this way?’ she asked at last. ‘Don’t you have any feelings about it?’

‘There’s no need for us to discuss feelings,’ he said, suddenly distant.

‘But you’ve got everything planned like a business deal.’

‘Sometimes that can achieve optimum results.’

The cool precision of his tone sent a frisson of alarm through her. For the first time she understood the extent to which he’d banished human warmth from this plan, and it gave her a sense of unreality. Only a man who’d built fences around himself could act like this. She wondered how high the fences were, and why he needed them.

And what about your own fences? murmured an inner voice. You know they’re there. Brains are safe. Your head can’t hurt you like your heart can. Maybe you’re two of a kind, and he sensed it?

She quickly rejected the idea, but it lingered, troubling her, refusing to be totally dismissed.

Playing for time, she said, ‘If we married you’d expect me to come to live with you, right?’

He looked slightly startled. ‘That is the usual arrangement.’

‘But if I move to Rome I’ll lose the shop that I’m trying to save.’

‘You can leave your establishment here and have it run by a manager, or move it to Rome. You might even find it helpful to be there. I’m sure there’s a great deal you haven’t explored yet.’