Bel watched again in envy as Loen and Bruno spent every hour they could together, their love prompting thoughts of how much had changed since she was last at the fazenda. At least the time she had gave her the chance to write long letters of love to Laurent, which she handed surreptitiously to Loen to post when she and Bruno took a walk into the nearby village. Laurent replied regularly, addressing his letters to Loen as they had discussed. Reading them over and over, Bel felt she had never missed him more.

As for her husband, Bel thought about him as little as she could. Despite the dreadful circumstances, she was simply relieved to be away from the claustrophobic and miserable atmosphere of the Casa and the realisation that she was married to a man she now actively despised.

Ten days after they’d arrived at the fazenda, Antonio, looking grey and drawn, took his leave. Clasping Bel to him and on the verge of tears, he kissed her on both cheeks.

‘I will be back next Friday evening, but for God’s sake, Izabela, please call me every day to let me know how she is. And if I need to come sooner, you must let me know. No secrets any more, please?’

‘I will do as you ask, Pai, but Mãe at least seems settled for now.’

With a nod of despair, Antonio climbed into the Rolls-Royce and drove off at a pace down the drive, sending a shower of dust and gravel into the air from beneath the tyres.

Gustavo sat in his club reading the newspaper and noticed that the library was empty this afternoon. Apparently, President Washington Luís had called the major coffee producers together for an emergency meeting on the tumbling bean prices, and at lunchtime the restaurant had been deserted too.

As he drained his third whisky, Gustavo thought about his wife and her pale, drawn features when she had said goodbye to him three weeks ago. Since she’d been away, he’d missed her terribly. The household seemed to have contracted without her presence, reverting to how it had been before Izabela had married him.

The fact that his mother continued to treat him as a naughty little boy, patronising him constantly, seemed even more obvious with his wife missing from his side. And his father still assumed he was equally inept on the financial side of things, brushing away his tentative enquiries into the running of the family coffers as if he was an irritating fly.

Ordering another whisky, Gustavo grimaced at the thought of his initial cold response to his wife’s news about her mother. He’d always prided himself on his sympathetic nature, which his mother had sniffed at when he’d been a child, if he’d cried over a dead bird in the garden or a beating from his father.

‘You’re far too sensitive,’ his mother would say. ‘You are a boy, Gustavo, and you must not show your emotions.’