“We’re here,” Ben says unnecessarily, getting to his feet. The moment is gone and I wonder how on earth to get it back, what exactly he was going to say. There’s no chance to talk now, not as we’re swept up in the bustle of getting ourselves and our bags out on to the platform.

We walk through the waiting room and the ticket office without saying a word to one another.

Klaus is waiting for us outside the station. He leans casually against a flashy new convertible car – sleek and expensive as a racehorse – and waves when he spots us walking towards him.

“Hello!” I exclaim. “Where on earth did you get that?”

Klaus leans forward and kisses me quickly on both cheeks. “Ah, it is your uncle’s newest toy,” he says, opening the door for me as Ben climbs into the back seat.

“My uncle?” I say, puzzled, as Klaus slips behind the wheel and starts the car up.

“Yes.” Klaus nods, something I can’t place in his voice. His smile is mechanical. “They came home early.”

“They?” This can’t be good.

“Your uncle has brought his guests back with him for the exhibition,” Klaus replies.

“His guests?” I repeat. “Lady Bowling?”

“Yes.” Klaus pulls out of the station. “And Sir Hugh.”

I look up at the rear-view mirror and meet Ben’s eye there. It seems the perfect bubble we’ve been living in is well and truly burst.

Chapter Thirty-Four

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

“You just have to be careful, Beatrice,” Uncle Leo says earnestly. “Think about your reputation. You can’t just go gallivanting off to Florence without a by-your-leave or a proper chaperone. Your parents entrusted me to take care of you, and to have you spend your time here in a way that they would approve of.”

I gather that despite Filomena’s best efforts to paint the trip in the most respectable light, it hasn’t gone down well with my uncle.

“I did have a chaperone,” I say.

Leo frowns. “I know Ben is a tutor of sorts,” he says, and I suppress a nervous giggle. “But he’s still a young man, Beatrice. He’s hardly the most appropriate escort.”

He has changed, I think. The relaxed and cheerfully scruffy man who greeted me when I arrived in Italy has been slowly fading away. His clothes are smarter. He’s more buttoned up, and his face is cleanly shaven with a thin moustache above his top lip. It has coincided with meeting Lady Bowling, perhaps, but I think it was always there. The bohemian patron was no more than an act.