Somehow she survived the rest of the evening. Coffee was served in tiny cups and limoncello in small crystal glasses. Not used to much alcohol, Caroline found she was relaxed, almost pleasantly sleepy, until she was jarred awake by the loud blaring of a siren.

“Oh no.” Luca’s mother got up and went over to the window. “Not aqua alta, this early in the year, surely?”

“It’s been happening earlier and earlier, hasn’t it?” Angelo said. “Climate change. That’s what they are shouting about, isn’t it?”

“What is it?” Caroline asked, nervously.

“When rain and high tide come at the same time, we have flood here,” Luca’s father said. “And here in St Mark’s sestiere is some of the worst. Luca, you should probably take the young lady home before she has to swim, eh?” He laughed and patted Caroline’s knee.

“Oh no, it’s all right. Luca doesn’t have to . . . ,” Caroline began, glancing up at him.

But the contessa interrupted. “Of course he will take you home. He has the boat, although it may be a bumpy ride.”

Luca had already risen to his feet. “Are you ready now? My parents are right. We should go if we do not want to walk through high water.”

“‘Wade,’” his mother said. “That is the right word, Luca.”

Luca glanced at Caroline and rolled his eyes, making her smile. “Always she corrects my English. Let us go, Cara.”

Caroline reacted to this shortening of her name. Only Josh had called her that. She thanked Luca’s parents and was given a warm hug by the countess.

“Lovely to meet you, my dear,” she said. “We must do this again on a less wet evening if you’re planning to stay awhile.”

She let Luca help her on with her still-damp coat and accompanied him into the lift.

“Your parents are very nice,” Caroline said as they descended. “Not at all how I imagined a count and countess would be.”

“And how should a count be?” Luca looked amused.

“Stuffy. Aristocratic.”

He laughed. “I will be il Conte one day, and I don’t intend to be at all stuffy. But it is my mother who has always prevented my father from being stuffy. She is a great believer in equality. If she had not married him, she would have studied law, you know. She comes from a family of prominent lawyers in New York. In fact she went home intending to go back to university there, but my father pursued her and said he couldn’t live without her. So she left everything behind and married him. A passionate man, my father. But then, most Italian men are.” He gave her a wicked little grin.

“What a romantic story,” she said.

They came out to the street to find rain beating down and water already pooling over the cobbles.