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‘Just a moment,’ he said, and Allegra watched in bemusement as he climbed out of the car and approached the men. They were impoverished old farmers, their remaining teeth tobacco-stained, greasy caps crammed on their heads.

Allegra watched as the men embraced Stefano in turn, kissed his cheeks and clapped him on the back. She looked on with growing surprise and wonder as Stefano kissed them back, held them by the shoulders and greeted them with the respect and love of a beloved son.

They talked for a few moments, loudly and with much excitement and agitation, and then Stefano turned to her, his expression tense and still, and beckoned for her to come out of the car.

Slowly Allegra did so. She was not a snob, and she’d certainly been among the lowest of society’s offerings in her seven years in London.

Yet, she realized, she’d thought Stefano was a snob. After all, he’d wanted to marry her for her social connections. He’d married someone else for them.

He put paid to that assumption by the way he laughed and smiled with these men, old and incredibly poor. He looked upon them as if they were his family, Allegra thought. As if he loved them.

‘Por Lucio,’ Stefano said. ‘She is going to help him.’

Allegra heard a chorus of grateful and delighted cries. Fantastico! Fantastico! Grazie, grazie, magnifico! And then she was embraced as he’d been, her face cradled by weathered hands as kisses were bestowed on each cheek, and she heard the men murmuring ‘Grazie, grazie’ in a heartfelt chorus of thankfulness.

Tears stung her eyes at their easy affection, their unsullied joy. She smiled back, found herself laughing, returning the warm embraces even though she knew not one person’s name.

She felt rather than saw Stefano watching her, felt both his tension and approval. The men wouldn’t let them go back in the car until they’d drunk a toast, the conversation continuing with a round of questions.

Would she stay long? Did she know Lucio—such a wonderful child? And Enzo—a man with such wisdom, such kindness! It was a tragedy, such a tragedy …

Allegra listened, nodding with deepening sympathy for this close community and the sorrow that had ripped it apart.

And yet Enzo’s death hadn’t ripped it beyond repair, she realized. If anything, it had made these men, this community, stronger. Closer. They clearly all cared deeply about Lucio, about Bianca … about Stefano.

She thought of her own family, the sorrow and betrayal which had left it in shreds. She thought of Stefano’s words only this morning, You haven’t seen your mother or your father since that night you ran away , and then her mind slid gratefully away.

She turned her thoughts back to Stefano, saw him smiling and laughing good-naturedly, his arm around the shoulders of one of the men who looked at him with the love of a father shining in his eyes.

Finally Stefano made his excuses and they returned to the car. People crowded around the windows, women in black and ragged children who laughed and slapped the windows in excitement.

Stefano honked the horn a few times to many more delighted cries, and then they drove off.

They drove in silence for a few minutes. Allegra’s mind whirled with questions. She hadn’t expected Stefano to act like that, to have such a genuine camaraderie with a bunch of poor farmers.

She glanced at him, saw his eyes on the road, and ventured cautiously, ‘Those men loved you.’

‘They are fathers to me,’ Stefano said. He spoke in a voice that brooked no questions, no comments. Allegra nodded even though her mind seethed with both.

She was ashamed to realize she knew nothing about Stefano’s family. Where was his own father, mother? Did he have brothers or sisters? What kind of childhood, what kind of life , had he had?

She didn’t know.

And, she realized with a rush of surprise, she wished she did. She wished she’d asked when she’d had the chance.

It was too late for that, she thought. Too late for both of them. The only relationship that could exist between them was one of distant professionalism. It was what she’d wanted all along, what she’d insisted on, yet now it made her sad.

Stupid . How could she be wanting something from Stefano now— now— when it was so clear that he wanted to give her nothing? Nothing she needed, anyway.

Finally Stefano turned into a long dirt drive, twisted oak trees shading the lane. Allegra glimpsed a farmhouse on one side of the road, a crude place with its roof caving in. She wondered why Stefano left such an eyesore on his property before her sights and senses were taken with the villa in front of them.

It was not ostentatious, Allegra saw at once, but it possessed every comfort. Begonias and geraniums spilled from hanging baskets and terracotta urns that lined the flagstone path up to the front door.

A young woman with luxuriant dark hair caught up in a bun opened the door and called a welcome. A little boy with the same dark, glossy hair stood next to her, keeping himself close to his mother yet also strangely, inexorably apart.

‘My housekeeper, Bianca,’ Stefano said quietly, ‘and that is Lucio.’

Allegra nodded, saw the boy stare into an unknown—and safe—middle distance. They climbed out of the car and she noticed that the air was sharp and cool, scented with pine and cedar.

‘Bianca.’ Stefano greeted her warmly and Allegra was ashamed to feel a piercing little stab of jealousy. ‘Hello, Lucio.’ He ruffled the boy’s dark hair, but Lucio didn’t look at him, didn’t say a word.

Stefano introduced her to Bianca, who shook her hand and smiled with hopeful gratitude. Allegra crouched down so she was eye-level with Lucio. His eyes didn’t meet hers, but still she smiled as if he were looking at her.

‘Hello, Lucio,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m happy to meet you.’

Lucio didn’t look at her, didn’t acknowledge her at all. It was as if she hadn’t spoken, or even as if she wasn’t even there.

Allegra hadn’t expected him to speak or even look at her, yet his utter indifference betrayed by not even one flicker of understanding was discouraging. Still she remained there, crouched down, for several long moments. She knew Lucio had to be aware of her on some level, and that would have to be enough. For now.

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