‘Let him come. I’m brave enough for anything tonight.’

There was the sound of doors, voices raised in excitement. Suddenly he grasped Helen’s hand. ‘You will take my side in the row, won’t you?’ he begged.

‘There may not be a row.’

‘Oh, yes,’ he said in a voice that was hollow with approaching doom. ‘There’s going to be a row.’

She stared at him, puzzled. But before she could ask, her mother was on them, and incredibly she was laughing, hugging her eldest daughter to her and muttering, ‘What a clever girl you are!’

‘Mamma, I have someone with me. Didn’t you see what we were-?’

‘Oh course I saw. We all did. When Poppa told me who he was we got out the best champagne.’

‘Poppa knows him?’

‘He collected him from the airport two days ago. There now! Didn’t we choose a splendid husband for you?’

She was suddenly dizzy. There was a fog about her head, but not thick enough to shield her from the incredible, the monstrous, the outrageous truth. There was Poppa pumping the young man by the hand, bellowing, ‘Lorenzo!’ There were her sisters, surrounding him excitedly, urging him inside.

And there was Lorenzo Martelli, letting himself be hauled away, meeting Helen’s stormy eyes from the safety of a distance, and giving her a shrug in which guilt, helplessness and mischief were equally mixed, before turning tail and seeking refuge in the safety of the house.

CHAPTER TWO

MAMMA was almost bouncing up and down in her excitement, kissing her daughter again and again.

‘Isn’t that wonderful?’ she enthused. ‘Fancy the two of you liking each other at once! Just wait until your Aunt Lucia in Maryland hears about this.’

Helen blanched at the thought of this story spreading all over Maryland. How long before it got to California? ‘Mamma, don’t tell Aunt Lucia anything just now.’