It was all part of the trickery, she warned herself. Having insulted her, he was now bent on winning forgiveness on easy terms. Well, he could think again!

Lorenzo was talking about his family back in Palermo. Helen gathered that his father had died some years earlier, but his mother was still alive, although in frail health.

‘She called me last week,’ Mamma said, ‘to say you were coming. And I told her you would always be welcome in our home.’

‘Well, you’ve certainly made me welcome tonight,’ Lorenzo assured her with his charming smile that took in everyone at the table.

‘Do you have any brothers and sisters?’ Carlotta wanted to know.

‘Two brothers, Renato and Bernardo, both older than me. No sisters, but a sister-in-law. Renato has recently married an English woman called Heather, and their first baby is due later this year.’

Poppa was frowning. ‘I didn’t know your parents had three sons,’ he said. ‘I thought it was only two.’

‘No, there are three of us.’ Lorenzo’s smile was still perfect, but Helen detected a fleeting tension in him, and noticed how adroitly he turned the conversation.

He was wonderful in company, Helen realised. He could be ‘man-to-man’ with her father and brothers, while charming Mamma and making her sisters laugh. In no time at all he had them all on his side, which struck Helen as a really dirty trick.

The most difficult part of the evening was that for once she had her parents’ total, unqualified approval. They had picked out a suitable husband, and instead of arguing she had moved to first base in a couple of hours. In this atmosphere it was impossible to tell them that their choice was a devious, unscrupulous deceiver who ought to be hung up by his thumbs until he promised never to approach a woman again.

Lorenzo, watching her, read her thoughts with tolerable accuracy, but he was too much occupied with getting his bearings to worry about the retribution awaiting him.