Copyright

Published by Avon, an imprint of

HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street,

London, SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2018

Copyright © Sue Moorcroft 2018

Cover illustration © Carrie May 2018

Cover design © Head Design 2018

Sue Moorcroft asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008260040

Ebook Edition © May 2018 ISBN: 9780008260057

Version: 2018-06-21

Dedication

For all my lovely readers.

If you enjoy my books, you bring me joy.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Keep reading …

About the Author

Also by Sue Moorcroft

About the Publisher

Prologue

July

‘Don’t mope, Sofia. Non frignare.’

Sofia jumped out of her reverie. She hadn’t realised her dad, Aldo, was awake. His eyes had been closed for ages, the steady hiss of oxygen a contrast to his ragged breathing.

She edged her chair closer, glad to see a twinkle in Aldo’s dark eyes. ‘I’m not moping. I’m a bit worried about you, that’s all. We worry about each other, don’t we? That’s how it works.’

He met her smile with one of his own. Aldo had a beautiful, mischievous smile, spoiled now by the odd colour of his lips as his heart failed. ‘I don’t mean now. I want you to promise you won’t mope when I’m not here.’ His voice still sang with the rhythms of Italy, but his English was fluent after living in the UK for more than thirty years. Sofia was so used to hearing both languages from him that she sometimes scarcely noticed which he was speaking. It had brought him comfort in these last few years to roll Italian lovingly around his mouth, as well as allowing her to practise her grasp of one half of her family’s mother tongue. Not that she’d met any of her family, on either side, apart from her parents.

The smile she’d summoned up for him wavered.

‘Promise,’ he insisted gently.

It was obviously so important to him that she nodded. ‘I’ll try.’

‘No. You must promise. You’ve given up so many years to being my carer. I don’t want you to be trapped in this house any more.’

She swallowed the fruitless urge to demand that he live for ever. ‘OK. I promise.’ Leaving the house in Bedford, the only home she’d ever known, would be taken out of her hands anyway. She hadn’t stressed Aldo by telling him about the builder who’d inspected the big crack running up the dining-room wall and into Sofia’s bedroom above. The builder had recommended an engineer’s report. He thought the house had subsidence, and Sofia already knew that it needed a new roof and had woodworm. When Aldo’s health had taken this recent grave turn, she’d been nerving herself to reveal that they needed to put the house on the market in the hope that a developer would buy it as a project and she and Aldo would receive only a proportion of what they considered its worth. Money had become the least of her worries.

He gave a slow, satisfied nod, his gaze unwavering. ‘And promise me you’ll get out and do all the things young single women do. Travel. You’ve always wanted to travel and instead you’ve stayed to help me. Go and have fun.’

‘Dad, I don’t want you to feel—’

‘I don’t feel anything you don’t want me to feel,’ he assured her with a dismissive wave. He made a mock reproving face. ‘But this is the dying wish of your papà. You must promise.’

She’d often shared with him her fantasy of getting on the plane from Stansted Airport for breakfast and arriving at a pavement café in Italy in time for lunch, even before his health had made such an adventure impossible. Sofia grinned, though her eyes swam. Half her life he’d cared for her and half her life she’d cared for him, latterly in his hospital-style bed in the front room with the oxygen cylinders located behind it. ‘OK, if you’ll stoop to emotional blackmail, you old fox, I promise.’

Aldo’s laugh creaked out into his oxygen mask, fogging it up. ‘Promise me you’ll visit Montelibertà. As you have no family in England I’d like you to see the town where I was born. Lay flowers for your grandparents.’ He sighed. His breathing hitched. Faltered. Began again.

A tear leaked onto Sofia’s cheek but she fell back on black humour, their coping mechanism through all the operations and treatments that had bought them time. Till now. ‘Just how many dying wishes does one papà get?’

His eyes closed but his smile flickered. ‘Molti, molti. I wish you could have met your Italian family.’

Despite Aldo’s condition, Sofia’s interest stirred. He was always happy to talk about Italy but much less forthcoming on the subject of his family. ‘I wish that too. I wish I knew more about them,’ she said.

Aldo’s forehead puckered. ‘It was all such a mess. I thought I was doing the right thing, coming here. But my parents … they were in the middle. There were many emotional letters and phone calls between us when you were young. “Come to England to visit us,” I said. But they would always reply, “Come home to visit us.” They were convinced we could patch things up if I went home. It would only make things worse. I told them, “How can I take Dawn and Sofia to Montelibertà? It will be so painful.”’

Sofia leaned forward intently, the blood thudding in her ears. ‘Why, Dad? Why wouldn’t you take Mum and me? Or me, after Mum died? What did you need to patch up? What were they in the middle of?’ Was Aldo at long last ready to tell her the story that had intrigued her, growing up, of how and why he’d abandoned his homeland? Till now he’d avoided revealing more than the bare facts: that he’d left his parents and brother behind in Italy thirty-two years ago to marry Sofia’s mother, Dawn. His Italian family hadn’t been at the wedding. Dawn had died when Sofia was five, and his parents, in a road accident, two years later. He’d always parried Sofia’s eager quest for more information with It’s all too sad to talk about. I don’t want to make you sad. Then he’d stroke her hair and change the subject.

Now Aldo opened his eyes and continued as if he hadn’t heard her questions. ‘Go to Montelibertà and drink Orvieto Classico as it’s meant to be drunk – designed for the Italian palate, not the British one.’ He paused. His breathing paused, too. Restarted. ‘If you see your Uncle Gianni, tell him I’m sorry.’

She used the heels of her hands to wipe her tears away. It was frustrating that her father was dodging her questions once again, but he was so gravely ill now that it would be unkind to press him on why he wanted to apologise to the brother he’d been estranged from for decades. ‘I will.’ She took his hand.

Aldo’s smile was so faint she almost missed it. ‘The last promise then. Be happy, Sofia. Be happy.’

‘I promise,’ she whispered.

Chapter One

The following year, as tourist season begins

Promises #1, #2 and #3: Don’t Mope. Do all the things single women do. Visit Montelibertà.

Sofia could see what Davide was up to. Threading between the black iron tables of Il Giardino he was deliberately brushing against Amy, apparently irresistibly drawn to her blonde-haired, blue-eyed prettiness.

Like Sofia, Amy had only been working at the hotel Casa Felice for ten days. As Davide had been away on a course, this was the first time their duties had brought them all together yet Sofia had heard Davide ask Amy for a date within ten minutes of the start of the shift. Not visibly rebuffed by her gasp of dismay and embarrassed head-shake, he’d then proceeded to behave like a Jack Russell in heat.

Sofia’s protective instincts were roused by her friend’s obvious distress. Amy was eighteen and this was her first summer job, for crying out loud! Davide was at least a decade her senior and the son of the owner. Sofia timed her next run to the kitchen hatch to coincide with Amy’s. ‘Are you OK?’ she whispered.

Amy’s eyes sparkled with angry tears as she balanced two pâté boards and an order of truffles on her tray. ‘Davide’s being a creep.’

‘He certainly is. I’m just checking you’re aware he’s Benedetta’s son—’

‘Don’t care! I’m not putting up with him rubbing his yucky “bits” on my bum.’ Amy spun on her heel with a swish of her blonde ponytail and made for a table of three middle-aged Englishwomen who’d whiled away the wait for food with a couple of bottles of prosecco.

Powerless to help, Sofia continued to run food and drink to her own tables, swinging fully laden trays up onto her flattened hand. It was hard work in the midday sun and the mercury was soaring even at the beginning of June. She watched her section, whipping out pen and pad to take orders then running the food and drink to the appropriate table. Quick, brisk, hurry. Smile, smile, smile. Take money. Clear tables; sanitise. Ignore burning feet and aching back …

‘YAH! Ungh!’

Sofia halted, sanitising spray poised as her eyes hunted out the origin of the strangled cries. In front of the corner of the bar Davide was doubled over, eyes bulging.

Nearby, a flushed Amy swung an empty tray. ‘Sorry. You startled me and my tray slipped.’ Then she loaded her next order of drinks and glided rapidly away without troubling to hide a triumphant grin.

Sofia smiled back uneasily, not missing the malevolent glare Davide directed at Amy’s rear view. ‘Keep an eye on him now,’ Sofia murmured when she contrived to make their paths converge at the bar. ‘What did you do?’ She cast a glance at Davide, who’d managed to straighten up and was taking an order from an Italian family.

‘Hit him in the ’nads with my tray. He might keep them further away from me in future.’ But the first flush of victory was obviously fading and Amy was beginning to look apprehensive as she slid four coffees onto the tray-slash-weapon.

Sofia wiped her hands on her apron and arranged her own tray so that it balanced before following in Amy’s wake. Amy was evidently given to impetuous action when threatened, but Sofia knew Davide’s type. He might not take long to strike back.

Smiling through the familiar routine of ‘Whose is the Cappuccino? And the Americano?’ with her customers, Sofia watched with a sinking sense of inevitability as Davide slunk up behind Amy at the table of the prosecco ladies just as she began the rotation of the wrist that would arc a tray full of steaming coffee cups from her shoulder to the table.

All it took was for Davide to shoot out a furtive arm.

The tray flipped off Amy’s hand … slap into the lap of one of the customers.

‘Ow, ow, ow!’ The woman leaped to her feet, dragging steaming fabric away from her legs. ‘You stupid girl! My best white linen trousers! How could you be so clumsy?’

‘I’m sorry!’ Amy, pale and shocked, glanced frantically behind her, obviously suspecting the tray had had some help in its flight. But Davide had lost no time in gliding away and was already watching from the shady doorway that led to reception.

‘Excuse me!’ Sofia plonked down the final Americano and raced between the craning guests, whipping off her apron. Reaching the unfortunate customer, she dunked the white cotton into the meltwater surrounding upended prosecco bottles in the ice bucket. ‘If you’d like to sit down I’ll put this over your legs in case you’ve been scalded. It’ll dilute the coffee, too. I know it’s not comfortable but I’m sure Casa Felice will pay for cleaning. Amy’s right to apologise, but I do think she was jostled.’

‘I was.’ Amy’s bottom lip began to quiver. ‘I’m very sorry – but the tray just seemed to leap off my hand.’

‘Oh, yes, trays are full of tricks like that,’ Mrs Coffee Trousers retorted. But then, seeing everyone staring at her, sat down and let Sofia lay the cold cloth across her thighs.

‘It’ll soon dry in this heat,’ remarked one of her companions from the comfortable position of not having been bathed in near-boiling liquid. She smiled at Amy. ‘Don’t you worry, darlin’. Worse things happen at sea.’

Sofia was just about to suggest Amy return to the bar to ask for the coffee order to be repeated when Benedetta barrelled out through the double doors of the hotel with Davide a few steps behind. Sofia’s heart dropped. Benedetta Morbidelli, an impressive mix of immaculate and statuesque, owned all of hotel Casa Felice and its café, Il Giardino. By the look of Davide’s smirk, he’d lit his mother’s blue touch paper and was now intending to watch her explode.

‘Sacked! Go, you!’ Benedetta yelled at Amy, her dark ‘updo’ quivering as she made extravagant shooing motions with her hands.

Amy’s lip quivered harder. ‘But it wasn’t my fault—’

‘Pack! Go!’ Benedetta thundered up to the table and gave Amy a little shove with her well-manicured fingertips.

‘But it wasn’t her fault,’ protested Sofia. She turned to give Davide a pointed stare, raising her voice over the sound of a motorbike arriving in the hotel car park beyond a row of flower tubs. ‘Someone knocked her.’

‘There was a young man nearby,’ said the same prosecco lady who’d tried to calm things before.

‘Go!’ Benedetta shouted in Amy’s face.

Amy took a frightened step back, stuttering piteously. ‘I h-haven’t got anywhere to go. I’m supposed to stay here till S-September.’

‘Look! Look what you do to my customer!’ Benedetta lifted the wetted apron off the maltreated prosecco lady’s legs.

Mrs Coffee Trousers was beginning to look discomfited. ‘You shouldn’t sack her. Even if she wasn’t jostled it was an accident and you’ve got no call to push her around, neither. You could get sued for that.’

‘I’ll pay for the cleaning,’ Amy quavered, before adding, wretchedly. ‘Once I’ve had some wages.’

‘Wages?’ Benedetta began shouting again at Amy, this time in Italian, that she would get no wages, she must go this very minute and pack her bags, then leave Casa Felice and never return.

The English tourists were obviously not following shrieked Italian but they all blinked as Benedetta shoved Amy again, presumably to encourage her to her room to pack. Amy, not understanding, began to cry.

Sofia lifted her voice. ‘Maybe we could discuss this indoors in private, Benedetta?’ When ignored, she repeated the suggestion in Italian.

Benedetta turned her wrath down a notch, perhaps seeing in Sofia an experienced hand. ‘She’s too young for this job. I need to get someone new from the website,’ she explained in the same language.

Sofia took a deep breath. ‘Actually, it was Davide. He made a nuisance of himself and when Amy put a stop to it he got his revenge by bumping her tray. I’m afraid I saw him do it.’

Davide stopped smirking and began to protest ‘Eh, eh!’ as Italian-speaking customers turned to gaze reproachfully at him.

‘What’s that you’re saying?’ demanded Mrs Coffee Trousers.

Sofia, despite a growing feeling that crossing the excitable Benedetta might result in her soon joining Amy in clearing her room, repeated her accusation in English. The English-speaking customers swivelled suspicious gazes towards Davide too.

‘No!’ remonstrated Benedetta with an air of injured reproach. ‘Not Davide.’

Then a man appeared beside the group, raking back fair hair damp with perspiration. In his thirties, he carried a red crash helmet and a black biker jacket, his lower half encased in protective gear. ‘She’s right. I saw this waiter do it.’ He turned a fierce glare on Davide. ‘You should be ashamed of yourself, getting this young girl in bother and then grinning about it.’

‘Eh, eh!’ protested Davide again. ‘She dropped it. She is clumsy. It’s not my fault.’

‘She did not drop it!’ Sofia glanced at Biker Man, hopeful that this English tourist would continue to support her. ‘You’ve been brushing your … the front of your trousers against her and when she hit you with her tray, you got your revenge. And you went in and told tales to your mother.’ For Benedetta’s benefit, she repeated her allegation in Italian. Biker Man nodded, arms folded, interposing at intervals, ‘That’s absolutely right!’ even at the Italian bits.

Benedetta, visibly dismayed by the way things were going, dropped her voice to a confidential murmur. ‘We talk indoors, Amy.’ Rounding on Davide she snapped at him in Italian to give Mrs Coffee Trousers and her coterie their drinks on the house in lieu of paying the cleaning bill and then take over Amy’s tables as well as his own.

She made to usher Amy inside but Biker Man began to follow. ‘I’m here to check into the hotel, but I won’t be doing so until I have your assurance that this young girl still has a job.’

Sofia felt her mouth drop open. Biker Man was certainly taking his support of Amy seriously. What was it about blondes? Men all seemed to act like fools where they were concerned.

Benedetta hurriedly backtracked to pat Amy’s arm and turn her in the direction of her tables. ‘You stay. It’s OK. You work. I ’pologise for my son.’ She turned a smile on Biker Man. ‘You are a hotel guest? Welcome to Casa Felice. Please follow me.’ Glaring at Davide as she passed, she ushered Biker Man towards the cool interior of the hotel.

Just before he disappeared, the man turned and gave Sofia a grin and a wink.

She gazed after him, lips parting in astonishment.

A scowling Davide silently cleared up the mess of spilled coffee and broken crockery and Sofia gave Amy’s arm a quick pat. ‘How about you pop and get these lovely ladies cake to go with their fresh coffees. Signora Morbidelli said it was on the house.’

‘That’s very good of you,’ the prosecco ladies said to Sofia, and ‘Isn’t that good of her?’ to each other.

‘Thank you,’ Amy whispered as they both headed to the bar. She was clinging to Sofia’s arm as if she were even younger than her eighteen years. ‘I don’t know what I would’ve done if she’d sacked me. That man turned up just at the right time.’

‘Yes, it was lucky the guest saw everything.’ Sofia placed a slight emphasis on the word guest, but decided that now was not the time to point out more clearly that the residents of the hotel were always referred to respectfully. ‘If you want to clear tables for a bit I can take orders from your section until you’re feeling better.’ Or feeling a bit less Jekyll and Hyde. She would never have suspected Amy of being capable of swinging so rapidly from sweet and mild to angry and vengeful if she hadn’t witnessed it.

A few minutes later, encountering Davide at the kitchen hatch, Sofia treated him to her widest smile. ‘Shall we forget that all happened and just be friends?’

Davide spat out a word Aldo had told Sofia never to use, prompting the dad of a nearby Italian family to berate him for his language.

‘So that’s a “no” then.’ Sofia turned briskly and headed off towards a new table of red-faced, sweaty tourists to fulfil their urgent requests for cold drinks.

Levi left the storm in a teacup behind him and followed the woman indoors to the reception desk, bemused by her speedy change of mood – only seconds ago she’d been bandying about threats of the sack but now she was beaming benevolently as she indicated the well-groomed young woman behind the reception desk. ‘My daughter Aurora will be delighted to check you in.’

Aurora, looking to be in her twenties and oozing Italian chic – or whatever the Italian for chic was – smiled at Levi as if nothing would give her greater pleasure. ‘May I take your name?’

‘Levi Gunn.’ He was glad the personnel at the hotel spoke English as he’d had no opportunity to brush up on even a few Italian phrases before rushing off on this trip. While Aurora took him through the check-in process, he planted his Joe Rocket textile jacket and unpleasantly sweaty crash helmet on the desk. The armour in both jacket and his bike pants was essential for the road but less suitable for the blazing sun at a journey’s end. At his last stop-off, near Verona, he’d wrung his T-shirt out in cold water before putting it on beneath his bike jacket, but he still felt like a steamed fish.

Or was he just hot with anger at the scene he’d witnessed? His instinct to help the sobbing girl had seized him like a giant hand. Supporting the protests of the other waitress had done the trick. The blonde waitress’s job seemed saved and the dark-haired one had smiled at him, even though her eyes had been alive with curiosity.

Aurora finished tapping at her computer keyboard and took a printout from the printer tray. ‘You have room 303, which has a balcony looking over the town of Montelibertà. Hotel residents have use of the terrace at the rear of the hotel, with a fantastic view across the valley and of other peaks in the Umbrian mountains. The terrace leads from the dining room on the lower level and many guests choose to take their breakfast there.’

‘Sounds great. I like to paint landscapes so the terrace sounds wonderful.’

Aurora smiled as she turned the printout towards him and passed him a pen. ‘You will find many beautiful views to paint here. Please, if you need information or recommendations, let me know. Casa Felice is a family concern. My mother expects us all to work hard at pleasing our guests.’

‘I’m sure she always puts the guests first,’ Levi said dryly, thinking again of the crying waitress. Once he’d been given a key card he reluctantly closed his ears to the call of a frosty beer in Il Giardino and clumped across the small lobby in his biking boots, back out into the sun that blazed down on his fair English head. In the car park his Ducati Diavel, black with a red sub-frame and flashes, still radiated heat from the long trek across England, France, Germany, Austria and Italy in three days of hard riding. He didn’t hang around as he transferred tightly rolled underwear, T-shirts and shorts out of his panniers, the nearest things to luggage compartments on a bike, and into the cotton sack he kept for the purpose. All the while, he kept an eye on Il Giardino and the staff weaving their way between busy tables.

The teenage girl – Amy, the owner had called her – although appearing in danger of buckling under the weight of a well-laden tray, moved briskly, her face pink with exertion. After watching her for another few moments and deciding she was fundamentally OK, Levi checked out Davide, who, as he swept tables clear with angry movements, didn’t seem to be able to make up his mind which of the waitresses to glare daggers at. A man who’d sexually harass a younger colleague found no favour with Levi and that he’d proved to be the owner’s son made it worse. Little shit. Levi was usually a live-and-let-live kind of guy but his old man, ‘Bullet’ Gunn, had run a repair garage all Levi’s life and treated his workers with friendly respect. Levi had followed his dad’s example when it came to his own business.

Emptying the second pannier, he glanced at the dark waitress, her upswept hair glossy beneath the sun. She looked about thirty to his thirty-five. A crisp black dress emphasised her shape and a white apron hugged her hips. As he watched, she paused to speak with Amy, tray of empties aloft. She seemed to have the younger girl’s back, judging by the way she’d launched into battle in – impressively – both Italian and English. After watching for another second, he locked his panniers, grabbed his paintbox from the bungees securing it and took himself indoors.

Now he had the opportunity to study Casa Felice as he returned to the cool of the reception area, he found it charming. Where the walls were plastered they were painted white, but large areas of craggy russet stone had been left exposed, a contrast to the dark grey marble of floor and front desk. A wooden banister curved up alongside the stairs.

Room 303 proved as pleasant a surprise as the foyer had been, though oddly shaped. It held a modern bed and an eclectic mix of graceful furniture, and the bathroom was up to date and clean. Levi had booked a ‘superior’ room, all that was available at short notice, so was glad to see something for his extra seventy euros a night, especially the balcony that gazed over tiers of tilted terracotta roofs and the road curving down the hill into a jumble of buildings.

Montelibertà was a select but significant tourist destination, much of it made from the same rock it perched upon, like a little brother of the city of Orvieto to the north. Casa Felice stood on the edge of the town, secluded in its own grounds yet only a ten-minute walk from the centre. According to the website it boasted fifty guest bedrooms over three floors. The road outside, Via Virgilio, led out of town to an extensive country park. Il Giardino, he reflected, was neatly positioned to tempt those who’d worked up thirst and hunger with a country walk.

The ground fell away from the hotel at the back too, and he paused to drink in the view over the shrubs and lavender of the gardens below the terrace where the valley steepened. Large tracts of the slopes were darkly clothed with trees below the hazy purple peaks, some with other towns on the summit. He itched to get out the watercolour paints that had provided his major means of relaxation since his school days. Instead, conscious of his rumbling stomach, he returned to the cool indoors to take a shower and make his way downstairs to seek refreshment.

Half an hour later he was seated beneath the shade of one of Il Giardino’s off-white parasols. He had no trouble finding a vacant table. It was now three o’clock so perhaps many tourists had lunched already. Both waitresses were still working and the dark one appeared before him, producing her pad and pen from her apron pocket.

‘Buon giorno,’ she greeted him brightly. ‘Would you like to order?’ Her eyes were brown and her skin golden. If he hadn’t heard her speaking English he would have taken her for Italian.

‘Buon giorno.’ He ordered a large beer and an arancino rice ball stuffed with ragù.

‘Coming right up.’ She returned in a couple of minutes bearing a tall glass of pale beer and deposited it on the table. ‘Your arancino will be ready shortly.’ She shot a swift glance around and then lowered her voice. ‘Thanks for your help earlier. It made things a lot easier.’

‘It felt like the right thing to do.’ He took a long, satisfying draught of his beer, the chill liquid cutting through any remaining journey dust in his throat. As she’d raised the subject he asked, ‘Is the other waitress OK?’

‘I think so.’ Her eyes smiled. ‘I’m not sure how you saw the incident when you and your motorbike didn’t arrive until after it had taken place but I’m grateful, and I know Amy is.’

Levi shrugged off the first part of her sentence. ‘That guy – Davide? He’s not around right now?’

She grinned, her teeth white and even. ‘Benedetta thought it was a good idea to send him on his break.’

He chuckled. ‘I suppose Casa Felice’s not like one of those massive places where it’s easy to assign staff members to opposite ends of the building and know they’d be unlikely to see each other.’

She nodded. ‘Especially as Amy and I live in at Casa Felice.’

‘Do all the staff?’

‘No, most of the kitchen and housekeeping staff are local and many of the wait staff are too, but Benedetta likes some native English speakers for the tourists. Amy speaks German as well.’

‘Remarkable,’ he said. ‘What time does your shift end?’

Her smile faltered. ‘I’d better get back to work.’ She turned smartly away.

Watching her glide off to a nearby table and begin to clear, he realised that she’d taken his question as a prelude to asking her to join him once she’d finished for the day.

He hid a rueful grin as he lifted his beer glass. Her hasty evasion had certainly put him in his place.

Chapter Two

Promise #4: Lay flowers for your grandparents

It was Monday before Sofia got a break after seven straight days on duty.

It was a shame that, as long as Sofia and Amy both worked in Il Giardino, their time off together would be limited. They’d bonded right from their first evening when Sofia, thinking Amy looked a bit lost, had suggested eating together. Over pasta, Amy had been wide-eyed to hear about the string of waitressing jobs Sofia had fitted around caring for her dad. In turn, Sofia had been green with envy over Amy’s tales of living in Germany with her expat British family.

The evening had ended in giggles as they pored over the list of rules that had awaited them in their rooms, Benedetta’s name printed in capitals at the foot. ‘Wow,’ Sofia had commented. ‘Staff are required not to go here, wear that, do the other. We’ll be sacked for sure.’

They’d each managed not to transgress so far.

Benedetta had given Amy the weekend off as Amy was used to handling euros, but her Italian was sketchy so she needed to concentrate hard when serving the locals. Also, she was visibly exhausted by long shifts on her feet in the bright sun or late into the evening.

Sofia hadn’t minded waiting until training was over and she was established on the staff rota for her precious two days off – and now they were here. She could catch up on laundry in the staff kitchen-cum-utility-room this evening but this morning, after a couple of extra hours in bed, she meant to embark on the fulfilment of another promise to Aldo, one that had felt too important to be squeezed into the few off-duty hours she’d enjoyed so far.

It meant flouting Benedetta’s rule that staff should avoid any area of the hotel where their duties did not take them, especially when not in uniform. However, Sofia risked entering the coolness of the reception area when she saw Aurora on duty because she was thought Aurora would be less wedded to the rules than Benedetta. Sofia had learned to like Aurora as readily as she’d learned to dislike her brother Davide, who seemed to go through every day resenting working for his mum and serving food to pink-faced tourists.

In contrast, Aurora obviously loved working in Casa Felice and had the happy knack of getting on with everyone. Like many Italian women, she had an air of effortless glamour. Her nails were immaculately crimson, her makeup pristine and her not-a-hair-out-of-place plait hung dead centre down the back of her smart black jacket. She beamed when she saw Sofia. ‘Now you have some time to explore Montelibertà?’

‘I can’t wait,’ Sofia returned frankly. ‘Is there somewhere in town I can buy a map?’

Aurora opened a drawer. ‘Of Montelibertà? Informazioni turistiche gives to us their maps.’ She brought out a neatly folded rectangle and shook it out to display a colourful street plan. ‘See, here is Casa Felice.’ She tapped with a perfect fingernail. ‘Follow Via Virgilio down the hill and into the town and you see the church, many restaurants and museums. Here for good Italian ice-cream.’ She tapped a different point on the map. ‘Gelateria Fernando – my favourite.’

‘I’d like to find the cemetery.’ Sofia tried to sound as if this destination was on the ‘must see’ list of every seasonal worker.

Aurora’s wide eyes and flipped-up eyebrows suggested interest. ‘Your family name, Bianchi, it is unusual for Umbria. But there are others in Montelibertà.’ Her expectant pause invited Sofia to fill in any blanks.

Sofia saw no reason to be secretive. ‘My father was from Montelibertà. I promised I’d put flowers on his parents’ graves. He was ill for a long time before he died so hadn’t been able to return to Italy.’

The corners of Aurora’s mouth turned down. ‘I’m sorry you have lost your papà.’

Sofia tried to smile but it didn’t quite come off, though the memory of Aldo’s breathlessly cajoling ‘Non frignare, Sofia,’ reverberated in her mind. It was hard not to mope when, as now, grief gripped her like a fist around her lungs. Sofia swallowed hard and forced her voice not to tremble. ‘Thank you. He’d be glad I’m here.’

Aurora switched her smile back on. ‘It is a large cemetery. Did your grandparents die long ago?’

‘In 1994. They were together in a car accident between here and Turin.’

‘Many people from the villages around this town also rest there. It will be necessary to find exactly where are your grandparents.’

Sofia sighed. She’d hoped the cemetery would be of a size she could stroll around and chance across the names of Agnello and Maria Bianchi. ‘Dad said I should ask at Santa Lucia church, but I wonder if the records are available to the public online?’

Aurora nodded. ‘Of their passing, yes, but I agree with your papà. It will be better to ask Ernesto Milani at Santa Lucia. He is the one who writes down every funeral. He will find it for you.’

Sofia’s stomach did a loop-the-loop at Aurora’s matter-of-factness. It made the prospect of making this connection to her unknown family excitingly real. ‘Is Ernesto the parish clerk?’

‘Si, è il responsabile del registro.’ Aurora was already reaching for the telephone, her plait swishing with her movements. She looked up something on the computer on the reception desk, dialled a number and began speaking into the phone in rapid Italian.

Sofia listened, noting unfamiliar vocabulary relating to the function of record keeping and registries. By the time Aurora put down the phone she didn’t need much additional information. ‘Ernesto has agreed to meet me? Today?’ It was that easy?

‘Yes, at the church. There is no service until evening so you can find him now in the rooms at the back.’ She marked the church on the map, although Sofia already knew it was on Piazza Santa Lucia, one of the two major squares in town, because Aldo had taken her on imaginary walks through Montelibertà so many times. On a sheet of paper, Aurora wrote Ernesto’s name and drew a diagram of where Sofia would find the rear door.

‘Thank you.’ Gratefully, Sofia folded up the map, smooth and flimsy beneath her fingers. ‘Ciao.’

As she turned away, she caught sight of the guest she’d mentally christened Biker Man across reception. He’d adopted a more orthodox approach to holiday wear now, black cargo shorts and a T-shirt that stretched across his chest. He was starting to tan even after a couple of days, she noticed.

Then, realising the reason he was staring at her was probably because she was staring at him, she smiled briefly and set off towards the door. She shouldn’t ‘notice’ a male guest, even one with ruffled hair and bright blue eyes, even one who’d asked when she got off shift. Because he’d asked the question where she could be easily overheard, she hadn’t confided that one of Benedetta’s rules – printed in bold – was that staff should not have relationships with guests. Shame, as one of her promises to Aldo had been that she’d do all the things she hadn’t been able to do in the years of caring for him, and that, she’d promised herself, would include men.

Boyfriends had been few. The last had been Jamie, whose financial situation had made him happy that ‘dates’ had consisted mainly of staying home with Aldo. Jamie had been good at hugs, and sometimes she’d needed them, but she was pretty sure the sex could have been better, even allowing for the fact that she’d never felt at ease up in her room with Jamie while Aldo slept on the ground floor.

Though she had every intention of steering clear of actual boyfriends for a good long while, Biker Man, a tourist, was unlikely to stick around long enough to qualify. She was single. She’d never had a one-night stand and had placed it high on her list as something a single woman might do.

She braked to a sudden halt as Biker Man, as if divining her thoughts, stepped into her path.

‘Hi.’ He flashed her an easy smile.

‘Hi.’ She produced what she hoped was a suitably staff-to-guest smile back.

‘I didn’t get your name last time we spoke.’ He lifted an encouraging eyebrow.

‘Sofia.’ She imagined Aurora’s ears coming out of her head on stalks in an effort to listen across the reception area.

‘I’m Levi. I was just wondering …’ He hesitated.

Sofia held her breath, trying to decide how to side-step any further interest in her off-duty time. She was going to meet someone – which was true: Ernesto Milani. It was just such a waste! Biker Man Levi’s eyes were mesmeric and he looked to have a hell of a bod beneath his T-shirt.

‘… if Amy’s all right,’ he finished.

Sofia snapped back to reality. ‘You wondered whether Amy’s all right?’ she repeated, feeling slightly foolish for suspecting him of angling for a date.

He flushed at the surprise in her voice. ‘I haven’t seen her for a couple of days and, with what happened, I wondered if she’d lost her job after all. I hope you don’t mind me asking, but you’re obviously friendly.’

Sofia summoned a smile. ‘She’s fine. It was just her turn for time off. Enjoy your day.’ She made a show of checking her watch, then stepped around him and out through the door, trying not to feel ruffled. But, really? Did Levi think a teenage girl like Amy would be interested in him? Levi looked well over thirty, and Sofia had thought Davide, in his late twenties, too old for Amy!

Resolutely, she put Biker Man and his smile out of her mind. She had to get into town and locate the church of Santa Lucia.

Via Virgilio was busy with cars, vans, the occasional lorry and a swarm of motorbikes and scooters. Sofia didn’t rush down the hill towards the centre. Apart from the sun already being a significant presence at just turned eleven o’clock there were enough pedestrians occupying the pavements to make hurrying an effort and she enjoyed gazing around at the buildings, stone or rendered and painted. She’d seen a little of the town in whatever part of each day she wasn’t on shift but it was surprising how much of the past two weeks had been taken up with settling in. Her first couple of days had passed in a whirl of unpacking, orientation, getting sorted with uniform and a hunt for toiletries at a nearby kiosk that seemed to sell everything. Sofia had also found herself helping Amy through orientation and uniform. Sofia had missed out on siblings and was enjoying the novelty of the big-sister role in which Amy seemed to have cast her.

But, right now, with two joyous days of freedom to enjoy in Montelibertà, she was seized by a ridiculous urge to jig around singing, ‘I’m here, I’m here, I’m really here!’

Instead, she strolled decorously past shops that sold shiny ceramics decorated with splashy yellow sunflowers and succulent purple grapes. In between the shops came pavement cafés, their parasols the same shade of ivory as those at Il Giardino. On this upper part of the hill the commercial ventures were interspersed with houses and apartments, lavishly ornamented with window boxes in full flower and lavender tumbling from the tops of garden walls. She thought the scent of lavender would ever-onwards remind her of her feeling of euphoria.

Nearer the town centre the residences petered out and the road became lined with shops and eating places, until Via Virgilio widened into Piazza Roma. Here the buildings were three or even four storeys, painted in earthy tones from ivory to apricot and umber, creating shade for the people passing by or sitting on benches along the way. A giant cartwheel sat in the centre with an old water pump and a profusion of flowers. The cobbles were laid in fan shapes, old and uneven enough to bear witness to a million treading feet.

One building of honey-coloured stone had a sweeping ornamental arch built into it and when Sofia stopped gazing up at cornices, wrought iron and shutters long enough to walk through, she found herself in Piazza Santa Lucia, faced with the gracefully imposing building that was Santa Lucia church.

The Palladian front was rendered and painted palest lemon with white raised plasterwork surrounding the circular windows and forming mock columns and niches. Both of the huge carved wooden doors were closed but the door-within-a-door in the one on the left stood slightly open as if to reassure the parishioners that they could visit any time. The upper storey curved and narrowed until it met the triangular gable.

Her father had been raised a Catholic; her mother had not. Sofia hadn’t been baptised or even attended church very often, but she thought she’d be OK to enter as her shorts were bermudas and her top wasn’t low-cut. Following Aurora’s directions, she made her way around the outside of the church, where the walls were of unrendered stone, to a plain door.

After hovering a moment, she knocked and entered a tall, cool, silent foyer that smelt of dust and incense. The door snapped to behind her, shutting out the sunlight.

A man in his sixties emerged from a nearby doorway, his smile lifting the ends of his big grey moustache. His fulsome eyebrows grew as if they’d been blown up and back by a strong wind. ‘Are you Miss Sofia Bianchi? I am Ernesto Milani.’

As he spoke in English, Sofia followed suit, shaking his hand and thanking him for sparing her his time.

‘Please, come this way,’ he rumbled as he turned towards the room from which he’d emerged. ‘I have looked at the register since Aurora Morbidelli speaks to me on the telephone and have information for you.’ His English was accented and far from faultless but it flowed musically from beneath the moustache.

‘Thank you!’ Eagerly, Sofia followed him into a little office of glass-fronted cabinets and piles of papers. A window stood open to catch the breeze and a large book lay open on the table. Ernesto seated himself at one side and Sofia took the chair at right angles.

Ernesto fished a pair of glasses from his top pocket, put them on and regarded Sofia over their rim. ‘Our current records we make on the computer but in 1997 we still record the events of our church in this book.’ He looked at her for a few moments more, his eyes brown and knowledgeable, then he took his glasses off again.

Wondering if he was waiting for her full attention before he went on – she had been trying to decipher the register from the corner of one eye – Sofia nodded. ‘I understand.’

‘Forgive me, but I must ask.’ A smile tried again to shift the weight of his moustache. ‘You are the daughter of Aldo Agnello Bianchi, yes?’

Surprise made her sit back. ‘Yes. But it wasn’t my dad who died in Italy in 1997. It was my grandparents, Agnello and Maria.’

He sighed pensively. ‘We were friends, Aldo and me, at school here in Montelibertà. I knew your grandparents also. I played in their garden and your grandmother made us a delicious drink from lemons. The family had their house in Via Salvatore.’ He gestured vaguely behind him, as if pointing the street out. ‘I remember very well. The Bianchi family and the Milani family, they attend this church, so we know each other.’

It was several seconds before Sofia could find her voice. The grandparents she’d never met and that her father had rarely spoken of leaped into focus as real people. Unexpectedly, her throat grew tight. ‘I never knew them. They died when I was seven. This is the first time I’ve visited Italy.’ She couldn’t help adding, because she’d really like someone to put some meat on the bare bones of what Aldo had confided, ‘And they never visited us in England.’

But Ernesto didn’t offer insight. Instead, his eyes grew expectant. ‘And Aldo …?’ His pause invited her to fill the silence.

Throat constricting, Sofia shook her head. ‘He died last summer.’ Briefly, she outlined Aldo’s history of heart trouble. ‘I never thought I’d meet anybody who’d remember him. He was a young man when he left Montelibertà.’

‘He was, he was,’ Ernesto sighed, eyes closing for a moment as he crossed himself. ‘I did not know. I am sorry for your loss. And for my own, though I had not seen Aldo for many years. When he met your mother—’

‘Did you know my mother?’ Sofia’s heart almost leaped from her chest. ‘I’ve never met anybody but Dad who knew my mother! She seems to have had no family, and she died when I was five.’

His eyes were soft with sadness. ‘Yes, I knew her and of her passing. I knew from your family here.’

‘From my family here?’ Sofia repeated blankly. ‘How?’

Shaking his head as if still trying to comprehend the loss of his old friend, Ernesto drew the big register closer. ‘We said a mass,’ he observed, as if that settled the matter. ‘Now I show to you the names of your grandparents.’ He turned the big faded book so she could see line after line of entries in ornate inked script. Thanks to his pointing finger she was able to pick out the names Agnello Francesco Ricardo and Maria Vittoria Bianchi. Her eyes burned at this further link with the family she’d never known. A frustrating link because it came to a dead end – literally.

‘The funeral, it was here at Santa Lucia, one funeral for both. And here—’ Ernest pointed to a reference made up of letters and numbers ‘—here is a record of their place in the cemetery.’ He took out his phone and took a photo of the reference, an incongruously up-to-date way to make a note from the old ledger. ‘I will show you in a little while. But talking makes me thirsty. Will you join me to drink coffee in the piazza?’

‘That would be lovely,’ she replied with automatic courtesy and followed him out of the office, mind whirling with her good fortune at meeting someone who’d known Aldo well. And her mother! Aldo telling her to come to the church of Santa Lucia began to make a new kind of sense – he’d known that directing her there would increase her chances of falling into friendly hands.

For the millionth time she wondered why he hadn’t had more to do with his family yet had so wanted her to visit Montelibertà. She managed to stem her flow of questions until they’d rounded the front of the church and strolled over the cobbles to a café up a tiny street off the piazza, its situation ensuring shade from the strengthening midday sun. The shiny aluminium tables were incongruously modern in her opinion but Ernesto selected one on at the edges of the group. A waiter arrived promptly, asking after Ernesto’s health in rapid Italian. Ernesto ordered espresso and Sofia Americano and the waiter beamed and bustled off. The waiting staff wore dark green waistcoats with their white shirts and black trousers. Sofia preferred Casa Felice’s all black and white look.

She turned to Ernesto. ‘So do you know—’

Ernesto held up one finger. ‘I tell you everything I remember.’ He launched into his first memories of Aldo at school, portraying him as a loveable scamp who’d played sport with far more zeal than he applied to lessons. ‘But the teachers always smiled when they said his name.’ Coffee arrived. Sofia scarcely noticed, fascinated by Ernesto’s memories of Aldo in his youth, apparently clear and bright despite their travelling more than fifty years through the hot Umbrian air.

‘And then your mother arrived in Montelibertà,’ he related. His eyebrows flicked up and down. ‘She was very modern, Dawn. With trousers this wide.’ He made an exaggerated shape with his hands. ‘And big shoes. Here.’ He pointed to the sole of his sandal.

‘Platforms?’ she hazarded, hardly able to believe her luck that this man could remember such a level of detail about the woman Sofia sometimes thought she would have nothing of if it weren’t for photographs. Her memories were made up of a hazy sensation of presence and a laughing, excited voice.

Ernesto nodded. ‘Her hair was blonde and her eyes blue. All the young men fell in love with her but she chose Aldo. In the end. There was gelosia. Jealousy.’ He cleared his throat and turned to raise a hand in the direction of a waiter. ‘We should eat. Two o’clock has passed.’

The waiter returned and took their order for hot pastries and cold beer.

The afternoon wore on. They ordered more beer and still Ernesto talked about Aldo and how he’d had eyes for no one but Dawn from the moment they met. And how Agnello and Maria had been worried and upset by the relationship.

‘And that’s why they left Montelibertà,’ Sofia finished for him, thinking that she knew this part of the story.

‘Well—’ Ernesto gave an eloquent shrug. ‘Families. There can be many issues. Aldo never said to me, “Ernesto, I leave for this reason or that reason.” He just said, “It is not fair to live here with Dawn, so I go to England, her country.”’

‘And did you ever hear from my father again?’ Sofia swallowed, sensing the past disappointment of this good and genuine man even before he answered.

‘At first,’ Ernesto sighed. ‘But there were difficulties.’

‘Difficulties?’

Ernesto hesitated. Then said, ‘In not so many years your mother became ill and passed away. I think Aldo had much on his mind, many worries and griefs. Grief upon grief. When your grandparents died I think he finally left Italy behind and embraced England.’

‘But when he became very ill he talked about Montelibertà constantly. He asked me to come here. We spoke Italian almost all the time.’ Eyes prickling, she grabbed a paper napkin to blow her nose.

Ernesto’s eyebrows quirked. ‘Ah! Parli Italiano?’

At first Sofia only managed a strangled ‘Si.’ But when she’d swallowed her tears she told him, in Italian, how much her father had loved his country, even if he’d never been able to return. How she’d once wanted to take a degree in Italian but Aldo’s health had never permitted such a commitment. ‘My secret wish was to come to Italy to study, but it was so impossible that I never mentioned it to him. Maybe I’ll do it some day.’

Ernesto gave his moustache a thorough wipe as if needing time to compose himself. But when he looked up, his eyes were smiling again. ‘And you not only speak our language but with the accent of Montelibertà! Now, shall we walk to the cemetery? Or I can fetch my car.’

Sofia jumped up. ‘Let’s walk. Dad wanted me to take flowers.’

Ernesto made an expansive gesture. ‘There is a little cart at the cemetery gates. There you can buy.’ They left behind the aroma of coffee and set off diagonally across the piazza.

On leaving the square they took the shady side of a street that snaked uphill in the opposite direction to Casa Felice. Sofia broached the other subject on her mind. ‘I noticed you didn’t mention my father’s brother, Gianni Bianchi. Did you know him too?’

For several seconds, Ernesto was silent. Then he said, ‘I know him still. He lives here in Montelibertà.’

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