“Sir Hugh came one summer to paint; Filomena was with him,” he says. “He took one look at my mother and said he had to have her as a model. I think Filomena was relieved to get away from him… Looking back, that should have been warning enough.” His hands clench into tight fists, resting against his knees. “He seduced her. I was young still – I didn’t understand. All I knew was that the house felt suddenly less safe, that Mum was shouting and crying a lot, that she was drinking a lot. And then we left with him. Not long after that, he left us. A few months later she was dead,” he says dispassionately, his voice uncannily flat. “They put me in an orphanage. When I was fourteen I ran away, and I came straight back here. It was the first time I had seen Lili and Gert in two years. They hadn’t known where I was. Didn’t know about Mum. We all cried.” He manages a weak smile.

“They scraped together money for me to study art,” he says more briskly. “And then I went out into the world, travelling, painting, doing whatever odd jobs I could to pay my way. Four months ago I got a letter from Filomena inviting me to the villa to stay for the summer, and – well, here we are.” He holds out his hands in a gesture that envelops the scene around us. “That’s the whole sorry tale, or most of it anyway,” he says. “More than I usually like to share.” The smile he gives me is crooked and it cuts straight through me.

“Thank you for telling me,” I manage, though the words feel inadequate. I know what he has trusted me with: a part of himself that he keeps shut away. We sit quietly together, our fingers entwined, my head on his shoulder as the sun dips below the horizon and the first evening star dances overhead.

“You know, when I hid up here,” Ben says after a while, pulling a paper bag from his pocket. “I would bring my spoils with me so that I didn’t have to share them.” He hands me a delicate white sugar mouse. “But I don’t mind sharing them with you.”

Something warm and heavy settles in my chest. I lean against him and he wraps an arm around my shoulder, pulling me so close that I can hear the steady thump of his heart. “I like that you’re here,” he murmurs.

“I like it too,” I say, and when I reach up to kiss him, he tastes of sugar.

Chapter Thirty-One

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

When I wake up the next morning I take a moment to stretch gleefully in my comfortable bed. The dopey smile on my face remains from the night before and I touch my fingers to my lips, remembering the kisses that Ben pressed to them.