Your father and I passed a very enjoyable evening with the Astleys on Thursday. I think that we have managed to smooth over much of the unpleasantness from the horrible scene last month. By the end of the evening Cuthbert even admitted to finding your spirited nature rather charming! I believe there may still be hope there if you could learn to curb your wildness, Beatrice. Indeed, Philip made it clear that he would look very kindly on the match. Well, absence, as they say, makes the heart grow fonder; now let us hope the expression proves true for young Cuthbert! Really, Beatrice, eligible young men do not grow on trees and we need to begin approaching your future with far more seriousness.

The rest of the page blurs before my eyes and I crush the paper between fingers that are shaking slightly. A familiar hollow feeling settles in my chest. It brings home the truth; that my visit here really is only a temporary reprieve from my parents’ machinations.

Well, I think, dropping the letter calmly on to the floor and kicking it under the bed and out of sight, if that’s the case, then I’d better make the most of it.

Chapter Seventeen

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

“There you are!”

I look up to see Hero in the doorway. “Are you coming out to the garden?” she asks. “The people here tonight won’t stop talking politics and I’m fed up.”

I force a smile, pushing Mother’s letter to the back of my mind. “As long as there’s plenty of food,” I say. “I’m starving.”

We arrive at the dinner table to discover that of course there is plenty of food and that Hero is quite right: Politics have taken over the conversation.

“Italy is the home of art, of culture, of civilization,” one man is shouting, waving his cigarette to punctuate his sentences. “We are the children of the Roman Empire.”

“So you think it’s your history that makes you superior now, do you?” another man asks.

“He’s got a point, darling,” a woman puts in, “I hadn’t realized you’d been around so long that you could personally take credit for the battle of Carthage.”

The first man’s face turns a mottled red. “Our history is our blood, our birthright. Mussolini understands this…”