I am so looking forward to seeing you to celebrate your twelfth birthday next month and fastening a very special necklace around your pretty, grown-up girl’s neck. I continue to hold you in my heart and look forward to our reunion soon. Your stepfather and I are very much looking forward to bringing you back home with us to Italy …

Grace turned the page to read on but there were no more words, just the faint outline of many dried-out splashes of water – tears perhaps – that had made the ink smudge and fade until the words were illegible, apart from one sentence written in Connie’s mother’s handwriting … if you insist on visiting then you must not scare Lara with your whimsical notions of taking her far away from all that she holds dear …

‘I’m assuming this letter was also returned to Connie by her mother … who clearly wasn’t going to entertain Connie taking Lara back to Italy,’ Mr Conway suggested.

‘A cruel woman, if ever there was one,’ Lady Bee gave her opinion. ‘Mr Conway has already read aloud the contents to me,’ she went on to explain before accepting a piece of babka cake and popping it on a napkin that Betty handed to her. ‘Mmm, this is delicious,’ she then added, after taking a small bite and dabbing the napkin to the corner of her lips.

‘Yes, Connie’s awful mother nearly ruined her life. If she hadn’t met Giovanni and found some happiness …’ Grace said, shaking her head. ‘But I don’t understand how this helps us find a living relative …’

‘There’s this too,’ Lady Bee said, handing Grace another envelope, a thick cream embossed one this time, with weightier paper inside.

Grace pulled out the letter and inhaled, drawing in a faint but familiar scent … Van Cleef and Arpels. It must be Connie’s perfume, she knew it! Grace inhaled again, holding the sheets to her nose, as if drawing Connie towards her, wanting to hug and comfort the scared, lonely young lady who was all alone, heartbroken and pregnant after one moment of loving indiscretion that changed the course of her life for ever … and then banished and broken on her return to England as an older woman without Giovanni, and with such deep and pensive eyes … haunted almost, is what Larry had said. Grace read the letter aloud so that Larry could hear Connie’s words too.

To my darling Lara,

Before my time draws to a close I wish for you to know the truth of your heritage. But first, I must apologise if this news comes as the shock I anticipate it may do, for I am quite certain that you have grown up believing me to be your sister.