‘Maybe I’m being overly suspicious,’ Alysa said. ‘But during supper I noticed several times, when you spoke to Tina, Elena rushed to answer on her behalf. But Tina doesn’t need anyone to speak for her. She’s a very bright little girl.’

‘Yes, she is, isn’t she?’ he said, gratified. ‘I noticed Elena’s interruptions too, but I guess I didn’t read enough into them.’ He grimaced. ‘Now I think of it, Elena keeps telling me that a child needs a woman’s care. It just seemed a general remark, but maybe…’

He threw himself into a chair, frowning.

‘You saw it and I didn’t. Thank you.’

‘Don’t let her take Tina away from you.’

‘Not in a million years. But it’s hard for me to fight her when she’s so subtle. I manage well enough with everyone else, but with her the words won’t come. I’m so conscious that she’s Tina’s grandmother-plus the fact that she’s never liked me.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m not good enough,’ he said wryly. ‘Her family have some vaguely aristocratic connections, and she always wanted Carlotta to marry a title. My father owned a builder’s yard-a very prosperous one, but he was definitely a working man. So was I. So am I, still.’

‘But your name-di Luca-isn’t that aristocratic?’

‘Not a bit. It just means “son of Luca”. It was started by my great-grandfather, who seems to have thought it would take him up in the world. It didn’t, of course. They say his neighbours roared with laughter. What took us up in the world was my father working night and day to build the business into a success, until he ended in an early grave.

‘I took over and built it up even more, until it was making money fast, but in Elena’s eyes I was still a jumped-up nobody, aspiring to a woman who was socially far above him.’

‘It sounds pure nineteenth-century.’

‘True. It comes from another age, but so does Elena. She actually found a man with a title and tried to get Carlotta to marry him. When that didn’t work, she told me that Carlotta was engaged to the other man. I didn’t believe her and told her so. She was furious.’