‘I never much liked Crystal,’ Carlo admitted slowly. ‘I remember meeting her a few years after your wedding. You were totally crazy about her but she always struck me as slightly detached.’

‘Totally crazy,’ he murmured with a wry, reminiscent grin. ‘That’s true. I went on believing in her far too long, but I had to. In order to marry her I behaved very badly to someone else that I should have married, and I suppose I needed to believe that the “prize” I’d won was worth it.’

‘Behaved badly?’ The professor’s eyes gleamed with interest. ‘You mean really badly?’

‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ Gustavo said with a reluctant grin, ‘but there was no grand drama. Neither the lady nor I were in love. It was to be a suitable marriage, virtually an arranged one.’

Carlo wasn’t shocked. Whatever the modern world might imagine, such things were still common among the great aristocratic families of Europe. Money gravitated to titles, and where vast estates and ancient houses were concerned it was a matter of family duty to protect them.

And if there was one thing Gustavo understood it was his duty.

‘So what happened about this arranged marriage?’ Carlo asked now.

‘My father was alive then, and he’d had some bad luck. A friend of my mother’s knew of an English girl who had a great fortune. I met her, and we got on well.’

‘What was she like?’

Gustavo considered for a moment.

‘She was a nice person,’ he said at last. ‘Gentle and understanding, someone I could talk to. We would have had a good marriage, in a sedate kind of way. But then Crystal appeared, and suddenly sedate wasn’t enough.

‘She was-’ he struggled for words ‘-like a comet flaming across the sky. She dazzled me. I couldn’t see the truth, which was that she was ruthless and selfish. I saw it later, but by then we were married.’

‘How did you break it off with your fiancée?’