At the end of the day, when we return to Lili’s house, I am relaxed and happy. Ben holds the door open, and my body brushes against his as I walk through. He catches me, and kisses me before we go inside. This is dangerous, I know; this is playing with fire.

And yet, as I look up at him, I feel ready to burn the whole place down.

Chapter Thirty-Two

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

The next day we return to the natural history museum, where Ben makes quick, vibrant sketches, and where I attend to my anatomical studies. I’m particularly proud of the drawing I do of the human digestive system, based on the wax figures.

“Isn’t it fascinating, Ben?” I ask. “To think all of this is going on inside us right now. That our bodies work so perfectly.”

“It’s … something.” Ben admits.

“Beautiful,” I breathe, looking at the cross section of a forearm, the bones, muscles and arteries all intricately bound together.

Ben laughs. “Is it any wonder you weren’t won over by the traditional romantic gestures?”

“You’re not going to start reading poetry again, are you?” I ask suspiciously.

“Philistine.” Ben shakes his head and goes back to his own sketching.

Later that evening we have dinner with Lili and Gert. They tell me stories about Ben when he was small, about the time he brought an injured pigeon into the house and kept it secretly in a box in his room.

“I only found out by following the little trail of breadcrumbs,” Lili laughs. “We wondered where all the bread had been going. By the time Ben let him go he was the fattest pigeon in all of Florence.”

“Bea would have liked him,” Ben says. “She would have known his name in Latin, Pigeonus maximus or suchlike.”

“Columbidae, actually,” I correct him with a smile. “I did the same thing once, with a sparrow. But my mother found out and she was furious. She wouldn’t let me keep him, despite the fact that – as I pointed out – a big creaky wreck like Langton Hall was probably full of rats and bats and other, far less savoury, creatures.”

“I’m surprised that didn’t win her over,” says Ben.

“I was too,” I agree. “But then you never can have a logical argument with her.”

“It sounds like you and Ben would have been good friends, then,” Gert puts in.

“Yes,” I say. “I think we would.”

Ben shakes his head. “Oh, I doubt Beatrice would have had much to do with a ragamuffin like me.” The words are said lightly, but there’s something underneath them that I don’t like.

“Well, it’s a good job you found each other in the end,” Lili says firmly.

My eyes meet Ben’s across the table. “Hear, hear,” he says, raising his wine in toast. We all clink our glasses together.