I love her, Alex realized one morning. Blast it, I’m in love with her. After that it was as if the icy wall that he had built around his heart during the marriage to Maria simply tumbled to the ground. Alex feverishly longed to hold Charlotte in his arms, to kiss her all over until she was crying out with desire and need, and then whisper “I love you” in her ear. She’ll cry, he thought, picturing her huge dark eyes filling with loving tears. She would see that he forgave her for everything before their marriage, that he really trusted her. He even forgave her for not being a virgin when they married. He was prepared to forget that she had slept with his brother before him. Alex was so impatient to board the boat back to England that he could hardly sit still.

He toured vineyards in Italy and established what would later prove to be a lucrative chain of vineyards prepared to import wine into England from Italy, rather than into France from Italy, as he pretended. The activity served his cover, so to speak. But even as he conducted the leisurely conversations that precede every Italian business transaction, Alex was aflame, burning to return to England.

Yet as he lay in his bedroom, arms crossed behind his head, Alex sometimes felt disgusted at his own eagerness. Hadn’t he already played the fool, thinking that a woman would be honest? He felt a deep, brutal shame, remembering the shambles of his marriage to Maria, her promises to be faithful to his bed. Shades of his old cynical self haunted the edges of his soul, cautioning that even Charlotte was no virgin when he married her. Maybe she was just another Maria, out for what sex and money she could take. The gaping, raw anger he felt when he walked in on Maria with the footman still echoed at the back of his mind.

But for the most part Alex nourished his dream of a grateful, loving Charlotte. Charlotte was no Maria. She loved him. Alex thought about how her body fitted to his like a glove during the night. If he drew away she would sigh and move restlessly until she snuggled back up against him. How had she slept without him? It had been almost five months; she must be used to sleeping alone, he thought rather sadly.

All those weeks of waiting had culminated in a bundle of old clothing. Alex stared, stupefied, at the bundle he had just opened. His carriage jolted uncertainly over the stony track down the mountain, taking him to the sea. One part of his mind rejoiced at being finally on his way. But another part felt a mounting rage.