The problem was, she had forgotten how to be single. Besides, she had Ryan to look after, and the boy was already getting stir-crazy. She stepped back from the balcony into the neat little room, hemmed between the sheer granite cliffs and the glittering green sea, and wished there was someone she could ask for advice. The afternoon at the Villa Rothschild had passed like a hazy waking dream. Johann had paid the admission fee for the three of them, and they had walked through the Japanese garden beyond the pink palazzina villa that straddled the cape, watching Ryan run after iridescent dragonflies.

The exotic themed gardens—nine in all—that surrounded the former home of the Baroness Ephrussi de Rothschild were trained into the form of a vast land liner that crested the outcrop of land. To complete this illusion, they had once been crewed by twenty gardeners in white sailors’ outfits with red pompom hats. The place was absurd, vulgar, ostentatious and beautiful, filled with grottoes and pergolas, temples and waterfalls. Tall pines and cypress trees, ancient agaves and tunnels of bamboo fended off the glare of the low afternoon sun, hemming the cadenced emerald lawns in jewelled shadows that crossed the grass like a rising tide. The cicadas all ceased at the same moment, leaving only the sound of sea wind in the treetops.

She had looked across at Johann and found him staring at the pulsing fountains, lost in thought. His eyes were deep and dark, set close to his brow, as serious as a statue’s. If he realised she was studying him, he gave her no sign of it. They walked beside each other as Ryan ran ahead, but the silence between them was far from easy. ‘Come.’ He smiled. ‘There is a gift shop. I will buy you some postcards of the beautiful gardens, for you to remember me whenever you look at them.’

He knew she was watching, but was careful not to show emotion. It was important to make her understand that he was a gentleman, and that meant being in control. He had not felt like this around a woman before. Madeline was unlike any of the girls he knew from the villages. He saw things in her eyes none of the others had, strength and grace and acquiescence. She had made mistakes and overcome hardships, but there was nothing of his mother about her, only kindness.

Most importantly, she was ready for him. He had never been close to anyone since he was a child, but he knew how to make himself appealing. It was as much about hiding bad traits as displaying good ones, and essentially, she could not learn of his predisposition towards breaking the law, which meant arranging their conversations in such a way that she would see nothing wrong.