Page 35 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

At one end of the vestibule in front of the ballroom, heavy velvet curtains hanging before a floor-to-ceiling window made a little secret alcove. In the hiatus between dinner and ball, Alice was following some of the other women upstairs when an urgent hsst! caught her attention and an arm whipped out to pull her inside.

‘I’m so glad I spotted you,’ Angus said. ‘My father’s here. I don’t want a scene so I’m hiding.’

‘I wondered where you’d got to,’ Alice said. ‘But you can’t stay here all night.’

‘No, I shall have to slip away before the dancing starts. But I can’t go without talking to Rachel. Do you think you could bring her to me here, without anyone seeing?’

‘Mama’s bound to be keeping a pretty beady eye on her. But I’ll try.’

‘Oh, you are a brick! Thank you.’

‘Make the most of it,’ Alice said. ‘She’s still determined to marry her to the Russian prince.’

‘Poor Rachel must be frantic. I wish I could suffer instead of her.’

‘I thought you were,’ Alice said, peeped round the curtain to see if it was safe, and left.

Giles did not have as much difficulty in securing a dance with Giulia as he had expected – then realised that it was probably because she wanted to torment him a little more.

‘You are looking extremely beautiful tonight,’ he said, as they glided away into the throng of dancers.

‘It is agreeable to be able to buy nice clothes. My husband is generous and likes me to be well-dressed.’

She put a little emphasis on ‘husband’, and Giles flinched a little. ‘Is that why you did it?’

‘Why I did what?’ she asked.

He missed the dangerous tone of her voice. ‘Marry him.’

‘Maladetto! Io dovea da te fuggir!’ she said, in a low, grinding voice. ‘You have not earned the right to insult me.’

‘Oh, God, I didn’t mean it like that! It’s just that I’m trying to make sense of it.’

‘It is not yours to make sense of,’ she said, tossing her head so that the light lanced from the diamonds in her hair.

He was silent a moment. Then he said, very gently, ‘Was my crime so terrible that you can never forgive me? I know I hurt your feelings, but—’

She interrupted him. ‘Oh, what do you know of feelings, you? Man of ice and stone! Yes, they say the English are cold, heartless. Quanto è vero!’

‘But what did I do?’ he pleaded.

‘Is it possible that you really don’t know?’

‘Let’s say that I don’t,’ he suggested, hoping for enlightenment.

‘You really don’t know that since I was a girl I have been in love with you absolutely?’

He was silent a moment. ‘I didn’t know,’ he said. ‘But, Giulia, surely I never gave you to think that I—’

‘Not until the Valley of the Kings.’ Another silence. ‘Don’t you remember? Il cielo di velluto, le stelle come diamanti,’ she said softly. ‘Your voice caressing me in the darkness.’

‘Giulia!’

Her voice was not angry now, but warm, inviting. ‘Is it possible that you felt nothing? No, I can’t believe that.’

‘I’m a married man,’ he said desperately.

The warmth disappeared. ‘And now I am a married woman,’ she said. ‘So we are equal.’ Her smile was malicious. ‘You came so seldom to Italy, but now I am in England, we shall meet all the time.’